USA > California > Land in California, the story of mission land, ranches, squatters, mining claims, railroad grants, land scrip, homesteads > Part 18
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Various official lists of private land grants, mostly ranchos, have been published, none of them entirely perfect. At an early date the maps of California issued by the United States Department of the Interior showed the location of these
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grants together with a marginal listing of them. This practice has been continued, the latest being the 1944 map, which presents a numerical and an alphabetical list of 544 land grants. The numbers assist the investigator to find the rancho on the map. (This government list is reproduced in W. W. Robinson's Ranchos Become Cities (1939), along with a list of the private land grants within the present boundaries of Los Angeles County, and an account of the granting of the first ranchos in the state as disclosed by Land Commission proceedings.) The State of California has also issued its lists, in the reports of the surveyor general. These include the names of the ranchos or grants, the area, the location, and usually the confirmee of each. Since the latest list of the state was made on February 25, 1886, when many of the cases were still pending in the courts, the list is necessarily incomplete.
San Diego County ranchos are covered in A History of the Ranchos of San Diego County, California (1939), by R. W. Brackett, and a compilation by Roscoe D. Wyatt, Names and Places of Interest in San Mateo County, made in 1936, gives information about some of the ranchos in that county. Brief summaries of the stories of many ranchos throughout the state are to be found in Phil Townsend Hanna's The Diction- ary of California Land Names (1946) and in Mildred Brooke Hoover's and H. E. and E. G. Rensch's Historic Spots in Cali- fornia (1948), the latter with emphasis on the northern coun- ties. County histories and volumes in the American Guide Series should also be consulted.
Many publications have told the story of particular ran- chos. Examples: Heritage of the Valley, San Bernardino's First Century (1939), by George William Beattie and Helen Pruitt Beattie; The Place Called Sespe (1939), by Robert Glass Cleland; Ranchos Become Cities (1939), for Los Angeles County ranchos, by W. W. Robinson; Caminos Viejos (1930), by Terry E. Stephenson, together with the publications of the Orange County Historical Society and the writings of Wil- liam W. McPherson for Orange County ranchos; The Story of El Tejon (1942), by Helen S. Giffin and Arthur Woodward; The Salinas (1945) by Anne B. Fisher; From Cowhides to Golden Fleece (1946) by Reuben L. Underhill, and One Hun-
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dred Years in the Pajaro Valley (1934), by F. M. Atkinson. A good portrayal of the ranchos of California and New Mex- ico is to be found in Shepherd's Empire (1945), by Charles Wayland Towne and Edward Norris Wentworth. Popular treatment of the rancho theme is to be found in Romance and History of California Ranchos (1935), by Myrtle Garrison, and Romance of the Ranchos (1939), by Palmer Conner.
An unmatched collection of early pamphlet material on land titles and the Land Commission is in the nineteen vol- umes of Henry E. Wills' California Titles, deposited in the Huntington Library, San Marino. This material originated, apparently, in the early-day law office of the San Francisco firm of Halleck, Peachy, and Billings.
A good summary of the land grant, Land Commission, story is William W. Morrow's pamphlet, Spanish and Mexi- can Private Land Grants (1923), as is also Senate Report No. 426, 72d Cong., 1st sess., issued in pamphlet form in 1932. The Memoirs of Elisha Oscar Crosby (1945) has pertinent com- ment about the Land Commission. Henry George expresses his views in Our Land Policy, National and State (1874). Good source material is to be found in Speeches of Mr. Gwin, of California, in the Senate of the United States, on Private Land Titles in The State of California (1851), and in William Carey Jones' Letters in Review of Attorney General Black's Report to the President of the United States on the subject of Land Titles in California (1860). Thomas Donaldson's The Public Domain (1884) gives a brief account of private land claims in California. Alfred Chandler in Land Title Origins (1945) gives one short chapter to California.
