The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-01-24
LAND FRAUD SEEN
Kentucky Coal Gets Wichita
Folk Excited.
Judge Wall Calls Many of Grants
Worthless.
OKLAHOMA MIXED IN.
Large Mountain Tracts Draw
ing for an Investment.
Other Items of Interest to State
Readers.

forts of clients of Judge Jesse D. Wall
of this city to extricate themselves
ed fraudulent titles to Kentucky coal
lands, it develops that for the past
three years there has been going on in
Wichita a peculiar form of skin game
the threads Of whose interviewer warp
extend over parts of Oklahoma, Ken
lucky and Virginia, and started SO far
back as 1902. when the nation was era
died, but the Pickering fires of the
Wichita end frightened into a fresh
glow three years ago.
1t seems that many years ago a man
lived in Wichita by the name of Dod-
son. who owned, or thought he owned,
$500 acres of valuable mineral land in
Johnson and Magoffin counties, Ken
lucky. Dodson died, leaving a widow,
who imagined she was immensely rich
through this property, and she had a
right SO to think. Frances Jane Dod-
the government that rich veins of coal
were on those acres and only Is to %
feet beneath the surface.
DR.. ]. P. Finlaw persuaded the widow
to let him handle this land and to sell
it out in small tracts for her DR..
Finlaw was a specialist in the city at
the time. Now it seems there was an
unlicensed and unbounded abstrater at
the town of Paintsville, county seat of
Johnson county. who was said to sup
ply any sort of an old abstract one
wanted, at $40 per. He would make
and this is where Wichita people met
trouble. Probably % Wichita people
invested their surplus funds in these
coal lands, which were there all right
though and rich, but remote from the
travel of the country, away from rail-
roads and with questionable titles and
abstracts. In fact, it was, and largely
is yet, a primeval domain Astounding
in the feudiSt, the mOOnShiner of the
mountains, the coonskin cap, the tai
low dip, the spinning wheel and even
f1intlOck rifles.
History of Title Trouble.
To revert a little to the original
title trouble, which history Wichita in
vestors did not know at the time, it
dates back to 1902. when the common
wealths of Virginia and Kentucky got
into a dispute over the boundary line,
involving millions of acres, including
Dodson's tract. This strip included
grants of from 5000 to $1,000 acres, but
was in wilderness, and few ever took
up their claims for the grants. Squat
ters took up the abandoned claims Of
ten at the instigatiOn Of big companies.
Taxes were paid and tax titles given
and the. endless troubles followed by
claims for them upon those long resid-
ing upon them and paying taxes. Fin
ally the state of kentucky passed laws
granting the clear titles to those al
ready on the lands instead of to de-
scendants of holders of the original
grants. The United States supreme
court recently upheld Kentucky in
this by a. decision clearing these titles.
Lots Of Wichita people went back
there to investigate their holdings"
but they never got near enough to
them because of so bad roads that it
was said to be more difficult to reach
the county seat from remote corner
of the county than to go to New York
city by rail. The joke, nearly tragic,
was on Finlaw who left Wichita to
make final inspection. He left the
train at the nearest point to the lands
of the Dodson holdings, went to a liv-
cry stable to hire a team. The pro-
prietor looked him over and coolly re-
marked: you don't want to go out
there. Others like you went out there
and either never came back at all or
else filed with holes" FinlaW came
back to Wichita
Another Mixup at Wichita.
Here a new mixup occurred at the
Wichita end of the string. Mrs. Dod-
son decided some of her land to her son,
but at the same time entered into a
contract to sell a lot of the same deed
ed land, got the purchasers to put up
5000 and for ma stock company or cor
poration. A lot of these brought their
abstracts to Jesse Wall for examina-
ton. Judge Wall wrote back to Ken
lucky regarding them, and received
prompt notice they were none of them
worth the paper they were written on.
Here the plot thickens again. These
victims traded off the supposed inter-
ests in this Corporation about a year
ago for an equity in some Oklahoma
land, and then 1t developed there was
no equity in these lands. either, as
these lands had also been decided away
Quite recently Judge Wall effected a
settlement on the Oklahoma PROPOSE
ton, and the sellers bought back their
land, returning the original $500 to the
purchasers. 1t was on January IA that
the supreme court of the United States
rendered it's opinion granting title tc
the squatters and unfolding the state
of Kentucky, which makes the titles OF
the Wichita holders of these claims
worthless.
Judge Wall alone has examined 10 to
Is of the abstracts and reported them
all worthless.