Ponola [Sic] Weekly Register

Letter from Senator Walker.

Washington City, March 30, 1843.

Dear Sir:--I have just received a letter from the Commissioners of the General Land Office, which it is important should be made known immediately. In reply to a letter from me, urging the postponement of the land sales in the Grenada District, the Commissioner says: "This office does not contemplate recommending the proclamation of any lands for sale in that district at an early period. Indeed you may recollect, that in accordance with your wish, and to procure further legislation with regard to the district lines, the proclamation of sales at that office has already been postponed." The land sales then in the Grenada District, will not be proclaimed, until after the close of the next session of Congress, and from my correspondence with the Commissioner, last year, as well as this, I believe the sales will not be proclaimed until 1845: Knowing how inconvenient it would be to the settlers to pay the cash for their lands last year, or this, I thought it my duty to remain here, a short time after last session, as well as this, until the postponement was effected. This postponement was most important to the State as well as to the settlers. It was my good fortune, at the special session of 1841, to obtain an amendment to the land bill, by which the five hundred thousand acres granted to the State for internal improvement, were authorized to be located on the lands not yet offered for sale in the Choctaw session, and without which, the grant would scarcely have been worth accepting. A similar grant was also obtained for nearly two hundred thousand acres for school lands for the Chickasaw counties, and of which they had been deprived by the treaty. In 1836 this last bill was introduced by me, and then passed through both Houses, and became a law. But on its progress through the committee of the Senate, on motion of Mr. Ewing of Ohio, it was amended, by confining it to lands subject to entry at private sale. This obnoxious provision, at the session before the last aided by our able representatives, we were enabled to correct, and restore the bill to the form in which it was originally introduced by me in 1836. Thus then there are about seven hundred thousand acres obtained for the State, and it is of the utmost importance, that the sales in the Grenada district, in which are these rich and valuable lands, should not take place, until the locations now being made by the State in that district, shall be completed. There is a section in the act of March 3, 1843, which requires the immediate attention of the pre-emptors. It is as follows:

"Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, that claimants under the late pre-emption law, for land not yet proclaimed for sale, are required to make known their claims, in writing, to the Register of the proper land office, within three months from the date of this act when the settlement has been already made, and within three months from the time of the settlement, when such settlement shall hereafter be made, giving the designation of the tract, and the time of settlement: otherwise his claim to be forfeited, and the tract awarded to the next settler, in the order of time on the same tract of land, who shall have given such notice, and otherwise complied with all the conditions of the law."

I was entirely opposed to this provision, as giving unnecessary trouble, but it is the law and a compliance is expedient. This is a notice of claim which is required, not the money. I hope all the editors of the State will publish this letter, as it is very important, that the settlers should be apprised of this provision, and also of the postponement of the sales, as many of the pre-emptors are making great sacrifices to procure the money to purchase their lands, under the apprehension that the sale would be speedily ordered.

Yours, very respectfully,
R. J. WALKER.

To the Editor of the Free Trader.