For the Mexican period, there is Eugene B. Drake's com- pilation, published in 1861 at San Francisco, covering, as stated on the title page: Jimeno's and Hartnell's Indexes of Land Concessions, From 1830 to 1846; Also Toma de Razon, or Registry of Titles, For 1844-45; Approvals of Land Grants by the Territorial and Departmental Assembly of California, From 1835 to 1846, and A List of Unclaimed Grants Com- piled from the Spanish Archives in the U. S. Surveyor-Gen- eral's Office. Jones' report in Senate Ex. Doc. No. 18, already referred to, lists private grants as recorded in the archives at
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Monterey. A list and description of the grants made by Manuel Micheltorena while governor of California from 1843 to 1845 are in Land Grants in Upper California (San Francisco, 1858).
SQUATTERISM
The squatter riots and squatter troubles that came with the Gold Rush and continued for another twenty years receive due space from California historians. Hittell, for example, gives one chapter in the third volume of his History of Cali- fornia to the subject. Bancroft presents numerous squatter incidents. County and local histories are sprinkled with stories of violence arising out of squatterism and the un- settled land titles of the early days of the American occupa- tion. So, too, personal accounts, like William Heath Davis' Seventy-five Years in California (1929). Local squatter prob- lems have a place in Rockwell D. Hunt's John Bidwell (1942), in C. C. Baker's article on Henry Dalton in the 1917 publication of the Historical Society of Southern California, in Reuben L. Underhill's From Cowhides To Golden Fleece (1939 and 1946), in George William Beattie's and Helen Pruitt Beattie's Heritage of the Valley (1939), to name but a few publications.
Attention is focused on the causes of early-day squatterism in William H. Brewer's Up and Down California in 1860-64 (1930), in Robert Glass Cleland's The Cattle on a Thousand Hills (1941), and in Henry George's Our Land and Land Policy (1871).
The chapters, "Some Call It Eden" and "Who Owns Cali- fornia," in Oliver Carlson's A Mirror for Californians (1941) throw light on early-day and more recent difficulties, along with Carey McWilliams' Factories in the Field (1939). John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) has a bearing on present-day squatting.
Newspaper files are a source of information about squatters actually on the land. Consult the Los Angeles Times for October 21, 22, 28; November 1, 1897; January 11, 1901; April, 1929; and July 25, 1937, for accounts of modern squat- ting in California. In this connection, Senate Report No. 426 is important.
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Spokesmen for those who, in recent years, have believed California land grants to be invalid and for those who, ac- cordingly, settled upon various Los Angeles County and Orange County ranchos, include Clinton Johnson in his Fraudulent California Land Grants (1926); H. N. Wheeler in the pamphlet series issued during or about 1931 under the general title of Mexican Grant or United States Public Do- main? and in the pamphlet California Lands (1933); the editor of Facts, a weekly paper published in 1932 in Los An- geles; Williamson S. Summers, in his In the Matter of the Application to Homestead Certain Land in Los Angeles County, California (1926), and in his testimony before the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys, United States Sen- ate, disclosed in Mexican Land Grants issued in 1927 by the Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
MINING TITLES
Required reading on the subject of mining titles would in- clude Gregory Yale's Legal Titles to Mining Claims and Water Rights, in California, Under The Mining Law of Con- gress, of July 1866 (1867), Charles Howard Shinn's Mining Camps, A Study in American Frontier Government (1885 and 1947), and Bancroft's History of California and Cali- fornia Inter Pocula. Thomas Donaldson's The Public Do- main (1884) gives a brief account of local mining laws and the development of mining legislation. Also to be consulted are the mining laws of the United States as set forth in United States Revised Statutes, Sections 2318 to 2346, together with government-issued regulations thereunder relative to the reservation, exploration, location, possession, purchase, and patenting of mineral lands in the public domain. See Public Land Statutes of the United States, as compiled in 1931 by Daniel M. Greene, also the subject of "Mineral Lands and Mining" in the United States Code, and also the provisions of California law regarding mining claims in Section 1426 et seq. in The Civil Code of the State of California. O. A. Rou- leau's "Mining Law in California," (property of Title Insur- ance and Guarantee Company, San Francisco) is a valuable summary. Important California Supreme Court rulings to
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be found in 17 Cal. 200 (Moore v. Smaw and Fremont v. Flaver), set forth the ownership of minerals in California under Mexican and American law.
