Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/89919/whitaker-vs-mcbride
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 12:52:55+00:00

Document:
The question of the title of a riparian owner is one of local law, and unrestricted grants of the government, bounded on streams and other waters, are to be construed according to the law of the state in which the lands lie. Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U. S. 371 .
Government surveys of public lands are not open to collateral attack in an action at law between private parties.
A meander line is not a line of boundary, but a means of ascertaining the quantity of land in the fraction which is to be paid for by the purchaser.
Where the government has surveyed and patented the lands up to the bank of a channel in which an unsurveyed island is situated, a patentee of the land on such bank, although his land may itself be an island surrounded by two channels of the river, has all the rights of a riparian owner in the channel lying opposite his banks, including the unsurveyed island, if, as a riparian owner, he is entitled thereto by the laws of the state.
By the law of Nebraska, as interpreted by its highest court, riparian proprietors own the bed of a stream to the center of the channel. The government, as original proprietor, has the right to survey and sell any lands, including islands in a river or any other body of water, and if it omits to survey an island in a stream and refuses to do so when its attention is called to tho matter, no citizen can overrule the department, and assuming that the island should be surveyed, occupy it for homestead or preemption entry. In such a case, the rights of riparian owners are to be preferred to those of the settler.
been in the possession of McBride and Kingore for more than ten years prior to the bringing of the action, but during that time they were contending as to how much of the land each was entitled to. It had never been surveyed by the government.
It appeared in evidence that Whitaker, in 1897, settled on the island, claiming the right to enter the same as a homestead; that application to the Land Department of the government to have the island surveyed was, in 1897, refused, the Department declining to take any action in the matter. These lands were a part of the Fort Kearney Military Reservation, which was surveyed and sold under a special Act of Congress dated July 21, 1876, 19 Stat. 94, the patent to McBride, who had entered his tract as a homestead, bearing date March 28, 1885. There was testimony tending to show that the island was, at the time of the survey of the reservation, frequently covered with water, and that, since then -- perhaps owing to the construction of bridges and dykes -- overflows had been less frequent and the land better adapted to occupation and cultivation. The decree directed by the supreme court was adverse to Whitaker, and quieted the title to McBride and Kingore to the island, giving to each one-half.
"In our judgment, the grants of the government for lands bounded on streams and other waters, without any reservation or restriction of terms, are to be construed as to their effect according to the law of the state in which the lands lie."
See also Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 45 ; Lowndes v. Huntington, 153 U. S. 19 ; Grand Rapids &c.; Railroad Company v. Butler, 159 U. S. 87 , 159 U. S. 92 ; St. Anthony Falls Power Company v. Water Commissioners, 168 U. S. 349 ; Kean v. Calumet Canal Co., 190 U. S. 452 ; Hardin v. Shedd, 190 U. S. 508 .
"We have no doubt upon the evidence that the circumstances were such at the time of the survey as naturally induced the surveyor to decline to survey this particular spot as an island. There is nothing to indicate mistake or fraud, and the government has never taken any steps predicated on such a theory, and did not survey the so-called island No. 5 until twenty-five years after the survey of 1831, and nearly twenty years after that of 1837."
These considerations furnish a sufficient answer to the question, and sustain the decision of the Supreme Court of Nebraska.
It is further contended that the land of one of these patentees is itself part to an island, and that therefore he has no riparian rights. It is sufficient reply to this contention that the government surveyed and patented the lands up to the banks of the channel in which the island in controversy is situated, and a patentee, although his land may be itself surrounded by two channels of the river, has all the rights of a riparian owner in the channel lying opposite his banks.
and we held that that line must therefore be the limit of the grant, and the fact that outside the side lines extended there was a body of water did not operate to extend the grant into any portion of that body of water. In the last of these cases, the complainants, the owners of 859.38 acres as shown by the descriptions in their patents of fractional lots, claimed by reason thereof to be the owners of 1,202 acres lying between the meandered lines and a lake, and sought by injunction to restrain the Land Department from making a survey of these latter lands. We held that injunction would not lie, and that the officers of the government could not be restrained from making a survey; that the rights of the complainants could be settled, after a survey and transfer of the legal title from the government, by an action at law.
It is suggested in one of the briefs that this island extends up or down the river beyond the side lines of the tracts belonging to these riparian proprietors. A plat which is in evidence seems to support this statement, but the finding of the trial court, which is not disturbed by the supreme court, is to the effect that it lies between the tracts of the riparian proprietors. Of course, their title is only to the land which is in front of their banks, and not beyond the side lines in either direction.
It must also be noticed that the government is not a party to this litigation, and nothing we have said is to be construed as a determination of the power of the government to order a survey of this island, or of the rights which would result in case it did make such survey. As we reserve the rights of the United States, we do not even impliedly sanction the intimation contained in the opinion of the court below that, under the decision in Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U. S. 371 , although, on nonnavigable waters, riparian rights were not conferred by the state law, nevertheless the land beyond the banks passed to the state in virtue of the patents of the United States to the lot owners. Upon that question we express no opinion.
the owners of the bed of a stream to the center of the channel; that the government, as original proprietor, has the right to survey and sell any lands, including islands in a river or other body of water; that, if it omits to survey an island in a stream, and refuses, when its attention is called to the matter, to make any survey thereof, no citizen can overrule the action of the Department, assume that the island ought to have been surveyed, and proceed to occupy it for the purposes of homestead or preemption entry. In such a case, the rights of riparian proprietors are to be preferred to the claims of the settler.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.