The Rancher and the Land-Grabbers
A San Juan Island homesteader faces trial for fighting off a crew of surveyors intent on jumping his claim.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
John Wiggins and John McLaughlin, San Juan island ranchers, were on trial in Judge Hanford's court for corrupting, hindering and preventing the survey of public lands. The case grows out of the attempt of a land-jumper, S. B. Randolph, to jump Wiggins' claim. San Juan is one of the San Juan group, and has not yet been surveyed. Wiggins has been living there as a squatter for the last eight years, having built a house and barn, a small orchard and used the land for grazing his live stock. About two years ago, Randolph concluded stone was on the island and located claims, a little strip of which overlapped Wiggins' claim. Later, when Wiggins returned from being treated at Providence Hospital, he found the Randolph family had staked out placer stone claims covering 114 acres of his land. When Randolph brought a party of surveyors to the site in October, Wiggins and McLaughlin met them with rifles and ordered them off. Wiggins knocked Randolph down and threatened to shoot him before the engineer explained his business. Wiggins allowed the engineer to proceed but forbade Randolph or his son from entering the land.
“Wiggins knocked Randolph down and threatened to shoot him, when Thomson explained the nature of his business.”
This territorial-era skirmish over unceded land highlights the brutal reality of the 'land-jumpers' who exploited loose claim systems—a precursor to today's anxieties over land speculation and the displacement of residents by deep-pocketed interests in the San Juans.
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