Idwal Jones' Vermilion (1947), three-generation novel with a setting of a California quicksilver mine (suggested by the New Almaden) is pertinent. On-the-spot descriptions of min- ing are given by J. H. Carson in his Early Recollections of the Mines and a Description of the Great Tulare Valley (1852) and by Daniel B. Woods in his Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings (1851).
John A. Rockwell's A Compilation of Spanish and Mexican Law, in Relation to Mines, and Titles to Real Estate, in force in California, Texas and New Mexico (1851) covers mining titles before California became a part of the United States, and the appendix has important material on early California titles in general.
PUBLIC LANDS, STATE LANDS
For a general as well as a specific consideration of all the topics embraced in the broad subject of public lands or public domain, the two most useful books are Thomas Don- aldson's The Public Domain, issued by the Government Printing Office at Washington in 1884, and Benjamin Horace Hibbard's A History of Public Land Policies (1924). A third interesting treatment of the whole subject and one that is more nearly up to date is Our Landed Heritage-The Public Domain, by Roy M. Robbins, issued in 1942 by Princeton University Press. For a convenient reference to the innumer- able acts of Congress disposing of the public domain there is Daniel M. Greene's compilation made in 1931, Public Land Statutes of the United States. The annual reports of the Com- missioner of the General Land Office and, now, of the Di- rector of the Bureau of Land Management, are mines of statistical and other important data. Bulletins also issuing from these offices are useful; for example, Bulletin No. 3 (reprint 1944) on "Homesteading in Continental United States," and another, dated January, 1945, on "Vacant Public Lands." Land of the Free issued from the General Land Office by Fred W. Johnson, Commissioner, is a short, illus-
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trated summary of the story of the public domain. The public land laws of general interest are now published in the United States Code. Necessary information about surveying and mapping the public domain (all about townships, ranges, sec- tions and the history of the system of rectangular surveys) is to be found in the government's Manual of Instructions for the Survey of the Public Lands of the United States and in the popular treatment given the subject in 1944 by David Greenhood in his Down to Earth: Mapping for Everybody.
Railroad titles are discussed in the general books on the public domain already listed, in the standard histories of California, in Nelson Trottman's History of the Union Pa- cific (1923), and, specifically, in the various acts of Congress creating them. The most important of the Congressional acts granting titles to railroads are in the Statutes at Large: 12 Stat. 489, amended 13 stat. 356 (Union Pacific and Central Pacific); 14 Stat. 239, 15 Stat. 80, 16 Stat. 47, 39 Stat. 218, 40 Stat. 593 (Oregon and Pacific Railroad); 14 Stat. 292, 16 Stat. 382, 16 Stat. 573, 579, 24 Stat. 123 (Atlantic and Pacific, South- ern Pacific); 18 Stat. 482 (any railroad company); and 35 Stat. 647, 42 Stat. 414 (forfeiture and abandonment). An im- portant United States Supreme Court decision, holding that an exception or reservation in a patent without statutory authority is void and that the excepted matter will neverthe- less pass to the patentee, is to be found in 234 U. S. 669 (Burke v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company). Books about railroad companies are legion, but they have little to add to the sub- ject of railroad titles. The "Battle of Mussel Slough," given emphasis because it offered real drama, is described in Oscar Lewis' The Big Four (1938), furnishes inspiration for two novels: The Octopus (1901), by Frank Norris, and The Feud of Oakfield Creek (1887) , by Josiah Royce. It is also the sub- ject of an article, "Notable Memorials to Mussel Slough," by Irving McKee, in the February, 1948, issue of The Pacific Historical Review. A slight reference to railroad titles occurs in Santa Fe (1945) by James Marshall.
