Keema

Action to determine a contest arising in the Surveyor-General’s office, respecting the right to purchase a tract of swamp and overflowed land. In May, 1864, Levi Baldwin made an application for the purchase of the land, under the provisions of the act of April 27, 1863. (Stats. 1863, p. 591.) On the 3d day of December, the survey was returned by the county surveyor to the Surveyor-General; and on the 13th day of March, 1865, it was approved by the Surveyor-General; and on the same day was recorded in the county surveyor’s office. On the 26th day of May, 1865, Baldwin made his first payment on the land to the county treasurer, but that official never reported such payment to the Register of the State Land Office, as required by the fifteenth section of that act, and no certificate of purchase was issued to Baldwin, and it does not appear that he made any further payment either of principal or interest. On the 31st day of August, 1865, Baldwin executed a deed purporting to convey all his interest in the land to the party under whom the plaintiff claims; and on the first day of September, 1865, Baldwin died.

G. W. Doherty, under whom the defendants claim, made two applications, in…