The United States, Appellants v. James Bolton

• Decision Date: 01 December 1859
• Parties: THE UNITED STATES, APPELLANTS, v. JAMES R. BOLTON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

64 U.S. 341

23 How. 341

16 L.Ed. 569

THE UNITED STATES, APPELLANTS, v. JAMES R. BOLTON.

December Term, 1859

THIS was an appeal from the District Court of the United States for the northern district of California.

The circumstances of the case are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

It was argued by Mr. Black (Attorney General) and Mr Reed for the United States, and by Mr. J. Mason Campbell and Mr. Walker for the appellee.

The record and arguments consisted of four large printed books, and a report of them would occupy a volume. A condensed view would be very apt to be unsatisfactory, and perhaps unjust; and therefore the points and arguments will be entirely passed over.

Mr. Justice CATRON delivered the opinion of the court.

In March, 1852, the appellee presented his claim to the commissioners for settling land claims in California for a parcel of land situated in the county of San Francisco, and bounded north by what was formerly known as Yerba Buena; northwest by lands of the presidio of San Francisco; west by the lands of Francisco Haro; south by the lands of Sanchez; and east by the bay of San Francisco, with a reservation of the curate's house, the church of Dolores, and other previously granted lands within the external boundaries of the tract, which include 29,717 acres; and the claims previously granted within those boundaries are 19,531 acres; leaving, as the unquestioned claim of Bolton, 10,186 acres. The original claimant is Jose Prudencia Santillan, a secular priest, who, together with his general agent, Manuel Antonio Rodriguez de Poli, in April, 1850, upon the recited consideration of two hundred thousand dollars, conveyed it to Bolton, the appellee. An interested party testifies that, in 1851 and in 1854, it was worth, at a low estimate, more than two million of dollars. The claim was confirmed in 1855 by the board of land commissioners, and in 1857 their decree was affirmed in the District Court. The grant to Santillan bears date the 10th February, 1846. It purports to have been made by Pio Pico, 'first member of the Assembly of the Department of the Californias, and charged with the administration of the law in the same,' and to be signed by Covarrubias, as secretary. It recites that the priest Santillan has petitioned for a grant, for his own benefit, of all the common lands known as belonging to the mission of Dolores, as well as the houses of the rancherias of the mission, which were in a state of abandonment; and that thereupon the Governor had proceeded to grant them, subject to conditions:

1. He shall pay, as a compensation for said grant, all the debts that exist against the mission.

2. He shall petition the proper judge for the judicial possession, in virtue of the grant, of all the lands and houses conveyed; and in the mean time, the possession which he has of the houses and lands, in his capacity of administrator, appointed as such by the prelate of the missions of the college of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Zacatecas, for the temporalities of the mission of Dolores, shall serve as legal.

3. The judge who shall give the possession shall have it measured and marked with the customary landmarks, the contents being three square legues, more or less.

4 and 5. That the houses of the curate, and the church of Dolores, and the property which some persons hold under good titles, shall be respected, and that the title be recorded.

The claimant exhibits a letter from Covarrubias to Santillan, dated 15th January, 1846, which informs him of an order made by the Governor to the administrator of the mission to make formal delivery of all the appurtenances of the mission Dolores to Santillan, that he (Santillan) may administer the temporalities of the mission.

In March, 1850, Santillan published a notice in a newspaper in San Francisco, which stated that the Governor, Pio Pico, on the 10th February, 1846, had granted to him all the uncultivated lands and all the unoccupied houses appertaining to the mission; that the grant was made and is recorded in the city of Los Angeles, and that it was written by Covarrubias, then secretary of the Governor; that in the month of January, 1846, an order had issued to the administrator of the mission, to put Jose Prudencia Santillan in possession of the temporalities of the mission, which was done; and that the grant, being made one month after, recognises and refers to this order of the Government, and provides that the possession under the order was for the purposes of the grant. This notice was designed to warn persons from trespassing on the land or purchasing titles from the justice of the peace, acting in the capacity of alcalde in San Francisco. The grant itself was recorded shortly after in the county records of San Francisco; and in May, 1852, the claim was filed, with a petition demanding its confirmation, before the board of land commissioners, sitting at San Francisco.

