Moore v. McGuire

Background

A group of private buyers and grantees who bought parts of Island No. 76 (formerly Chapeau Island) in the Mississippi River sued to clear title and remove a cloud on their ownership. The Circuit Court held the island was in Mississippi and dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction. The disagreement turns on where the Mississippi–Arkansas boundary lay when Mississippi joined the Union in 1817 and whether the main river channel in 1817 put the island inside Arkansas or Mississippi.

Reasoning

The Court assumed the boundary depended on the middle of the main river channel as it existed in 1817 and examined maps, surveys, government patents, long-standing taxation, and witness memory. The record showed Arkansas purchasers and federal patents dating from 1847 onward, Arkansas tax records and a 1849 survey indicating local practice, and testimony from an old steamboat captain and neighbors that the principal channel had long been on the east side near the island. Some maps and letters suggested the channel sometimes ran the other way, but the Court found that Arkansas’s long, consistent exercise of ownership and the weight of evidence favored the plaintiffs.

Real world impact

The Court concluded the plaintiffs proved their claim and reversed the lower court’s dismissal, effectively recognizing Arkansas’s title and long possession of Island No. 76 and undermining Mississippi’s later tax sale claim. The decision validates the private titles based on Arkansas’s sales and federal patents.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Harlan dissented, agreeing with the Circuit Court on both the facts and the law, and therefore would have left the dismissal intact.