Alexander County IL Archives History - Books .....Chapter XIV The Ohio And Mississippi Rivers 1910 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.org/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.org/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com September 19, 2007, 8:00 pm Book Title: A History Of The City Of Cairo Illiniois CHAPTER XIV THE OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS-THE TERRITORY DRAINED-THE OHIO RIVER AS A BOUNDARY IN July, 1847, the Trustees of the Cairo City Property issued their first pamphlet circular, entitled " CIRCULAR AND OTHER DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE CAIRO CITY PROPERTY AT THE CONFLUENCE OF THE OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS, ILLINOIS;" New York: H. Cogswell, Printer and Stationer, 19 & 21 Merchants Exchange, 1847. The pamphlet contains 41 pages, and its table of contents is as follows: 1st, Skeleton Map of the United States; 2nd, Circular by the Trustees, 14 pages; 3rd, Map of the Site of Cairo, 2 pages; 4th, Report of William Strickland and R. C. Taylor, engineers, 5 pages; 5th, Extract from a Report by J. Freeman, engineer, to Legislature of Illinois, 2 pages; 6th, Extract from Report of Committee of Congress, 1 page; 7th, Extract from Report of Committee of Legislature upon Central Railroad and Cairo as the terminus, 2 1/2 pages; 8th, S. Worsley, engineer, Report to English Proprietors, 4 pages; 9th, Letter of H. Baldwin, Esq., to Trustees, 1 1/2 pages; 10th, Another Letter by him to same, 1 page; 11th, Extract from Western Review, 6 pages; 12th, Extract from S. A. Mitchell's work on Illinois, 1 page; 13th, Names and lengths of western rivers, 1 page. The following is the last page, page 41, of the pamphlet with the names and spelling just as given therein. MEMORANDUM TAKEN FROM PECK'S GAZETTEER OF THE LENGTH OF THE OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS AND THEIR TRIBUTARIES, ABOVE THE CITY OF CAIRO, (A. D. 1847.) RIVERS AND RECIPIENT. MILES. Alleghany, Ohio 300 Cumberland, Ohio 450 Grand Kanawha, Ohio 327 Grand Miama, Ohio 174 Green Run, Ohio 308 Guyandot, Ohio 134 Hocking, Ohio 100 Kentucky, Ohio 312 Licking, Ohio 204 Little Kanawha, Ohio 127 Monongahela, Ohio 216 Muskingum, Ohio 203 Salt, Ohio 110 Sciota, Ohio 200 Tennessee, Ohio 850 Wabash, Ohio 477 Missouri, Mississippi 3,217 Ohio, Mississippi 945 Ouisconsin, Mississippi 380 Rock, Mississippi 285 Rum, Mississippi 127 St. Peters, Mississippi 400 Salt, Mississippi 200 Turkey, Mississippi 135 Upper Iowa, Mississippi 180 Big Sandy, Tennessee 160 Clinch, Tennessee 230 Duck, Tennessee 185 Elk, Tennessee 125 Halston, Tennessee 230 Caney Fork, Cumberland 100 S. Fork Cumberland, Cumberland 105 Au Canoe, Missouri 100 Chariton, Missouri 143 Crow Wing, Missouri 115 East Fork, Missouri 145 Gasconade, Missouri 204 Grand, Missouri 272 Grand Nemanha, Missouri 220 Konzas, Missouri 1,200 Nodaway, Missouri 115 Osage, Missouri 293 Wood, Missouri 120 Chippewa, Missouri 200 Des Moines, Mississippi 400 Forked Deer, Mississippi 114 Great Maquanguetois, Mississippi 120 Illinois, Mississippi 400 Kaskaskia, Mississippi 250 Lower Iowa, Mississippi 237 Maramic, Mississippi 184 Nolicuchy, French Broad 125 Pickamink, Kankakee 100 Powells, Clinch 105 Des Plaines, Illinois 100 Fox, Illinois 104 Kankakee, Illinois 143 Mackinaw, Illinois 113 Sangamon, Illinois 175 Spoon, Illinois 125 Embarras, Wabash 135 Little Wabash, Wabash 200 Missineway, Wabash 100 White, Wabash 260 East Fork, White (In.) 228 West Fork, White (In.) 225 French Road, Holston (Tenn.) 176 Grand, Osage 134 North Fork, Osage 130 Greenbrier, Kanawha 130 Kaskiminetos, Alleghany 103 Long Beach, Grand 130 Miss. Gulf of Mexico 3,000 New, Great Kanawha 115 Pine, Ouisconsin 125 Rufus, Chippewa 100 Total miles 22,799 The rivers less than 100 miles long are omitted. It may be remarked that there are other rivers, longer than 100 miles, whose names are not given; for instance, the Youghiogheny River, which rises in Maryland and flows 150 miles to its junction with the Monongahela, some little distance southeast of Pittsburg. The Allegheny rises in Potter County, Pennsylvania, flows northward into New York, then southward into Pennsylvania again and reaches Pittsburg, 350 miles from its source. This river is regarded as the extension of the Ohio from Pittsburg northward. Waters from fourteen states reach the Mississippi and pass Cairo, namely, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. Waters from thirteen states reach the Ohio and pass Cairo, namely, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky. These make twenty-five states, counting Illinois and Indiana but once. Waters from some of these states flow in other directions; but making all due allowances, it will be seen what a drainage area is here presented! And is it any wonder that almost always in the springtime and at other times, now and then occurring, we may expect these two vast water-sheds to pour down upon us, or at our very feet, their accumulated floods? If we were upon a rock-ribbed promontory instead of a tongue of alluvium and sand, we might defy their threatenings. We are not so situated, however, and hence it is a vital condition to our existence that these monster rivers, fed from the mountains and the skies, should be kept always and safely at bay. THE OHIO RIVER AS A BOUNDARY.