Camfield v. United States, 517.

• Decision Date: 20 February 1895
• Docket Number: 517.
• Citation: 66 F. 101
• Parties: CAMFIELD et al. v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

66 F. 101

CAMFIELD et al. v. UNITED STATES.

No. 517.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 20, 1895

This was a bill filed by the United States against Daniel A Camfield and William Drury, the appellants, in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Colorado, under the provisions of an act of congress approved on February 25, 1885, entitled 'An act to prevent unlawful occupancy of the public lands.' 23 Stat. 321, c. 149. The first section of said act is as follows: 'That all inclosures of any public lands in any state or territory of the United States, heretofore or to be hereafter made, erected or constructed by any person, party association or corporation making or controlling the inclosure had no claim or color of title made or acquired in good faith, or an asserted right thereto by or under claim made in good faith with a view to entry thereof at the proper land office under the general laws of the United States at the time any such inclosure was or shall be made, are hereby declared to be unlawful, and the maintenance, erection, construction or control of any such inclosure is hereby forbidden and prohibited; and the assertion of a right to the exclusive use and occupancy of any part of the public lands of the United States in any state or any of the territories of the United States, without claim, color of title or asserted right as above specified as to inclosure, is likewise declared unlawful, and hereby prohibited. ' By section 2 of said act it is made the duty of the district attorney of the United States for the proper district, when complaint is made to him by affidavit by any citizen of the United States, that section 1 of the act is being violated, to institute a civil suit, in the name of the United States, in the proper United States district or circuit court, against the person or persons charged with making the unlawful inclosure complained of. By said section, jurisdiction is also conferred upon any United States district or circuit court or territorial district court having jurisdiction over the locality where the land inclosed, or any part thereof, shall be situated, to hear and determine proceedings in equity, by writ of injunction, to restrain violations of the provisions of the act. It is also made the duty of said courts, in case any inclosure shall be found to be unlawful, to make the proper order, judgment, or decree for the destruction of the inclosure, in a summary way, unless the inclosure shall be removed by the parties complained of within five days after they are ordered to do so.

The bill in the present case charged, in substance, that the defendants, Daniel A. Camfield and William Drury, with intent to encroach and intrude upon the lands of the United States in an illegal manner, and to monopolize the use of the same for their own special benefit, did, on or about the 1st of January, 1893, build, construct, erect and maintain a fence which inclosed and included about 20,000 acres of the public domain of the United States, and that the effect of such inclosure was to exclude the United States and all other persons, except the defendants, therefrom; that the lands thus wrongfully inclosed consisted of all of the even-numbered sections in townships numbers 7 and 8 north of range 63 west of the sixth principal meridian. The bill of complaint further averred that said townships 7 and 8 lie within the limits of the grant made by the...