Office grant applies to conveyances made by some officer of the law to effect certain purposes where the owner is either unwill ing or unable to execute the requisite deeds to pass the title.
Among the modes of conveyance includ ed under office grant are levies and sales to satisfy execution creditors, sales by order or decree of a court of chancery, sales by order or license of court, sales for non-pay ment of taxes And the like. See Blackw. Tax Title, passim; 3 Washb. R. P. 208.
Private grant is a grant by the deed of a private person. See DEED.
Public grant is the mode and act of creat ing a title in an individual to lands which had previously belonged to the government.
The public lands of the United States and of the various states have been to a great ex tent conveyed by deeds or patents issued in virtue of general laws ; but many specific grants have also been made, and were the usual method of transfer during the colonial period. See 3 Washb. R. P. 181; Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat. (U. S.) 543, 5 L. Ed. 681; Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. (U. S.) 548, 8 L. Ed. 483. Nothing passes by impli cation; New York v. Tax Com'rs, 199 U, S. 37, 25 Sup. Ct. 705, 50 L. Ed. 65, 4 Ann. Cas. 381. See LAND GRANT.
Uninterrupted possession of land for a period of twenty years or upward, has been often held to raise a presumption of a grant from the state; Tubbs v. Lynch, 4 Harr. (Del.) 521; Doe v. Roe, 20 Ga. 467, 65 Am. Dec. 633; Barclay v. Howell, 6 Pet. (U. S.) 498, 8 L. Ed. 477 ; Scales v. Cockrill, 3 Head (Tenn.) 432; Vou Rosenberg v. Haynes, 85 Tex. 357, • 20 S. W. 143; Brown v. Oldham, 123 Mo. 621, 27 S. W. 409.
By the word grant, in a treaty, is meant not only a formal grant, but any concession, warrant, order, or permission to survey, possess, or settle, whether written or parol, express, or presumed from possession. Such a grant may be made by law, as well as by patent pursuant to a law; Strother v. Lucas, 12 Pet. (U. S.) 410, 9 L. Ed. 1137. See 9 Ad. & E. 532; Dudley v. Sumner, 5 Mass. 472; TREATY.
The term grant is also applied to the cre ation or transfer by the government of such rights as pensions, patents, charters, and franchises. See Chit. Prerog. 384; and also these several titles.
The word grant is also sometimes used with reference to the allowance of probate, and the issue of letters testamentary, and of administration, as to which see the several titles relating thereto.