United States v. Carpenter, 111 U.S. 347
Case details
Bluebook Citation
United States v. Carpenter, 111 U.S. 347
Full caption
UNITED STATES v. CARPENTER.
Country
United States
Jurisdiction
Federal
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
UNITED STATES v. CARPENTER.
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA.
Argued April 2d, 1884.-Decided April 14th, 1884.
Public Lands—Indian Treaties. The location of land scrip upon lands reserved for Indians under the provisions
of a treaty with an Indian tribe, and the issue of a patent therefor, are void.
This was a suit in equity, to vacate a patent of the United States issued to one August Cluensen, on the 15th of May, 1874, embracing a tract of land in the county of Pipestone, in the State of Missouri, described as the southwesterly quarter of section one (1), in township one hundred and six (106), range forty-six (46), west of the fifth (5th) principal meridian, according to the government surveys. The ground of the suit was that by treaty between the United States and the Yankton tribe of Sioux or Dacotah Indians, ratified on the 26th of February, 1859, the tract, which embraces what is known as the Red Pipestone Quarry, in that county, was reserved from sale or appropriation under any scrip or warrant of the government. The eighth article of the treaty stipulated that the Yankton Indians should be “secured in the free and unrestricted use ” of the quarry, or “ so much thereof as they have been accustomed to frequent and use for the purpose of procuring stone for pipes ; ” and the United States agreed to cause to be surveyed and marked, so much thereof as should be necessary and proper for that purpose, and retain the same an keep it open and free for the Indians to visit and procure stone for pipes, so long as they shall desire.” Revision of Ind. reaties, 860. The bill alleged that the tract described is a par of the Red Pipestone Quarry mentioned in this article.
n the execution of their agreement, the United States caused so much of the quarry as appeared to be necessary and proper °r he purposes of the reservation provided for to be surveyed an marked. A diagram and the field notes of the survey p. 348were duly returned, filed, and recorded in the General Land Office, and in the office of the Surveyor-General of Minnesota. La February, 1860, copies of them were transmitted by the Commissioner of the General Land Office to the Surveyor-General of the United States for that State with instructions “ to lay the same down ” on the map of the State in his office, and to respect them when the public surveys reached the locality, by closing their lines upon the reservation. At this time the land included in the reservation was not surveyed ; but afterwards, for some unexplained reason, and in violation of the instructions, it was surveyed with other public lands in its vicinity. In'July, 1872, after this survey, the commissioner directed the surveyor-general to locate the reservation on the official plat in his office, from the field notes and plat of the original survey, and to transmit authentic copies to the general and local land offices; or, if it should be impossible to locate it from these data, to direct a re-survey of the tract, so that it might be located and described upon the official plats, and its boundaries respected in accordance with the treaty.
In pursuance of these instructions the surveyor-general caused a re-survey of the quarry reserve, and immediately marked it upon the official plats in his office. Its boundaries as resurveyed correspond and are substantially coincident with the lines of the original survey, and embrace the quarter section of land above described. Notwithstanding the reservation by the terms of the treaty and its survey, and appropriation to the purposes mentioned, one August Cluensen, on the 15th of July, 18 d, was permitted by the land officers of the district to locate upon the quarter section a piece of land scrip issued under the authority of the laws of the United States, known as Louisiana Agricultural College scrip, and to enter the section at that office with this scrip. On the 15th of May, 1874, a patent was issued to him pursuant to his entry. All the interest which he thus acquired, if any, was subsequently transferred, by divers mesne conveyances, to the defendant, Herbert M. Carpenter, who claimed to be the owner of the premises covered by the patent. The bill averred that all the provisions of the treaty were still in force, that the Yankton Indians had always con- p. 349tinned to visit and procure stone from the quarry, and had always desired, and still desired so to do ; and that the officers and agents of the government, in all that they did in connection with the entry of the land and issuing the patent acted without authority of law and in violation of the provisions of the treaty. The bill concluded with a prayer for a decree that the patent and the entry on which it rests might be vacated, and for further relief. To this bill the defendants demurred for want of equity. The demurrer was sustained and the bill dismissed; and the case came here on appeal.
Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Maury for appellant.
Mr. John B. Sanborn for appellee.
Mr . Jus tice Fiel d delivered the opinion of the court. He stated the facts in the foregoing language, and continued:
The action of the government in causing the tract described to be marked on the official plats in the land offices as reserved from sale was clearly within the Une of its duty under the stipulations of the treaty. The bill alleges that the tract was a part of the Red Pipestone Quarry mentioned in the eighth article. After the treaty, until the survey was made, and the actual extent of the reservation was thus designated, no part of the land containing the quarry could have been taken up either by settlement or by location under the Louisiana Agricultural College scrip. The whole of such land was by the treaty withdrawn from private entry or appropriation until the government had determined whether any portion less than the whole should be reserved. Its power of selection, if the whole was not retained, could not be restricted by the action of private parties. So, in any view which can be taken, the entry of Cluensen was void. It matters not whether the land had been surveyed or not, the treaty was notice that a part of the quarry would be retained by the government, and that the whole might be, for the use of the Indians. This purpose and t e stipulation of the United States could not be defeated by e action of any officers of the land department.
