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[1],204,pp. plus 8pp. bound before principal text. Original printed wrappers. Contemporary manuscript annotations on front and rear wrappers indicating this copy was intended for Honorable Wm. C. Bradley of Westminster, Vermont. Covers lightly stained, minor foxing. A good copy. A detailed review of a dispute regarding lands in the Midwest. Addressed to the commissioner of the General Land Office responsible for determining the status of the claims, the report was prepared by L.G. Picot, representing Pierre Chouteau. The case begins in 1770-72, when the Spanish government's official surveyor made his authorized surveys of the entire "St. Louis Common-Fields." Auguste Condé and Jean Comparios possessed two of the five original tracts delineated in the 18th-century survey. The remainder of the text documents the numerous changes in ownership of this land over the following three-quarters of a century. In addition to citing various legal decisions to support his case, the author also provides some documentation recording the early social history of the St. Louis area. These include extracts from the inventory prepared upon Condé's death in 1776, and transcripts of interviews with witnesses familiar with the lands under discussion. One man remembers: "My aunt.had three lots in the St. Louis prairie; I used to watch the negroes working; I cut branches there in play, I remained there all day along with the slaves (seeing them work) and came back with them at night." The additional eight-page pamphlet, PRINCIPAL DOCUMENTS IN THE COMPARIOS AND CONDE CLAIMS, NOW PENDING BEFORE THE HON. A.H.H. STUART, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, provides updates regarding Picot's appeals as of October 1852. A rare printing of a mid-19th-century midwestern land dispute, complete with documentation concerning the social history of the area. OCLC records copies at Yale and Harvard, as well as a copy at the St. Louis Public Library, found in a collection of six pamphlets related to St. Louis land titles, OCLC 43336021, 82796593. Seller Inventory # WRCAM36024
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