The authority of the alcaldes to dispose of the lands was questioned by many of the new immigrants, and the validity of their grants denied.  They asserted that the land was part of the public property of the United States.  Many holding these views gave evidence of the earnestness of their convictions by immediately appropriating to themselves as much vacant land in the city as they could conveniently occupy.  Disputes followed, as a matter of course, between claimants under the alcalde grants and those holding as settlers, which often gave rise to long and bitter litigation.  The whole community was in fact divided between those who asserted the existence of a pueblo having a right to the lands mentioned, and the power of the alcaldes to make grants of them; and those who insisted that the land belonged to the United States.

Early in 1850, after the State government was organized, the Legislature incorporated the City of San Francisco; and, as is usual with municipal bodies not restrained by the most stringent provisions, it contracted more debts than its means warranted, and did not always make provision for their payment at maturity.  Numerous suits, therefore, were instituted and judgments were recovered against the city.  Executions followed, which were levied upon the lands claimed by her as successor of the pueblo.  Where the occupants denied the title of the city, they were generally indifferent to the sales by the sheriff.  Property of immense value, in some cases many acres in extent, was, in consequence, often struck off to bidders at a merely nominal price.  Upon the deeds of the officer, suits in ejectment were instituted in great numbers; and thus questions as to the existence of the alleged pueblo, and whether, if existing, it had any right to land, and the nature of such right, if any, were brought before the lower courts; and, finally, in a test case—­Hart vs.  Burnett—­they found their way to the Supreme Court of the State.  In the meantime a large number of persons had become interested in these sales, aside from the occupants of the land, and the greatest anxiety was manifested as to the decision of the Court.  Previous decisions on the questions involved were not consistent; nor had they met the entire approval of the profession, although, the opinion prevailed generally that a Mexican pueblo of some kind, owning or having an interest in lands, had existed on the site of the city upon the acquisition of the country, and that such lands, like other property of the city not used for public purposes, were vendible on execution.

In 1855, after the sale in respect to which the test case was made, the Council of the city passed “the Van Ness Ordinance,” so called from the name of its author, the object of which was to settle and quiet, as far as practicable, the title of persons occupying land in the city.  It relinquished and granted the right and interest of the city to lands within its corporate limits, as defined by the charter