Relief finally came by way of a provision in the Act of March 3, 1807, chapter 36, An Act respecting claims to land in the territories of Orleans and Louisiana (U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 2, pg 440). Section nine of the act provided for an annual compensation of five hundred dollars in addition to the fees previously established. The annual compensation was effective from the time the principal deputy entered into the duties of the office.
Section seven of the act also provided that any claim to land that was approved by the board of commissioners that had not previously been surveyed was to be surveyed under the direction of the principal deputy surveyor at the expense of the claimants. The board of commissioners was also authorized to direct the principal deputy surveyor to re-survey any tract at the expense of the United States. General and particular plats were to be prepared and sent to the proper register or recorder and the Secretary of the Treasury.
A relieved Silas Bent wrote to Jared Mansfield on June 1, 1807, thanking him for his intervention and requesting more particular information and instructions as to how the surveys were to be conducted (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 127). Mansfield responded on July 20, 1807 with the following specifications (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 137):
1st I think that it would be well that Our General Instructions for marking of lines Be Observed by the Surveyors of private, tracts, particularly that they be blazed well, & a sufficient Number of Sight trees be taken; also that bearing trees be taken for the Corners, & that the Course & distance from the last Corner, in the Order of the surveying, be marked on one or more of the bearing trees, or some other tree near the Corner, instead of the Number of section Lot &c. as in the public Surveys.
2d The Field notes, & two plats of each survey, together with the Description of bearing trees quality of Land; &c. should be returned to Your office. The Contents of the tract ought to be calculated by the tables of Latitude & Defraction.
3– By General Plats, I understand a map of the Country embracing the Claims. The Use of this is to know how they lie in respect to One Another, & thereby to form a judgment of the intermediate Vacant Lands; I know no way while the Country Generally is not surveyed, whereby this can be done correctly. The Water Courses however & the Natural Marks must be your guide, as well as the estimated distances of One place from Another. The Common map of the Country will Also assist you.
4th Ritenhouse’s Compass, or one which will enable the Surveyor to give the Courses According to the true Meridian should be used in private as well as the public surveys. All Courses should be put down according to the true Meridian, & the variation of the Compass, ought to be noted on the plat of each survey, as well as the average Variation in the General Plat.
Meanwhile, Frederick Bates was appointed Recorder of Land Titles in place of James L. Donaldson and the Board of Commissioners reconvened as a Board of Revision. By May 1807 they had begun receiving testimony in support of land claims (Marshall, Vol. 1, pg 134). They would continue to receive testimony without rendering any decisions until the time for receiving evidence had expired. On December 8, 1808 they began examining the evidence and making decisions. Claims that were confirmed by the Board, but which had not yet been surveyed, were not issued a certificate until a survey could be completed (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 366).
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| Survey by Silas Bent, dated July 29, 1807, of a tract claimed by Calvin Adams at Portage des Sioux. The survey was made pursuant to an order of the Board of Commissioners, dated July 13, 1807. (Courtesy of the Missouri State Land Survey) |
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| Plat of survey of 1390 arpents 3 perches made for Auguste Chouteau by James Mackay on May 29, 1803. Text is French. (Courtesy of the Missouri State Archives, Missouri Digital Heritage) |
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| Survey by Silas Bent or one of his deputies, dated November 29, 1809, of the tract of land claimed by Auguste Chouteau. This survey was made pursuant to an order of the Board of Commissioners, dated October 26, 1809. The claim was approved by the Board of Commissioners on June 7, 1810 for 1031 acres, based on this survey. (Courtesy of the Missouri State Land Survey) |
Silas Bent reported to Jared Mansfield in letters, dated May 24, 1810 and July 30, 1810, that when the orders for survey began to come, the Commissioners of the Board of Revision expected the surveys to be executed immediately, giving a due date that did not allow enough time to perform the work or to make arrangements with a deputy. In addition, the tracts ordered to be surveyed were not grouped by locality, but were scattered across the territory. In cases where the claimants were responsible for payment, the claimants often refused to pay and some prevented the execution of the surveys by force. The Commissioners, nonetheless, insisted that the work be done as ordered and expressed the belief that payment should be pursued through the courts. Mr. Bent was also perplexed by orders for surveys in which the quantity of land to be confirmed was less than the quantity claimed. He was, apparently, expected to use his discretion in defining the tract to satisfy the quantity to be confirmed. Older claims were not to be disturbed, but many of the old lines had never actually been run and marked in the field. There existed no map or drawing indicating the position of any one claim relative to another, so that it often took more time to figure out where and how the tract was to be surveyed than the time it took to do the actual survey (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 405, 408, 423).
