Alaska Exploration Co. v. Northern Mining & Trading Co.

The defendant in error sued the plaintiff in error and another corporation to recover possession of an undivided *747 three-sixteenths of a certain .mining claim in Alaska. The bill of exceptions shows that on the trial the plaintiff introduced evidence going to show that the claim was located by one Pierce Thomas, who, on the 4th day of October, 1902, executed to the plaintiff a deed for a three-sixteenths interest in the claim. The plaintiff in error sought to overcome that conveyance by showing that Thomas had made a previous conveyance of the entire claim to one Kimber, under whom the plaintiff in error claims.

It is not pretended that the defendant in error had any actual notice of such prior conveyance, but it was sought by the plaintiff in error to show constructive notice to it by the introduction of a certified copy of the record in the office of the recorder of the mining district in which the claim is situated of a deed from Thomas to Kimber of the entire claim; it being provided, by the Alaskan statute of June 6, 1900, that all records theretofore made in good faith in any regularly organized mining districts shall be public records. Carter’s Ann.Codes Alaska, § 16,…