If the owner of such property shall not have appeared within thirty days after such copy has been so posted, and the valuation thereof be under $15, or if such valuation be as much as $15, and the owner shall not have appeared after such certificate has been published as aforesaid, and also three times in some newspaper such as is mentioned in section one of this article, it shall belong in either case to the owner of the land on which it was so taken, if an estray, or to the person taking it up, in the case of a boat or vessel.
West Virginia Legal Code