—The word northwest, as applied to this territorial district of our country, has come down to us from the old Virginia charter of 1609. The grant was of "all that space and circuit of land, lying from the sea coast from the precinct aforesaid, up to the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest" The territory was west and northwest, and embraced what is now Kentucky and what has always been known as the northwest territory. The Kentucky country was afterwards known as the southwest territory, to distinguish it from the territory north of the Ohio River. Virginia retained the southwest or Kentucky territory or country, and granted to the Federal Government the territory northwest of the Ohio. This left the Ohio River wholly within her own territorial boundaries. In all the acts of congress and of the states, in reference to the matter, the south or southeastern boundary lines of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois have been spoken of as the Ohio River or the "northwestern shore" thereof. The question as to what jurisdiction the states north of the Ohio River had upon or over the same arose at a very early day, and the decisions of the Virginia and Kentucky courts tended strongly to establish an exclusive jurisdiction on the part of those two states respectively. The very first reference was, of course, to the 11th section of the Virginia act of December 18, 1789; 13 Henings Va. St. At Large, 19. This act is entitled an act concerning the erection of the district of Kentucky into an independent state, and the 11th section thereof is in these words: " SEC. 11. The use and navigation of the river Ohio, so far as the territory of the proposed state, or the territory which shall remain within the limits of this commonwealth lies therein, shall be free and common to the citizens of the United States. And the respective jurisdictions of this commonwealth and of the proposed state, on the river as aforesaid, shall be concurrent only with the states which may possess the opposite shores of the said river." The Virginia and Kentucky courts held that this section of the Virginia act gave jurisdiction to the three states north of the river, but they made so much of the Virginia and Kentucky jurisdictions that what was left to the states north of the river could serve few practical purposes of any kind. In some of their decisions, it was said that the concurrent jurisdiction was legislative only and that the courts of the states on the north side had no jurisdiction at all. The arguments were elaborate and the reasons various. The later cases cited the constitutions of Illinois of 1818, 1848 and 1870, and called attention to the difference in the language of the first from that in the other two. The result, however, was the same in almost all cases; and it was not until 1896 that a case arose which reached the supreme court of the United States in 1903, and which resulted in a decision of that court February 23, 1904, which practically annulled one or two score of state cases on the subject. It is the case of Wedding vs. Meyler, 192 U. S. 573. Wedding, of Indiana, sued Meyler, of Kentucky, in the Vanderburg County superior court, May 27, 1896, and the summons was served on Meyler on a steamboat on the Ohio and beyond low-water mark on the Indiana side and within the county of Henderson in the state of Kentucky. The Indiana court sustained the service and rendered judgment against Meyler; and Wedding having sued Meyler on this judgment in the circuit court of Warren County, Kentucky, said court sustained the Indiana judgment and rendered judgment against Meyler, and the latter appealed to the court of appeals of Kentucky, which reversed the circuit court. Wedding, thereupon, appealed from this judgment of the court of appeals to the supreme court of the United States, which reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and sustained the rulings of the said superior and circuit courts. The decision of the Federal supreme court was without dissent. Judges Hobson and Burnham of the court of appeals dissented from the other five members of that court. The supreme court, near the conclusion of the opinion, quotes and adopts Chief Justice Robertson's definition of jurisdiction as given in Arnold vs. Shields, 5 Dana (Ky.) page 18. It is not easy, always, to state the extent and operation of a judicial decision; but it seems that if civil process may be properly served on the Ohio River and beyond low-water mark fifty or one hundred feet and within the territorial jurisdiction of a Kentucky or West Virginia county, there is little reason why it may not be served anywhere on the river within fifty or one hundred feet or less of low-water mark on the Kentucky or West Virginia side. And if civil mesne and final process may be so served and executed, why may not criminal process, also? It must be observed, however, that the jurisdiction is on the river and does not extend to the bed of the river or to permanent structures attached thereto. In the briefs of counsel in this Federal case are cited almost all of the decisions of the state and Federal courts on this subject. Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for the Federal supreme court, concludes his opinion as follows: "But so far as applicable, we adopt the statement of Chief Justice Robertson in Arnold vs. Shields, 5 Dana, 18, 22; 30 Am. Dec. 669, 673 : 'Jurisdiction, unqualified, being, as it is, the sovereign authority to make, decide on, and execute laws, a concurrence of jurisdiction, therefore, must entitle Indiana to as much power—legislative, judicial, and executive—as that possessed by Kentucky over so much of the Ohio river as flows between them.' "The conveniences and inconveniences of concurrent jurisdiction both are obvious, and do not need to be stated. We have nothing to do with them when the law making power has spoken. To avoid misunderstandings, it may be well to add that the concurrent jurisdiction given is jurisdiction 'on' the river, and does not extend to permanent structures attached to the river bed and within the boundary of one or the other state. Therefore, such cases as Mississippi & M. R. Co. vs. Ward, 2 Black, 485, 17 L. Ed. 311, do not apply. State v. Mullin, 35 Iowa, 199, 206, 207. Additional Comments: Extracted from: A HISTORY OF THE CITY OF CAIRO ILLINOIS BY JOHN M. LANSDEN WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS CHICAGO R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 1910 COPYRIGHTED, 1910 BY JOHN M. LANSDEN The Lakeside Press R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY CHICAGO File at: http://files.usgwarchives.org/il/alexander/history/1910/ahistory/chapterx128gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ilfiles/ File size: 13.9 Kb