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Show 120 COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN ARFAIBS. litigation, attorneys were employed by them under an approved oon-tract, and it is hoped that this long-standing claim will he finally dis-posed of in the near future. When this matter is adjudicated there will be still greater need for some litigation similar to that contained in the Vreeland bill, which was introduced in the last two sessions of Congress. The future of the New York Indians is largely dependent on the settlement of their land matters and the breaking up of their present system of land tenure. PUYALLUP LANDS, WASHINGTON. Congress at ita last session failed to make an appropriation for con-tinuing the services of the Puyallup Commission. On this account, and in order to exercise economy in the use of the Puyallup Indian funds, Clinton A. Snowden, Puyallup Indian commissioner, was in-structed to turn over, on June 30,1904, to the superintendent of the . Puyallup Indian School, all the papers and documentv relating to the Puyallup Commission and laud matters in his possession. The super-intendent was instructed to take up July 1 the unfinished work of the Commission, consisting mainly now of the collection of deferred pay-ments due on lands already sold, the sale of unsold lots within the. Indian addition to the city of Tacoma, and the appointment of admin-istrators of Indian allottees who have died since March 3, 1903, the date on which the clause restricting the sale of Puyallup allotted lands expired. The superintendent is now engaged in dischargihg the duties of the Commission. The Puyallup Indian Reservation adjoins the corporate limits of the city of Tacoma, Wash. It contained 18,061.81 acres of hnd, of which 598.81 acres comprised what was known as the agency tract, and 17,463 acres were allotted to individual Indians and families occupy-ing the reservation. The agency tract, except 14.10 acres, as per a prior deed to the Tacoma Land Company, was surveyed, subdivided, and platted as an addition to the city of Tacoma, under the provisions of the Puyallup act approved March 3, 1893 (27 Stats., 633). Threk commissioners were appointed by the President to carry out the provisions of that act. They laid out and platted into outlots, school lands, church lots and cemetery lots, blocks, streets, and alleys the following described tracts of land, viz: Lots 5, 6, 7, and 8 of section 3; lots 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, the northeast quarter of the northwest quarter, the northwest quarter and the south half of. the northeast quarter, and the southeast quarter of section 10; lots 3 and 5 and the southwest quarter of south-west quarter in section 11, all in township 20 north, range 3 east, Willamette meridian, Pierce County, Wash., containing, with the exception above noted, 598.81 acres. This is known as the Indian |