King v. United States
| Decision Date | 11 December 1893 |
| Citation | 59 F. 9 |
| Parties | KING v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Bryan & Bryan, for plaintiff.
W Perry Murphy, for the United States.
This action was brought in this court under provision of Act Cong March 3, 1887, c. 359, §§ 1, 2, etc.
Findings of Fact.
(1) The above petition was in compliance with the requirements of Act March 3, 1887, c. 359, duly filed in the clerk's office circuit court of the United States for the district of South Carolina, on the 19th day of January, 1893, and copies thereof duly served on the United States district attorney and the attorney general of the United States, and said law in all respects complied with.
(2) Mitchell King, the plaintiff, is a rice planter on the Savannah river. He owns a plantation on the South Carolina side of the river, in Beaufort county. His sole occupation is cultivating this plantation. To this end, since 1890, he has been living upon it from November until the middle of May in each year, in a furnished dwelling house, and with domestic servants. After May 15th, he goes to Savannah,--the plantation then becoming unhealthy,--and lives in a boarding house; visiting his plantation at intervals, longer or shorter, as the state of the crop may require. He has registered and voted in Savannah, and does not vote in South Carolina.
(3) He owns in fee simple another plantation on the Savannah river, the subject-matter of this suit, particularly described in the complaint, known as 'Red Knoll,' formerly used exclusively in the cultivation of rice, situate on Argyle island, about 12 miles by river above the city of Savannah. This plantation has been cultivated in rice for very many years, and was in first-class order. It has been owned by plaintiff since 1881, contains 414 acres, and with the natural flow of the current of the Savannah river, and unimpaired drainage, is worth from $30 to $40 per acre, by market value.
(4) Plaintiff continued to plant rice since his ownership in 1881. His crops grew worse and worse, and in 1888 he abandoned the plantation, it having become unfit for cultivation. It is not now cultivated, except in small knolls or patches, and by colored people.
(5) On the Savannah river, where this plantation lies, the water is always fresh, and land below high-water mark is reclaimed from the river by dykes or banks. Through these banks are inserted trunks or wooden boxes, having flood gates in each of them, leading into canals and ditches through the reclaimed land. Through these the lands are irrigated, and through them, also, the lands are drained, when the time comes for draining the water off. The rise and fall of the tide (fresh water) contributed materially to this drainage.
(6) In _____ the United States government, in the lawful exercise of its powers of eminent domain and regulation of commerce, under appropriations made for several years, and now being made, by congress, for the purpose, and under the direction of the secretary of war, vested with full discretion by congress in the premises, erected, and are now erecting and maintaining, certain structures in the Savannah river, beginning at points below this plantation; said structures being intended both to deepen the channel, and to raise the natural level of the current of that river. One of these, and the most important, is the cross-tide dam between Hutchinson island and Argyle island, completed in 1885. This is the obstruction nearest to this plantation of plaintiff, being about six miles off.
(7) By reason of this obstruction, the direction of the current is changed, the force of the ebb tide in the river is diminished, and the fresh water is backed up towards the plantation of plaintiff, raising the level of the current above its normal, natural level from 12 to 18 inches at the banks of the said plantation. This result followed the erection of the cross-tide dam, and the height of the water has remained the same since that time to the present.
(8) The...
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