The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1915-04-09
FREAK CHANNEL
IN GREAT RIVER
Plays With Land Titles By
Shifting Its Cur
rent.

pose that years ago when you were
"A young man, you came to Missouri
and bought farm on The banks of
the Missouri River and spent the
next fifteen years in clearing the
land and bringing it into a high
state of cultivation, and then suppose
that when you had just begun to de-
rive some benefit from your years of
toll the river should suddenly reach
out and swallow about half of your
farm.
Then suppose that the river, after
keeping your farm for several years,
should grow seemingly repentant
and replace your farm, you would
no doubt feel that all the land with
deeds was your own as much as it
ever was.
But that would all depend on the
precise manner in which the river
replaced your land. That is where
the accreation law of Missouri comes
in. and il is a fearful and mysterious
land back, began piling it up against
your bank, and continued doing so,
the land to the waters edge would
be yours, even if il went beyond your
original boundaries But if the river,
as 1t often does, should first throw
up bar out in the channel and then
gradually fill up the space between
that and your land until finally the
current changed and left the island
thus formed joined to your land, you
would have no claim to any land
thus formed. 1t would belong to the
county. and could be surveyed and
sold to the highest bidder, and the
money it brought would go TO the
school fund.
Called Malicious Stream.
The Missouri River is a malicious
stream, and If it comes to judgement
will have a lots to answer for. In
stead of pursuing its course in an
orderly manner and sticking to one
established course it is forever chang
ing. eating away the bank on one
side and throwing up new banks on
the other side, cutting out old sand
bars here and building new ones
there, so that the main channel is
never the same very long at time.
In Holt County, near Fortescue,
there has been great deal of ex-
element lately, caused by the dis
putes over the possession of some of
the land thus formed, commonly
known as bar land" Several men
had fenced land which was claimed
under deed of John c. Hinkle, civil
war veteran, who has lived on this
very land for the last fifty years.
About fifteen years ago the river
took 500 acres of Mr.. Hinkle's land
/ and afterward put it back as a bar
Mr.. Hinkle claimed the land on the
| ground that the bar had made to his
land, and the other man claimed it
on the ground that il had been put
back as an island, which finally join
ed Mr.. Hinkle's land, and was, there
fore, as much theirs as anyone elses.
The court upheld the squattetrs
claim that the land did not belong
to Hinkle, and his decision was the
signal for squatters to rush in and
seize the bar land all along the river
front. In the last thirty days per-
haps a dozen men have settled on
these bars.
Possession Is Important.
The fact of possession seems TO be
given given considerable weight in
this matter, and the land is general
I ly seized in the night. A squatter will
pick out a piece of land that most
suits his fancy, get some help, slip
in at night, put a fence around it. or
course il is not much of a house or
much of a fence, but it is enough to
establish proof of possession.
Sometimes two different men will
have designs on the same piece of
lands, or perhaps the man whose
deed calls for this land will offer OBJ
jections to its being seized. and these
conditions have given rise to several
exciting encounters. Several houses
have been torn down. many fences
cut to pieces in at least one instance
men have been escorted from the land
of their choice to the point of Win
chester. with instructions to beat
it" and not to come back. While no
blood has been shed so far. II is free
ly predicted that il is only a matter
OF time until somebody is carried out
fleet first"