1. A patent, duly signed, countersigned, and sealed, for public
lands which, at the time it was issued, the Land Department had,
under the statute, authority to convey cannot be collaterally
impeached in an action at law, and the finding of the department
touching the existence of certain facts, or the performance of
certain antecedent acts, upon which the lawful exercise of that
authority may in a particular case depend, cannot in a court of law
be questioned.
2. If in the issuing of a patent the officers of that department
take mistaken views of the law, or draw erroneous conclusions from
the evidence, or act from either imperfect views of duty or corrupt
motives, the party aggrieved cannot set up such matters in a court
of law to defeat the patent. He must resort to a court of equity,
where he can obtain relief, if his rights are injuriously affected
by the existence of the patent, and he possesses such equities as
will control the legal title vested in the patentee. A stranger to
the title cannot complain of the act of the government in regard
thereto.
3. A defendant in ejectment claimed adversely to the title to a
placer mining claim, derived from a patent of the United States
bearing date March 29, 1879, which describes, by metes and bounds,
the premises, containing one hundred and sixty-four acres and sixty
one-hundredths of an acre, more or less.
Held that he
cannot put in evidence the proceedings in the Land Department for
the purpose of showing that the patent was issued upon a single
application, including several mining locations, some made after
the passage of the Act of July 9, 1870, c. 235, 16 Stat. 217,
limiting the location of one person or an association of persons to
one hundred and sixty acres, and others made after the passage of
the Act of May 10, 1872, c. 152, 17
id. 91, limiting a
location to twenty acres for each individual applicant.
4. A patent issued subsequently to the passage of the said act
of 1870 may embrace a placer mining claim consisting of more than
one hundred and sixty acres, and including as many adjoining
locations as the patentee had purchased. The proceedings to obtain
a patent therefor are the same as when the claim covers but one
location.
5. The terms "location " and "mining claim" defined.
6. Labor and improvements, within the meaning of the statute,
are deemed to have been put on a mining claim, whether it consists
of one or more locations, when the labor was performed or the
improvements were made for its development, though in fact such
labor and improvements may be on ground which originally
constituted only one of the locations, or may be at a distance from
the claim.
This was an action at law brought in one of the courts of
Colorado by the St. Louis Smelting and Refining Company, a
corporation created under the laws of Missouri, for the possession
of a parcel of land in the City of Leadville. On application
Page 104 U. S. 637
of the defendants it was removed to the circuit court of the
United States. The complaint is in the usual form of actions for
the possession of real property under the practice obtaining in
Colorado. It alleges that the plaintiff was duly incorporated, with
power to purchase and hold real estate; that it was the owner in
fee and entitled to the possession of the premises mentioned,
describing them, and that the defendants wrongfully withheld them,
to the damage of the plaintiff of $5,000.
The defendants filed an answer admitting that the plaintiff was
incorporated as averred, but denying that it was the owner in fee
of the demanded premises, or that they were wrongfully detained
from its possession, or that it had sustained any damage. The
answer also alleged that the plaintiff, as a foreign corporation,
was incompetent to acquire title to any real estate in Colorado,
except such as might be necessary for the transaction of its
business as a smelting and refining company, and that the premises
in controversy were not necessary for that purpose, but were
acquired for speculation.
The plaintiff filed a replication denying its incompetency to
hold real estate as alleged, and averring that it was authorized,
under the laws of Missouri, to buy, sell, and deal in real estate
for any purpose whatever; that the property in controversy was
acquired as a site for smelting and reduction works, and that such
works were afterwards erected upon it and used for reducing and
smelting silver ores.
The case was tried in November, 1879. To maintain the issues on
its part the plaintiff offered in evidence a patent of the United
States to Thomas Starr, dated March 29, 1879, for mining ground,
which, it was admitted, included the premises in controversy. The
patent recited that pursuant to provisions of chapter six of title
thirty-two of the Revised Statutes, there had been deposited in the
General Land Office the plat and field notes of the placer mining
claim of Thomas Starr, the patentee, accompanied by a certificate
of the register of the land office at Fairplay, Colorado, within
which district the premises are situated; that Starr had, on the
6th of March, 1879, entered an application for the said claim,
which contained one hundred and sixty-four acres of land and
sixty-one hundredths of an acre, more or less. The patent also
specified the boundaries
Page 104 U. S. 638
of the tract according to the field notes, and contained the
recitals and words of grant and transfer usually inserted in
patents for place mining land. To the introduction of this patent
the defendants objected; but the record does not state on what
grounds the objection was founded, and it was overruled. The patent
was accordingly admitted in evidence. The plaintiff traced title to
the land by sundry mesne conveyances from the patentee. It also
introduced the certificate of the register of the same land office,
showing that the application of Starr at that office to enter and
pay for his claim was made on the 18th of March, 1878; also a copy
of the articles of incorporation of the plaintiff, and of the laws
of Missouri under which the incorporation was had, and proved that,
in 1877, prior to the existence of the town of Leadville, the
company purchased of the claimant the tract embraced in the patent,
for the purpose of erecting reduction works thereon, and that at
the time of the purchase and when it commenced the construction of
the works the land was unoccupied by other parties.
