Also 7 -our. [a. L. locātor, agent-n. f. locāre to LOCATE.]
1. One who lets for hire; esp. in Civil and Sc. Law.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 55. Some buy kie and let them forth to farm, reserving the Calf to themselves; and if by the negligence of the Cowherd, the Cow cast the Call, the hirer is bound to answer the value, but if it miscarry without his negligence, then is the loss equall to the Locatour or Farmer.
1652. Needham, trans. Selden’s Mare Cl., 87. The people was Lord thereof and Letter or Locator.
1681. Visct. Stair, Instit., I. xv. § 6 (1693), 130. The Obligation on the part of the Locator, is to deliver the thing locat, and to conti[n]ue it during the time of the Location.
1872. Bell’s Princ. Law Scot., § 133 (ed. 6), 60. The Locator or Letter of the subject or of the labour.
1875. Poste, Gaius, III. Comm. (ed. 2), 423. The locator supplies a service for which the conductor pays the price.
2. U.S. One who ‘locates’ (see LOCATE v. 2); one who takes up a grant of land, opens a mine, etc.
1817. Chief Justice Marshall, in H. Wheaton, Rep., II. 211. A subsequent locator … must look for the beginning called for in this entry twelve miles below the mouth of Licking.
1882. B. Harte, Gentl. La Porte. As one of the original locators of the Eagle Mine he enjoyed a certain income.
1883. Mary Hallock Foote, in Century Mag., XXV. 585/1. Here no locator encroached upon his neighbor’s claim.
1883. Stevenson, Silverado Sq., 220. The place for the locator’s name at the end of the first copy.
3. One who places persons in office. rare.
1816–30. Bentham, Offic. Apt. Maximized, Extract Const. Code (1830), 34. Of this scrutiny, as of the other, the result will lie in the view of each locator.