Mr. Bent had previously observed in a letter to Jared Mansfield, dated December 21, 1806, that the surveys in the former province of Upper Louisiana had “been executed in the most careless manner, seldom more than half the lines run at all and where they are no corner established or bound defined – no field Notes taken and the courses all laid down 7° varient from what they were run ... and from the extraordinary forms & situations of the private Claims it will be very difficult ever to bring the surveys into any regularity” (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 51).
Mr. Bent reported to Jared Mansfield in a letter, dated November 12, 1810, that he had tried to recruit deputies to assist with the surveys, but few were interested when prompt payment and a profit could not be assured. He also observed that it appeared the Commissioners of the Board of Revision had changed their approach and were now issuing certificates of confirmation without a survey. The confirmation certificates, however, noted that a survey was required before a patent could issue. It was almost certain then that there would be pressure from the claimants to have their claims surveyed so that they could get their patents (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 423).
Frederick Bates noted in an update to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, dated June 20, 1811, that the Board of Revision had examined and approved “many hundred confirmations and grants which include Orders of survey.” The Board had been holding the orders so that they could deliver them all together to the principal deputy surveyor (Marshall, Vol. 2 pg 180). In a letter dated, September 5, 1811, Silas Bent reported to Jared Mansfield that the Commissioners of the Board of Revision had suspended requests for surveys as a result of the failure of Congress to provide compensation for the continuing work of the Board (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 470). Mr. Bent later noted in a letter to Mansfield, dated January 30, 1812, that he had made repeated requests to the Board of Revision for the orders of survey that had been made, but not yet delivered, so that he could execute the surveys in a more efficient manner and not have to repeatedly travel to the same area to survey individual tracts. His requests were denied, however, until October 1811, when the Clerk of the Board of Revision delivered “6 or 8 hundred ” of the confirmation certificates with orders for a survey (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 515).
As if Mr. Bent was not hindered enough in the prosecution of his duties, he and his deputies were subjected to unnecessary difficulties in trying to execute the orders given them. Some orders for survey specified that the survey was to be made “conformable to the concession,” which was written in the French or Spanish language. Neither a copy of the concession nor a translation of the text was provided, however. Other orders for survey called for a bound, such as a road or an older claim, but no information regarding the location of that specified bound was provided. Other orders of survey were limited by a condition that couldn’t be determined until after the survey was performed and some tracts could not even be located for lack of sufficient information from the Board of Revision. When Mr. Bent or his deputies requested more specific direction from the Board as to how a tract was to be surveyed, the Commissioners refused to provide further direction, stating that their orders were as complete as they were required to be. Requests made to the Board, the Recorder of Land Titles, the Clerk of the Board or the translator for translated copies of needed information from records within their possession were all denied. They did not consider themselves obligated to provide copies or translations, since no provision existed for their compensation. In some instances, the claimants, at their own expense, were able to provide the needed copies or translations so that the survey could be completed (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 508, 514, 515).
Once the Board of Revision had completed its work in January 1812 and submitted the transcripts and reports, it appears that no more surveys were attempted as a result of the lack of access to the appropriate information. Secretary Gallatin notified Frederick Bates, the recorder of land titles, on April 18, 1812 that he would not issue any more patents for approved land claims until the surveys were completed. Without the surveys, the tracts could not be definitively located, so Mr. Gallatin wanted the principal deputy surveyor to survey all of the tracts, connecting them relative to one another (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 546).