The plaintiff having rested its case, the defendants offered in
evidence a certified copy of the record of proceedings in the
General Land Office at Washington, upon which Starr obtained his
patent; to the introduction of which the plaintiff objected, on the
ground that it could only show or tend to show the regularity or
irregularity of the proceedings before the executive department in
obtaining the patent, or the validity or invalidity of the
possessory title or preemption right upon which the patent was
founded, and that no evidence could be introduced to impeach the
patent or attack it collaterally, or in any way affect it in this
action. But the court overruled the objection and admitted the
record. To this ruling an exception was taken.
The case being closed, the court instructed the jury
substantially as follows: that a patent for a mining claim, since
the passage of the act of Congress of 1870, could not embrace more
than one hundred and sixty acres; that individuals and associations
were, by that act, put upon the same footing, and that either might
take that amount, but that by the mining act of Congress of 1872 an
individual claimant was limited to twenty acres, whilst an
association of persons could still take
Page 104 U. S. 639
one hundred and sixty, as before; that the proceedings in the
land office were allowed in evidence in order to show whether the
patent was issued upon locations made prior to 1870, and that they
showed that the claim of Starr was based upon twelve or fifteen
locations, some of which were prior to 1870, and some since then,
and added, that
"if Mr. Starr was the owner of these claims, if he had obtained
them by purchase, and they were valid and regular locations, he
would, under the act, be required, if he desired to obtain a patent
for them, to make application for each one of them, to post the
notice, as required by the statute, and give the publication, and
file his plan and survey, and do all these things which are
required in the several claims upon each one of them. If he had
done so, and his right had been supported as to all of them, and
the patent had been issued for all of these claims, and each of
them described in the patent, there would have been no objection to
the patent; but it was not competent for him to consolidate these
claims and put them all in as one claim, and upon notice given as
one claim, and publication as one claim, and proceeding throughout
as one claim embracing 164 acres,"
and that the officers of the Land Department had no authority,
in law, to proceed in that way and, therefore, the patent upon
which the plaintiff relied was void and its title failed.
To the instructions given, exceptions were taken. The jury
thereupon found for the defendants, and judgment in their favor was
accordingly entered. To review this judgment the plaintiff has
brought the case to this court on writ of error.
MR. JUSTICE FIELD, after stating the case as above, delivered
the opinion of the Court as follows:
As seen by the statement of the case, the plaintiff relies for a
reversal of the judgment upon three grounds: 1. error in
Page 104 U. S. 640
admitting the record of the proceedings of the land office to
impeach the validity of the patent to Starr issued upon them; 2.
error in instructing the jury that a patent for a placer claim,
since the Act of 1870, could not embrace in any case more than one
hundred and sixty acres; and 3. error in instructing the jury that
the owner by purchase of several claims must take separate
proceedings upon each one in order to obtain a valid patent, and
that it was not lawful for him to prosecute a single application
upon a consolidation of several claims into one, nor for the land
officers to allow such application and to issue a patent
thereon.
We are of opinion that these several grounds are well taken and
that, in each particular mentioned, the court below erred.
The patent of the United States is the conveyance by which the
nation passes its title to portions of the public domain. For the
transfer of that title, the law has made numerous provisions,
designating the persons who may acquire it and the terms of its
acquisition. That the provisions may be properly carried out, a
land department, as part of the administrative and executive branch
of the government, has been created to supervise all the various
proceedings taken to obtain the title, from their commencement to
their close. In the course of their duty, the officers of that
department are constantly called upon to hear testimony as to
matters presented for their consideration, and to pass upon its
competency, credibility and weight. In that respect, they exercise
a judicial function and therefore it has been held in various
instances by this court that their judgment as to matters of fact,
properly determinable by them, is conclusive when brought to notice
in a collateral proceeding. Their judgment in such cases is, like
that of other special tribunals upon matters within their exclusive
jurisdiction, unassailable except by a direct proceeding for its
correction or annulment. The execution and record of the patent are
the final acts of the officers of the government for the transfer
of its title, and as they can be lawfully performed only after
certain steps have been taken, that instrument, duly signed,
countersigned and sealed, not merely operates to pass the title,
but is in the nature of an official declaration by that branch of
government to which the alienation of the public
Page 104 U. S. 641
lands, under the law, is entrusted, that all the requirements
preliminary to its issue have been complied with. The presumptions
thus attending it are not open to rebuttal in an action at law. It
is this unassailable character which gives to it its chief, indeed
its only, value as a means of quieting its possessor in the
enjoyment of the lands it embraces. If intruders upon them could
compel him in every suit for possession to establish the validity
of the action of the Land Department and the correctness of its
ruling upon matters submitted to it, the patent, instead of being a
means of peace and security, would subject his rights to constant
and ruinous litigation. He would recover one portion of his land if
the jury were satisfied that the evidence produced justified the
action of that department, and lose another portion, the title
whereto rests upon the same facts, because another jury came to a
different conclusion. So his rights in different suits upon the
same patent would be determined, not by its efficacy as a
conveyance of the government, but according to the fluctuating
prejudices of different jurymen, or their varying capacities to
weigh evidence.