The settlement of the public lands of California was made possible by various acts of Congress and of the state legisla- ture. The title story of these lands is revealed, therefore, not
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only by such authorities and commentators as Donaldson, Hibbard, and Robbins, already cited, but by the statutes themselves. In connection with federal townsites, the Act of May 23, 1844, is found in United States Statutes at Large, Volume V, p. 657. The desert land act applicable to Lassen County is in Volume XVIII, p. 497, of these statutes. Other- wise, Greene's convenient compilation of public land statutes, with an index to statutes and to subjects, will be found to cover adequately the federal statutes involving federal town- sites, preëmptions, homesteads, timber culture laws, desert land laws, the Timber and Stone Act, military bounty land warrants, land scrip, railroad grants, national forests, forest lieu selections, national parks, national monuments, and lands granted to the State of California. See Robbins for the story of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. In connection with Valentine land scrip, see the article entitled "The Strange Case of Thomas Valentine," by W. W. Robinson, appearing in Westways, March, 1946. Summaries of federal and state laws and court decisions involving lands originating in the public domain and lands owned or claimed by the state make up O. A. Rouleau's "Public Lands of the United States Other Than Those Granted to the States," his "Public Lands of State-School Land Grants," his "Title to Tide Lands," and his "Title of the State to Swamp and Overflowed Lands," manuscript volumes in the possession of Title Insurance and Guarantee Company, San Francisco.
The Cattle King (1931), by Edward F. Treadwell, telling the story of Henry Miller, of Miller and Lux fame, and Fac- tories in the Field (1939), by Carey McWilliams, already referred to, and concerned primarily with industrialized farming, have sidelights on titles to public and state lands in California.
Recent court battles over tidelands and submerged lands, culminating in the United States Supreme Court action of United States of America v. State of California, resulted in the assemblage by opposing counsel of a large body of historical material on the history and use of such lands in California and elsewhere. Outstanding are the Answer of State of Cali- fornia (1946), by Attorney General Robert W. Kenney, the
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Brief for the State of California in Opposition to Motion for Judgment (1947), by Attorney General Fred N. Howser, As- sistant Attorney General William W. Clary, Assistant Attor- ney General C. Roy Smith, Counsel (Homer Cummings, Max O'Rell Truitt, Louis W. Meyers, Jackson W. Chance, Sidney H. Wall, of Counsel), and the Brief for the United States in Support of Motion for Judgment (1947), by Attorney Gen- eral Tom C. Clark and Special Assistant to the Attorney General Arnold Raum. An article in the Los Angeles Bar Bulletin, February, 1946, entitled "The Submerged Lands Controversy," by William W. Clary, gives the background and a condensed history of the dispute. Two booklets-Sheri- dan Downey's Truth About The Tidelands (1948) and Fred N. Howser's This Can Happen To Any State (1948)-are pointed summaries of the current situation.
The Civil Code, Code of Civil Procedure, and Public Re- sources Code, as well as the Constitution of the State of Cali- fornia, are sources of information about state ownership and state acquisition, use and disposition of land.
RECORDING, REGISTRATION, AND INSURANCE OF TITLES
Land Title Assuring Agencies in the United State (1937), by Daniel D. Gage, is an adequate handling of the historical and economic aspects of the American recording system, abstracts and certificates of title, and the rise of title insurance, includ- ing state title insurance. It is a pioneer in the field, with a value that is enhanced by an extensive bibliography. Briefer consideration of some of the same topics is to be found in the chapters entitled "Escrows," "Land Title History-Recording System," and "Title Insurance" in Melvin B. Ogden's Escrow and Land Title Law in California (1938), and in the chapter "Titles to Real Property," by James E. Sheridan, appearing in Handbook of Real Estate (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1947). Pin- ning Down Your Property (1936), by Edmund D. Pitts and published by the California Land Title Association, is a popular treatment of the subject of title protection, and T.W. Haymond's "Title Insurance Risks of Which the Public Records Give No Notice," appearing in Southern California Law Review, July and December, 1928, and Lawrence L.
