ISitigatton of Titles 



In tt)e Forest Preserve. 



IN 1885 "the care, custody, control and superintendence of the F"orest Preserve" 

 was entrusted by law to the Forest Commission. In the performance of these 

 specific duties tlie Commission was obliged from time to time to commence 

 legal actions against persons who were cutting timber on lands in the I'reserve. The 

 defendants in these suits, in many cases, set up as a defence tliat the title was not 

 properly vested in the State, and that the tax title through which the State acquired 

 possession was not valid, owing to various reasons alleged by the respective defendants. 



These suits for trespass were necessarily brought by the Forest Commission in the 

 legitimate performance of their duties, and when the question of title was raised in 

 connection with these cases this further litigation devolved on the Commission also. 

 The suit once begun could not be abandoned by the plaintiffs, althfuigh the additional 

 questions thus to be determined were widely different from the object of the original 

 suit, and, to some extent, foreign to the aims, purposes, and duties of the Department. 



Litigation of land titles has no connection with forestry ; but it has so happened 

 that it became incidental to and inseparably connected with the prosecution of persons 

 who insisted on despoiling the timber lands of the I'reserve. The Commission has 

 thus been obliged to protect not only its forests, but the title to the land itself. 



It is a matter of congratulation that, during twelve years of constant litigation 

 over these titles to lands in the Forest Preserve, the State has not lost a single suit. 

 Though confronted at times by adverse decisions in the lower courts, the final verdict 

 has always been in favor of the State. 



Prominent among these suits is the celebrated case of The State vs. Benton Turner, 



which has been in the courts for ele\'en years. In 1886 the defendant cut a large 



amount of timber on the southeast quarter of Township 24, Great Tract One, 



Macomb's Purchase, Franklin County, N. Y., a tract of land which the State acquired 



through the tax sales of 1877. The defendant refusing to recompense the State for 



the damages inflicted on the forest, the People, through the Forest Commission, 



brought a suit, which was tried in March, 1887. The jury rendered a verdict of 



$1,250 in favor of the plaintiff. The defendant then appealed, and the State's title 



was confirmed by the Court of Appeals. But the litigation did not end here. In the 



meantime, while the case was in the courts awaiting adjudication, the defendant 



obtained from the Comptroller, Hon. Edward Wemple, a cancellation of the tax sale 



by which the State had obtained its title. The application for this cancellation was 

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