Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Irvin Camp to Abraham Lincoln, 6 February 18581
Feby 6. 1858Hon A LincolnD^r[Dear] Sir
I have seen Steuart & he assures me the Amended bill of Cochran & Hall contains all that is material & I have filed my certified answer with the Clerk–2 Please see that his record is amended– Judgt[Judgment] pro confesso was entered— with understanding by Attys[Attorneys] that if my answer was filed during the term— all should be right–3 Please examine bill & answer Strong’s letter–4 I herewith give you a short outline of the history of this claim–

H. C. Seymour & Co & Sanger Camp & Co proposed about 1852 to form a Land Ass.[Association] for the purchase of lands & town sites along the line of the O & M. R. R extending from St Louis to Cincinnatti–

Sanger Camp & Co sent to a member of the firm of H. C. Seymour & Co in the spring of 1852 $2000 to be invested in Land Warrants– H. C. Seymour & Co also about the same time invested about $4375 in land Warrants–5 These Warrants were sent from NY city to Col Morrison & were entered by him & the tittle to these lands [a?] îs^ yet in him–6 Sanger Camp & Co & H. C. Seymour & Co afterwards entered largely other lands in Ill^s Indâ & Ohio at the time proposing that they should be for the benefit of Land Ass. This Ass however was never consummated

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Before it was abandoned Sanger Camp & Co had paid towards land in Indâ & Ohio directly & by Assessment of the Trustee of the proposed Land Ass about $6500 in cash & expenses besides having paid for all the lands in Illinois except the $4375 before spoken of sent in Land Warrants to Morrison

Upon the abandonment of the Land Ass it was by mutual consent agreed that H. C. Seymour ^& Co^ & those they had associated with them should take all their interest East of Wabash River & that S. C & Co & their associates should take all West of the Wabash for their interest—all this was verbal & never reduced to writing– Now Cochran & Hall as the Assignees of H. C S & Co propose to keep all the lands East of the Wabash & come over the river to claim all the lands entered with Land Warrants purchased with the $4375 which were sent to Morrison & also some lands entered by me for Sanger Camp & Co We have always understood that Morrison entered all the Warrants that were sent to him bought with our money & that of H. C. S & Co & that none of these warrants were ever returned to me or any member of the firm of S. C & Co The Amt[Amount] of lands entered by him as you will see from his answer corresponds with

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the amount of money sent him reckoning Land Warrants as 85 or 87^½ cents to the acre the market price in the Spring of 1852–7 It is barely possible that some of those Warrants were passed over to our firm & were entered by us— if so, they were a part of a Lot which were bought with our own money sent to H. C Seymour & Co as before stated– But we claim that all Warrants entered in my name were purchased by S. C & Co in St Louis of dealers in Land Warrants–8

The course which we wish to be pursued is to secure to S. C & Co all the lands entered by Morrison except so many as may be awarded to Morrison for ¹/10 interest upon his paying the Balance that may be due on his interest–

I suppose that this can only be done by allowing S. C & Co to file a Cross Bill spoken of by N. A. Strong whose letter I herewith enclose9

Mr Strong is familliar with the history of this proposed Land Ass.–

The terms on which the Association was abandoned can be proved by H. D. Bacon & I think by Judge Ellis of Vincennes Indâ10
Respectfully your’sI. Camp 11

1Irvin Camp wrote and signed this letter.

