THE OWNERSHIP OF REELFOOT LAKE! Jet. MCGILE, AND SENATOR W. W. CRAIG, RIPLEY The Chickasaw Indians were the first claimants of the land now covered by Reelfoot Lake. This tribe of Indians claimed all of the country now in Kentucky and ‘Tennessee west of the ‘Tennessee River and valiantly held it in almost continuous warfare for filty years against invasion by the Spanish and [rench. North Carolina claimed by grant of the King of [ingland, Charles I, 1663, all the land west of the Allegheny Mountains between def- nite North and South boundaries to the South Seas—practically the Mississippi River. ‘he Government represented by the Continental Congress laid claim in 1783 to the western lands of the states as the successor of the British Crown. ‘The states finally agreed to sur- render their claims to these western lands in payment of their part of the debts incurred in the prosecution of the war. North Carolina was one of the last to make the surrender, and before doing so opened all its country west of the Alleghenies to entry and grant by any per- son who was then, or should hereafter become, a citizen of the state. North Caroiina Land GRran‘ts John Armstrong, as entry taker, opened a land office October 20, 1783, at Hillsboro, North Carolina, where entry warrants might be sold each for not more than 5,000 acres of unimproved land at ten pounds in specie, or in paper money at depreciated value, for every one hundred acres. Early in 1784, the legislature offered to cede its entire western country stibject to the recognition by the general gov- ernment of stich entries. Soon thereafter the legislature decided it “just and right that no further entries be mace untit the United States refuse the cession, and thereupon ordered that the entry taker’s office be discontinued and that all entries made after the 20th of May, 1784, be declared void.” So rapidly had the entries been made that within the period that the land office was opened—a little more than seven months—nearly three-fourths of the land in the western district had heen entered. ‘The legislature at the same session (1784) made provisions for the location and survey of the entries, and Wm. ‘Tyrell Lewis was elected surveyor of the western distr His headquarters were in Nash- ville. Under him in the field were deputies, James Robertson, Henry Rutherford, Edward Harris, and Isaac Roberts. ‘The surveys began in the fall of 1785 and continued at intervals for several years. In ‘Dr, J. ‘T. McGill is responsible for this paper to the pat dealing with the formation of the West ‘Tennessee Land Co. Senator W. W. Craig is responsible for the rest of the paper. —13—14 Journal of the Tennessee Academy of Science y, 1788, Rutherford surveyed four tracts afterwards known as the George Doherty grants (Mig. 1), as follows: Grant 161, 2.000 acres; Grant 51, 4,000 acres; Grant 35, 3,000 acres; Grant 98, 3,000 acres. ‘Total, 12,000 acres. In few cases, if any, did the grantees endeavor to take possession of the land thus acquired. Mor although the Chick- asaw Indians were less hostile to pioneers than any other tribe be- catise in their wars against the I’rench and Spanish the pione had sided with them, yet the pioneers knew that any attempt at settlement of these lands which the Chickasaws claimed as their own would he resisted. ~ Jul While ‘Tennessee was under territorial government, no grants were issued, ‘Tennessee on admission as a state in 1796, acquired the right to issue grants for land in the western district which the Chickasaw Indians were in possession of. But as the population of Middie ‘Ten- nessce increased and the lands there available for entry and grant he- came scarcer and more costly, the desire grew to take posses ion of this fine country between the ‘Tennessee and Miss sippi Rivers, now occupied by only a small tribe of Indians. President Jefferson in 1802 wrote: “From the Yazoo to the Ohio is the property of the Chickasaws, a tribe most friendly to us and at the same time the most adverse to the diminution of their lands. We must continue to in- crease and nourish their friendship and confidence by every act of justice and favor which we can possibly render them. But the tribe is poor, and they want necessaries with which we abound. We want lands with which they abound, and these natural wants seem to offer fair ground of mutual supply.”"2 The influence of James Robertson with the Chickasaws as well as with ‘Tennesseans doubtless delayed the acquisition of the Chickasaw country. He was a commissioner to the Indians when he died among the Chickasaws in 1si4. In 1816 Andrew Jackson was a commissioner to the Chickasaws. His success in negotiating a treaty with them led him to suggest to President Monroe the advisability of further pressure for a cession of their "The ‘Tennessee Legislature in 1818 memorialized Congress to "This was approved lands. procure a relinquishment of the Chickasaw claim. by Congress, and the President appointed two commissioners, Tsaac Shelby, ex-Governor of Kentucky, and General Andrew Jackson, to negotiate with the Chickasaw nation. The commissioners met the chiefs of the Indians at the treaty ground near Old ‘Town, Chickasaw Nation, September 29, 1818, and on October 19 a