Land patent

“ But it is a general principle that the course and distance must yield to natural objects called for in the patent. All lands are supposed to be actually surveyed, and the intention of the grant is to convey the land according to that actual survey; consequently if marked trees and marked corners be found conformably to the calls of the patent, or if water-courses be called for in the patent, or mountains or any other natural objects, distances must be lengthened or shortened, and courses varied so as to conform to those objects. ”

“ Does a patent to a railroad company under a grant which excludes mineral lands, as in the present case, but which is issued without any investigation upon the part of the officers of the Land Office or of the Department of the Interior as to the quality of the land, whether agricultural or mineral, and without hearing upon or determination of the quality of the lands, operate to convey lands which are thereafter ascertained to be mineral? ”

“ A patent for the land located conveys the legal title to the surface, and that carries with it the right to follow a discovered vein, the apex of which is within the limits of the grant downwards, even though it may pass outside the vertical side lines of the location. The title to the vein depends on the right to the occupancy or the ownership of its apex, within the limits of the right to the occupation of the surface. This right may be acquired by a valid location and continued maintenance of a mining claim, or by a a patent from the United States for the land. ”

“ He had applied to the Land Department to enter the claim under the mining law, and his application had been rejected because the patent was outstanding. In granting the injunction the court said (p. 206) : 'The lands are either patentable under the act or they are not. If patentable, the issue of a patent is authorized. If not patentable, it is unauthorized, and the issue of a patent is, clearly, as conclusive evidence of the determination of the fact of patentability, upon a collateral attack, in the one case as in the other. Suppose it should afterwards turn out that all is mineral land. ”

“ If the reservation of mineral lands as expressed in the patent is void, then is the patent, upon a collateral attack, a conclusive and official declaration that the land is agricultural, and that all the requirements preliminary to the issuance of the patent have been complied with? ”

“ 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. ”

“ It will not be pretended that the defendants did not understand all about the title to the land; they knew that it was vested in the United States. And we must presume that the patentee gave notice of his purpose to acquire it-such as the law required. The mode and manner of obtaining a patent for mining lands are minutely prescribed by the acts of congress. ”

“ The laws of congress provide that valuable mineral deposits in lands of the United States shall be open to exploration and purchase. They do not provide, and never have provided, that such mineral deposits in lands which have ceased to be public, and become the property of private individuals, can be patented under any proceedings before the land department or otherwise. Proceedings for the acquisition of title to a mining claim within a town-site, commenced before the issue of a town-site patent, could undoubtedly be prosecuted to completion afterwards. ”

“ And one is also said to have the beneficial ownership of land who has done everything to entitle him to a patent from the government, and who, therefore, has the legal right to such patent, and all that remains to be done is for the proper officer to issue it. ”

“ Land non-mineral in character, and not contiguous to the vein or lode, used by the locator and proprietor for mining or milling purposes, can be included in any application for patent, to an extent not to exceed five acres, and subject to examination and payment as fixed for the superficies of the lode. ”

“ But the patent is not simply a grant of the vein, for, as stated in the section, 'a patent for any land claimed and located for valuable deposits may be obtained in the following manner.' It must also be noticed that section 2322, in respect to locators, gives them the exclusive right of possession and enjoyment of all the surface within the lines of their locations, and all veins, lodes, and ledges the tops or apexes of which are inside such lines. ”

“ It is conceded that both patents cover the land in controversy. The Moyer patent, being the elder, is for 56 acres of placer mining land. The plaintiffs' patent, though of a later date, is for a vein or lode of mineral deposit which runs under the surface of the ground covered by defendant's patent. ”

“ It is certainly the duty of the surveyor to run around the land intended to be embraced in the survey and patent, and see that such objects are designated on it as will clearly point out and identify the boundaries of the tract, and to extend a correct description of these objects, natural or artificial, into the field-notes of the survey, in order that they may be inserted in the patent, so that the owner, as well as other locators, may have the means of knowing precisely what land is granted. If the lands cannot be identified by the calls in the grant, it is void. ”

“ Near its close is this, as to the patent: 'If no adverse claim shall have been filed with the register and the receiver of the proper land office at the expiration of the sixty days of publication, it shall 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 claim exists.' In other words, when the price is paid the right to a patent immediately arises. If not issue at once, it is because the magnitude of the business in the land department causes delay. ”

“ A prudent miner acting wisely in taking up a claim, whether for a placer mine, or for a lode or vein, would not overlook such circumstances, and they may in fact control his action in making the location. If the land contains gold or other valuable deposits in loose earth, sand, or gravel, which can be secured with profit, that fact will satisfy the demand of the government as to the character of the land as placer ground, whatever the incidental advantages it may offer to the applicant for a patent. ”

“ We also say lands known at the time of their sale to be thus valuable, in order to avoid any possible conclusion against the validity of titles which may be issued for other kinds of land, in which, years afterwards, rich deposits of mineral may be discovered. It is quite possible that lands settled upon as suitable only for agricultural purposes, entered by the settler and patented by the government under the pre-emption laws, may be found, years after the patent has been issued, to contain valuable minerals. ”

“ Upon the proofs produced at this hearing the land officers found the tract to have no value for placer mining and to be valuable only for agriculture, and as a result of the finding the tract was eliminated from the placer entry and the homestead entry was passed to patent. ”

“ The exclusion of mere speculators from purchasing the public lands referred to in the timber and stione act would be of no practical value if it were true that one, having purchased in good faith from an entryman who is proved to have sworn falsely in his application, could demand, of right, that a patent be issued to him. The Land Department has authority, at any time before a patent is issued, to inquire whether the original entry was in conformity with the act of Congress. ”

“ The patent for land is a conveyance to an individual of that which is the absolute property of the government, and to which, but for the conveyance, the individual would have no right of title. It is a transfer of tangible property; of property in existence before the right is conveyed; of property which the government has the full right to dispose of as it sees fit, and may retain to itself or convey to one individual or another ”

“ That the lands in controversy are not embraced by the patent issued to the petitioners under the proceedings before the board of land commissioners appointed under the act of 1851; (2) the patent having been accepted by the patentees, and being uncanceled, the plaintiffs in this action, claiming under the patentees, cannot recover lands not embraced by it, even if such lands are embraced by the lines established by the decree of confirmation, the conclusive presumption being that the patent correctly locates the lands covered by the confirmed grant. ”

“ This lenient provision notwithstanding, only about sixty persons availed themselves of the opportunity, the remainder presumably either squatting on frontier land, working as laborers, or eventually obtaining title to land by purchase from an original patentee.
With the dissolution of the company the issuing of land patents continued in the hands of the Governor and Council. The King and Privy Council assumed power over land distribution but apparently left the issuing of patents as it had been before. Up until January, 1625, Governor Wyatt issued patents in the name of the company. ”

“ It was provided (§ 4) that upon the filing by the railroad company of the selection at the local land office, and payment of fees prescribed by law in analogous cases, and the approval by the Secretary of the Interior, he should cause a patent to issue to the company, conveying to it the lands so selected ”

“ The system which Congress set up to effectuate its policy of reserving mineral resources in the alternate sections of public land granted by § 3 was by way of an administrative determination, prior to issuance of a patent, of the mineral or nonmineral character of the lands. Patents were not issued to land administratively determined to constitute mineral lands. ”