filed in the office of the clerk of the said circuit court, and enrolled among the land records of the county of Alexandria. And the said commissioners, or any two of them, How they are to proceed.being qualified as aforesaid, shall, upon the request of the said president and directors, cause to be surveyed, laid out and ascertained described and marked, by certain metes and bounds, of the aforesaid turnpike road, described in the first section of this act,Duty of the commissioners last mentioned. not less than sixty feet in breadth, in such routes, tracts or courses, for the same respectively as, in the best of their judgment, will combine shortness of distance with the most convenient ground, and the smallest expense of money; and for this purpose it shall be lawful for them, and such agents, assistants, servants or attendants as they may think proper to employ, to enter upon any of the lands through or near which the said road may be laid out, having first given twenty days’ public notice in some public newspaper printed in the District of Columbia, of the time and place of their entering on the said business of surveying and laying out each road respectively. And if any proprietor of any part of the lands through which the said road may be laid out shall require compensation for so much of his or her said land as may be occupied by the said road, or shall claim damages for or on account of the opening or laying out the said road through his or her land, and if the said president and directors cannot agree with such proprietors respecting the same, then the said commissioners, at the request of either party, shall appoint a day and place to hear and decide upon such claim, and the amount of compensation and damages which such proprietor shall be entitled to receive from the said president, directors and company therefor, first giving twenty days’ notice to the adverse party, his or her agent, or attorney in fact, or other legal representative, if either shall be within the District of Columbia, and if the party so notified shall fail to attend, or if the party shall be an infant under age, non compos mentis, feme covert,Duty of the commissioners. or absent out of the District of Columbia, and have no known agent or legal representative therein, then the said commissioners may proceed ex parte to hear and decide the same; and the award of them, or any two of them made in writing, signed by them or any two of them, shall by them be returned to the office of the clerk of the said court or the county of Alexandria, within ten days after such hearing, and a copy thereof shall, within ten days after such return, be served upon such of the parties as are resident in the District of Columbia; and if such award be not, at the session of the said circuit court, next after such return of the said award to the clerk's office, set aside on account of fraud or partiality in the said commissioners, or other cause deemed sufficient in the opinion of the court, the same shall be final and conclusive between the parties, and shall be recorded by the said clerk; and the sum so awarded being paid to the said clerk, for the use of the person entitled to receive the same, the said land mentioned and described in the said award, shall and may be taken and occupied as a turnpike road and public highway forever. And the said commissioners, upon completing the said survey of the said road, shall return a plat and certificate of such survey to the said clerk, and the same being accepted by the said court, shall be recorded by the said clerk, and thereupon the road so laid out shall be taken, used, and occupied as a turnpike Road, how to be constructed, &c. &c. road and public highway forever; and the said president, directors and company may thereupon proceed to enter upon the same, and shall cause at least twenty-four feet in breadth throughout the whole length thereof, to be made an artificial road of stone, gravel or other hard substance, of sufficient depth or thickness to secure a solid and firm road, with a surface as smooth as the materials will admit, and so nearly level that it shall in no case rise or fall more than an angle of four degrees with a horizontal line, and the said road shall thereafter be kept in good and perfect repair; and wheresoever upon the said road any
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