§34-1-11. Taking up timber adrift in certain rivers; compensation; sale.
Every person who shall take up and secure any saw logs, or other logs or ties, prepared for the purpose of sale, or any cross or railroad ties, boards, planks, staves, heading or other timber prepared for market, of another, found adrift in the Ohio, Great Kanawha, Little Kanawha or Big Sandy rivers, in which there is no boom in use for the preservation thereof below the point where they are so found, whether the same have thereon any such trademark or not, shall be entitled to receive from the owner thereof a compensation for so much thereof as he shall deliver to such owner, as follows: (a) For each saw log or other log or tree prepared for sale which is not more than thirty inches in diameter, twenty-five cents; and for all others, fifty cents each, except that the price for catching and securing oak logs that are not less than eighteen inches in diameter at the top, and are fifty feet or more in length, may be an amount not to exceed the sum of seventy-five cents each. If the same be caught in rafts or parts of rafts, ten cents per log; (b) for each cross or railroad tie, six cents. If the same be caught in rafts or parts of rafts containing two hundred ties or less, two cents per tie; and if caught in lots of over two hundred, one cent per tie; (c) for boards or plank, if caught in rafts or large bodies, fifty cents per thousand feet board measure, for twenty thousand feet or less quantity; and for over twenty thousand feet, twenty-five cents per thousand feet board measure. But if the same be not in rafts but loose and scattered, two dollars and fifty cents per thousand feet board measure; (d) for staves and heading, three dollars per thousand for all such as are marketable. Such sums shall be paid by the owner thereof, if required, before the delivery of the same to him. If the owner of any such log, trees, ties, boards, plank, staves or hearing fail to pay the sum so chargeable thereon within forty days from the date they are taken up, they may be sold at the instance of the person to whom such charges are due by a constable or the sheriff of the county at public auction to the highest bidder, upon thirty days' notice posted at the front door of the courthouse of the county in which the sale is to be made, and at the place of the sale thereof. The officer making such sale shall, from the proceeds thereof, pay, to the person who took up such logs, trees, ties, boards, plank, staves or heading, the sum to which he is entitled therefor as aforesaid and retain the balance, after deducting his commissions, which shall be the same as upon sales under executions, for the use of the owners. But if no person shall appear and establish his rights to such proceeds within one year after such sale, he shall place the same to the credit of the distributable school fund of his county and report the amount thereof to the county superintendent of schools therein.