Moore v. Wilkinson, 13 Cal. 478;
Beard v.
Federy, 3 Wall. 478,
70 U. S.
492.
Of course, when we speak of the conclusive presumptions
attending a patent of lands, we assume that it was issued in a case
where the department had jurisdiction to act and execute it -- that
is to say, in a case where the lands belonged to the United States,
and provision had been made by law for their sale. If they never
were public property, or had previously been disposed of, of if
Congress had made no provision for their sale, or had reserved
them, the department would have no jurisdiction to transfer them,
and its attempted conveyance of them would be inoperative and void,
no matter with what seeming regularity the forms of law may have
been observed. The action of the department would in that event be
like that of any other special tribunal not having jurisdiction of
a case which it had assumed to decide. Matters of this kind,
disclosing a want of jurisdiction, may be considered by a court of
law. In such cases the objection to the patent reaches beyond the
action of the special tribunal, and goes to the existence of a
subject upon which it was competent to act.
Page 104 U. S. 642
These views are not new in this Court; they have been, either in
express terms or in substance, affirmed in repeated instances. One
of the earliest cases on the subject was that of
Polk's Lessee
v. Wendell, reported in 9th Cranch, where the doctrine we have
stated was declared, and the exceptions to it mentioned. There the
plaintiff brought an action upon an patent of North Carolina,
issued in 1800, for five thousand acres. The defendants relied upon
a prior patent of the state for twenty-five thousand acres, issued
in 1795 to one Sevier, through whom they claimed. Each patent
embraced the lands in controversy, and they were situated in that
portion of Tennessee ceded to the United States by North Carolina.
On the trial it was contended that the elder patent was void on its
face because it covered more than five thousand acres, the limit
prescribed for a single entry by the laws of that State. Proof was
also offered that the lands had not been entered in the office of
the entry-taker of the proper county before their cession to the
United States, and it was contended that the patent was therefore
invalid. We shall hereafter refer to what the court said as to the
alleged excess of quantity in the patent. At present we shall only
notice the general doctrine declared as to the admissibility of
patents in a court of law, and its decision upon the admissibility
of the proof offered. It seems that a statute of 1777 directed the
appointment in each county of an officer called an entry-taker, who
was required to receive entries of all vacant lands in his county,
and, if the lands thus entered were not within the three months
claimed by some other party than the person entering them, to
deliver to such person a copy of the entry, with its proper number,
and an order to the county surveyor to survey the land. This order
was called a warrant. Upon it and the survey which followed a
patent was issued. If there were no entry, there could be no
warrant, and of course no valid patent. The ninth section declared
that every right claimed by any person to lands which were not
acquired in this mode, or by purchase or inheritance from parties
who did so acquire them, or which were obtained in fraud or evasion
of the provisions of the act, should be declared void. In 1779,
North Carolina ceded to the United States the territory in which
the lands lie for which the patent to Sevier
Page 104 U. S. 643
was issued, reserving, however, to the state all existing
rights, which were to be perfected according to its laws. The
cession was accepted by Congress. The survey, upon which the patent
to Sevier was issued, was made in 1795, and the plaintiff, to
impeach the patent, offered, as already stated, to show that there
had been no entry of the land in the office of the entry-taker of
the county where it was situated, previous to the cession; that is,
in substance, that the grantor had no authority to make the grant,
the land having been previously conveyed to the United States. This
offer was disallowed by the court below, and as judgment passed for
the defendants, the case was brought to this court, where, as
mentioned, the general doctrine as to the presumptions attending a
patent, which we have stated, was declared, with the exceptions to
it. Upon the general doctrine, the court observed, speaking through
Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, that the laws for the sale of the
public lands provided many guards to secure the regularity of
grants and to protect the incipient rights of individuals and of
the state from imposition; that officers were appointed to
superintend the business, and rules had been framed prescribing
their duty; that these rules in general director, and when all the
proceedings were completed by a patent issued by the authority of
the state, a compliance with those rules was presupposed, and that
"every prerequisite has been performed is an inference properly
deducible, and which every man has a right to draw from the
existence of the grant itself." "It would, therefore, be extremely
unreasonable," said the court,
"to avoid the grant in any court for irregularities in the
conduct of those who are appointed by the government to supervise
the progressive course of the title from its commencement to its
consummation in a patent;"
but there were some things so essential to the validity of a
contract, that the great principles of justice and of law would be
violated did there not exist some tribunal to which an injured
party might appeal, and in which the means by which the elder title
was acquired might be examined, and that a court of equity was a
tribunal better adapted to this object than a court of law, and it
added that
"there are cases in which a grant is absolutely void, as where
the state has no title to the thing granted, or where the
Page 104 U. S. 644
officer had no authority to issue the grant. In such cases, the
validity of the grant is necessarily examinable at law."
