The Vigilantes of Montana:
1864 Revisited

The Organization of Miner's Courts in Montana

As soon as a group of miners started staking out claims on a new discovery, they organized a Mining District to regulate how claims were laid out and to record who had which claim. There was no private property -- all the land in the territory was deemed public -- that is owned by the United States. A miner staked out a certain area of land as a claim, meaning he had ownership rights to that land in fact. But this required some kind of organization, with a recorder and a book of claims. One of the first known recordings in what is now Montana (of the right to dig a ditch) is quoted by Noyes, page 201:
The said Phleger may also carry water from said ditch across the Grasshopper Creek at any point he may think proper, for the purpose of supplying miners who may desire water. Provided that the said Phleger shall use reasonable dispatch and bring in water and complete said ditch, as soon as practicable. This grant or charter to take effect from the 30th day of August, 1862, at which time said ditch was marked out, and staked by said Phleger. Recorded September 23rd, 1862.
J. HURST, Recorder.

Per A. STANLEY.

When you take into consideration that gold had only been discovered July 28th, the above instrument shows that people had gathered in Bannack to such an extent that they had had time to organize into a little government, which was a true Democracy.

All over the west when miners first congregated at a new diggings, they formed a Mining District, and formally organized a court with jurisdiction over claim disputes, water rights, and other administrative matters. In the case of Bannack, already in August, 1862, less than a month after the first discovery, there was a recorder of claims established, and even of claims sold. But the first written record of mining laws for the Bannack District is from October 19, 1862.

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