Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1901-11-20
Antics OF THE MISSOURI.
Three Thousand Acres of Land Twice
Shifted.

Sioux City Nov. 20.-The Missouri
river is claimed by suit filed in the
district court to have earned 5000 acres
Worth $4,000, for 100 acres of land in
! the neck of the horseshoe bend west of
1 Liberty township.
i The land, known by Libertyites as
/ The Island is claimed by one party,
Z A. l.. Beardsley, as Iowa, and by an
! other party, John Mulhall, as Nebraska,
4 Beardsley owns the accretion rights of
government lots l. 2, 3 and 4. in sections
10 and Is; Mulhall has bought from the
former owners of the Nebraska land
now covered by the deposit of the Mis-
souri, title to the same tract. The
courts are asked To decide whether
Beardsley is the owner of Iowa land in
Nebraska or whether Mulhall is the
owner under title to former Nebra ska
land, buried In the deposit of Iowa soil.
When this land was surveyed by the
government in 1852. the meander line
Of lots 1, 9 3 and A. was the shore of the
Missouri river. But that treacherous
stream began slowly backing away
from these lots and continued the retro
grade process until 1879. BY that year
the Missouri had eaten up several good
sized farms. among which was one
owned by Wallace Long of this city, and
the owners of 5000 acres of land looked
acrosst he river and saw their property
in the embraces of the horseshoe bend
OF the Missouri. For fifteen years the
old stream held to this route, around
the long bend. Then. in the summer of
1894, during high water, the river sud-
denly took notion to behead the bot
e-shaped accretion, and cut across its
neck. And the 5000 acres of land was
back on the other side.
Now A. l.. Beardsley points to the ac-
erection ard avulsion laws to prove his
claim. The courts have held at various
times that the land acquired by accre-
ton to any real estate, belongs 20 the
man who owns the tract to which the
accretion was added. On the other hand
the law of avulsion" provides that soil
suddenly taken from one man and given
to anothers property cannot be consid-
cred accretion, but belongs to the party
owing it before the river committed its
act of ayulsion Beardsley claims the
1900 acres was acquired by him in ac-
erection, during the period of 1852 and
1873: and that the sudden restoration of
the tract to Nebraska in 1894 constitute
ed avuison. and did not affect his title
Mulhall. on the other hand bought the
land under Nebraska abstracts. which
apply as well to the land now as they
did before the river performed it's gyra
tons.
The case differs from any now on the
records, as far as is known, in that all
cases previously decided involved the
ownership of land that remained on the
same side of the river as the tract To-
which 1t accreted but in this case the
river is now running in practically the
same channel as when the government
survey was made, and the aceretion
claimed lies across the river from the
land to which it Is claimed 1t aceumu
lated.
The Holman VS.. Hodges case, decided
within a year by the state supreme
court, decided that 1000 acres of farm
land, formerly lots of Dakota City, but
now across the river. belonged TO the
Iowa claimants.