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Show 280 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT ferred to carry with them bounty warrants as they traveled from land office to land office.86 Government administrators of pensions and bounty land grants to soldiers must have had to exercise the greatest patience, for claims within their jurisdiction remained unsettled for many years. As late as 1906 claims under the acts of 1847 to 1855 were being considered and in that year 55 warrants were issued for 8,080 acres. It is hard to understand why soldiers, officers, and others waited so long to press for their warrants, as the accompanying table shows they did, and it is equally puzzling why, once the warrants had issued, their owners delayed so long in making entries with them. Twenty-nine years after the last major bounty land act was adopted there still remained 22,202 warrants for 2,535,940 acres unutilized. In 1906 the Commissioner of the General Land Office reported 18,832 warrants of all acts outstanding for 2,149,660 acres and of these 174 warrants were of the 1811 and 181-2 acts.87 Year after year the Commissioner of Pensions complained about the tens of thousands of applications for military bounty warrants that were suspended for fraud, or because the warrant had already been issued to the proper person, or because of uncertainty as to the rights of the applicant. Elaborate specifications were established for having the warrants assigned before witnesses and indeed the process of obtaining them was made sufficiently complicated that many people were forced to hire lawyers to obtain the warrants to which they were entitled. Lawyers, agents, and brokers advertised that they would secure 160-acre warrants for $10, 80-acre warrants for $8, and 40-acre warrants for $5. One agent announced that his charge might be less than this rate, depending on Issue of Warrants and the Entries of Warrants for Land8 86 Large land buyers had to pay a premium on gold, and it was too easily stolen and too heavy to carry in quantity. Cyrus Woodman, March 8, 1854, to C. C. Washburn, Letter Book IV, Woodman MSS., Wisconsin State Historical Society. 87 GLO Report, 1906, p. 537. Issue of Warrants Acreage of arrant Entries Tear Number Acres W 1855 38,375 4 16 ,393,680 ,891,890 1 R ,345,580 ,382,480 1856____ 139,162 1857 .. 41,483 5 2 1 ,952,160 ,034,420 ,030,860 939,060 6 5 2 9 ,283,920 ,802,150 ,914,700 ,782,780 1858 13,815 1859____ 6,801 1860 ... 6,009 1861 . . 5,341 834,720 9 ,017,440 1862 1,636 257,860 94,280 283,760 184,560 63,860 148,960 167,720 61.1,827 464,682 515,900 184,560 403,180 476,760 512,523 1863 602 1864 1,792 1865 1 ,161 1866_____ 406 1867 ... 954 1868 ... 1,077 1869_____ ____ 1,650 260,040 449,780 1870 1,758 277,200 512,360 1871 . 2,598 406,160 525,920 1872 443 68,040 389,460 1873 ... 340 52,160 214,940 1874 ... 234 35,640 133,160 1875 407 63,560 137,000 1876 124 16,760 137,640 a Compiled from Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Pensions and the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The Commissioner of Pensions kept the bounty records for fiscal years ending on September 30, whereas the General Land Office's fiscal year ended June 30. the amount of labor he had to expend, and that no charge would be made if he were unsuccessful.88 All efforts to tighten the application process and the indictments and prosecution for forgery and other illegal actions failed to end abuses.89 Ten persons were convicted and sentenced to prison for presenting false and forged bounty land claims in 1857 and other indictments were pending. In 1872, after the number of applications had greatly increased and there was grow- 88 Michigan Telegraph (Kalamazoo), Jan. 8, 1851; H. Ex. Doc, 35th Cong., 1st sess., Vol. II, No. 2 (Serial No. 942), p. 704. 89 Secretary of the Interior, Annual Reports, 1871, p. 389; 1872, p. 330; 1874, p. XX. |