treaty was signed by which the Chickasaw Nation ceded all claim and title to the land in ‘Tennessee between the ‘Ten- nessee and Mississippi Rivers for the sum of $300,000.00, made in fifteen equal annual payments. ‘The talk of the commissioners to the Indians assembled October 12, 1818, at the treaty ground near Old "Town, Chickasaw Nation, to hear it, is printed in Williams’ Begin- *Williams, Beginnings of West Tennessee, p. 84 from the site of Samburg (Fig. 1). The Ownership of Reelfoot Lake 15 nings of West Tennessee* "Vhe talk, too long to be given here in full, was in part as follows: Friends and Brothers: We have been chosen by your father, the President of the United States, to mect you in council and brighten the chain of friend- ship by shaking hands and greeting you as his children, Vour father, the President, always anxious to keep peace and friendship be- tiveen his red and white children, and do justice to all, has charged us again to pring to your view that neck of land in ‘ennessee and Kentucky west of the mennessee River. Before you were here this land was granted by England, dearly two hundred years ago, to North Carolina and Virginia, and these states at the close of the Revolutionary War in 1783, to pay their debt to the Gen- eral Government for carrying on the war, sold the land to their white chitdren ; bat your father, the President, in order to give his red children the benefit of the Zane, has kept your white brothers off the land. But the game is now de- stroyed, and your father, the President, is bound to give it to them and protect them: in their possession. Brothers, listen: You have no claim to the fand but what the General Gov- ernment chooses to give you by permitting you to hunt on it. All Indian claims are considered merely a5 a hunting privilege subject to the will and pleasure of the General Government and which you agreed to hy the second, third, and eighth articles of your own treaty held at Hopewell in the year 1786," Brothers, your father, the President, wants to have you finally settled, and fje wants to give yout as much land over the Mississippi for this country which js granted to your white brethren where there is no claim by any other people ~ and where there is plenty of grass and good land; and he has told us, if you “don’t want to exchange land, to give you a fair and reasonable price in money for your claims in this tract of country. Brothers, listen again: For we must speak plainly and tell you the truth— if you refuse the friendly offer of your father, the President, this land will be taken possession of by your white brethren who have patents for it, and your father will look on your conduct as acts of i will and ingratitude. | . After the cession the greater part of West Tennessce was settled rapidly, hut not so the Reelfoot country ‘Terrible earthquakes had occurred in 1811-1812 which formed a Jake that had to a large extent submerged the Doherty tracts, the low lands were subjected to over- flow at high water by the Mississippi River through Bayou du Chien whose confluence with Reelfoot Creek was now in the lake not far ‘ ; u Besides this the quakes were still occurring occasionally and the region was considered unhealthy. ‘The land seemed scarcely worth acquiring at any price. : Grants BY THE Stary or TRNNessin The first grants issued by the State of ‘I'ennessee for lands in patt submerged by the lake were, it seems, to Walter H. Caldwell, numbers 14653 and 14654 (April 1, 1853) and number 14864 (December 1 1854), each for 5,000 acres. ‘The first two. adjoining, may be regarded as one body of 10,000 acres, including most of the lake north of a line running east and west 5.4 miles across the lake from a point on the shore near the confluence of the Reelfoot River and Bayou du Chien ie the west shore of Swan Basin, and the third as taking in nearly all of the lake south of the above. Another grant, number 16042, for “/bid., p. 291.16 Journal of the Tennessee Academy of Science 000 acres covering the northeastern part of the lake, was isstied to Walter H. Caldwell, November 1, 1860. ‘The acreage of this tract was largely reduced by conflicts with titles to lands not covered by water. What Mr. Caldwell had in view when he applied for these grants, I do not know, ‘The waters of the lake had always been used by fishermen and hunters freely without question of rights. When, however, fishing hegan to become profitable, some persous—mayhe, even at that early date, Mr, Caldwell himself—thought it worth while to investigate what rights and privileges were conferred by grants to lancls partly or-wholly under the lake. Some thirty years after the Caldwell grants were issued, James C. Harris of Tiptonville conceived the idea that, if he could get posses- sion of the lake by purchasing a strip of land enclosing it and if nec- essary the land covered by the water, he might by draining the lake, make the property immensely valuable. He decided to make the at- tempt. He succeeded in purchasing the Caldwell interests and other tracts and parts of tracts necessary to complete the strip along the shore in Lake County. On the Obion County side he secured all claims under the Doherty grants along the shore, and took over