Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-05-14
SETTLED AT LENGTH.
End of Thirty Years Litigation for
Some Valuable Property.
THE MYRA CLARK GAINES CASE
Reaches Its Last Appeal and is Decided
Against New Orleans.
THE SCOTT CHINESE ACT is A GO

WASHINGTON, May 13.-The United
States Supreme Court to-day, in an opinion
bv Justice Bradley, awarded the executors
Of the will of Myra Clark Gaines the sum
of s576. 900 against the city of New Orleans
for the use of property sold by the city, but
recovered by Mrs. Gaines after long litiga-
tion. The judgment of the lower court
awarding the executors 81 100000 for the
use of the unimproved property sold by the
city was not concurred in.
This case, probably, has been the most
interesting, the hardest contested, and the
most prolonged known to the judicial his
tory of this country. Over 80 years ago
Justice Wayne, of the United States Su-
preme 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 now been decided as many
times again.
ALWAYS ONE OF THEM PENDING.
The first suit in the case was brought by
Mrs. Gaines Cthen the wife of General Whit
ney) in 1884, and since that time decision
has followed decision in regard to 1t, until 1t
has become byword that there was always
a Gaines case pending. This first suit
sought to recover what was known as the
Evariste Blanc tract in New Orleans. Blanc
bought the tract for about S4 500 from the
executors of General Daniel Clark, promi-
nent citizen of New Orleans. He sold it and
some other land to the city of New Orleans
for S45, 900, and the city sub-divided the tract
and sold it to a number of persons for be-
tween $500, 900 and 500 900, agreeing to de-
fend all questions of title-Mrs. Gaines
having few months before claimed 1t.
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 Carriers, a 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 the axis on which the liti-
CATION revolved, and the case was fought
with bitterness by both sides.
ALONG TIME TO WAIT.
1t was not until few years before the war
that Mrs. Gaines was finally declared to be
the legitimate child, as well as the lawful
heir, of General Clark. Even then the city
of New Orleans did not surrender, and after
the war Mrs. Gaines was compelled to bring
a suit for damages In 1881 the Circuit
Court of the United States for the Louisi-
ana district gave judgment in her favor for
s., ,925, ,667, and it is on an appeal from this
Judgment that the case to-day was decided.
The present case it is generally conceded
exhausts all the resources of the law, and is
regarded as the final settlement of the liti-
cation. Mrs. Gaines, fighting to the very
last for her rights, is dead, and so it is be-
lieved are all her immediate relatives ex-
eept her daughter-in-law, Hattie L. Whit
ney, in whose name, as the Administrative
# the estate of Mrs. Gaines, the case stands
4 the court docket
Justice Bradley rendered the decision of
Court, which was unanimous. Justice
mar and Chief Justice Fuller were not
mbers of the court at the time the case
argued, and took no part in the de-