Hammer v. Garfield Mining & Milling Co.

Citations

• 130 U.S. 291
• 9 S. Ct. 548
• 32 L. Ed. 964
• 1889 U.S. LEXIS 1750

Syllabus

<p>The modes of procedure in Montana being substantially the same at law and in equity; if the trial court there calls a jury in a case where the remedy .sought is equitable, and the trial is conducted in the same manner as a trial of an issue at. law, and there is.a general-finding by the jury, and the case is brought here by writ of error, the finding will be treated here as if made by the court, and as covering all the issues; and the only questions which can be considered here are those arising from the rulings in the admission or rejection of evidence, and those respecting the inferences deducible from the proofs made. ^</p> <p>In the absence of a provision of statute in Montana respecting the manner of authenticating a copy of the certificate of incorporation of a corporation of a State, filed in the records of a county of Montana, the certificate of the original custodian in the State of origin, under his seal of office, is a sufficient authentication.</p> <p>The provision in Eev. Stat. § 2321, that records of mining claims shall contain such “ reference to some natural object or permanent monument as will identify the claim,” means only that this, is to be done when such reference can be made; and when It cannot be made, stakes driven into the ground are sufficient for identification, or a reference to a neighboring mine, with distance and date of location, which will be presumed to be a well-known natural object in the absence of contradictory proof. The oath of one of the locators of a mining claim, accompanying the recorded notice of the location is, in the absence of contradiction, prima facie evidence of the fact of the citizenship of all the locators.</p> <p>It being established, in an action to quiet a mining'title in Montana, that the plaintiff was in quiet and undisputed possession of the premises, the validity of his location not being questioned in the pleadings, and that the boundary of his claim was so marked on the surface as to be readily-trac