The court therefore erred in sustaining the demurrer. The decree must accordingly be reversed, with directions to overrule the demurrer, the defendant to have leave to answer ; and
It is so ordered.
CHAMBERS & Others v. HARRINGTON & Another.
APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF UTAH.
Argued April 1st and 2d, 1884.—Decided April 14th, 1884.
Jurisdiction—Mineral Lands. The decision of a court of competent jurisdiction upon adverse claims to a
patent for mineral lands under §§ 2325, 2326 Rev. Stat, is subject to review in this court when the amount in controversy is sufficient. When several adjoining claims to mineral lands are held in common, work for
the benefit of all done upon any one of them in a given year to an amount equal to that required to be done upon all in that year meets the requirements of § 2324 Rev. Stat. The language of tho court in Jackson n . Roby, 109 U. S. 440, cited and approved.
The defendants in error as plaintiffs brought suit in the District Court for the Third Judicial District of the Territory of Utah, under § 2326 Rev. Stat., to have adverse claims to patents for mineral lands determined. Judgment for plaintiffs there, which was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the Territory on appeal. The defendants appealed to this court from the judgment of the Supreme Court. The facts making the case are stated in the opinion of the court.
Hr. Skellaba/rger for appellants.
Hr. John H. HcBride for appellees.
Mr . Justi ce Miller delivered the opinion of the court. This is an appeal from the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah.
The case has its origin in a proceeding under §§ 2325 and 2326 of the Revised Statutes, to obtain a patent for mineral lands of the United States.
The first of these sections requires that, after a discovery of • a mine or lode, and the steps required to mark out and assert a claim to it, if the discoverer desires a patent, he shall give notice of that fact, by a publication for sixty days, the nature of which is such as to call the attention to the proceeding of any one having an adverse claim. § 2326 requires of any person desiring to contest the claimant’s right, to file his adverse claim in the land office, with the particulars of it, under oath. It then declares :
“ It shall be the duty of thé adverse claimant, within thirty days after filing his claim, to commence proceeding in a court of competent jurisdiction, to determine the question of the right of possession, and prosecute the same with reasonable diligence to final judgment, and a failure to do so shall be a waiver of his adverse claim.”
It is then provided that, on filing a copy of the judgment-roll in the case, with the register of the land office, and making the other requisite showing, a patent shall issue to the successful party in the litigation.
It is now urged that such a judgment is not subject to review in this court, and the appeal should be dismissed.
But it is apparent that the statute requires a judicial proceeding, in a competent court. What is a competent court is not specifically stated, but it undoubtedly means a court of general jurisdiction, whether it be a State court or a Federal court; and as the very essence of the trial is to determine rights by a regular procedure in such court, after the usual methods, which rights are dependent on the laws of the United States, we see no reason why, if the amount in controversy is sufficient in a case tried in a court of the United States, or the proper case is made on a writ of error to a State court, the judgment may not be brought to this court for review, as in other similar cases. Belk v. Meagher, 104 U. S.
The only question on the merits of the case requiring much attention arises out of the requirement of § 2324 of the Revised Statutes, that some work should be done on every claim, in p. 352every year, from the date of the discovery until the issue of the patent. The language of the statute on the subject is this:
“ On each claim located after the tenth day of May, 1872, and until a patent has been issued therefor, not less than one hundred dollars’ worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made during each year. On all claims located prior to the tenth of May, 1872, ten dollars’ worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made by the 10th day of June, 1874, and each year thereafter for each one hundred feet in length along the vein until a patent has been issued therefor ; .but when such claims are held in common such expenditures may be made upon any one claim.”
It then provides for proceedings in favor of co-owners who do their work or pay for it, against those who do not, to forfeit their interest in the claim.
This latter clause clearly shows that one meaning of the phrase “held in common” is where there are more owners of the claim than one, while the use of the word claims held in common, on which work done on one of such claims shall be sufficient, shows that there must be more than one claim so held, in order to make the case where work on one of them shall answer the statute as to all of them.
It is not difficult, in looking at the policy of the government in regard to its mineral lands, to understand the purpose of this provision. For many years after the discovery of the rich deposits of gold and silver in the public lands of the United States, millions of dollars’ worth of these metals were taken out by industrious miners without any notice or attention on the part of the government. The earliest legislation by Congress simply recognized the obligatory force of the local rules of each mining locality in regard to obtaining, transferring, and identifying the possession of these parties.
Later, provision whs made for acquiring’ title to the land where these deposits were found, and prescribing rules for the location and indentification of claims, and securing their possession against trespass by others than their discoverers.
But in all this legislation to the present time, though by appropriate proceedings and the payment of a very, small sum, p. 353a legal title in the form of a patent may be obtained for such mines, the possession under a claim established according to law is fully recognized by the acts of Congress, and the patent adds little to the security of the party in continuous possession of a mine he has discovered or bought.
