There is a case in dispute here in regard to the government survey. They say that the government surveyor who ran the section lines here started at the Kansas line from the wrong corner, and, running north, made one tier of sections fifteen or twenty rods too narrow and the next tier as much too broad. Now, after twenty years, when the land is all occupied and more or less improved, can the line be moved? All the old corners are plainly defined and recognized as government corners.
B. F. Polhumus.
Answer.—In the case of Peder O. Aanrud (see Copp’s Land Owner) the Commissioner of the General Land Office made the following ruling: “The term ‘quarter-section’ is used to designate a certain legal subdivision of the public land ascertained by official survey. It generally contains just 160 acres; but, through unavoidable inaccuracy of surveys in adjusting meridians etc., it often exceeds or falls below that amount. It is still, however, the technical legal quarter section defined by law and ascertained by official survey. A homestead settler may enter 160 acres in legal subdivisions lying contiguous to each other without reference to the quarter-section lines, or he may enter a technical quarter-section as such, in which case he can take the amount of land contained therein, as shown by the official survey. In entering a quarter section he cannot depart from the ascertained lines, but must take 160 acres, more or less, as the case may be.” The case stated in this question is extraordinary, and may not be fully covered by the above ruling, but it is almost certain that in all cases where patents have issued and owners have been in undisturbed possession for sixteen years or more the titles cannot be disturbed.
ATCHISON, THE BORDER RUFFIAN SENATOR.
Tiskilwa, Ill.
Kindly inform us who Dave Atchison, of Kansas and Missouri notoriety, was.
G. S. Battery.
Answer.—He was a politician of the desperado order, who figured in an unenviable light in the early days of Kansas. Born in Fayette County, Ky., in 1807, he removed to Missouri in 1830. In 1841 he was appointed by the Governor to fill an unexpired term in the United States Senate, of which, through re-election, he continued a member until 1855. For some time he acted with the Benton wing of the Democratic party, which accepted the Jacksonian doctrine as opposed to pro-slavery radicalism. In time, however, he adopted Calhounism, including the doctrine of secession, and during the early Kansas troubles devoted himself to making Kansas a slave State. In 1854-56 he encouraged and abetted the outrages committed by the bands of Missouri border ruffians, who repeatedly invaded that Territory, taking an active part in driving free-soil voters from the polls and instigating the bloody attacks on Lawrence and Ossawatamie, and in other villainies of those terrible times preceding the triumph of the Free State party in Kansas.