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Otis' "What Protection Is Title Insurance," published in the Los Angeles Bar Bulletin, December, 1946, are technical analyses. "How California Went Title Insurance Over Night," by James R. Ford, in Title News for November, 1932, is a historical item. Cardinal Goodwin's The Establishment of State Government in California-1846-1850 (1914) is widely useful.
In Torrens Titles and Title Insurance, reprinted from the University of Pennsylvania Law Review of April, 1937, Ed- ward H. Cushman offers a short history and analysis of both. Other pamphlet material on the registration of titles includes the Report of the Commission for the Purpose of Examining the Torrens Land Transfer Act of Australia (Sacramento, 1895); Registration of Titles to Real Estate in Massachu- setts, Illinois and California, and Suggestions Applicable to New York (1935), by Frederick C. Tanner; and A Brief Re- view of the Torrens Experiment in the United States (1938), by Edward D. Landels. "Registration of Land Titles" is dis- cussed by C. H. Harbes, Superintendent of Land Registration in the office of the County Recorder of Los Angeles County, in the August, 1945, number of the Los Angeles Bar Bulletin. The April, 1913, issue of Case and Comment issue concerns land titles, including Torrens laws, abstracts of title, mar- ketable titles, and so on.
Published material on the history of the title business in California is almost nonexistent. Early directories, news- papers, an occasional magazine article about a particular company, a few scanty manuscript copies of company his- tories, the records of individual companies-these are the source materials. Official activities or proceedings of the trade organization-California Land Title Association-are pre- served in an annual publication issued after the annual con- vention.
Legal literature in the field of real property is abundant, published textbooks and manuals directed to men who ex- amine titles or handle escrows, or directed to their customers, are few in number. The most widely used are Melvin B. Ogden's Escrow and Land Title Law in California (1938), already mentioned, and W. W. Robinson's Title Insurance
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and Trust Company's Handbook for Title Men (1948), the latter appearing in earlier editions as California Land Titles. Walter Home's Escrow-Land Title Procedure (1948) points up the use and handling of escrows. Earlier manuals are Norman Rulien's Escrows and Title Transfer (1929), E. L. Farmer's Escrows (1931), and W. D. Reyburn's The Title Man's Reference Book of Practical Engineering Problems (1934). Planned for 1949 publication is Melvin B. Ogden's basic and comprehensive textbook for title examiners and title attorneys: Land Title Law in California.
