The Claim-Jumper Who Hired a Man to Sleep on His Land
A wanted land locater near South Bend left his wife and children on a contested homestead and used a hired sleeper to guard three other claims—until neighbors called his bluff.
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.
SOUTH BEND, Nov. 4.—Land locater Jameson, who is wanted by the General Land Office on the charge of procuring filings from that office in connection with Elder and Andrew Littlejohn, of Tacoma, has a valuable claim near South Bend located just east of Captain Stream’s North Highlands Addition. His wife and four children are living on it at the present time, though Jameson himself has not been seen there for several months. He secured this claim under a land office regulation by which a quarter section which is bounded on two sides by surveyed lands can be filed upon by the settler locating the remaining section post. This Jameson did, filing over Thomas Doble, who had been living on the claim for some time and had spent considerable money in improvements in ignorance of this peculiar provision. Mr. Doble is contesting the claim and his chances for success are improved by the fact that now Jameson is a fugitive from justice. Until lately Jameson held three other claims in the same section by hiring an Irishman to sleep by turns on each ranch and to inform anyone who attempted to hold one of them that that one was his particular property. This little game was recently stopped, however, by parties going out together and simultaneously taking up their abode on the separate claims, which scheme compelled the hired Irishman to be content with only one quarter section.
“Mr. Doble is contesting the claim and his chances for success are improved by the fact that now Jameson is a fugitive from justice.”
Late-19th-century Washington was still being divided into claims, and a loophole in land-office procedure could decide who kept a farm and who had to fight for it. The South Bend case is a reminder that property titles are only as strong as the records and rules behind them—an argument that still shapes fights over ownership, absentee landlords, and who gets to hold ground today.
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