So the court held that proof that no entry had been made in the
office of the entry-taker in the country where the lands patented
were situated prior to the cession to the United states was
admissible under the ninth section, for without such entry they
would not be within the reservation mentioned in the act of
cession. In other words, proof was admissible to show that the
state had not retained control over the property, but had conveyed
it to the United states.
In
Patterson v. Winn, reported in 11th Wheaton, this
case is cited, and, after stating that it decided, the Court
said:
"We may therefore assume as the settled doctrine of this Court
that if a patent is absolutely void upon its face, or the issuing
thereof was without authority, or was prohibited by statute, or the
state had no title, it could be impeached collaterally in a court
of law in an action of ejectment,
but in general other
objections and defects complained of must be put in issue in a
regular course of pleading in a direct proceeding to avoid the
patent."
The doctrine declared in these cases as to the presumptions
attending a patent has been uniformly followed by this court. The
exceptions mentioned have also been regarded as sound, although
from the general language used some of them may require explanation
to understand fully the import. If the patent, according to the
doctrine, be absolutely void on its face, it may be collaterally
impeached in a court of law. It is seldom, however, that the
recitals of a patent will nullify its granting clause, as, for
instance, that the land which it purports to convey is reserved
from sale. Something more, however, than an apparent contradiction
in its terms is meant when we speak of a patent being void on its
face. It is meant that the patent is seen to be invalid, either
when read in the light of existing law, or by reason of what the
court must take judicial notice of, as, of course, for instance,
that the land is reserved by statute from sale, or otherwise
appropriate, or that the patent is for an unauthorized amount, or
is executed by officers who are not entrusted by law with the power
to issue grants of portions of the public domain.
Page 104 U. S. 645
So, also, according to the doctrine in the cases cited, if the
patent be issued without authority, it may be collectively
impeached in a court of law. This exception is subject to the
qualification, that when the authority depends upon the existence
of particular facts, or upon the performance of certain antecedent
acts, and it is the duty of the Land Department to ascertain
whether the facts exist, or the acts have been performed, its
determination is as conclusive of the existence of the authority
against any collateral attack, as is its determination upon any
matter properly admitted to its decision.
With these explanations, the doctrine of the cases cited may be
taken as expressing the law accepted by this court since they were
decided.
Hoofnagle v.
Anderson, 7 Wheat. 212;
Boardman
v. Lessee of Reed, 6 Pet. 328;
Bagnell v.
Broderick, 13 Pet. 436;
Johnson v.
Towsley, 13 Wall. 72;
Moore v. Robbins,
96 U. S. 530.
In
Johnson v. Towsley, the Court had occasion to
consider under what circumstances the action of the Land Department
in issuing patents was final, and after observing that it had found
no support for the proposition offered in that case by counsel upon
certain provisions of a statute, said, speaking by MR. JUSTICE
MILLER, that the argument for the finality of such action was
"much stronger when founded on the general doctrine that when
the law has confided to a special tribunal the authority to hear
and determine certain matters arising in the course of its duties,
the decision of that tribunal, within the scope of its authority,
is conclusive upon all others."
"That the action of the land office," the Court added,
"in issuing a patent for any of the public land, subject to sale
by preemption or otherwise, is conclusive of the legal title, must
be admitted on the principle above stated, and in all courts and in
all forms of judicial proceedings where this title must control,
either by reason of the limited powers of the court or the
essential character of the proceeding, no inquiry can be permitted
under the circumstances under which it was obtained,"
and then observed that there exists in the courts of equity the
power to correct mistakes and relieve against frauds and
impositions; and that in cases where it was clear that the officers
of the Land Department had by a mistake of the law given to
Page 104 U. S. 646
one man the land which, on the undisputed facts, belonged to
another, to give proper relief. The doctrine thus stated was
approve in the subsequent case of
Moore v. Robbins.
The general doctrine declared may be stated in a different form,
thus: a patent, in a court of law, is conclusive as to all matters
properly determined by the Land Department, when its action is
within the scope of its authority, that is, when it has
jurisdiction under the law to convey the land. In that court, the
patent is unassailable for mere errors of judgment. Indeed, the
doctrine as to the regularity and validity of its acts, where it
has jurisdiction, goes so far that if in any circumstances under
existing law a patent would be held valid, it will be presumed that
such circumstances existed. Thus, in
Minter v. Crommelin,
reported in 18th Howard, where it appeared that an act of Congress
of 1815 had provided into no land reserved to a Creek warrior
should be offered for sale by an officer of the Land Department
unless specifically directed by the Secretary of the Treasury, and
declared that if the Indian abandoned the reserved land it should
become forfeited to the United states, a patent was issued for the
land, which did not show that the Secretary had ordered it to be
sold, and the Court said:
"The rule being that the patent is evidence that all previous
steps had been regularly taken to justify making of the patent; and
one of the necessary steps here being an order from the Secretary
to the register to offer the land for sale because the warrior had
abandoned it, we are bound to presume that the order was given.
