H.D. Williams Cooperage Co. v. United States, 4155.

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)
• Citation: 221 F. 234
• Docket Number: 4155.
• Parties: H. D. WILLIAMS COOPERAGE CO. v. UNITED STATES.
• Decision Date: 01 March 1915

221 F. 234

H. D. WILLIAMS COOPERAGE CO.
v.
UNITED STATES.

No. 4155.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

March 1, 1915

[221 F. 235]

Douglas W. Robert, of St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiff in error.

Homer Hall, of St. Louis, Mo. (Arthur L. Oliver, of St. Louis, Mo., on the brief), for defendant in error.

Before SANBORN, ADAMS, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

ADAMS, Circuit Judge.

This was an action brought by the United States against the Cooperage Company to recover the value of certain timber after it had been manufactured into staves on the ground, as charged in the petition, that the timber was willfully and intentionally cut by one Lay from his homestead entry and sold to the defendant by him before his right had been perfected by the requisite residence and cultivation. The proof tended to show that Lay made his entry in 1904, and that in December, 1904, and January, 1905, he cut timber and built a house thereon, and moved into it with his wife and three children, intending to make a home there; that he afterwards built two outbuildings, and cleared and cultivated about five acres of ground for a garden; that he continued to live there with his family until March, 1907, when, finding himself in debt and unable to make a living, he voluntarily relinquished his claim to one Grantham, who entered it as a homestead, perfected his entry, and received a patent. There was testimony tending to show that after Lay had occupied the premises and had done the work just referred to, for a period of about a year, a person representing himself to be an agent of the defendant, the Williams Cooperage Company, offered to loan him $200 to buy a team with and to take his pay in sections of white oak timber called 'stave bolts.' A trade of that sort was then made between them. There were two other tracts of land from which Lay had acquired the right to cut timber, and from these two tracts, as [221 F. 236] well as from his own homestead, he cut trees and worked them into stave bolts and delivered the same to the defendant. There was evidence tending to show that some of the timber so cut was taken from the five-acre garden tract and some from the uncultivated portions of his homestead. Lay testified that he entered the land for improvement and cultivation in good faith, intending to make a home for himself and family there, and not at all for the purposes of speculation; that he cut and sold the timber to the defendant to enable him to...