Index
Abila, Antonio Ygnacio, 240, 241
Act of 1802, enabling act for Ohio roads, 148
Act of 1841: preëmption rights recognized, 167; 500,000 acres for internal improvements, 186-187
Act of 1850, commission to effect settlement with Indians, 14
Act of 1851 (Gwin bill): Board of U. S. Land Commissioners created under, 31, 100, 112, 130, 230; pueblo claims to landownership, 41, 101; appeals taken to courts, 103; claims of "third persons," 102, 107; wisdom of pro- cedure questioned, 109
Act of 1852, appeals taken to U. S. District Court, 103
Act of 1860, survey of private land claim to be ordered into court, 107
Act of 1862 (Pacific Railroad Bill) and 1864: first continental railroad
built under, 150; land grants to railroads, 150, right of way, 150, and alternate sections, 151-152; other federal subsidies, 152
Act of 1863, on conclusiveness of land patents, 107
Act of 1866: local mining customs and rules recognized, 141; miners' prop- erty rights confirmed, 141; railroad from Missouri to coast authorized, 155
Act of 1871, land grant to Southern Pacific, 156
Act of 1872 (Mining Act): codifies common law of miners, 141-142; mining operations until 1909 under, 142
Act of 1891, on conclusiveness of federal patents, 107
Agua Caliente, a "mission" reservation, 17
Alanis, Máximo, grantee of San José de Buenos Ayres, 57
Alcatraz Island, 95, 98
Alemany, Archbishop Joseph Sodoc, 31 and n. 3
Allen, B. F., 174
Allen, Russell C., 21
Allotment laws, Indian, 17-18
Alvarado, Juan Bautista: Rancho Las Mariposas granted to, 65, 95, 144; provisional grant of San Pascual to Pérez and Sepúlveda, 84; grant to Sutter, 114
Anaheim, pioneer town, 165
Anza, Juan Bautista de, site for San Francisco presidio, 34
Archuleta, Ygnacio, 40
Argüello, José Dario: gives possession of Los Angeles pueblo to colonists, 40-41; El Pilar and Las Pulgas, given to, 55, 56
Argüello, Santiago, converts Las Flores into Indian pueblo, 42
Auction sales, of public domain, 166
Avila, Doña Encarnación Sepúlveda de, manages San Pascual, 86
Balkwill, John, 126-127 Bandini, Juan, 29, 83 Banning, Phineas, 241
[275]
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Index
Barbour, G. W., 14
Bartlett, Washington A .: Bartlett Map, 234; name of San Francisco, 234 Battle of La Mesa, 85
Beale, E. F., "reserve" at Tejon Pass, 16-17
Benicia, 205
Benson, Jerome, "Fort Benson," 127-128
Benton, Senator Thomas Hart: plan for title records, 99; bill for lands to settlers, 168
Bernal, Joaquín, grantee of Santa Teresa rancho, 57
Berry, D. M., 87, 88
Beynon, L. J., quoted on beginning of escrow service, 222-223
Bidwell, John, 64: and squatters on Rancho Chico, 126; mining at Bidwell Bar, 134
"Big Four," 153
Bigelow, Harden, 115
Bigler, John, 116
Blacktooth, Cecilio, speech, 20-21
Bolton, Herbert E., cited on San Francisco presidio, 35
Borica, Governor, 1795 report of ranchos, 50
Bounty warrants: for military service, 181-182; liberalization after 1850, 182; assignable, 182; use in California, 182; speculators and, 182; not issued after 1862, 183; used in payment of preëmption claims, 183
Bowman, J. N .: quoted on land claims, 105 and n. 7, 106; cited on delay in patents, 106
Branciforte pueblo: established, 39-40; succeeded by Santa Cruz, 60 Brannan, Samuel, 113, 114
Brent, J. Lancaster, attorney for Los Angeles before Land Commission, 238, 239, 242
Bucareli y Ursúa, Viceroy Antonio María, authorizes land assignments, 45-46, 50, 93-94
Bureau of Land Management, 175
Butron, Manuel, 46
Butterfield, Commissioner, 91-92
California: admission into Union, 93, 99, 112; constitution approved, 185; U. S. land grants to, 186 ff.
California Colony of Indiana, 87-88, 89
California Indian Association, educational campaign, 18
California Land Title Association, 226
California (Pacific) Title Insurance Company, 220, 221
Campbell, Thompson, 85, 102
Carr, J. B., 102
Carrillo, Carlos, island of Santa Rosa granted to José Antonio and, 65
Carrillo, José Antonio, 65, 79, 85, 200, 239
Carrillo, José Joaquin, 201
Castillero, Andrés: Santa Cruz granted to, 65; and New Almaden quick- silver mine, 145-146
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Index
Castro, Joaquín, 53 Castro, Juan, 81
Castro, Mariano: viceregal license to occupy La Brea, 27, 52, 56; forced to abandon La Brea, 27
Central Valley rancheros, 63, 64
Chard, William G., 64
Chase, Salmon Portland, quoted on miners' common law, 140
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