That such is the effect, as evidence, of the patent produced by the
plaintiffs was adjudged in the case of
Bagnell v.
Broderick, 13 Pet. 436, and is not open to
controversy anywhere, and the state court was mistaken in holding
otherwise."
On the other hand, a patent may be collaterally impeached in any
action, and its operation as a conveyance defeated, by showing that
the department had no jurisdiction to dispose of the lands; that
is, that the law did not provide for selling them, or that they had
been reserved from sale or dedicated to special purposes, or had
been previously transferred to others. In establishing any of these
particulars, the judgment of the department upon matters properly
before it is not assailed, nor is
Page 104 U. S. 647
the regularity of its proceedings called into question; but its
authority to act at all is denied, and shown never to have
existed.
According to the doctrine thus expressed and the cases cited in
its support -- and there are none in conflict with it -- there can
be no doubt that the court below erred in admitting the record of
the proceedings upon which the patent was issued, in order to
impeach its validity. The judgment of the department upon their
sufficiency was not, as already stated, open to contestation. If in
issuing a patent its officers took mistaken views of the law, or
drew erroneous conclusions from the evidence, or acted from
imperfect views of their duty, or even from corrupt motives, a
court of law can afford no remedy to a party alleging equity for
relief, and even there his complaint cannot be heard unless he
connect himself with the original source of title, so as to be able
to aver that his rights are injuriously affected by the existence
of the patent; and he must possess such equities as will control
the legal title in the patentee's hands.
Boggs v. Merced Mining
Co., 14 Cal. 279, 363. It does not lie in the mouth of a
stranger to the title to complain of the act of the government with
respect to it. If the government is dissatisfied, it can, on its
own account, authorize proceedings to vacate the patent or limit
its operation.
This doctrine as to the conclusiveness of a patent is not
inconsistent with the right of the patentee, often recognized by
this court, to show the date of the original proceeding for the
acquisition of the title, where it is noted stated in the
instrument, as the patent is deemed to take effect by relations as
of that date, so far as it is necessary to cut off intervening
adverse claims. Thus, in a contest between two patentees for the
same land, it may be shown that a juror patent was founded upon an
earlier entry than an older patent, and therefore passes the title.
Such evidence in no way trenches upon the ruling of the department
upon matters pending before it. Nor is the doctrine of the
conclusiveness of the patent inconsistent with the right of a party
resisting it to show, if an entry is not stated in the instrument,
that no entry of the land was made as an initiatory proceeding,
where a statute, as was the case in
Page 104 U. S. 648
North Carolina, mentioned in
Polk's Lessee v. Wendell,
declares that proceedings for the title, when such entry has not
been made, shall be adjudged invalid. A statute may in any case
require proof of a fact which otherwise would be presumed. Except
with reference to such anterior matters and others of like
character, no one in a court of law can go behind the patent and
call in question the validity of the proceedings upon which it is
founded.
The case at bar, then, is reduced to the question whether the
patent to Starr is void on its face -- that is, whether, read in
the light of existing law, it is seen to be invalid. It does not
come within any of the exceptions mentioned in the cases cited. The
lands it purports to convey are mineral, and were a part of the
public domain. The law of Congress had provided for their sale. The
proper officers of the Land Department supervised the proceedings.
It bears the signature of the President, or rather of the officer
authorized by law to place the President's signature to it, which
is the same thing; it is properly countersigned, and the seal of
the General Land Office is attached to it. It is regular on its
face, unless come limitations in the law, as to the extent of a
mining claim which can be patented, has been disregarded. The case
of the defendants rests on the correctness of their assertion that
a patent cannot issue for a mining claim which embraces over one
hundred and sixty acres. Assuming that the words "more or less,"
accompanying the statement of the acres contained in the claim, are
to be disregarded, and that the patent is construed as for one
hundred and sixty-four acres and a fraction of an acre, there is
nothing in the acts of Congress which prohibits the issue of a
patent for that amount. They are silent as to the extent to a
mining claim. They speak of locations and limit the extent of
mining ground which an individual or an association of individuals
may embrace in one of them. There is nothing in the reason of the
thing, or in the language of the acts, which prevents an individual
from acquiring by purchase the ground located by others and adding
it to his own. The difficulty with the court below, as seen in its
charge, evidently arose from confounding "location" and "mining
claim," as though the two terms always represent the same thing,
whereas they
Page 104 U. S. 649
often mean very different things. A mining claim is a parcel of
land containing precious metal in its soil or rock. A location is
the act of appropriating such parcel, according to certain
established rules. It usually consists in placing on the ground, in
a conspicuous position, a notice setting forth the name of the
locator, the fact that it is taken or located, with the requisite
description of the extent and boundaries of the parcel, according
to the local customs, or, since the statute of 1872, according to
the provisions of that act. Rev.Stat., sec. 2324. The location,
which is the act of taking the parcel of mineral land, in time
became among the miners synonymous with the mining claim originally
appropriated. So now if the miner has only the ground covered by
one location, "his mining claim" and "location" are identical, and
the two designations may be indiscriminately used to denote the
same thing. But if by purchase he acquires the adjoining location
of his neighbor -- that is, the ground which his neighbor has taken
up -- and adds it to his own, then his mining claim covers the
ground embraced by both locations, and henceforth he will speak of
it as his claim. Indeed, his claim may include as many adjoining
locations as he can purchase, and the ground covered by all will
constitute what he claims for mining purposes, or in other words
will constitute his mining claim, and be so designated. Such is the
general understanding of miners and the meaning they attach to the
term.
