Hepburn’s Lessee versus Levy.[(1)]

DECEMBER TERM, 1800.

[(1)] Page 218 Tried in the Circuit Court, Lycoming county, on the 24th Oct. 1800, before SHIPPEN, C.J., and BRACKENRIDGE, J.

EJECTMENT, for land in Lycoming county. In the charge to the jury, it was ruled,

By the COURT:

In the case of a lost warrant, it may be removed to other land, provided the removal affects no previous right; and if it is actually surveyed upon vacant land, returned into the land office, and there accepted, it becomes an appropriation. If, however, any warrant issued, appropriating the land, before an actual survey upon the removed warrant, the right of such warrant must be preferred. The fact to be decided in the present case, therefore, is, whether any warrant, particularly describing the land in question, was delivered by the defendant to the deputy surveyor, before the survey was made for the plaintiff? A vague, undescriptive, warrant, will not be sufficient to affect the plaintiff’s survey: and, although fraud is said to vitiate every transaction; yet, the fraud of the deputy surveyor cannot affect the rights of the defendant.

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