I. Alaskan Gold

Although Russians had unearthed small amounts of gold in Alaska before it became part of the United States in 1867, full-fledged gold rushes to the region did not begin until the 1880s. Discovery of gold in Canada around Dawson, near the Alaska border, set off a stampede to the Klondike region during 1897 and 1898 and inspired gold-digging elsewhere in Alaska. During the autumn of 1897, prospecting began in earnest on the Seward Peninsula, a far western spot just below the Arctic Circle, across the Bering Strait from Siberia. Accessible only by boat and only during the part of the year—typically, between June and October—

when the seaward passageway was free of ice, this region attracted a group of eight men who discovered gold placers in March, 1898, on two tributary streams of the Niukluk River. Rather than dig deep holes or tunnels, the prospectors worked the placer mines by gathering ore from surface gravel and washing away unwanted dirt to retain the valuable mineral particles. After a month of panning, the men organized the first mining district on the Seward Peninsula. Before long the Federal Reporter would be studded with their names: Melsing, Tornanses, Anderson, Libby, Mordaunt, Hultberg, Blake, Kittilsen. These prospectors staked their claims near Council City, where John Brynteson, a coal miner, Erik O. Lindblom, a tailor, and Jafet Lindeberg, a reindeer herder, met by chance in August, 1898.^[1]

Brynteson, Lindblom, and Lindeberg all were originally natives of Scandinavia: Brynteson and Lindblom from Sweden, Lindeberg from Norway. By the time they met, Brynteson and Lindblom were already naturalized American citizens, but Lindeberg was not—a status he would change before long. These native Scandinavians briefly prospected in the Council City district but soon became dissatisfied with that location. They made their way up the coast to the mouth of the Snake River, then followed it to a tributary known as Anvil Creek, named for an anvil-shaped rock that stood on the summit of a nearby mountain. On September 21, 1898, these three greenhorn prospectors discovered gold in large quantities, and the next day they began staking claims. They called the first one Discovery Claim, a collective claim later held under the corporate name of the Pioneer Mining Company. Each prospector also staked out an individual claim along Anvil Creek. In late September and mid-October of 1898, the prospectors filed their notices of location, a step necessary to preserve their claims. Under United States law, mineral deposits on public land were open to exploration and purchase by United States citizens and persons who had declared their intention to become citizens. Although Lindeberg was not at that time a citizen of the United States, he had formally applied for citizenship to the commissioner at St. Michael on July 22, 1898.^[2]

The placer discoveries on Anvil Creek in September of 1898 set off a new gold rush. The first prospectors to arrive were other natives of Scandinavia who lived nearby. They quickly staked the whole district by posting notices of location and boundary markings, tasks made easy by the area's small size. Approximately half of Anvil Creek's six-mile-long streambed appeared to contain "pay gravel." The average claim was 660 feet wide and 1,320 feet long. Thus, four such claims extended a little

over a mile along the creek and twelve covered the entire gold-rich area. These prospectors also liberally exploited the right to secure claims for others through powers of attorney.^[3]

Despite efforts by the locators to keep their bonanza a secret, word of the discovery reached the outside world just as the autumn ice began to block seaward traffic to Nome. Anticipation grew over the winter as the news spread throughout the region and along the Pacific Coast. Thousands traveled north during the spring thaw. But when the first newcomers arrived in mid-1899, they discovered that the original locators held a virtual monopoly on the small, rich area around Anvil Creek. The first response was to stake the entire surrounding district in hopes of a lucky strike. By the end of December, 1898, 300 claims were recorded; by April of 1899, 1,200; by July, 2,000; and by December, 4,500. Most of the claims were of dubious legality, for few of the miners concerned themselves with the legal requirements of staking a valid gold discovery claim, which included the performance of assessment work. The more enterprising and devious of the later arrivals sought to "jump" the native Scandinavians' claims by filing competing claims and challenging the legality of the original locators' claims in quiet title suits. In December of 1898, the first group of claim-jumpers targeted claims obtained through the original locators' use of allegedly illegal powers of attorney. Other claim-jumpers asserted that the Scandinavian-born locators were not citizens and therefore could not legally hold a claim. Although these objections were completely unfounded in fact and in law, a number of people attempted to steal the claims of Brynteson, Lindblom, and Lindeberg.^[4] Louis Melsing, a jumper from Council City, attempted in February of 1899 to take legal control of Anvil Creek Claim No. 10, which belonged to Johan S. Tornanses. On June 5, 1899, another determined jumper, Robert Chipps, contested Lindeberg's claims. His suit challenged the citizenship of the three Scandinavians and asserted that their location was void on the ground that aliens could not establish a valid mining claim.^[5]

Since the laws of the Alaska Territory in fact permitted aliens to hold mining claims, the late arrivals to the area decided to take matters into their own hands. In July of 1899, a town meeting was called in Nome, where within two months the population had mushroomed from 250 to 2,500. On the agenda was a resolution declaring all existing mining claims to be void. When the resolution passed, the conspirators who conceived the ordinance planned to light a series of signals to awaiting comrades who would immediately restake Anvil Creek. An army officer

named Lieutenant Oliver Spaulding somehow got wind of the plan and determined to prevent this travesty of justice. Backed by only a few soldiers, Spaulding bravely ordered the resolution to be withdrawn, on threat of clearing the hall at bayonet-point. The meeting broke up after a two-minute stalemate. Although Spaulding's action exceeded his authority, it and some good luck prevented rioting and bloodshed. The immediate crisis passed when a miner discovered gold on the beach sands adjacent to Nome a few days later. The Anvil Creek claims were momentarily forgotten as nearly 2,000 men and women worked side by side to pan gold amounting to $2 million.

