Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/24

 necessary in this connection was for the entryman to appear at the land office at the time of making the filing, exhibit his first papers to show that he was either a citizen of the United States, or had declared his intention to become such, or, in the case of his being a bona-fide citizen, to make oath to that effect, and his entry would be allowed. This law has since been amended, so as to necessitate the personal appearance of the entryman at the land office, both at the time of filing and when making final proof.

Under these conditions, the company was enabled to run men into the land office by the hundreds. I have known agents of the company to take at one time as many as twenty-five men from "Coffee Jack's" sailor boarding house in Eureka to the county court house, where they would take out their first papers, declare their intention to become citizens of the United States, after which they would proceed direct to the land office and make their filings, all the location papers having previously been made out. Then they would appear before Fred W. Bell, a notary public, and execute an acknowledgement of a blank deed, receive the stipulated price of $50, and return to their ships, or to the boardinghouse from whence they came. The description of the tract filed on was afterwards inserted and the transfer of title completed to the corporation. As fast as this land came into the market, the company gobbled it all up in this fashion, and as soon as the whole tract had been secured, they sent their representative, Edward Everdeen, who was then connected with the Humboldt County Bank, to England, where a sale of the entire body of land embraced in a number of different townships, was consummated to a Scotch syndicate.

Pending the transfer to the Scottish syndicate, the California Redwood Company was pulling out the patents to the different claims pretty fast, and at a cost of $25 each. Concluding that they could get the patents more quickly and at a cheaper figure, by sending their own attorney to Washington, D. C, they adopted this course, but it proved disastrous, as the General Land Office evidently became cognizant of the fact that there was an abnormal rush for the issuance of patents, and it excited their suspicions that a fraud was being perpetrated. In consequence, all the unpatented claims were suspended by order of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and special agents sent out to investigate and report on the status of the entries.

The first agent that put in an appearance was soon picked up by the company at Eureka. His report to the Commissioner did not indicate that any frauds were being committed, and other agents that followed him told the same story, because they, too, had been bought off. Special Agent B. F. Bergin, the fourth one sent out, was made of the right kind of stuff, and could not be purchased, and as a result of his report to the General Land Office, between 150 and 200 of these entries were immediately suspended and were later cancelled altogether, involving the forfeiture of all moneys paid thereon, including the purchase price of $400 per claim, together with all land office fees. The $50 paid to each of the entrymen, of course, was also lost to the company, and while it was considered that these rights were purchased at a low figure, which would have been true had the deal gone through, the company was at no small loss on this account alone. The expense of maintaining their agents, too, amounted to a large sum of money, and while I would not care to venture a guess at the total amount squandered on this venture, it can safely be said that it aggregated a small fortune.

Many of the company's principal agents were indicted by the Federal grand jury because of their connection with the transaction, and their cases were carried through the courts from one administration to another at an enormous expense. These cancelled entries were afterwards filed on by bona-fide settlers residing throughout the county, they making final proofs and receiving patents to the same.

Having participated in the survey of these lands, and located a good many people thereon, I was familiar with the entire tract, from one end to the other. Page 18