LAND-HOLDER'S ASSISTANT.
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149
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This is the same land which has furnished the example of
the first resurvey found on record.
¾¾
OF THE TITLE NECESSARY TO THE VALIDITY OF
WARRANTS OF RESURVEY.
It was always peculiar to this kind of warrant that it was to
operate on the party's own land, that is to say, on land, in
some sort, owned, or claimed, by the person in whose name
the warrant was issued. Without a title set forth he could
not obtain the warrant, and without a good title it would not
avail him when obtained and executed, if by means of a
caveat, or in any other way, the defect became known. It is
hardly necessary to state as an exception to this, that persons
sometimes obtained warrants or orders for resurveying the
proprietary's manors, in order to discover how their own lands
stood in relation thereto, or that the land of one man was
resurveyed at the instance of another, as in the case of
Weatherly and Lyon, already cited. I speak of ordinary warrants
of resurvey, of which the primary avowed object was
generally to remove uncertainties respecting the bounds,
quantities, &c. of the original tracts; and it was certainly not
allowed, except on very special grounds, for a person to resurvey,
for this purpose, lands in which he had no interest: (f) still
less could he be permitted to resurvey the land of another for
the purpose of discovering and taking up the adjoining
vacancy, except so far as the running the lines of that other
person's land was an operation auxiliary to the resurvey of
his own. It was therefore, at all times, necessary for a
person, in applying for a warrant of resurvey, to state a title to
the land in question, by saying that he was seized in fee, or
by some other (g) expressions importing that he was the rightful
(f) There has at all times been an idea, natural enough to the parties
interested, and which the government never took any positive measures
to discountenance, that the owners of land have some kind of preferable
claim to the vacancy adjoining them, and as to surplus, it was still more
natural for them to consider it their own, since it was actually within their
bounds. Through respect to this excusable prepossession, alone, the
government would not so far encourage land-hunters as to permit them to
resurvey the lands of others for the discovery of vacancy; and if any
thing less than a real title would serve for obtaining resurvey warrants a
pretence of title would never be wanting where an advantage was
expected. Vacant land could undoubtedly be taken in other ways; but this
though often complained of by those whom it adjoined, and who perhaps
had hoped to hold it without payment, had less the appearance of injury
than a resurvey at the pleasure of any person who chose to make it.
(g) Our resurvey warrants, at present, invariably state that the party
is " seized in fee," but formerly, there was a variety of special matter
contained in the warrants, either written by the persons who applied, or
by the clerk, on their information, in preparing their petitions.
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