Not all sought riches through illegal means. Charles D. Lane soon arrived from the West Coast, where he had earned a reputation for his business savvy and fair dealing. Instead of jumping claims or filing lawsuits, he negotiated with the original locators and secured four of their claims for a reported $300,000. Some of the original locators were undoubtedly fed up with the competition, the litigation, and the threats to their lives. As a bona-fide purchaser with experience in litigation, Lane planned to fight off the claim-jumpers in court and develop the claims with state-of-the-art equipment. He eventually brought in modern appliances, established a line of steamers from San Francisco to Nome, erected warehouses and other buildings, and built and equipped a railroad from Nome to the mines. He named his company the Wild Goose Mining and Trading Company. This was one wild goose whose chase would not prove to be in vain.^[6]

Lane's arrival elevated the struggle to wrest control of the rich Anvil Creek claims to a higher level of sophistication. Undaunted, the claim-jumpers retained the Nome law firm of Hubbard, Beeman, and Hume to press their actions against the Pioneer and Wild Goose companies. As one of the first steps in this representation, Frank Hubbard went to Washington in 1899, where he met the claim-jumper Robert Chipps and a man named Alexander McKenzie, an influential political boss of Minnesota and the Dakotas. With a capital of $15 million, McKenzie had formed a corporation known as the Alaska Gold Mining Company. Its purpose was to procure titles held by jumpers of the Nome mining claims—including Chipps's location on Discovery Claim at Anvil Creek—by trading shares for the jump-claims. McKenzie would keep a majority of the stock and would parcel out minority rights to the claim-jumpers.^[7]

The actions of Hubbard, Chipps, and McKenzie in Washington posed a distinct threat to the original locators' claims. At that time, Congress

was considering legislation to provide a civil government for Alaska. Few realized that "the 1900 civil code was put together in the middle of a conspiracy designed to steal the richest claims in the Nome district." Among other provisions, the bill copied an Oregon law guaranteeing aliens the right to acquire and hold lands in Alaska on the same basis as citizens of the United States. This provision met immediate opposition from Senators Henry Hansbrough of North Dakota and Thomas H. Carter of Montana, both thought to be in cahoots with McKenzie. Carter moved to amend the provision to prohibit aliens from holding or conveying mining claims in Alaska. This amendment would reverse a Supreme Court decision that upheld the right of aliens to hold title to a mining claim by conveyance. Senator Hansbrough frankly admitted that his amendment targeted the Scandinavian prospectors.^[8]

That such a provision would have violated the Fifth Amendment by taking property without just compensation was not lost on Senators William M. Stewart of Nevada, Henry M. Teller of Colorado, John C. Spooner of Wisconsin, William B. Bate of Tennessee, and Knute Nelson of Minnesota. A series of ugly debates on the Senate floor scarcely concealed the influence of McKenzie behind Carter and Hansbrough and of Charles Lane behind Stewart. Nelson, himself a native of Norway and a man of high integrity and intellect, tersely countered the pro-McKenzie forces by stating that "the object of this amendment is not to legislate for the future. It is to legislate in the interest of those who have jumped these claims." After vigorous debate the amendment was withdrawn, and the bill establishing a civil government for Alaska became law on June 6, 1900. This same statute established a federal district court for the district of Alaska and authorized the appointment of three judges to reside in various divisions of that territory. Though defeated in his initial bid to shape the law to his liking, McKenzie was not about to give up the fight to gain control over the Anvil Creek claims. He worked behind the scenes to induce his friend President McKinley to appoint Arthur H. Noyes of Minnesota as judge for Division No. 2, which included Nome.

The statute required the Division No. 2 judge to reside in St. Michael and to hold at least one term each year there, beginning the third Monday in June. The law also permitted the judges to hold special terms of court at such times and other places in their district as they deemed appropriate, provided that notice was given at least thirty days before such a special term was held.^[9] These statutory requirements would provide an important basis for judging the propriety of Judge Noyes's future actions. A second element of future importance was the authority under

which Noyes was appointed. Unlike justices of the Supreme Court and judges of the "inferior" federal courts designated by Article III of the Constitution, the Alaska district judges appointed under the 1900 law did not enjoy the same removal protections. Article III judges may be removed by impeachment and conviction by Congress. Judges of the territorial courts, by contrast, were removable at will by the president. Some chief executives freely exercised this authority to exploit patronage opportunities. The territorial judges had frequently evoked complaints, especially in regions that fell within the Ninth Circuit's geographical boundaries. Early Nevada territorial judges, for example, were accused of maintaining financial interests in the mines that were litigated in their courts, and one Arizona territorial judge refused to hold court in the town of Globe unless its locals provided a residence for him.^[10] Noyes easily topped these indiscretions. His scheming with McKenzie presented the Ninth Circuit with its first major crisis.