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Show 128 REPORT OF THE CONXISSIONEE OF INDIAI? ABTAIR8. The inspector reported February 17, 1900, that he had also given H. E. Brown temporary permission to mine and shi coal in the Creek Nation and that permission of the same character % ad been given to Mrs. Texanna Wooley to mine coal on the land she proposed to take as her allotment in the Cherokee Nation, and requested that his action in these cases be approved. In accordance with office recommendation of March 13, 1900, the Department, March 16, approved the action of the inspector. It was afterwards found that the temporary permission granted Mr. Edwards was in reality permission for the Horse Pen Coal and Mining Company, of which Mr. Edwards was president, to mine coal in the Cherokee Nation. In his report of January 13, 1900 (referred to this office by the Department February 21), the inspector stated that the temporary permission granted through him to Mr. Edwards or the Horse Pen Coal and Mining Company by the Department December 12, 1899, had been revoked by him, for the reason that Mr. S. M. Porter, of Caney, Kans., who was acting as attorney for the coal and mining company, was at the same time attorney for a Mr. Morris, who was interested in laying out the "town site" of Collinsville, and also for the Kansas, Oklahoma Central and Southwestern Railroad Company, to which said coal company was furnishing coal; also that Mr. Porter, as the representative of Mr. Edwards, complained to the inspector that one Mr. French was laying out a town site on land on which Edwards desired 20 mine coal. The inspector therefore suggested that the "Horse Pen Mining Company not be permitted to mine coal further in the Cherokee Nation other than to take coal which they had already stripped." Office report of March 9, 1900, recommended approval of Impector Wright's recommendation as follows: In view of the fact that Mr. Porter is attorney for, and a partner of, Mr. Moms in the town-site transaction, attorney for the coal company, and also for the railway company, and that he did not advise Inspector Wright of the business relations exist-ing between him andMr. Morris when he complained of Mr. French's action, it would seem that he has acted in had faith. Therefore this office conm in Inspector Wright's suggestion, and recommends that the temporary permission heretofore granted Mr. Edwards, or the Horse Pen Coal and Mining Company, to take coal from certajn Cherokee lands be revoked. March 30, 1900, the Department approved the inspector's action. In my Iast annual report the status was given of the applications of the Cudahy Oil Company, the Cherokee Oil and Gas Company, and Benjamin D. Pennington, for oil leases covering a large number of tracts of 640 acres each, aggregating altogether about 183,000 acres of land in the Cherokee and Creek nations. These companies have since applied to the Department for a rehearing of their applications, which was granted; but this office is unadvised as to what action has been taken thereon by the Department. |
