UNITED STATES V. DALLES MILITARY ROAD CO.

• Decision Date: 25 May 1891
• Citation: UNITED STATES V. DALLES MILITARY ROAD CO., 140 U.S. 599 (1891)
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

United States v. Dalles Military Road Company

Nos. 1218, 1219, 1248, 1444 to 1448

Argued March 8-9, 1891

Decided May 25, 1891

140 U.S. 599

APPEALS FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED

STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON

Syllabus

In suits in equity brought by the United States under the Act of Congress passed March 2, 1889, 25 stat. 850, against corporations and persons claiming to own lands granted to the State of Oregon by the Acts of

Page140 U. S. 600

Congress of July 2, 1864, 13 Stat. 355, July 5, 1866, 14 Stat. 89, and February 25, 1867, 14 Stat. 409, to declare the lands to be forfeited to the United States and to set aside, for fraud, patents granted therefor, the defendants pleaded the issuing of certificates by the governor without fraud committed upon or by him; that they were bona fide purchasers, for a valuable consideration, without notice, and that they had expended moneys in respect of the lands in good faith.The pleas having been set down for hearing, the circuit court sustained them and dismissed the bills, without permitting the plaintiffs to reply to the pleas.Held that they ought to have been allowed to take issue on the pleas.

The act of 1889 intended a full legal investigation of the facts, and did not intend that the interests involved should be determined on the untested allegations of the defendants.

The claims of the United States cannot be treated as stale claims, nor can the defenses of stale claim and laches be set up against them.

Other bills were dismissed on general demurrers, after the bills were dismissed on the hearing on the pleas, and, as it appeared that the disposition of the pleas was regarded as determining all the suits, the decrees in all of them were reversed.

The facts which make the case in each of these cases are stated in the opinion, in connection with that particular case, so completely that it is not necessary, nor would it be proper, to repeat them.Different counsel represented different parties at the argument, and their arguments necessarily traveled over somewhat the same ground.In the case in which argument is reported, the facts will be found in the opinion upon the Willamette Valley Case, post,140 U. S. 622.

Page140 U. S. 606

MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORDdelivered the opinion of the Court.

No. 1,218 is a bill in equity filed by the Attorney General of the United States on their behalf against the Dalles Military Road Company, James K. Kelly, C. N. Thornbury, the Eastern Oregon Land Company, and twelve other individual defendants.The bill sets forth that on the 25th of February, 1867, the Congress of the United States passed, and, the President duly approved, an act, 14 St. 409, c. 77, granting to the State of Oregon, to aid in the construction of a military wagon road from Dalles City, on the Columbia River, by way of Camp Watson, Canyon City, and Mormon or Humboldt Basin, to a point on Snake River opposite Fort Boise, in Idaho Territory, alternate sections of public lands, designated by odd numbers, to the extent of three sections in width on each side of said road; that said act provided that the lands granted should be exclusively applied to the construction of said road and to no other purpose, and should be disposed of only as the work progressed, and that any and all lands theretofore reserved to the United States or otherwise appropriated by act of Congress or other competent authority should be, and the same were thereby, reserved from the operation of said act except so far as it might be necessary to locate the route of said road through the same, in which case the right of way to the width

Page140 U. S. 607

of one hundred feet was granted; that it was further provided that the grant should not embrace any mineral lands of the United States; that the lands thereby granted to said state should be disposed of by the legislature thereof for the purpose aforesaid, and for no other; that the said road should be and remain a public highway for the use of the government of the United States, free from tolls or other charges upon the transportation of any property, troops, or mails of the United States, and that the said road should be constructed with such width, gradation, and bridges as to permit of its regular use as a wagon road, and in such other special manner as the State of Oregon might prescribe; that the said act also authorized the state to locate and use, in the construction of said road, an additional amount of public lands, not previously reserved to the United States or otherwise disposed of, and not exceeding ten miles in distance from it, equal to the amount reserved from the operation of the act, to be selected in alternate odd sections, as provided therein; that the lands thereby granted to said state should be disposed of only in the following manner -- that is to say, when the governor of the state should certify to the Secretary of the Interior that ten continuous miles of said road were completed, then a quantity of the land granted by the act, not exceeding thirty sections, might be sold, and so on from time to time until said road should be completed, and, if it was not completed within five years, no further sales should be made, and the lands remaining unsold should revert to the United States, and that the United States Surveyor General for the District of Oregon should cause the lands so granted to be surveyed at the earliest practicable period after the state should have enacted the necessary legislation to carry said act of Congress into effect.

