Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/158/85/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:15:22+00:00

Document:
In May, 1854, J. settled on a quarter section of public land in California, which had not been then offered for public sale, and improved it. Before May, 1857, the government survey had been made and filed, showing the tract to be agricultural land, not swamp or mineral, and not embraced within any reservation. In May, 1857, J. duly declared his intention to claim it as a preemption right under the act of March 3, 1853, c. 145, 10 Stat. 244, and paid the fees required by law, and the filing of this statement was duly noted in the proper government record. J. occupied the tract until about 1859, when he left for England, and never returned. The land was found to be within the granted limits of the grant to the Central Pacific Railroad Company, by the Act of July 1, 1862, c. 120, 12 Stat. 489. That company filed its map of definite location March 26, 1864, and fully constructed its road by July 10, 1868. It demanded this tract and the Land Office denied the claim. In 1885, the preemption entry of J. was cancelled. On August 28, 1888, T. made entry of the premises under the homestead laws of the United States, and subsequently commuted such entry, made his final proofs, paid the sum of $400, took the government receipt therefor, and entered into possession.
(1) That the tract being subject to the preemption claim of J. at the time when the grant to the railroad company took effect, was excepted from the operation of that grant.
(2) That after the cancellation of that entry, it remained part of the public domain, and, at the time of the homestead entry of T., was subject to such entry.
the 10th of July, 1868. It demanded, but never received, a patent.
"I, Henry H. Jones, of Placer County, being an American citizen over the age of twenty-one years and a single man, have, on the 16th day of January, 1854, settled and improved the southeast quarter of section No. thirty-three (33) of township No. twelve north (12 N.), of range No. seven east (7 E.), Mt. Diablo meridian, in the district of lands subject to sale at the land office at Marysville, California, containing one hundred and sixty acres, which land has not yet been offered at public sale, and thus rendered subject to private entry, and I do hereby declare my intention to claim the said tract of land as a preemption right under the provisions of an act of Congress of 3d day of March, 1853."
"Witness my hand, this 22nd day of May, A.D. 1857."
"In presence of v. E. Remington"
"no mineral lands or tracts containing mineral deposits are to be offered at the public sales, such mineral lands being hereby expressly excepted from sale or other disposal pursuant to the requirements of the Act of Congress approved March 3, 1853."
The land officers under this authority withheld from offer and sale all of section 33, stating in their report, dated March 13, 1859, that the land was reserved as mineral land.
"at the date when the route of the C.P. R. Co. was definitely fixed, a preemption claim had attached thereto, that of Jones, and, as the grant to said company expressly provided that lands to which a preemption claim had not attached were granted, it follows that lands to which such a claim had then attached were not granted. K.P. R. Co. v. Dunmeyer, 113 U. S. 629, and U.S. v. U. P. R. Co., 12 Copp 161. That Jones' claim has been found to have been abandoned or invalid cannot operate to the railroad company's advantage, for the granting act did not provide that lands to which an unabandoned or valid preemption claim may not have attached were granted, but only that lands to which a preemption claim may not have attached were granted. The claim of Jones had attached when the railroad was definitely located, and, whether valid or invalid, excepted the land from the grant. The tract in question is therefore held to be subject to disposal as public land."
"That Jones, from the time that he alleged settlement, in 1854, up to about 1859, cut some hay off from about four acres of the land in controversy, which he had enclosed with a brush fence. Jones cut off the brush on the ground in controversy to enable him to make the fence. At that time, the country was open, and Jones pastured his cattle and sheep on the land in controversy, as well as over the surrounding country, but he never settled upon the land in controversy. He lived on section 4, adjoining. At the time of Jones' settlement, the lines of survey were not generally known, Jones subsequently left the country to visit England about 1859, the exact date not being fixed, and never returned. His record filing remained intact on the records of the land office until cancelled, as hereinbefore stated."
Upon the foregoing facts, the circuit court held that the land in controversy was, at the time of defendant's homestead entry, part of the public domain of the United States and subject to disposal as public land, and, upon such conclusion, entered judgment in favor of the defendant. 45 F. 616.
"In the case before us, a claim was made and filed in the land office, and there recognized, before the line of the company's road was located. That claim was an existing one of public record in favor of Miller when the map of plaintiff in error was filed. In the language of the act of Congress, this homestead claim had attached to the land, and it therefore did not pass by the grant."
"Of all the words in the English language, this word attached was probably the best that could have been used. It did not mean mere settlement, residence, or cultivation of the land, but it meant a proceeding in the proper land office, by which the inchoate right to the land was initiated. It meant that by such a proceeding, a right of homestead had fastened to that land which could ripen into a perfect title by future residence and cultivation. With the performance of these conditions the company had nothing to do. The right of homestead having attached to the land, it was excepted out of the grant as much as if, in a deed, it had been excluded from the conveyance by metes and bounds."