2Camp is discussing the case of Cochran & Hall v. Camp et al., which commenced in the U.S. Circuit Court for the Southern District of Illinois in October, 1855. The case concerned a dispute over ownership of lands near the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad. The firms of H. C. Seymour & Company and Sanger, Camp & Company had joined together in 1852 to purchase over $6,000 worth of U.S. government land warrants for 1,080 acres along the railroad for the purpose of speculation. Initially, the two firms, along with other individuals, had proposed making the purchases as a land association, but the agreement was apparently verbal and the contemplated land association fell apart when the parties attempted to codify the terms. Camp, a partner in Sanger, Camp & Co., held the title to the warrants in order to locate the land and purchased the property in his own name.
George W. Cochran and James C. Hall, two of the individuals who had discussed forming the land association, later acquired H. C. Seymour & Co.’s interest in the property and claimed that they had not received their due percentage of the land. The pair sued Camp to convey the 1,080 acres. Camp retained Lincoln and William H. Herndon, who were unable to effect a compromise but continued to represent him in the case until Lincoln’s election as president in 1860. The case was settled in 1863 and the court ultimately found for the plaintiffs and ordered Camp to convey his interest to Cochran, who had purchased Hall’s interest.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys John T. Stuart and Benjamin S. Edwards filed the amended bill mentioned here on June 15, 1857. The answer to this amended bill was prepared by another attorney for the defendants, Newton D. Strong.
Cochran & Hall v. Camp et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137521.

3A decree pro confesso is entered in favor of the plaintiff when a defendant fails to answer a bill in a timely manner. After Cochran and Hall filed their amended bill in Cochran & Hall v. Camp et al. on June 15, 1857, the court ordered Camp to answer by the first Monday of September, 1857. Camp’s answer was instead filed on February 6, 1858.
Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th ed. (St. Paul, MN: West, 1979), 1086; Amended Bill of Complaint, Document ID: 63315; Decree, Document ID: 63316; Separate Answer, Document ID: 63320, Cochran & Hall v. Camp et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137521.

4No response by Lincoln to the enclosed letter from Strong has been located.

5Sanger, Camp & Co. had sent $2,000 to H. C. Seymour & Co. in 1852 for the purchase of land warrants by the common agent of the two firms, Robert Christie. Camp elsewhere recalled the amount invested by H. C. Seymour & Co. to have been $4024.
Irvin Camp to Abraham Lincoln; Cross Bill, Document ID: 63349, Cochran & Hall v. Camp et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137521.

6James L. D. Morrison was named as a co-defendant in Cochran & Hall v. Camp et al. and was also sued by Cochran and Hall in an additional case for failing to convey lands to the pair that he had located and purchased in his own name with land warrants received from H. C. Seymour & Co.
Cochran & Hall v. Camp et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137521; Cochran & Hall v. Morrison et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137522.

7Morrison had filed an answer on November 23, 1857 in Cochran and Hall’s suit against him, in which he testified that the representatives of the proposed land association had sent him land warrants for roughly 7,200 acres of land, which he believed had cost 87½ cents per acre. Based on Morrison’s figures, the warrants would have represented a $6,300 investment. Morrison reported that he located all of the warrants he was sent in Illinois.
Separate Answer, Document ID: 63400, Cochran & Hall v. Morrison et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137522.

8In his answer to the amended bill of Cochran and Hall, Camp maintained that the warrants entered in his name for tracts of land in Illinois were the property of Sanger, Camp & Co. and had been purchased from the firm of John J. Anderson & Company and other land warrant dealers in St. Louis. Attorney William Homes examined John J. Anderson & Co.’s register of land warrant transactions and stated in a deposition that he found no such purchases in Camp’s name.
Separate Answer, Document ID: 63320; Dedimus Potestatum, Deposition, Document ID: 63333, Cochran & Hall v. Camp et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137521.

9Camp filed a cross bill on February 4, 1861 against Cochran, Morrison, and others for an accounting of funds contributed and land purchased in the joint land speculation effort of H. C. Seymour & Co. and Sanger, Camp & Co. The cross bill was dismissed by the court.
Cross Bill, Document ID: 63349; Decree, Document ID: 63365, Cochran & Hall v. Camp et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137521.

10According to Camp, Henry D. Bacon had acted as trustee of the land association’s Illinois lands. Abner T. Ellis had reportedly claimed to have heard Cochran and Hall admit that they knew that the land association had been dissolved.
Irvin Camp to Abraham Lincoln.

11No response by Lincoln to this letter has been located. Camp wrote to Lincoln again about the case on November 2, 1859 and enclosed a memorandum he wrote related to his proposed cross bill.