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U.S. Code as of:
01/19/04
Section 898. Rights of purchasers from railroads of coterminous lands not within grants
Where any said company shall have sold to citizens of the United
States, or to persons who have declared their intention to become
such citizens, as a part of its grant, lands not conveyed to or for
the use of such company, said lands being the numbered sections
prescribed in the grant, and being coterminous with the constructed
parts of said road, and where the lands so sold are for any reason
excepted from the operation of the grant to said company, it shall
be lawful for the bona fide purchaser thereof from said company to
make payment to the United States for said lands at the ordinary
Government price for like lands, and thereupon patents shall issue
therefor to the said bona fide purchaser, his heirs or assigns:
Provided, That all lands shall be excepted from the provisions of
this section which at the date of such sales were in the bona fide
occupation of adverse claimants under the preemption or homestead
laws of the United States, and whose claims and occupation have not
since been voluntarily abandoned, as to which excepted lands the
said preemption and homestead claimants shall be permitted to
perfect their proofs and entries and receive patents therefor:
Provided further, That this section shall not apply to lands
settled upon subsequent to the 1st day of December, 1882, by
persons claiming to enter the same under the settlement laws of the
United States, as to which lands the parties claiming the same as
aforesaid shall be entitled to prove up and enter as in other like
cases.
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