Bentley S. Turner. This entry was based upon an affidavit made by Turner, a soldier in the army of the United States, and actually with his regiment in the State of Virginia, which affidavit stated that Turner was the head of a family, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Franklin County, New York. It did not state that Turner's family or any member thereof was residing on the land, or that there was any improvement made thereon, and as a matter of fact no member of his family was then residing or ever did reside on the land, and no improvement whatever of any kind had ever been made thereon by anyone. The application for the entry was made through one Conwell, whom Turner had constituted his attorney for that purpose. At the time of making this entry, section 1 of the Act of March 21, 1864, c. 38, 13 Stat. 35; Rev.Stat. § 2293, was in force, which authorized one in the military or naval service of the United States, and therefore unable to do personally the preliminary acts required at the land office, whose family or some member thereof was residing on the land, and upon which a bona fide improvement and settlement had been made, to make the customary affidavit before his commanding officer, and upon that, the other provisions of the statute being complied with, to enter a tract of land as a homestead. It was held that notwithstanding the defects in the affidavit, the tract was excepted from the scope of the grant, although the language of the granting act only excepted therefrom lands to which "the right of preemption or homestead settlement has attached," while the language of the granting act in the present case is "to which a preemption or homestead claim may not have attached."
thereby becomes segregated from the mass of public lands and takes the character of private property. The fact that such an entry may not be confirmed by the land office on account of any alleged defect therein, or may be cancelled or declared forfeited on account of noncompliance with the law, or even declared void after a patent has issued on account of fraud, in a direct proceeding for that purpose in the courts, is an incident inherent in all entries of the public lands."
such contests would be fraught with the gravest dangers to actual settlers, and would be subversive of the principles upon which the munificent railroad grants are based. As was said in the Dunmeyer case, supra:"
"It is not conceivable that Congress intended to place these parties [homestead and preemption claimants, on the one hand, and the railway company, on the other] as contestants for the land, with the right in each to require proof from the other of complete performance of its obligation. Least of all is it to be supposed that it was intended to raise up, in antagonism to all the actual settlers on the soil whom it had invited to its occupation, this great corporation with an interest to defeat their claims and to come between them and the government as to the performance of their obligations?"
The same doctrine was applied in Bardon v. Northern Pacific Railroad, 145 U. S. 535, to a preemption entry, though it is true that in that case, payment had been made and the final receipt issued prior to the filing of the map of definite location.
See also Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U. S. 761, in which case the mere existence of an alleged Mexican grant, valid or invalid, and the validity of which was under investigation before the proper tribunal at the time of the filing of the map of definite location of one of the Pacific roads, a beneficiary of the very act now before us, was held to exclude all lands within its boundaries from the operation of the congressional grant.
of Congress to open a controversy between the claimant and the railroad company as to the validity of the former's claim. It was enough that the claim existed, and the question of its validity was a matter to be settled between the government and the claimant, in respect to which the railroad company was not permitted to be heard. The reasoning of these cases is applicable here. Jones had filed a claim in respect to this land, declaring that he had settled and improved it, and intended to purchase it under the provisions of the preemption law. Whether he had in fact settled or improved it was a question in which the government was, at least up to the time of the filing of the map of definite location, the only party adversely interested, and if it was content to let that claim rest as one thereafter to be prosecuted to consummation, that was the end of the matter, and the railroad company was not permitted by the filing of its map of definite location to become a party to any such controversy. The land, being subject to such claim, was, as said by Mr. Justice Miller in Railway Company v. Dunmeyer, supra, "excepted out of the grant as much as if in a deed it had been excluded from the conveyance by metes and bounds."
While not disputing the general force of these authorities, it is insisted by plaintiff that this case is not controlled by them, for these reasons: first, Jones never acquired any right of preemption, because he never in fact settled upon and improved the tract; second, the land was unsurveyed at the time of the alleged settlement, and the filing was not made "within three months after the return of the plats of surveys to the land office" (10 Stat. 246), and was therefore an unauthorized act; third, that whether the filing was made in time or not, as it was not followed by payment and final proof within the time prescribed, all rights acquired by it lapsed, the filing became, in the nomenclature of the land office, an "expired filing," and the land was discharged of all claim by reason thereof.
is the initial fact. The Act of September 4, 1841, c. 16, 5 Stat. 453, which was in force at the time of these transactions, gave the right of preemption to one making "a settlement in person," and who inhabits and improves the land and erects a dwelling thereon (§ 10), and authorized the filing of a declaratory statement within three months after the date of such settlement (§ 15). In this respect, a preemption differs from a homestead, for the entry in the land office is in respect to the latter the initial fact. Act of May 20, 1862, c. 75, 12 Stat. 392; Rev.Stat. § 2290; Maddox v. Burnham, 156 U. S. 544. But it is also true that settlement alone, without a declaratory statement, creates no preemption right.
"Such a notice of claim or declaratory statement is indispensably necessary to give the claimant any standing as a preemptor, the rule being that his settlement alone is not sufficient for that purpose."
