From A Memoir of Miss Sarah Smith Stafford, The patriot and Philanthropist with Some Statements Of Her Ancestry published about 1881, discussing her father's post-Revolutionary War career:
In cases of disputed boundaries of tracts of land, mostly in the pines of Monmouth county, where seldom any line stones had been set up, he was called upon to settle such disputes, having at sea learned the practical art of navigation, and by allowing one degree for variation of the compass in twenty years, he could arrive at the old and former lines of survey, whilst the other surveyors refused to accept the theory that the world itself moved irregularly or that it revolved, and gave for reason for their unbelief, if that was the case water in wells would run out. In the law suit between Isaac Imlay and John Hoar, about the division line, at the suggestion of Garret D. Wall, one of the attorneys, the case was taken from the Supreme Court and left to Lieut. Stafford to settle, which he did satisfactorily to both parties. After that a one-sided law was passed to quiet titles, "that in disputed cases of land, a suit to recover possession must be brought within twenty years." This law seems to quiet some people, but is a very unjust law. If a man steals a horse, the possession thereof often convicts him, but in the construction of the land law, possession gives him a title.
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