Evening star., 1924-08-29
LAW IS SET ASIDE
BY "MA' STREETER
Widow of Fighting Mariner
Defends Inherited "Rights"
by Use of Guns.
By Consolidated Press.

BY Consolidated Prees.
CHICAGO, August 90. ma"
Streeter, entrenched on her sloop
Vamoose just outside her own "deestrik
OF Lake Michigan" again is mixing with
the mnions of the law.
Ma" believes in the precepts and
practices Of old 'Cap'n" Streeter, who
for over 80 years fought the State
of Illinois, claiming all that time his
property rights. under "squatter'
law. to about 100000 worth of
Chicago's front yard along the lake.
The 'cap'n" always believed in
gunnery to bring people around to
herited his sleep Vamoose, when
accidentally rammed the other night
by the excursion steamer. Mineral
City, vowed revenge. She chased the
captain and purser out of range
when they came to settle for dam
ages.
Bullet Finds = Mark.
Courts would not have figured in
this latest escapade of the "deestrik"
if A bullet from the Vamoose had not
taken the tip off the nose of John
Biafore, fireman on the Mineral City
a night or two later Ma" advises
she ''afn't sayin' who fired the shot"
but admits one was fired. Now they
her arrest on a charge of shooting
with intent to kill.
With the same bravado that char
acterized her deceased mariner hus-
band she tells the ships captain
and the whole ships crew to get
any blankety blank kind OF a war
rant they want: she .ain't Skeered"
of the whole outfit.
Ma" has other things to think
instituted suit to recover 100000. 900
in hard cash for property in the
"deestrik of Lake Michigan" which
the ''capn' claimed was his by
squatter right and by creation. She
is carrying on her husbands battle
against the State unrelentingly with
the sl00.000,0o0 as the stake Twice
courts turned down his pleas and
decided that 1900 purchasers of the
lake front property have title to
the land which a few years ago was
part Of Lake Michigan.
MA" Has Other View.
No SO, Ma" She won't even live
on land because of the tactics of
land lubbers who have beaten the
captain in his fight Her sloep
"deestrik," hopeful of steady
anchoring place one Of these days
when some court can be found-if
IT can-to change ownership of the
land
The whole thing started back in
1886, when Capt. George Wellington
Streeter was shipwrecked in the
steamer Reutan off the Chicago
shore. The captain fitted I'D the hulk
and started raising his family right
where the disaster occurred He
built breakwater out into the lake
Nature took care of the rest. Great
ing a whole new stretch of shore
line which the 'cap'n" claimed as a
squatter.
First TIT in 1850.
His first tiff with the law came in
1889 and was continued at intervals
for the next 35 years. All the time
old Capt Streeter kept his shotgun
handy and used it once with telling
effect. Thereafter he spent a few
years in the State penitentiary for
manslaughter. But always he re-
fused to bulge from his district,
which he claimed was a sovereign
State, not subject to the laws of
Illinois, and under the Jurisdiction of
the Federal Government alone.
Through these years the property
he created by building his break
water became immensely valuable
and now is the nucleus of Chicago's
rich lake front.
Ma" Streeter out in her sloop con-
tends that the land is her own, and
she won't bulge from her position, !
won't have anything to do with the
rest of the world until she gets it,
Can Take Care OF Herself.
That is why a pot shot or two at
following strangers fail to bother
her. She tells interviewers that she
can take care Of herself and that
others should watch out for them
selves. All she wants, she says, are
her rights which as she sees it
amount to something more than $780,
00O,0