Previously to the Act of July 9, 1870, Congress imposed no
limitation to the area which might be included in the location of a
placer claim. This, as well as every other thing relating to the
acquisition and continued possession of a mining claim, was
determined by rules and regulations established by miners
themselves. Soon after the discovery of gold in California, as is
well known, there was an immense immigraton of gold seekers into
that Territory. They spread over the mineral regions and probed the
earth in all directions in pursuit of the precious metals. Wherever
they went they framed rules prescribing the conditions upon which
mining ground might be taken up, on other words, mining claims be
located and their continued possession secured. Those rules were so
framed as to give to all immigrants absolute equality of right and
privilege.
Page 104 U. S. 650
The extent of ground which each might locate, that is,
appropriate to himself, was limited so that all might, in the
homely and expressive language of the day, have an equal chance in
the struggle for the wealth there buried in the earth. But a few
months' experience in the precarious and toilsome pursuit drove
great numbers of the miners to seek other means of livelihood and
fortune, and they therefore disposed of their claims. They never
doubted that their rights could be transferred so that the
purchaser would hold the claims by an equally good title. Their
transferable character was always recognized by the local courts,
and the title of the grantee enforced. Many individuals thus became
the possessors of claims covering ground taken up by different
locations, and the amount which each person or an association of
persons might acquire and hold was only limited by his or her means
of purchase.
The rules and regulations originally established in California
have in their general features been adopted throughout all the
mining regions of the United states. They were so wisely framed and
were so just and fair in their operation that they have not to any
great extent been interfered with by legislation, either state or
national. In the first mining statute, passed July 9, 1986, they
received the recognition and sanction of Congress, as they had
previously the legislative and judicial approval of the states and
territories in which mines of gold and silver were found. That act
declared, and the declaration was repeated in a subsequent statute,
that the mineral lands of the public domain were free and open to
occupation and exploration by all citizens of the United states,
and by those who had declared their intention to become such,
subject to the regulations as might be prescribed by law, and
subject, also, "to the local customs or rules of miners of the
several mining districts," so far as the same were not in conflict
with the laws of the United states. It authorized the issue of
patents for claims on veins or lodes of quartz and other "rock in
place" bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper. Placer claims
first became the subject of regulation by the Mining Act of July 9,
1870, c. 235, 16 Stat. 217, which provided that patents for them
might be issued under like circumstances
Page 104 U. S. 651
and conditions as for vein or lode claims, and that persons
having contiguous claims of any size might make joint entry
thereof. But it also provided that no location of a place claim
thereafter made should exceed one hundred and sixty acres for one
person or an association of persons. The Mining Act of May 10,
1872, c. 152, 17
id. 91, declared that a location of a
placer claim subsequently made should not include more than twenty
acres for each individual claimant. These are all the provisions
touching the extent of locations of placer claims, and they are
reenacted in the Revised Statutes. Secs. 2330, 2331. A limitation
is not put upon the sale of the ground located, nor upon the number
of locations which may be acquired by purchase, nor upon the number
which may be included in a patent. Every interest in lands is the
subject of sale and transfer, unless prohibited by statute, and no
words allowing it are necessary. In the mining statutes, numerous
provisions assume and recognize the salable character of one's
interest in a mining claim. Sec. 13 of the act of 1870 declares
that where a person or association or their grantors have held and
worked claims for a period equal to the time prescribed by the
statute of limitations of the state or territory where the same is
situated, evidence of such possession and working shall be
sufficient to establish the right to a patent. Sec. 5 of the act of
1872, rendering a mining claim subject to relocation where certain
conditions of improvement or expenditure have not been made, has a
proviso that the original locators, "their heirs, assigns, or legal
representatives, have not resumed work upon the claim after such
failure and before such location." These provisions are of
themselves conclusive that the locator's interest in a mining grant
is salable and transferable, even where there any doubt on the
subject, in the absence of express statutory prohibition. Those of
the act of 1870 are also conclusive of the right of the purchaser
of claims to a patent, for it is with reference to it that the
derivative right by purchase or assignment is mentioned. Rev.Stat.,
secs. 2332, 2334.
In addition to all this, it is difficult to perceive what object
would be gained, what policy subserved, by a prohibition to embrace
in one patent contiguous mining ground taken up by
Page 104 U. S. 652
different locations and subsequently purchased and held by one
individual. He can hold as many locations as he can purchase, and
rely upon his possessory title. He is protected thereunder as
completely as if he held a patent for them subject to the condition
of certain annual expenditures upon them in labor or improvements.