The bill further sets forth that on the 20th of October, 1868, the Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon passed, and the governor approved, an act, Laws of Oregon of a868, p. 3, entitled "An act donating certain lands to Dalles Military Road Company," which act, after setting forth the passage of the Act of Congress of February 25, 1867, granted to Dalles Military Road Company, incorporated March 30, 1868,

Page140 U. S. 608

all lands, right of way, rights, privileges, and immunities theretofore granted or pledged to the state by said act of Congress for the purpose of aiding said company in constructing the road mentioned and described in said act of Congress, upon the conditions and limitations therein prescribed; that said act of the state also granted and pledged to said company all moneys, lands, rights, privileges, and immunities which might be thereafter granted to the state to aid in the construction of such road, for the purposes and upon the conditions mentioned in said act of Congress, or which might be mentioned in any further grants of money or lands to aid in constructing said road, and that said act of the state authorized the company to locate, subject to the approval of the governor of the state, the lands mentioned in said act of Congress within the ten-miles limit prescribed by the latter act, in lieu of lands reserved.

The bill further sets forth that the State of Oregon never passed any law for the special purpose of carrying into effect the act of Congress of February 25, 1867, but had passed, on the 13th of October, 1862, an act, General Laws of Oregon of 1862, reported by Code Commission, p. 3, entitled "All act providing for private incorporations, and the appropriation of private property therefor," which provided among other things that any road, other than a railroad, constructed by a corporation formed under the said act, should be cleared of standing timber for thirty feet in width, and should have a track in the center not less than sixteen feet wide, finished and kept in good traveling condition, except when the cutting on said road was six feet or more deep on either side, in which case such track need not be more than tem feet wide, with turnouts of sixteen feet in width for every quarter of a mile of such narrow track; that all streams or other waters upon the line of such roads should be safely and securely bridged, except where the county court of the county wherein the line of such road might cross such streams or other water, or if such stream or other water formed the boundary between two counties, then the county court of either of said counties, might authorize the corporation to place a ferry boat upon such stream or other water, to be kept and run for such toll as

Page140 U. S. 609

the county court might prescribe, and in the manner required of ferries established under the general statutes in relation to ferries, or except where such county court might authorize such corporation to connect their road with a ferry then or thereafter established over such stream or other water under the general statute in relation to ferries, and that those provisions of said Act of October 13, 1862, had been at all times thereafter and still remained in force.

The bill further sets forth that the Dalles Military Road Company is a private corporation, purporting to have been incorporated on the 30th of March, 1868, under the general laws of the State of Oregon; that the business in which it proposed to engage was the location and construction of a day road from Dalles City, in the County of Wasco, Oregon, by way of Camp Watson and Canyon City, to a point on Snake River opposite Fort Boise, in Idaho Territory, about two miles below the mouth of Owyhee River; that James K. Kelly and two other persons were the incorporators thereof; that on the 11th of January, 1871, the company, by its then directors, five in number, in pursuance of the unanimous vote of the stockholders, made and filed supplementary articles of incorporation which provided that the additional business in which the corporation proposed to engage was to accept and receive any and all grants of land and other things of value from the United States to the State of Oregon, and to purchase and hold land and other property which its directors might deem necessary and convenient for its interests, and to engage in any business incident to and connected with receiving any such grant,...