In its support, four principal witnesses were relied on, namely: Jose Maria Covarrubias, Cayetano Arenas, Jose Matias Moreno, and Narcisco Botello. Covarrubias's deposition was filed with the petition. He was secretary of the Government when the grant bears date, and deposes that he wrote the document; that Governor Pio Pico signed it, and that he, Covarrubias, countersigned it as secretary; all of which was done in the secretary's office at Los Angeles, at the time the grant bears date. He says the paper there exhibited was one of those delivered to the party, and that he believes it is a substantial copy, if not a literal one, of an order of the Governor for the purposes therein stated.

Arenas states that he was employed as an officer in the office of the secretary of the Government; that he saw the grant now filed before the board of land commissioners, produced at the office of the secretary of the Government in the month of February, 1846, about the time it bears date. 'It is a document given out by the Government to padre Santillan.' He declares the signature of the Governor and secretary to be ginuine; that he saw the document made; also, that had the grant remained in the secretary's office, it is probable he should have seen it. Being asked whether a note of the grant was ever made in any book of titles, he answers that there were then only loose sheets of paper kept on which to note titles at Los Angeles, the regular book being at Monterey; and that a note of this title was made on said loose sheets of paper. 'I wrote the note of this title myself.' The sheets of paper were stitched together.

Moreno proves that he was appointed Government secretary as successor of Covarrubias, and came into office on the 1st day of May, 1846, and continued to act as secretary until the country was conquered in July following. He is asked on behalf of the claimant, 'Whilst acting as secretary, did you ever see a paper purporting to be a petition of Jose Prudencia Santillan for a grant of the land of the ex-mission of Dolores, or any other paper in relation to said grant?' and answers, 'I never did.'

He further states, that he had never seen any such grant, or any papers relating thereto. 'All I recollect is, that I saw the name of padre Santillan in the book in which the note of titles was taken; it was on the last page, but I do not know whether it was in relation to a grant or not. The book contained nothing but the notes which were taken of titles.

Narcisco Botello deposes, that he was a deputy of the Departmental Assembly during the first four months of 1846, and seved as one of the committee on public lands; and during that time the original expediente and grant made to Santillan, of the mission of Dolores and its lands, came up for action before the Assembly; that the title was duly submitted and approved. He swears to its confirmation in the most precise terms. To meet this evidence, it is suggested for the United States that the Assembly never acted on sales of land made by the Governor of mission property; and this may be true; but the grant to Santillan was not a sale of the mission of Dolores. It is in form an ordinary colonization grant, made according to the act of 1824 and the regulations of 1828, and under their authority; nor can the recital in it—that Santillan shall pay the debts of the mission affect the title. The title is vested, whether the debts were or were not paid. The petition and grant were undoubtedly proper papers to be submitted to the Assembly for approval.

Under the acts of colonization, the records of the Departmental Assembly in 1846, during the time that Botello says he acted on the committee of public lands, are well preserved. The different meetings and daily proceedings of that body are minuted in regular form, in the journals. From these it appears that its first session for 1846 commenced on the 2d day of March, and on that day Norega and Arguillo were appointed the committee on public lands; and in the session of the 4th of March, Senor Botello obtained a leave of absence for a term not exceeding three months. His absence is usually noted at the end of each day's proceedings, and his name does not again appear as an acting member until the 15th of June. On the first of July, he was elected temporary secretary of the Assembly, in the absence of Olvera, the regularly-appointed secretary. Botello certainly did not belong to the committee of public lands during the year 1846.

The first report of the Governor to the Assembly respecting the disposal of lands was of forty-five grants to sundry...