If he wishes, however, to obtain a patent, he must, in addition to
other things, pay the government a fee of five dollars an acre, a
sum that would not be increased if a separate patent were issued
for each location.
The decision of this court upon one point in the case of
Polk's Lessees v. Wendell, already cited, is directly
applicable here. The patent to the defendants in that case was for
twenty-five thousand acres of land, and one of the objections taken
was that it was void because the statute of North Carolina limited
an entry of one person to five thousand acres. But the statute
declared that where two or more persons had entered, or should
afterwards enter, lands jointly, or where two or more persons
agreed to have their entries surveyed jointly in one or more
surveys, the surveyor should survey the same accordingly in one
entire survey. It was contended that as the statute provided for
entries made by two or more persons it could not be extended to the
case of distinct entries belonging to the same person. To this the
Court replied as follows:
"For this distinction it is impossible to conceive a reason. No
motive can be imagined for allowing two or more persons to unite
their entries in one survey which does not apply with at least as
much force for allowing a single person to unite his entries,
adjoining each other, in one survey. It appears to the court that
the case comes completely within the spirit, and is not opposed by
the letter, of the law. The case provided for is 'where two or more
persons agree to have their entries surveyed jointly,' &c. Now
this does not prevent the subsequent assignment of the entries to
one of the parties; and the assignment is itself the agreement of
the assignor that the assignee may survey the entries jointly or
severally, at his election. The Court is of opinion that under a
sound construction of this law, entries, which might be joined in
one survey, if remaining the property of two or more person, may be
joined, though they become the property of a single person."
The objection
Page 104 U. S. 653
to the patent by reason of its embracing over five thousand
acres was accordingly overruled.
By a provision of the Mining Act of 1870, still in force, two or
more persons, or association of persons, having contiguous claims
of any size, are allowed to make a joint entry thereof. Rev.Stat.,
sec. 2330. If one individual should acquire all such contiguous
claims by purchase, no sound reason can be suggested why he should
not be equally entitled to enter them all by one entry as when they
were held by the original parties. To quote the language of the
case cited,
"No motive can be imagined for allowing two or more persons to
unite their entries in one survey which does not apply with at
least as much force for allowing a single person to unite his
entries adjoining each other in one survey."
The last position of the court below, that the owner of
contiguous locations who seeks a patent must present a separate
application for each, and obtain a separate survey, and prove that
upon each the required work has been performed, is as untenable as
the rulings already considered. The object in allowing patents is
to vest the fee in the miner, and thus encourage the construction
of permanent works for the development of the mineral resources of
the country. Requiring a separate application for each location,
with a separate survey and notice, where several adjoining each
other are held by the same individual, would confer no benefit
beyond that accruing to the land officers from an increase of their
fees. The public would derive no advantage from it, and the owner
would be subjected to onerous and often ruinous burdens. The
services of an attorney are usually retained when a patent is
sought, and the expenses attendant upon the proceeding are in many
instances very great. To lessen these as much as possible the
practice has been common for miners to consolidate, by conveyance
to a single person or an association or company, many contiguous
claims into one, for which only one application is made and of
which only one survey is had. Long before patents were allowed --
indeed, from the earliest period in which mining for gold and
silver was pursued as a business -- miners were in the habit of
consolidating adjoining claims, whether they consisted of one or
more original locations,
Page 104 U. S. 654
into one, for convenience and economy in working them. It was
therefore very natural, when patents were allowed, that the
practice of presenting a single application with one survey of the
whole tract should prevail. It was at the outset, and has ever
since been, approved by the department, and its propriety has never
before been questioned. Patents, we are informed, for mining ground
of the value of many millions of dollars, have been issued upon
consolidated claims, nearly all of which would be invalidated if
the positions assumed by the defendants could be sustained.
It was urged on the argument that a patent for each location was
required to prevent a monopoly of mining ground -- to prevent, to
use the language of counsel, the public domain from being
"monopolized by speculators." The law limiting the extent of mining
lands which an individual may locate has provided, so far as it was
deemed wise, against an accumulation of them in one person's hands.
It could not have prohibited the sale of the location of an
individual without imposing a restriction injurious to his
interests, and in many instances destructive of the whole value of
his claim. Everyone at all familiar with our mineral regions knows
that the great majority of claims, whether on lodes or on placers,
can be worked advantageously only by a combination among the
miners, or by a consolidation of their claims through incorporated
companies. Water is essential for the working of mines, and in many
instances can be obtained only from great distances, by means of
canals, flumes, and aqueducts, requiring for their construction
enormous expenditures of money, entirely beyond the means of a
single individual. Often, too, for the development of claims,
streams must be turned from their beds, dams built, shafts sunk at
great depth, and flumes constructed to carry away the debris of the
mine. Indeed, successful mining, whether on lode claims or placer
claims, can seldom be prosecuted without an amount of capital
beyond the means of the individual miner.