Lansdale v. Daniels, 100 U. S. 113, 100 U. S. 116. And the acceptance of such declaratory statement, and noting the same on the books of the local land office, is the official recognition of the preemption claim. While the cases of Kansas Pacific Railway Co. v. Dunmeyer and Hastings & Dakota Railroad Co. v. Whitney, supra, involved simply homestead claims, yet, in the opinion in each, preemption and homestead claims were mentioned and considered as standing in this respect upon the same footing. Further, it may be noticed that the granting clause of the Pacific Railroad Acts, differing from similar clauses in other railroad grants, excepts lands to which preemption or homestead "claims" have attached, instead of simply cases of preemption or homestead "rights." And the filing of this declaratory statement was, in the strictest sense of the term, the assertion of a preemption claim, and, when filed and noted, it was officially recognized as such. Indeed, if this is not so, there is no preemption claim of record until the full right of the preemptor is established by proofs and final entry, at which time he acquires an equitable title sufficient to support taxation, and one of which he cannot be dispossessed except by some legal proceedings. Witherspoon v. Duncan, 4 Wall. 210; Orchard v. Alexander, 157 U. S. 372.
In this respect, notice may also be taken of the rule prevailing in the Land Department, where the filing of the declaratory statement is recognized as the assertion of a preemption claim which excepts a tract from the scope of a railroad grant like this. See, among other cases, Malone v. Railway Company, 7 L.D. 13; Millican v. Railroad Company, 7 L.D. 85; Payne v. Railroad Company, 7 L.D. 405; Railroad Company v. Lewis, 8 L.D. 292; Railroad Company v. Stovenour, 10 L.D. 645.
Indeed, this declaratory statement bears substantially the same relation to a purchase under the preemption law that the original entry in a homestead case does to the final acquisition of title. The purpose of each is to place on record an assertion of an intent to obtain title under the respective statutes.
"This statement was filed with the register and receiver, and was obviously intended to enable them to reserve the tract from sale for the time allowed the settler to perfect his entry and pay for the land."
the filing of the map of definite location, and thus prevent the railroad company from receiving any lands. This danger is more imaginary than real. In the first place, for each application, fees must be paid, and it is not to be supposed that anyone would throw away money for the mere sake of preventing a railroad grant from having any operation. In the second place, such declaratory statements under assumed names would be purely fictitious, and could be set aside as absolutely void. Indeed, good faith is presumed to underlie all such applications. The acceptance of the declaratory statement by the local land officers is prima facie evidence that they have approved it as a bona fide application, and if in any particular instance it is shown to be purely fictitious, doubtless there is an adequate remedy by proper proceedings in the land office. There is in the case before us no pretense that the transaction was a fictitious one or carried on otherwise than in perfect good faith on the part of the applicant. At any rate, Congress has seen fit not to require an affidavit to a declaratory statement, and has provided for the filing of such unsworn statement as the proper means for an assertion on record of a claim under the preemption law, and that is all that is necessary to except the land from the scope of the grant.
"that, where unsurveyed lands are claimed by preemption, the usual notice of such claim shall be filed within three months after the return of the plats of surveys to the land offices."
or declaration, we can see no purpose in forbidding him to make his declaration or in making it void when made. And we think that Congress intended to provide for the protection of the first settler by giving him three months to make his declaration, and for all other settlers by saying, if this is not done within three months, anyone else who has settled on it within that time, or at any time before the first settler makes his declaration, shall have the better right."
"Such a notice, if given before the time allowed by law, is a nullity, but the rule is otherwise where it is filed subsequent to the period prescribed by the amendatory act, as in the latter event it is held to be operative and sufficient, unless some other person had previously commenced a settlement and given the required notice of claim."
The delay in filing therefore had no effect upon the validity of the declaratory statement.
With reference to the third contention, it is true that section 6 of the act of 1853, heretofore referred to, provides not merely when the declaratory statement shall be filed, but also that "proof and payment shall be made prior to the day appointed by the President's proclamation for the commencement of the sale, including such lands." But the President's proclamation, appointing February 14, 1859, as the day for commencing the sale of public lands in certain townships, in one of which was the land in question, expressly excepted and excluded mineral lands therefrom, and on that ground, this land was not offered.
"While it is true that the proclamation included said township 12 N., of range 7 E., it also declared that no 'mineral lands,' or tracts containing mineral deposits, are to be offered at the public sales, such mineral lands being hereby expressly excepted and excluded from sale or other disposal, pursuant to the requirements of the act of Congress approved March 3, 1853."
offering and sale all of said section 33, as appears by their report dated March 18, 1859. After stating all the offerings and sales made in said township and range, the report concludes: 'All the balance of the township reserved, mineral lands.' All of section 33 was so reserved."
"It thus appears that the tract in question remained in the category of unoffered lands, and was not proclaimed for sale. The preemption Act of March 3, 1843, 5 Stat. 620, provided that the settler on unoffered land might make proof and payment at any time before the commencement of the public sale, which should embrace his land. Until such time arrived, the filing protected the claim of the settler. This was the status of the law at the time said company's rights attached, and it so continued until modified by the Act of July 14, 1870, 16 Stat. 279."
We see no sufficient reasons for doubting the conclusions thus reached by the Secretary.

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