Sol #1215: Ryan v. Knorr shows Salamanca commissioners’ map and lease book in a live lawsuit

Sol Finding #1215 recovers the original opinion in ***Ryan v. Knorr*, 19 Hun 540–547 (January 1880). The appellate court describes a specific Salamanca parcel mapped as leased land and two competing leases entered in the commissioners’ lease book — stronger evidence of record-making than the 1875 statute’s instructions alone, while still not a substitute for inspecting the original map, book, and clerk instruments.

The litigants were white lessees of the same thirteen acres on the Allegany Reservation. George Jemison leased to William Ryan on January 31, 1868 ($12 annual, twelve years); Jemison made another lease to Charles Knorr about April 26, 1870. Both leases still existed when Congress enacted the February 19, 1875 lease law. This is a conflict between two individual leases from one lessor — not the later railway-versus-individual contest in *Lavery*.

At printed page 543, Presiding Justice Talcott states the presidential commissioners had made the specified surveys and filed their report and maps; the disputed land appeared as part of Salamanca and designated leased. Both leases appeared in a “lease book” prepared by the commissioners and filed as part of their report. Ryan’s lease was recorded in the Cattaraugus County clerk’s office on December 6, 1875 — a lease-recording date, not necessarily the map-filing date. A later archival inventory’s six village map sets certified December 30, 1876 cannot by catalog metadata alone identify the exact sheet or resolve all filing dates.

Separation held: Ryan survey/lease-book evidence ≠ #1214 Lavery ≠ #1213 railway overlap ≠ #1206 1876 certified village maps inventory. Repo: 1880-ryan-salamanca-commissioners-map-lease-book.