fice of the company; a
three-story red brick building fronting the court house square.

CHAPTER III.

CORNWALL LOCATES IN HARLAN.

With the exception of a few counties in western Kentucky, no official
survey was ever made of the state. In the unsurveyed portion grants for
land issued by the Commonwealth varied in size from a few acres to as
many as two hundred thousand; and called for natural objects as
beginning and boundary corners.

The result of such a lax system was that often the same boundary was
covered by several grants; and the senior grant held the land.

Many grants were so indefinite of description, the beginning corner
calling for certain timber or a large stone in a heavily timbered and,
in sections, rocky country, as to be impossible of identification or
location. Other grants were so poorly surveyed as to be void for
uncertainty and yet other boundaries were claimed by squatters who held
by adverse possession against any paper title.

A person owning the paper title to a thousand acre boundary traceable to
the Commonwealth without break or flaw, might not be the owner in fact
of a single acre of land; as the whole boundary might be covered by
senior grants or the natural objects called for, impossible to find.

The only way to be assured of a good title was to make a careful
abstract, following that up by an actual survey and obtaining from any
person in possession a written declaration that their possession and
claim was not adverse to the title and claim of your vendor.

The public records were imperfectly kept and indexed; which made
Cornwall's work for the company a series of petty and tiresome
annoyances.

Two weeks after his arrival the Harlan Circuit Court convened. He was
immediately put into harness and called upon to assist in the trial of
several important ejectment suits.

The first week of the term was taken up with criminal business. There
were three murder cases, two of which were tried. The other cases were
petty in nature, the defendants being charged with carrying concealed
weapons, shooting on the highway and boot-legging.

During the second week he assisted in the trial of two ejectment cases,
one of which was lost. The third and most important case was set for the
fourteenth day of the term. It involved five hundred acres of coal land
worth more than twenty-five thousand dollars; and though Judge Finch,
local counsel for the company assured him it would go over,