The Puritan #3 and the Protection No. 2 Lode Claims
The original application for U.S. mineral land patent to Highland Pines, serialized as #818945, was filed March 6th, 1920 by Fen S. Hildreth. Hildreth was a druggist in Prescott, Arizona, and owned a drug store in downtown Prescott. Two plats of survey #2424 were filed with other documents forming what appeared to be an application for land patent of a group of 25 lode claims to be issued to the Madizelle Mining Company. The Puritan No. 3 and the Protection #2 lode claims as illustrated, were included.
The Final Certificate
The ledger found with the records of the U.S. land office for patent to Madizelle Mining Company, indicate several important dates along the process of obtaining mineral patent. On July 1, 1920, there is an entry on the ledger that reads: “Posting sworn statement of fees & charges paid and applied to purchase paid $2100.00 with Receipt# 2478801”. This was the date the patentee paid for the 25 lode claims applied for, inclusive of the Puritan No. 3 and the Protection #2. The 25 claims were more than a mere integral part of the 1907 mineral survey 2424, they were the patent. All 25 claims are incorporated by reference throughout the application for land patent. In the first section of page one of the ledger of record, the description of land, township, section range and area all include the land being paid for as being inclusive of the Puritan No. 3 and the Protection #2 lode claims, a combined area of nearly 32 acres. The final certificate included all 25 claims of M.S. 2424.
Derby et all Lode Mining Claims
Applied, bought and paid for 2 Plat’s, 25 claims, 1 Register’s Final Certificate of Mineral Survey 2424 in totality. No adverse claims were filed. All dated July 1st, 1920 from the Department of the Interior, U.S. land office. The patent of record to Highland Pines is patenting the purported entitlement to Mineral Survey 2424 along with its field notes of such lands. In Cragin v. Powell, 128 U.S. 691, the court said: “The plat itself, with all of its notes, lines and descriptions and landmarks, becomes as much a part of the grant or deed by which they are concerned, as if such descriptive features were written out upon the face of the deed or grant itself.”
But what happens when the record official plat and survey is fictitious and not a survey at all? According to an excerpt from the Interior Board Land Appeals -BLA 73-235: “Reliance on erroneous notations in federal and county land records can neither serve to divest the United States of title to land, nor estop the United States from denying that title passed or from concluding that a patent cannot be amended to include certain land.”
On May 24, 1921, the Register & Receiver in Arizona, to the General Land Office of the Department of the Interior, received a letter from Washington which reads: “Examination of Mineral Entry, Phoenix 045620, Made July 1st to the Madizelle Mining Company, for the Derby and other lode claims, survey 2424, discloses that the showing is sufficient, except that a report from the District Forester has not been filed with the record, the claim being situated in the Prescott National Forest.”
The Final Certificate itself is dated in 1907, The Ledger of the U.S. Department of the Interior places July1st, 1920 as the date of “Final Certificate” as was the same date for the Receipt issued for all 25 claims, per M.S. 2424, bought & paid for at $2100.00. Actions after July1st, 1920 appear to be ministerial in nature, but did the actions of forest employees or unknown persons notations, modify the patentee’s purported title, when the entire ‘title’ itself is noting but a work of fiction? According to the commissioner in 1920-1921, the ‘showing’ of survey 2424 already purchased by July1, 1920, receipt and final certificate issued, was ‘sufficient’.