a series of grants issued in 1895-96-97 to various parties presumably for his benefit. These grants had their beginning points at the foot of the bluff east of the lake and were laid out adjoining so as to take in all of the lake and its eastern shore which was not included in previous acquisitions. In August, 1899, after he had, as he thought, extinguished all other legal claims, he made preparations to dig a ditch, or canal, to drain the lake from the south end into the Obion River. Thereupon a number of persons claiming to be owners of lands, hotels, club houses, fish docks, and other property situated along the eastern shore of the lake, filed an injunction to restrain Harris from draining it. ‘The case, W. E. Webster, e¢ al, vs. James C. Harris, ef al, came up for trial in the Chancery Court of Lake County before W. H. Swiggart, Chancellor. The substance of his decision wa 1. The injunction restraining Harris from draining the lake was sustained. ‘The complainants are riparian owners of tracts of land in severalty along the eastern shore, with their western boundaries extending to the water's edge at the low-water mark and are entitled to the uses, benefits, and privileges of the lake for all common, usual, domestic, and farm’ purposes. 2. Reelfoot Lake is a public and navigable body of water in the sense of the law as well as in fact and therefore not the subject of private ownership and control; but the soil under said waters and the fisheries therein, as well as the right of navigation, belong to the state, in trust for the benefit of al! the citizens thereof ; and that the title under which J, C. Harris and his predecessors claim Reelfoot Lake is void and that such title papers conver no title whatever to such of the lands as are covered by water." Harris appealed to the Supreme Court and the appeal was heard at Jackson at the April, 1902, term. Justice McAlister delivered the opinion of the court. *Tennessee Reports, Cates, 3, 1903, p. 672. “Tbid. The Owe ip of Reelfoot Lake v7 f. Restrained Harris from draining the take, so far sustaining the Chan- cele soot that Reclfoot Lake is not navigable in the legal, technical sense, jut in the common ordinary acceptance of the term, and therefore that lands inder the waters of the lake are subject to grant by the state—thus reversing the second part of the Chancellor's decision. As by this decision, Harris was restrained from draining the lake, and his ownership of land under the waters of the lake declared void, the riparian owners and others continued fishing in the lake without hindrance. But as the lands under the waters were declared subject to grant by the state, though Harris had not established his owner- ship, the West ‘fennessee Land Company, a corporation to which Harris sold all his interest in and adjacent to the lake, endeavored to establish its title to the land under the water as well as along the shore; and when this object was apparently accomplished, the com- pany claimed and assumed exclusive control within the houndary of the property. A great many people who had been raised on and near this lake and had raised their families there, had been accustomed all their lives to hunt and fish on the lake unrestrained, and had gained their living by doing so. ‘They regarded this as one of the natural rights which, as citizens there, they had acquired by long usage, and they «bitterly resented the efforts of the West Tennessee Land Company to deprive them of these rights upon the claim of title and owner- ship and the right to control the property as private property, and any efforts of the Land Company to enforce any such claims against them. In April, 1908, feeling ran high and these people resorted to the primitive law of force and burned the fish docks at Samburg on the eastern shore of the lake. This resentment was naturally cen- tered on the officials of the Land Company by and through whom the rights of the company were being enforced. In October, 1909, Capt. Quintin Rankin (a captain in the Spanish-American War) and Col. R. Z. Taylor, a Confederate soldier, at that time Clerk and Master of the Chancery Court of Gibson County, both of whom were law- yers living in ‘Trenton, and both of whom were stockholders or offi- cers in the said West Tennessee Land Company and excellent, law- ~ abiding gentlemen, went to Walnut Log, on the eastern shore of the lake some ten or twelve miles north of Samburg, on business per- taining to the ownership of the company in the lake. At midnight a fiumber of men entered their room and took them out on the bayou some half mile away, mistreated and insulted them, and hanged and shot Captain Rankin, Colonel Taylor escaped by diving into the dark waters of the bayou and hiding behind a log from which he finally made his escape and found his way next day to Tiptonville in very serious physical condition. Hon, M. R. Patterson, then Gov- enor of ‘ennessee, took charge of the situation and sent the State Militia to the scene. ‘They apprehended several of the night-riding company and brought them to trial at Union City. Some of them were convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to be hanged, but upon appeal to the Supreme Court of ‘Tennessee, the