The Great Land Grab: Tacoma Citizens Unite Against Northern Pacific’s ‘Squatter’ Tactics

CITIZEN'S MEETING.

A large number of our leading and influential citizens attended the adjourned citizen's meeting at Reinig's Hall last evening, to consider the matter of the restoration to the public domain of the lands in this county held by the Northern Pacific Railroad Company.

The meeting was called to order by the chairman, Major Weed, and L. B. Ainsworth elected secretary, in the absence of F. M. Eisnorath. After a few opening remarks by the chairman, the committee on resolutions submitted their report as follows:

WHEREAS, the people of Washington Territory have been long and patient sufferers, in consequence of the withdrawal from sale and from settlement by homestead and preemption claimants of every odd section of the public lands over nearly the entire area of said Territory, in favor of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, thereby preventing convenient settlement of neighborhoods, with the advantages of roads, schools and churches, and increasing the price to double the former minimum of the remaining public lands;

AND WHEREAS, the said Northern Pacific Railroad Company have located their terminus on Puget Sound at Tacoma, in township No. 20 north, range 3 east, thereby forfeiting their right to all withdrawals on their main line, north of that point; and,

WHEREAS, the said company have abandoned their branch line of road over the Cascade Mountains via the Skagit Pass, and filed in the office of the Commissioner of the General Land Office a map of a route for said branch line over the Cascade mountains via the Naches Pass, which named route they have never surveyed, have no legal right to adopt; and,

WHEREAS, it is a notorious fact that the said company do not propose to build a road over said Naches Pass, and,

WHEREAS, said company are now building a local coal road from Tacoma in a southeasterly direction, up the Puyallup river, for a distance of 31 miles, to certain coal mines, the said coal mines, and the entire line of said coal road being within the limits of the said earned lands of said company, on the main line of their road from Kalama to Tacoma; and,

WHEREAS, it is the avowed purpose of said company to claim and if possible to obtain the full benefit of their land grant on this branch line via the Naches Pass, for the building of said thirty-one miles of coal road, of forty sections to the mile, or 793,600 acres for the 31 miles and the right to make selection of the same north of the adjusted limits of their earned lands on their main line; and whereas the legal title to all lands in the aforesaid withdrawal still rests in said company, and can only be divested by an act of Congress.

Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is an important duty on the part of the people of Washington Territory, in order to further their most vital interests, and secure the welfare and prosperity of the whole country, by all just and lawful means, and in the most speedy manner, to prevent, if possible, the misappropriation of the public lands for the building of said coal road from Tacoma up the Puyallup river, in violation of both the spirit and the letter of said land grant, and also to procure a restoration to the government of all lands in said Territory north of the adjusted limits of the said entered lands of said company on the main line of said road, and all lands on the branch line or lines of said road, which have heretofore been withdrawn in favor of said company, to be dealt with as other public lands.

Resolved, Also that in order to accomplish this most laudable purpose the chairman of this meeting appoint a committee of five persons, whose duty it shall be to raise by subscription or otherwise, a sufficient amount of money in their judgment, to defray the expense and cost of carrying out the object and purposes of these resolutions, and that the money so raised be deposited with the banking house of Dexter Morton & Co, subject to the order of and to be disbursed by said committee, in procuring the necessary legislation in such manner as in their judgment will accomplish the desired result; and

Resolved, That said committee be and the same are hereby instructed to invite the co-operation and assistance of the people in all parts of the Territory in this undertaking.

JULIN J. MITCHELL, F MATTHIAS, JAMES M. COLMAN

It was moved and seconded that these resolutions adopted by the meeting, which was carried.

A committee of five was then appointed by the chairman for the purpose as prescribed in the resolutions, as follows: J. J. Mitchell, Dexter H. Morton, A. Mackintosh, and M. V. B. Stow.

Mr. Mitchell made a brief statement of the matter and consideration. He spoke of the land which covered a large portion of the whole Territory, the one half of which was procured by the Northern Pacific Railroad Company in 1864 and the second in 1871, claiming that the company did not intend to build any more railroad than they had already completed and under contract, and that therefore their holding these lands as a great imposition; that their legal held are an outrage. These lands the company wrested from the inhabitants of Congress and that the object of the meeting was to procure legal action.

Judge Parker delivered a brief address taking the ground that the granting of these lands to the first president of the railroad was bad enough, but that the grant should afterwards be misappropriated by them as it had been, was a great outrage and swindle the government.

He was followed by C. H. Hanford, Esq. He referred to the large immigration flocking to this Territory and the importance at this time that these should be opened to settlement; but as they are now removed settlers upon them is nothing more than a squatter; he cannot obtain a government title to his land.