United States v. Watkins Bringier v. United States
| Decision Date | 01 October 1877 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. WATKINS. BRINGIER v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
APPEALS from the District Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
The Solicitor-General, for the United States.
Mr. Willis Drummond and Mr. Robert H. Bradford, contra.
This case is very different from the preceding, being based upon a complete and perfect title, bearing date the 5th of March, 1804. This title consists of a Spanish grant, made by the Intendant Morales to one Charles Ramos, for twenty thousand arpents of land, situated in the St. Helena portion of Baton Rouge district, on the Amite River, and described by certain metes and bounds, according to a survey thereof which had been previously regularly made. The grant was made in pursuance of a sale of the land; and, although made according to the views of our government after the title of Spain had ceased to exist, yet it was made whilst that government had actual possession of the country and claimed the sovereignty thereof; and, therefore, it is within the purview of the act of 1860, and comes clearly within the case of United States v. Lynde, 11 Wall. 632.
The government, however, questions the evidence by which the grant and other documents of title were proved before the District Court. The originals were not produced; but only certified copies of the record thereof, made and preserved by the commissioner for examining land titles for the district where the lands are situated. The claim and the evidence connected therewith were presented to said commissioner in 1814; and this evidence, including the grant, was recorded by him as required by law. He reported against the confirmation of the grant, on account of its being based on a sale, and not competent for the Spanish government to make. Amer. State Papers, Public Lands, vol. iii. pp. 58, 66. His records, however, have been preserved, and turned over to his successors, in whose possession they now are. We think that these records are competent evidence. The fourth section of the act of April 25, 1812 (2 Stat. 715), required every claimant of land in the district in question to deliver to the commissioner a notice of his claim in writing, together with a plat (in case a survey had been made) of the tracts claimed; and to deliver also, for the purpose of being recorded, every grant, or order of survey, deed, conveyance, or other written evidence of his claim; and it was directed that the same should be recorded by the clerk, in books kept for that purpose, on receiving the prescribed fees therefor. The fifth section required the commissioner to record, in like manner, the evidence adduced before him in reference to the justice and validity of each claim. Abstracts of this evidence, and the decision of the commissioner thereon, were to be transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury. By the seventh section of the act of 1860, under which the present proceedings are had, it is provided, 'That whenever any claim is presented for confirmation, under the provisions of this act, which has heretofore been presented, before any board of commissioners under authority of Congress, the facts reported as proven by the former board shall be taken as true prima facie; and the evidence offered before such former board, and remaining of record, shall be admitted on the examination of the claims made under the provisions of this act.'
This seems to be conclusive on the point. If the non-production of the original documents is, in any case, accompanied by such circumstances as to raise a suspicion of their genuineness, the question of the sufficiency of the record may be properly raised. But in the absence of any such suspicion, the record is sufficient evidence, prima facie, of the documents it contains. We think the objection cannot be sustained.
Other questions raised in the case depend upon the disposition of the property subsequent to the original grant. On the 8th of March, 1804, three days after the date of the grant, Ramos conveyed the property to William Simpson and John Watkins. The petitioners in the case are,—1st, the heirs of Watkins; 2d, Melanie Bringier, formerly the widow of Simpson, and who, in the original petition, claimed his half of the lands as his sole legal...
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Ainsa v. New Mexico & Arizona Railroad Co.
... ... under which they claim. United States v. Pillerin, ... 13 How. 9; United States ... Turner, 11 How. 663; United States v. Watkins, ... 97 U.S. 219; Carpentier v. Montgomery, 13 ... ...
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State of Lowa v. McFarland State of Illinois v. Same
...to exclude the latter from the class of lands sold, rather than to include them in this class. That class of decisions of which U. S. v. Watkins, 97 U. S. 219, is an example, in which, under an act of congress providing that in case lands within territory ceded to the United States, claimed......