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sion of property decided to be theirs by law, summon juries and do such service as a Sheriff in any other place may do, and shall be entitled to receive double the legal fees provided by the Statutes of Kansas.

10. The fee of the Recorder shall be one dollar for each claim Tecorded.

II. The Justice (or President) shall be entitled to five dollars for presiding at each trial and making out the papers.

12. The jury shall be entitled to one dollar each per day.

13. The defeated party in each suit shall be liable for all costs of the suit, and the Justice (or President) shall issue execution for the same, which shall be collected from any property the party so liable may have, excepting tools, bedding, clothing, and necessary provisions for three months.

14. In any case either party may call upon the other to give security for costs ; the suit shall be dismissed if plaintiff, or defeated if defendant [shall fail to give such security.]

15. Any person may take up by recording, forty feet front and one hundred deep, for a building lot, but shall not secure the same against being used for mining if found rich. Should any person work out the ground on which a house stands, he shall secure the house against damages.

16. Any person or company intending to erect a quartz mill, may select or locate two hundred and fifty feet square, which shall be recorded. He may also claim the right to cut a race from any river to bring water to the same, and shall hold the water, not interfering with any vested rights.

17. The pre-emption laws established by the citizens of this county shall be recognized in the mines but shall not conflict with miners' rights.

18. Gulch claims shall be one hundred feet up and down and fifty wide, following the meandering of the stream, and shall be worked within ten days if water can be obtained; if water is wanting, they may be recorded and held until water can be obtained. Any time after the 1st of September any miner may record his gulch claim and hold it till the first of June.

19. When any miner holds both a gulch and lode claim, if one be worked, the other may be held without working by recording the

same.

20. When water companies are engaged in bringing water into any portion of the mines, they shall have the right of way secured

[blocks in formation]

to them and may pass over any claim, road, or other ditch; but shall so guard themselves in passing as not to injure the party over whose ground they pass.

21. When any company is formed for the purpose of discovery, [by tunneling,] the parties engaged may stake off, record, and place notices on ground two hundred and fifty feet each way from the tunnel and running as the tunnel is intended to run. After that, all new lodes discovered by the company in tunneling, belong to the company to that extent; claims already taken are to be respected, but claims cannot be taken within the limits staked off, if work be progressing on the tunnel. If work on the tunnel be stopped for one week at any time, the original claim shall be forfeited and shall be again open to claimants.

The committee's report was unanimously adopted by the meeting July 16, 1859.

These resolutions show very well the inchoate state of mine tenure and jurisprudence, or rather equity, for the first year of the new mining community.

On the 11th of February, 1860, a meeting of the citizens of Gregory District was held at Mountain City, a committee was appointed to codify and amend the laws of said district, and report to an adjourned meeting to be held on the 18th of February, inst. Such portions of that report as retain any interest at the present day, will be found in Chapter XV. of this work.

The Justices of the Peace mentioned in these laws were elected, or commissioned by authority of Kansas, or of the Territory of Jefferson, usually the former. Under the operation of these laws, the rude tribunals of justice in them provided for, developed into an institution, full in their machinery, and universally regarded with as much deference as any courts of justice are among men. At

first they were only occasionally convened; but as business increased and grew important, judges of the miners' courts were added to the elective officers of the mining districts, and these judges held regular terms, at which cognizance was taken of open offences against the peace or the common law as well as of disputed title, trespass, or other infringements of miners' rights, or laws.

Many new mining districts were formed in 1859 and 1860 out of Gregory District, the country adjoining, and throughout the mountains wherever mines were discovered, all of which copied their laws and customs from those of the parent district, though often modifying them in important particulars. It is impossible to get complete copies of these laws now, some of them having been lost, together with the boundaries of the districts. Colorado should take steps to collect and publish, authoritatively, what remains of them, as upon them must depend the settlement of important questions of title in the future. The mining districts and miners' courts lost their importance when the Territory was organized into counties, superseding the districts, and provided with regular courts in place of the m.ners' courts. Not so with the laws, however. Our object is, and must be from the nature of our work, not to preserve as many as we can of these laws, but to give an idea of their nature, their origin, and development.

CHAPTER IV.

Visit of Horace Greeley and Party-Establishment of Newspapers Attempted Organization of Government-Jefferson TerritoryMail, Passenger, and Express Facilities-Overland Mail-First Winter in the Mines-Quartz Mills-Wagon Roads.

Not the least interesting of the incidents of the Summer, was the visit of Horace Greeley, Albert D. Richardson, and Henry Villard, of the New York Tribune, the Boston Fournal, and Cincinnati Commercial, respectively. They were handsomely received on their arrival in Denver, although the stylish barber Murat charged Horace five dollars for a shave. They visited the Gregory Diggings in the first days of June, and, strange as it may seem, upon a few hours' verbal notice, between two and three thousand people gathered, American fashion, to hear them, or rather to make them, talk. We find Mr. Greeley's remarks, condensed as follows, in the Rocky Mountain News of June 18th:

"The Hon. Horace Greeley, the first speaker, was received with three cheers. He alluded to the cheering indications he had seen during the day (8th inst.,) in examining the mines and sluices. He had always had a suspicion-from which he

was not yet entirely free-that these mines would not prove equal in richness to those of California; but in view of the great discoveries of the last five weeks, there was evidently a vast future before this region. It was by no means probable that all the gold of the eastern slope was confined to this little area of seven or eight miles. He advocated the formation of a new State (a 'State movement' was already under way,) and trusted that one might be made and brought into the Union, without going through the troublesome and undemocratic form of a Territorial organization. He spoke at length of the peculiar temptations to drinking, gaming, etc., to which the miners were exposed, urging a steadfast resistance and avoidance; exhorting his hearers to look to untiring industry instead of speculation for their gains; to maintain good order, to live as the loved they had left-the brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, wives and children-would wish; that when they returned they might carry with them the reward of their labors. If a gambler, after being warned not to do so, should persist in coming among them, he advised putting him on a good mule, headed out of the Mountains, and asking him if he would not like to ride. He should in a few days go hence to Salt Lake and California, and it was one purpose of this trip to do what he could to hasten the construction of the Pacific Railroad, which ought to have been built long ago. He was rousingly cheered on retiring."

The meeting was also addressed by B. D. Williams, H. P. A. Smith, A. D. Richardson, and Dr.

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