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Show 92 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Dutchman, without property, fond of strong drink, and without character."11 Philbrick has shown how well the land jobbers did in securing confirmation of their claims notwithstanding the numerous rejections for forgery, perjury, and inadequate proof. John Edgar had 57,881 acres confirmed by St. Clair or Harrison and 31,225 acres rejected; whereas the Board of Land Commissioners approved only 9,641 acres and rejected 98,961 acres. Robert Morrison had 1,200 acres approved by the board and 44,100 acres rejected. William Morrison had 19,907 acres approved by the board, 2,500 by the governors, and 27,672 rejected, partly by each. Robert Reynolds seems to have fared the worst for he had but 477 acres confirmed and 25,850 rejected. Nicholas Jarrot had little to complain of for his confirmations came to 33,597 acres and his rejections to 9,321 acres.12 Judges, land officers, government officials and their families, and military officers jumped in at the very beginning of their residence in the new territories to acquire claims. Arthur St. Clair's claim activity has been mentioned; William Mclntosh, territorial treasurer, had claims for 4,333 acres; Henry Vanderburgh for 5,133 acres; Harrison had confirmed to him 3,186 acres and lost at least one additional claim; Francis Vigo, who was suggested as agent to deal with the Indians, picked up 52 400-acre donations in Indiana. Elsewhere the story was much the same. Not all public officials participated in the grab and by no means all the claims acquired by officers were improperly obtained or tainted with fraud.13 11 American State Papers, Public Lands, II, 125-26. 12 Philbrick, Laws of Indiana Territory, lxxxiii-lxxxvi, cclxv. The greatest criticism is directed at Edgar whose record in land claims is said to be beyond palliation; "it was full of fraud on an immense scale." 13 Richard ]l Waters, territorial judge and holder of other minor positions in Missouri, accumulated 32 claims of which 11 were confirmed. Early Experience Valuable In the adjudication of the claims in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan the United States was gaining experience that was subsequently to prove of much value in handling the more numerous and extensive claims in the Louisiana Purchase, in East and West Florida, and in New Mexico and California. It was to take many years, however, before it learned to deal effectively with forged claims. Altogether in the four states of the Old Northwest 2,851 claims were confirmed for 706,000 acres, or an average for each claim of 240 acres. Possibly an equal number of claims was rejected.14 Confirmed Private Land Claims State Number Acreage Average Size Illinois Indiana Michigan Ohio 936 962 942 111 185,774 188,303 280,769 51,161 198 218 298 460 2,851 706,007 240 One of the most difficult tasks in surveying these claims was to reconcile them with the American system of surveying by townships and ranges. Actually, there was no easy way of reconciling the long (40-arpent deep), narrow river claims with the rectangular system except by fitting the townships and ranges around the older grants, which left numerous odd corners.15 14 Report of the Public Lands Commission, 1904, p. 140. 15 One may see something of the difficulty of attempting to reconcile the two systems in the Illustrated Historical Atlas of Randolph County, Illinois (1875), esp. the maps of the area around Kaskaskia. These maps show members of the Menard family, apparently descendants of Pierre Menard, as still holding at least 3,800 acres of land that were confirmed to him a half a century before. Pierre Menard was one of the largest claimants for French grants. The problem of surveying public lands in a state where the |