Salvador Castro, Appellant v. Thomas A. Hendricks

The appellant petitioned the Circuit Court for a writ of mandamus, to be directed to the Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks, Commissioner of the Land Office, commanding him to prepare and provide a patent to the appellant for a parcel of land in California, which had been confirmed to him by the decree of the District Court for the northern district of California, and is described in a survey approved by the surveyor general of that State. It appears from the petition and answer, and the papers filed in the Circuit Court, and forming a part of the record, that in the year 1839 the Governor of California granted to Antonio Buelna a tract of land known as San Gregorio, of the extent of four square leagues, a little more or less, as is shown in the sketch attached to the expediente. In 1849, the representatives of Buelna (his widow and her husband) sold to the appellant one league of land in the location of San Gregorio; and in 1852 they executed a deed, conveying the same land, by the description of one league of land, in the place known by the name of San Gregorio, on the coast north of Santa Cruz, being part of a tract of land of four leagues, granted by the Government to Antonio Buelna, and the same is declared to be situate and bounded as follows, and containing one league, more or less: commencing at a stake marked A, in the Canada de los Tunis, where the Arroyo de los Tunis comes out of the mountains; thence running southerly with the ridge of the mountains to the stake marked B, in the Arroyo Hondo; thence following said Arroyo Hondo until it meets the Arroyo de San Gregorio; thence, following the Arroyo de San Gregorio, to a stake marked C on a white rock in the mountain, situate on the west side of said arroyo; thence northwardly, about two miles, to a high conical peak of the mountain, on which is placed stake marked D; thence easterly to the place of beginning.