A Landmark Ruling for Donation Land Claims
The federal government establishes a precedent for canceling land claims after a Puyallup Valley settler failed to live on his property.
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Recently the Commissioner of the General Land Office established an important precedent concerning donation claims in the case of Eldridge vs. Varner. Prof. F. E. Eldridge of New Tacoma, through his attorney, C. K. Jenner of Seattle, instituted proceedings to contest the donation claim of Daniel Varner for 100 acres of land in the Puyallup valley. This action by Eldridge was the first ever taken to cancel a donation claim and carried through on appeal. Varner's abandonment consisted in selling the land before having acquired a four years' residence. Quanon, however, to whom the land was sold, acquired nothing by the deed. Upon the hearing at the Land Office at Olympia, the decision was against Eldridge; but upon the appeal the decision was given against Varner, ruling he had abandoned his claim as a settler and forfeited his rights.
“Said Varner has abandoned his claim to the land... and has forfeited his rights and cannot now be permitted to purchase said land.”
Donation land claims were central to the colonial dispossession of Indigenous land in the Pacific Northwest. This legal case highlights the bureaucratic tension between settlers trying to 'prove up' land and the federal government's enforcement of residency requirements, a precursor to the private land market that dominates the region today.
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