These mineral lands being thus open to the occupation of all discoverers, one of the first necessities of a mining neighborhood was to make rules by which this right of occupation should be governed as among themselves; and it was soon discovered that the same person would mark out many claims of discovery and then leave them for an indefinite length of time without further development, and without actual possession, and seek in this manner to exclude others from availing themselves of the abandoned mine. To remedy this evil a mining regulation was adopted that some work should be done on each claim in every year, or it would be treated as abandoned.
In the statute we are considering, Congress, when it came to regulate these matters and provide for granting a title to claimants, adopted the prevalent rule as to claims asserted prior to the statute, and as to those made afterwards it required one hundred dollars’ worth of labor or improvement to be made in each year on every claim. Clearly the purpose was the same as in the matter of similar regulations by the miners, namely, to require every person who asserted an exclusive right to his discovery or claim to expend something of labor or value on it as evidence of his good faith, and to show that he was not acting on the principle of the dog in the manger.
When several claims are held in common, it is in the line of this policy to allow the necessary work to keep them all alive, to be done on one of them. But obviously on this one the expenditure of money or labor must equal in value that which would be required on all the claims if they were separate or in ependent. It is equally clear that in such case the claims must be contiguous, so that each claim thus associated may in some way be benefited by the work done on one of them.
e principle is well stated by Judge Sawyer in the case of
M. & M. Company n . Callison, 5 Sawyer, 439.
ork done,” he says, “ outside of the claim, or outside of vol. cxi—23 p. 354any claim, if done for the purpose and as a means of prospecting or developing the claim, as in cases of tunnels, drifts, &c., is as available for holding the claim, as if done within the boundaries of the claim itself. One general system may be formed well adapted and intended to work several contiguous claims or lodes, and where such is the case work in furtherance of the system is work on the claims intended to be developed.” In the case of Jackson n . Roby, decided at the present term, 109 U. S. 440, similar language is used. “ It often happens that for the development of a mine upon which several claims have been located, expenditures are required exceeding the value of a single claim, and yet without such expenditures the claim could not be successfully worked. In such cases it has always been the practice for the owners of the different locations to combine and work them as one general claim; and expenditures which may be necessary for the development of all the claims may then be made on one of them. ... In other words, the law permits a general system to be adopted for adjoining claims held in common, and in such case, the expenditures required may be made or the labor be performed, upon any one of them.” That was a case of placer mining in which the tailings from one claim were carried by a flume and deposited on another which was contiguous, and it was held this latter claim was not aided, but its development rather injured, by this work. This claim was not, therefore, kept valid by such work, and some remarks were made in the opinion which would not, perhaps, be strictly applicable to discoveries and works done in developing lodes or veins.
In the case before us the appellees became successively owners of three claims contiguous to each other, supposed to be located on the same lode. These were, first, the Parley s Park claim ; second, the Central; and third, the Lady of the Lake. They continued their work on the Parley’s Park claim from 1872 until July 19th, 1878, when they transferred it to the Lady of the Lake claim, and did no more work on the other until September 13th, 1879, when one Cassidy, claiming that the Parley’s Park claim was forfeited for want of work on it for more than a year, located a mining claim called the p. 355Accidental, which embraces the premises in dispute, and which is part of the Parley’s Park claim.
This claim of Cassidy—the Accidental—is the one on which appellants, who became its owners, now rely, and if the work done on the Lady of the Lake is not work done in common on the three claims of appellees, within the meaning of the statute, the claim of the appellant must prevail.
The finding of facts by the court below on that point is as follows:
“ 5th. That during the year beginning on the 19th of July, 1878, the owners of the Parley’s Park claim were also the owners of two certain claims, called respectively the ‘ Central ’ and ‘ Lady of the Lake’ the Central adjoining the Parley’s Park and Lady of the Lake adjoining the Central mining claim—and that, with a view to the future working and development of all three of said claims, the owners thereof located what is called the ‘Main Shaft ’ in the Lady of the Lake surface ground. That said shaft is in such proximity to said Parley’s Park mining claim that work in it has a tendency to develop said claim, and said shaft was located and intended for the purpose of developing all of said claims.
“ I find that during said last named year work was prosecuted m said shaft, and by improvements made thereat exceeding in
value $300, and of not less than two thousand dollars in value. No work was done in said year after July 19th, 1878, and prior to the 15th day of September, 1879, in Parley’s Park surface ground, or within its limits, by the owners thereof.”
e are of opinion that this brings the case clearly within i e principles we have laid down, and the work was effectual o protect the Parley’s Park claim against an intruder.
By the act of February 11th, 1875, 18 Stat. 315, § 2324 was so amended that work on a tunnel in a mine should be held to spense with work on the surface and taken and considered as or expended on the lode, whether located prior to or since
the passage of that act.
w n°^ a^e See affects the character of other la 0-6 d°ne or improvements to be made according to the w as it stood before, except as it gives a special value to taking a tunnel.
The questions raised on the admission of evidence to prove the existence and discovery of a lode by defendants, were, we think, well decided and need no further comment.
The decree of the Supreme Court of Utah is affirmed.