These is no force in the suggestion that a separate patent for
each location is necessary to insure the required expenditure of
labor upon it. The statute of 1872 provides that on each claim
subsequently located, until a patent is issued for it,
Page 104 U. S. 655
there shall be annually expended in labor or improvements one
hundred dollars; and on claims previously located an annual
expenditure of ten dollars for each one hundred feet in length
along the vein; but where such claims are held "in common," the
expenditure may be upon any one claim. As these provisions relate
to expenditures before a patent is issued, proof of them will be a
matter for consideration when application for the patent is made.
It is not perceived in what way this proof can be changed or the
requirement affected, whether the application be for a patent for
one claim or for several claims held in common. Labor and
improvements, within the meaning of the statute, are deemed to have
been had on a mining claim, whether it consists of one location or
several, when the labor is performed or the improvements are made
for its development, that is, to facilitate the extraction of the
metals it may contain, though in fact such labor and improvements
may be on ground which originally constituted only one of the
locations, as in sinking a shaft, or be at a distance from the
claim itself, as where the labor is performed for the turning of a
stream, or the introduction of water, or where the improvement
consists in the construction of a flume to carry off the debris or
waste material. It would be absurd to require a shaft to be sunk on
each location in a consolidated claim when one shaft would suffice
for all the locations, and yet that is seriously argued by counsel,
and must be maintained to uphold the judgment below.
The statutes provide numerous guards against the evasion of
their provisions by parties seeking a mining patent, and afford an
opportunity to persons in the neighborhood of the claim to come
forward and present any objections they may have to the granting of
the patent desired. By secs. 6 and 7 of the act of 1872, which
constitute secs. 2325 and 2326 of the Revised Statutes, the
procedure which a party seeking a patent, whether an individual or
an association or a corporation, must follow is prescribed:
1st, the party must file an application in the proper land
office under oath, showing a compliance with the law, together with
a plat and the field notes of the claim, or "claims in common,"
made by or under the direction of the Surveyor General
Page 104 U. S. 656
of the United states, showing the boundaries of the claim or
claims, which must be distinctly marked by monuments on the
ground.
2d, previously, however, to the filing of the application, the
claimant must post a copy of the plat, with a notice of his
intended application, in a conspicuous place on the land embraced
in it, and file an affidavit of at least two persons that such
notice has been duly posted with a copy of the notice in the land
office.
3d, when such application, plat, field notes, notice, and
affidavits have been filed, the register of the land office is
required to publish a notice of the application for the period of
sixty days, in a newspaper, to be designated by him, nearest to the
claim, and post such notice in his office for the same period.
4th, the claimant, at the time of filing his application, or at
any time thereafter within sixty days, is required to file with the
register a certificate of the United states Surveyor General, that
five hundred dollars' worth of labor has been expended, or
improvements to that amount have been made upon the claim by
himself or grantors; that the plat is correct, with such further
description, by reference to natural objects or permanent
monuments, as shall identify the claim, and furnish an accurate
description to be incorporated in the patent.
5th, at the expiration of sixty days the claimant is required to
file his affidavit showing that the plat and notice have been
posted in a conspicuous place on the claim during the period of
publication. If no adverse claim shall have been filed with the
register and receiver of the proper land office within the sixty
days of publication, it is then to be assumed that the applicant is
entitled to a patent upon the payment to the proper officer of five
dollars per acre, and that no adverse claims exists.
6th, the statute then proceeds to declare that if an adverse
claim is filed during the period of publication, it must show the
nature, boundaries, and extent of such adverse claim; and all
proceedings, except the publication of the notice and the making
and filing of the affidavit, shall be thereupon stayed until the
controversy shall have been settled by a decision of a court of
competent jurisdiction, or the adverse claim waived. And it
Page 104 U. S. 657
is made the duty of the adverse claimant, within thirty days
after filing his claim, to commence proceedings in a court of
competent jurisdiction to determine the question of the right of
possession, and to prosecute the same with reasonable diligence to
final judgment; and a failure to do so is to be deemed a waiver of
his adverse claim. After judgment has been rendered in such
proceedings, the party entitled to the possession of the claim, or
any portion of it, may file a certified copy of the judgment roll
with the register of the land office, together with a certificate
of the Surveyor General that the requisite amount of labor has been
expended or improvements made thereon, and the description required
in other cases; and must pay to the receiver five dollars an acre
for his claim, together with the proper fees; and then the whole
proceedings and the judgment roll are to be certified by the
register to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and a
patent thereupon issued for the claim, or such portion thereof as
the applicant, by the decision of the court, shall appear to be
entitled to.
It will thus be seen that if an adverse claim is made to the
mining ground for which a patent is sought, its validity must be
determined by a local court, unless it be waived, before a patent
can be issued. There would seem, therefore, to be more cogent
reasons, in cases where a patent for such ground is relied upon, to
maintain the doctrine which we have declared, that it cannot be
assailed in a collateral proceeding, than in the case of a patent
for agricultural land.
But it is unnecessary to pursue the subject further. The
judgment of the court below must be reversed and the cause remanded
for a new trial, and it is
So ordered.
MR. JUSTICE MILLER and MR. JUSTICE HARLAN dissented.