The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-03-23
HISTORY OF M'KEE SCRIP
III. VI. La TOILETTE DEFENDS HIS
CLAIM TO CHICAGO LAND.
Claims Greedy MiIIionaires Are Them.
selves Conspirators. Trying to
Grab the Government Property.

VI LII IOilttAtt Abtilt ~
recently been much in print in connection
with the Lake Front land case at Chicago.
has been in the city since last Saturday
looking after his interests here and seeing
his friends and business associates. He re-
ports that his Tennessee properties are
coming along handsomely and he has the
utmost confidence i'm ultimately winning i'm
the Chicago case. though this latter will
probably require four or five years Of liti-
cation. The dictum Of the Land Bureau Of
the Interior Department. whichever way
the trial before the department may go,
does not necessarily affect the title of the
property in question. 1t comes up ON the
application OF the scrip holders for a pat
ent to the land in question. This patent,
while not essential. is valuable in the chain
of title for abstract purposes. 1t will be
necessary Cor the holders of the scrip, aft
er its location is properly recorded in the
Interior Department and a patent issued,
to bring suit in the federal courts 10 quiet
title and this will Of course be carried TO
the Supreme Court. as the seven million
aires. Messrs. Fairbank, Mccormick, Og-
den. Farrell. Fftzsi,nmons, Winston and
Newberry, viii, if they lose, fight the mat
ter through the court of last resort.
The history Of this Mckee scrip. as 1t is
known, is rather romantic. Col. W.. r. Nc
Kee. OF Kentucky. was a graduate of West
Point and married a very wealthy Ken
lucky girl. He resigned from the army and
became chief engineer of the Louisville *
Nashville Railroad Company. When the
Mexican war broke out he resigned his
position and raised the Second Kentucky
Regiment. spending sac, 200 of his own
money In equipping il. AT the battle of
Buena Vista, when the American forces
were upon the point of defeat, General
Taylor threw this regiment into the heat
of the tight and it lost its colonel, five cap
tain5 and 331 men in half an hour. Colonel
Mckee fell at the head of his regiment,
shot through the heart. His sons inherited
from him the military spirit and fought
bravely on the Union side during the civil
war. The elder. Major George Mckee, had
part of his skull shot away during the war
and afterwards died from the effects of
the wound. The second son, Hugh, fought
as a naval cadet during the war and es-
capped without injury. When the Americans
gave the Koreans a lesson in 1871 Lieutenant
Hugh Mckee led the assault upon Seoul
and was killed, like his father, shot through
the heart.
In 1858 Congress-, in order to reimburse
the family c. Colonel Mckee for the money
he had expended in eQuipping the Second
Kentucky Regiment, passed an act issuing
this land scrip TO his family, but the fam
lily was wealthy and did not draw the scrip.
Like most other Southern families most OF
their wealth consisted in slaves and though
they fought on the Union side the war re-
duced them 10 poverty. In 1889 there was
left of the family only the widow Of Col.
Mckee and two grandchildren. The guar
dian of fnaSa andohfldrp rqn across this
act of 1853 and asked the assistance of Mr..
La Toilette in getting it so amended that
the scrip could be drawn. 1t was necessary
to amend it, because since its passage the
Land Bureau had been transferred from the
treasury TO the Interior Department. MIR.
La Toilette drew the bill and incidentally
put in an amendment with a point to 1t
which gave TO the holders OF the scrip the
right TO locate ii, a right which, in the
original bill, had rested with the President.
Mr.. La Toilette purchased an interest in
the scrip and the bill was unanimously
passed by both houses and signed Dy, the
President Aug. Is, 1889, and on Aug. p the
scrip was recorded in the land department
in Mr.. La Follette's name. He looked over
various bits of land and located some OF
the scrip at Seattle in three different sec
tons. Suit was entered upon this and in
two of the suits he was defeated. The third
he dismissed in order TO locate all or the
scrip in Chicago. Concerning this Chicago
land. he yesterday made the following
statement to a Journal reporter:
BASIS Ot The CLAIM.
1.-THE suit known as the lake front LAM
case is based Upon an application of the
holders of certain government land scrip
known as the Mckee scrip TO enter a body
of land lying upon the north bank of the
Chicago river at its mouth in the heart of
the city of Chicago. This land was omitted
from the survey of 1921 by the government
surveyors. and until a few years ago re-
= IT. $500 a-1 va- oau ne
the government common or no mans land.
The reason for the omission of this land
from the original government survey was
partially because of the fact that the Chi
cago river at that time did not flow di-
rectly east into the lake as now, but at a
point some three hundred feet west of the
lake, or about where Wabash avenue now
strikes the river, it bent to the south and
emptied into the lake at T point nearly
half a mile south of its present course. BY
this means a long narrow peninsula was
left between the river and the lake. This
peninsula and the shoulder of main land
above 1t were sandy, gravely ground COW
cred by jumper trees and other vegetable
growth. The lines of survey so fell as to
place in fractional Section 10, south and
east of the the river as 1t then flowed, the
old Fort Dearborn reservation, thus leav-
ing in the south half of the fractional Sec
ton only the long narrow peninsula. This
peninsula was attached to the north half
of the section and with the gravely tract
which extended along the shore above TO
the north line OF fractional Section 10, COM
prising some thirty-five acres of sandy
land not good for farm purposes. For these
reasons the surveyors found that If they
included this long gravely tract It would
either leave in the south half only the
narrow peninsula for sale or else would
attach to the good Ian in the north half
about one hundred acres-some forty acres
of unstable bad land. 1t was this condi-
ton, coupled with the fact that the govern
ment would probably want to straighten
the river in the near future by cutting n
channel through the narrow peninsula that
surveys as plated this strip of land. 1t is
from Lake Michigan that makes up the
tract which we entered with the Mckee
scrip. IN 1850, Congress by special act.
gaze to the State of Illinois. for the use of
the Illinois Central Railway. that part of
the land comprising the peninsula south of
the new channel, with all its accretionS, and
subsequently the United States Supreme
Court held that said land belonged TO the
government. and passed to the State of
Illinois by virtue of that act. As the land
we have entered was originally a part of
the same tract and east of the same sur
vey line il is hard 10 see why IL would not
be amenable to the same reasoning. From
1888 10 1872 the government Strengthened
the river and improved the harbor by eX-
tending the wharveS are leVeeS out 10 deer
water. These formed with the main shore
a triangle which was rapidly filled in with
greatly increased the body of land COM
prising the government common In the
year 1881 the land lying west of the original
survey line in Section 10 pnnnrfzinp las