Miller v. Moss

Citations

• 65 Tex. 179
• 1885 Tex. LEXIS 333

Syllabus

<p>1. Pre-emption—Patent—Evidence—Acts reviewed.— In 1855 M. settled upon and improved land lying within the Mississippi and Pacific railway reservation. A survey was made in 1858, was duly rendered, and returned to the general land office in 1859, the patent issuing in 1883. Held:</p> <p>(1) The patent was prima facie evidence that everything was done necessary under the act of August 26, 1856, and subsequent acts, to authorize the patent to issue.</p> <p>(2) The patent related to the time the right upon which it was based had its inception.</p> <p>(3) The patent was conclusive of the rights of the heirs of M. as against all persons not showing some right having an existence prior to its issuance and againt any person not showing some right antedating the inception of M’s claim, if the facts existed which authorized the patent to issue.</p> <p>(4) The act of March 24, 1871, did not, in terms or by implication, require any payment to be made for land occupied “ under any of the pre-emption laws of this state for three years or longer,” yet it was expressly made applicable to all prior pre-emption laws.</p> <p>(5) The act of August 26, 1856, was clearly a pre-emption law. It entitled the s'ettler to the land in case he was living on the reservation when the act. was passed, and paid the prescribed price. The legislature had the right and power, by the act of 1871, to give the land to the settler, without such payment, on the sole condition that he had occupied it for three years before the passage of the act.</p> <p>2. Homestead—Survey—Affidavit—Acts.—Up to 1879, no statute repealed or took the place of the act of November 12, 1866, so far as it provided the manner in which applications for surveys of homestead donations should be made, and what they should contain.</p> <p>3. Same.—The acts of January 27, 1845, and February 13, 1854, were substantially the same on this point as that of 1866, and in Bledsoe v. Cains, 10 Tex., 455, it was held that if the required affi