The State Moved the Line, and the Waterfront Went With It

Tide land troubles at Port Angeles have been the subject of many discussions among those directly interested, and there has been long waiting for the action of the proper authorities to make a survey and supplement the meander line of the original government meander line, together with the subsequent corrections of the same as the result of an order issued in June, 1893. These are all matters of history. The trouble was not, and is not even now, over, for inquiries continue to be made about peculiar proceedings that have affected the rights of improvers of lands in front of the city of Port Angeles.

The tide land improvers who filed their applications waited for over a year for the commissioners of state lands to receive their money and issue their deeds or certificates of purchase. They still claim to be unable to obtain them, and all are anxious to know when the matter will be settled.

Mr. George Venable Smith, as attorney for the tide land improvers, was seen recently by a representative of the Post-Intelligencer and questioned for his views on the subject. Mr. Smith was conservative in his replies, and said in substance:

"The improvers were informed by the commissioner that the affidavits of improvements made by them were sufficient as prima facie evidence in all cases where no contests were filed. Several months after the improvers were induced into security by their expenses in removing the misleading false meander line first drawn, and by an agent with no opposition thereto by the state, a civil engineer appeared on the ground with instructions from some state officer, with the avowed purpose of making a survey in the original tide land survey, and stated that he was instructed to draw on his supplemental map the original meander line. And when the new map was ready for filing, lo and behold! the new map showed but one line of the fraudulent line which, as in the first instance, left some strip for no man's use. The United States meander line, drawn by the government survey for the United States, was ignored, and the line spoken of as the present meander line was the only line of the supplemental map that appeared to be the false one.

"The innocent tide land improver was very slow to believe and to realize that the state authorities would attempt to make the present meander line the legal one in the face of the fact that it had been very largely formed by recent artificial fillings. In some instances nearly whole lots have been filled in solidly by excavations from adjoining bluffs and other artificial processes, and it was hard to believe the state would thereby deprive them of a large area of tide lands. They were so slow with their second injunction that the map was left with the county auditor for filing before they sued out the second injunction; and after succeeding in removing the dangerous false line the second time so strangely printed in as the legal meander line, wonder grew upon curiosity as to such conduct on the part of state officers, who are expected to be the last to assist in anything which would endanger the rights of the state in case of success — whilst the maintenance of such a line could in no sense affect the rights of the state. It is well also to note the fact that the strip designated contained the most valuable improvements on the water front, such as business buildings, and outside of that was but a little whaling and filling, mostly not improved at all.

"After the supplemental map, which, by the way, does not seem to be warranted by any law of the state, nor the second survey, had corrected any injury which might have been accomplished by a false meander line, the tide land improvers felt safe again, and waited patiently through the long delay of the state officers in getting to the simple official duty of letting them know when they could pay their money and receive their evidence of title from the state, as they could now see a clear sky for their rights.

"At last, on the 16th day of June last, all those whose cases were not contested received notice from W. T. Forrest, commissioner of public lands of the state, that he was ready to receive their money and issue certificates. Many sent their money at once and, to their surprise, were told that the assistant attorney general had instructed the commissioner that he could not receive the money nor issue certificates; that in the H. W. Morse case, which was decided over a year ago, the supreme court had decided that improvers were only entitled to the amount of ground by measurement which they had actually improved, and that proceedings must be instituted to determine whether each should be entitled by actual improvements. The consequence is that perhaps the state can claim the area donated as no man's land. In such latter event there would probably be little consequence, but it might be otherwise; they would obtain titles by their actual improvements.

"A practical piece of legislation of that sort would make a crazy quilt of the water front. Some would have left ten feet, with a narrow strip for piling to outhouses; strips of four and fourteen inches from the front running back forty and a hundred feet. There would be a number of queer shapes to tide land lots purchased, and a man would spend ten years in getting them properly described.

"I wonder why it is that with so much delay in the matter the action of the attorney general came at the last moment. Why, if it was not sought, was the rule heretofore given out by the state land commissioner to allow prima facie showing of improvers as sufficient? Why should the presumption be all at once changed and force litigation to settle a point of law? Are not other cities similarly situated as to this subject? Port Townsend, Everett and other tide land claimants by improvements have obtained their titles from the state. Are they to be thrown into litigation too?"

He concluded that a narrow construction of the law would work unforeseen wrong, and that the ruling in the Morse case had no application, as the tide lands were not then surveyed and no legal lines were presented to tide land claimants except their actual improvements.