Congress addressed the quandary of the principal deputy surveyor in his need for access to information by inserting an appropriate provision in the Act of June 13, 1812, chapter 99, An Act making further provision for settling the claims to land in the territory of Missouri (U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 2, pg 748)(the Territory of Louisiana had been renamed the Territory of Missouri by the Act of June 4, 1812, chapter 95, U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 2, pg 743). Section six of the act directed the recorder of land titles to provide the principal deputy surveyor free access to the records in his office and copies or extracts of anything relating to land claims that the surveyor may need to complete the work required of him. The recorder of land titles was allowed twenty-five cents for the description of each tract provided to the principal deputy surveyor.
Section three of this act approved several classes of claims that were determined by the Board of Revision to have merit, but which had not satisfied the strict requirements of the previous legislation. Section five of the act specified that these new confirmations were to be surveyed along with those claims already approved by the Board of Revision that had not yet been surveyed. Also authorized to be surveyed were a sufficient number of townships so as to encompass all of the private claims. Upon completion of the surveys, a “general and connected plat” was to be prepared, showing the relative position of all of the tracts directed to be surveyed.
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| Survey by Silas Bent, dated February 3, 1813, of Fort Belle Fontaine, the location of the U.S. military encampment. (Courtesy of the Missouri State Land Survey) |
The amount of survey work for which the principal deputy surveyor was now responsible continued to grow with the passage of the Act of March 3, 1813, chapter 44, An Act allowing further time for delivering the evidence in support of claims to land in the territory of Missouri, and for regulating the donation grants therein (U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 2, pg 812). Section five of the act directed the principal deputy surveyor to survey or cause to be surveyed a tract of 640 acres for each claim that had been confirmed on the basis of settlement right for a quantity less than 640 acres. In cases where competing claims did not permit a full 640 acres to each claimant, the principal deputy surveyor was to determine an equitable division of the land.
If the task had been daunting before, it had now become quite monumental for Silas Bent. The problem remained that there was, as yet, no framework in the Territory of Missouri to which the surveys could be referenced. The Spanish had conceded lands without a plan, allowing the petitioner to choose where his tract was to be located and how it was oriented. The result was a hodgepodge of disconnected clusters of tracts of land scattered over an extensive area. The only sensible solution would be to survey the public lands at the same time as the confirmed private claims. The Act of June 13, 1812, chapter 99, authorized townships to be surveyed, but how and where should these commence? There were many details that needed to be decided and it would take a considerable amount of time to accomplish all that had been ordered (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 681).
In addition to his duties as principal deputy surveyor, Silas Bent had taken on other responsibilities that would now make it difficult for him to participate directly in the surveys to be performed. He had been appointed 1st Justice of the Courts of Quarter Sessions and Common Pleas for the district of St. Louis on June 14, 1807 (Marshall, Vol. 1, pg 321) and was reappointed on September 2, 1811 (Marshall, Vol. 2, pg 193). On January 5, 1811 he was appointed Auditor of territorial accounts for the Territory of Louisiana (Marshall, Vol. 2, pg 190) and, apparently, also served as a District Auditor. On February 18, 1813 he was appointed a Judge of the Superior Court of the Territory of Missouri by the President of the United States, James Madison (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 626, 631).
In November 1813 Silas Bent gladly relinquished the burden of Principal Deputy Surveyor to his successor, William Rector (Territorial Papers, Vol. 14, pg 707, 709).
SOURCES
Marshall, Thomas Maitland, The Life and Papers of Frederick Bates, Missouri Historical Society, 1926
American State Papers: Public Lands (ASP:PL)
The Territorial Papers of the United States, compiled by Clarence Edwin Carter, 1948
U. S. Statutes at Large
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original composition by Steven E. Weible
