The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1953-02-27
AIR-TIGHT TITLES
SELDOM SEEN IN
HATTERASLANDS
The Older Generations Left
All Legal Questions to
Posterity to Untan-
gle

Buxton on Cape Hatteras, Feb.
26.-Six months diligent search
through the fragmentary records
of land ownership along the rs
mile strip that is to become the
Cape Hatteras National Seashore
has barely turned up a land title
that will pass the grim scrutiny
of the Lands Division of the De-
partment of Justice, who have to
nod before money can pass and
another six months will likely
elapse before the log-jam breaks.
There is an easier way to do it
but A. C. Stratton, who directs
the land-acquisition for the Sea-
shore project is adamantly con-
mitted to the hard way because he
believes it is the fair way and in
the long run the owners of the
land will get their money with
none or little of it obligated to
pay court costs and the fees of the
lawyers they would have to hire.
Six months after the purchase
money was placed in the U. S.
Treasury and the Treasury of
North Carolina by the administra-
tors of the estate of the late An
drew w. Mellon and the Governor
and the Council of State of North
Carolina, not a penny of it has
been paid out for land. Nor for
much else though the relatively
negligible cost of the title-search-
ing and the negotiation with own
ers has been charged up to the
fund. Up to now it amounts to lit
tie more than one per cent of the
$1,236,000.
Literal fact is that nearly every
title yet examined in the area has
some sort of a cloud over it, and
this is no fault of the owners of
the land, Mr.. Stratton believes
and they ought not to be penalized
for something they had nothing to
do with. Even the Worth property
on the north side of Oregon Inlet
has a total of ID flaws in title that
would have arched the brows of the
lawyers in the Lands Division who
have a rigid book to go by and
they go by it.
Notwithstanding discloses that
in the neighborhood of Cape Hat
teras one land holder has sold the
same small tract of land to five
different buyers in the course of
Is years-and that without having
a clear title to it himself. Addition
ally he leased the mineral rights
to seven competing oil companies
during the oil boom in 1915 and,
currently, he is cheerfully willing
to sell the same land to the Sea-
shore project.
But in any case Mr.. Stratton is
not going to take the easier way
with that tract of land until he has
exhausted every possibility of es-
tablishing title to it without going
to court. He proceeds on the thes-
is that, after all, the apparent own
err may have a just claim to the
land and until he discovers other
wise he will continue to search
and negotiate.
Nearby is another tract that was
held in one family for 200 years
and distributed from generation to
generation by the simple process
of the owner calling his heirs to
his bedside as he lay dying and
apportioned the land among them.
No will, no deed. That went on for
generations and as of this week
Mr.. Stratton has discovered a total
of 528 lawful heirs.
And to complicate the matter
further, about 80 years ago one of
the heirs sold the land to some
people in Philadelphia, and they
have since died, leaving about SO
claimants to tract with heavily
clouded title. About the only deeds
to land on the Outer Banks that
pass muster are of comparatively
recent date and involve lands pur-
chased from or granted by the
State. Up to now the Seashore has
not only been unable to buy, but
even to accept lands as a gift. The
title has to be clear.
Up to now the only absolute
deed discovered is that by which
Mary Gaskins, widow, transferred
for 500 a tract of four acres on
Cape Hatteras to be used as the
site of lighthouse. The deed is
now in the National Archives in
Washington but a photostat of it
is here and part of the record of
the Alexander Hamilton Light
house. That deed was registeded
, by the government in the Curri-
tuck Courthouse.
Not only have the Outer Banks
been isolated but they have from
time to time been in doubt about
what county they were in. Earlier
deeds are recorded in Currituck
later ones in Hyde and recent ones
in Dare county. The island has
stayed put but county lines have
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