Home/Tennessee Supreme Court/State v. Muncie Pulp Co.

State v. Muncie Pulp Co.

119 Tenn. 47
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 15, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 119 Tenn. 47 (State v. Muncie Pulp Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Muncie Pulp Co., 119 Tenn. 47 (Tenn. 1907).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Shields

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This suit Avas brought by the State of Tennessee against W. A. Cissna and the Muncie Pulp Company, in the chancery court of Tipton county, Tennessee, to recover about one thousand acres of land, charged in the bill to be situated in that county and then in the possession of W. A. Cissna, who claimed to own the same in fee, and the Muncie Pulp' Company, his lessee. An injunction was also asked to stay waste in cutting and removing timber, being committed by the Mun-cie Pulp Company. These defendants made defense by plea in abatement to the jurisdiction of the court, in [57]*57that the lands sued for Avere not situated in the State of Tennessee, but in the State of Arkansas. The defendant Cissna in his plea says that these lands were formerly, about 1823, on the Tennessee side of the middle of the Mississippi river, Avhich, as the river then ran, AAras and is the boundary line between Tennessee and Arkansas, but by gradual and imperceptible erosion upon the Tennessee bank, and accretion upon that of Arkansas, they became in the course of time and are now within and a part of the territory of the State of Arkansas. The defendant Muncie Pulp Company simply says the lands are not within the State of Tennessee, but within the boundaries and a part of the State of Arkansas. The defendants also filed answers to complainant’s bill under an agreement of record that in so doing they would not waive their pleas to the jurisdiction of the court. The case, after issue, was by consent of parties transferred from the chancery court of Tipton county to that of Shelby county, and there heard by the chancellor upon the pleas in abatement and the proof offered by the parties upon the issues thus made. The cháncellor avús of the opinion that the case was with the defendants, and sustained the pleas and dismissed the bill. Complainant has ap-peáled from this decree and assigned error.

The case is before us alone upon the question of jurisdiction presented by the pleas in abatement, but the decision of this question necessarily involves the title of the complainant to the lands sued for, since she [58]*58claims them as a sovereign State, under the same grants, treaties, and legislation by which its western boundary is defined, declared, and established. The location of the boundary line between Tennessee and Arkansas, and the right of the former to recover the lands in question, are practically the same question, and will therefore be considered together.

The lands described in the bill and sought to be recovered confessedly were at one time, about 1823, under the waters of the Mississippi river. This is admitted in the plea of W. A. Cissna, and is so clearly and conclusively established by the proof, that it is not now controverted by any one. The Mississippi- at this point a.t that time and for many years thereafter made a great bend, forming a .tongue or. peninsula extending northwestward from a direct north and south line, the distance around which was more than twenty miles, but across the neck connecting it with Tennessee less than two miles. This peninsula was separated by McKenzie’s Chute, an arm of the river, and the northern part was known as “Island 37.” ■ The whole, called “Devil’s Elbow,”'was part of Tipton county, Tennessee. The river began this bend at the southern point or apex of Dean’s Island, which was between the main channel of the Mississippi river and Barnay’s Chute, and is a part of the territory of Arkansas, and property of the defendant W. A. Cissna, and ran first westward, then northward betwéen Dean’s Island and the main land of the península and Island 37, then westward and [59]*59southward around Island 37, then in a northeastern direction until it came within about two miles of the' place where it started northward, and then resumed its general course southward. The main channel of the river was at this time southwest and west of Dean’s Island, about one mile, or g little less, in width. The location of the islands here mentioned and the course of the river are difficult to describe, and can best be seen and understood from an inspection of a map made by Maj. J. H. Humphreys, a civil engineer, a copy of which is exhibited with complainant’s bill and here reproduced. See the following page.

The river continued to run between Dean’s Island and the peninsula and Island 37 opposite it until March 7, 1876. Considerable changes, however, had taken place in its bed at this point in the meantime. The width of the channel, by erosion and caving in of the Tennessee bank south, southwest, and wrest of Dean’s Island along the main land and Island 37, had increased from its former width to that of one and one-quarter miles or one and one-half miles, and a towhead, which seems to be a formation upon the bottom of the river, appearing at times, but not abvays above its surface, and neither a bar, nor yet land, had appeared off the apex of Dean’s Island, a navigable chute running between it and the island, and a sand bar and mud flats, only seen in very low wrater, had also formed in the river near the bank of that island, perhaps beloAV the towhead. A steamboat reconnaissance of the river, [61]*61under the direction of the War Department of the United States, was .made by Col. Suter in 1874, and a. map of the place which we are now describing was prepared by him or his assistants and is in evidence. There is no proof of any material changes in the river between 1874 and 1876, and this map, while it is not shown to be altogether correct and accurate, may be-said to present the general situation as it existed in the latter year. It is also here reproduced. See the following page.

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Bluebook (online)
119 Tenn. 47, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-muncie-pulp-co-tenn-1907.