The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-05-17
End of a Fa nous Law Suit.

Every newspaper reader within the last
half century is familiar to some extent with
the famous Myra Clark Gaines law suit
against the city of New Orleans. The Su-
preme Court of the United States has rem
dered what is considered the final decision
in this famous case. The decision is partly
in her favor and partly in favor of New
Orleans, for the court affirmed the judy
ment of the lower so far as it related to the
income from the improved property, $685..
| III and interest, but disalowed that part of
the judgment awarding 81, 34S,00O for rev.
enue on the unimproved property. How in
the world Mrs. Gaines heirs would have
ever recovered Sl,3lS, 600 from tie city of
New Orleans In its present financial condi-
ton is mystery. The heirs will need 10
''hustle" to get from the Impoverished
Crescent City what the court allows. The
decision, it is thought, ends what probably
has boon the most interesting, the hardest
contested and the most prolonged known to
the judicial history of this country. Oyer
thirty years ago, Justice Wayne, of the
United States Supreme Court, said that
when the historian of the American bar
! should come to write up the case, it would
be registered as the most remarkable in the
history Of our courts. The case had then
been before the Supreme Court five times in
one form or another and has been decided
as many times again. The first suit in the
case was brought by Mrs. Gaines then the
wife of General Whitney, in 1884, and since
that time decision has followed decision in
regard to it, until it has become by.word
that there was always Gaines case pend
ing. This first suit sought to recover what
was known as the Evaristic Blanc tract in
New Orleans. Blanc bought the tract for
| "a 800 from the executors of General Daniel
Clark, prominent citizen Of New Orleans.
He sold it and some other land to the city
of New Orleans for $40 900, and the city
subdivided the tract and sold it TO number
Of persons for between six and seven hun
dred thousand dollars, agreeing to de fend
all questions of title, Mrs. Gaines having
few months before claimed it. The grounds
on which Mrs. Gaines set up her claim were
that she was the child of General Clark by
a secret marriage between him and Zulime
Carriere, woman well known in the city,
and that General Clark had left later will
than the one under which the property was
sold. This secret marriage formed :he axis
on which the litigation reyolved, and the
case was fought with bitterness by both Sides
1t was not until a few years before the war
that Mrs. Gaines was finally declared 10 be
the legitimate child as well as lawful heir
of General Clark. Even then the city of
New Orleans did not surrender, and fter
the war Mrs. Gaines was compelled TO bring
a suit for damages. In 1881 the Circuit
Court Of the United States for the Louisiana
district gave judgment in her favor for
ST ,925,667, and it is on appeal from this
judgment that the case was decided. The
present case, it is generally conceded, ex.
hansts all the resources of the law and is re.
gardeu as final settlement of the litigation.
Mrs. Gaines, fighting to the very last for
her rights, is dead, and, so it is believed,
are all her immediate relatives except her
daughter in.law-Hattie L. Whitney-in
whose name, as Administrative of the estate
Of Mrs. Gaines, the case stands on the court
docket.