port harbor, which was discovered in the autumn of 1868, as a test point from which to fix the state line.

It was the use of this ground by New York fishermen which resulted in the capture of a New York boat some time since, and which has brought these questions to a point.

This oyster-bed lies in the shoal water adjoining the Connecticut coast, and partly within and partly without a line drawn from Stratford Point to what is known as the Cows, or the end of Fairfield Bar, and largely within any line drawn from Fairfield Point to any of the more prominent headlands west.

This bed also lies some distance north of a straight line drawn from Point Judith, or the center of the channel north of Fisher's Island to Lyon's Point at the mouth of the Byram river, the boundary line of the state.

Is this oyster-bed within the state of New York? And if not, where is the line of jurisdiction?

A reference to the original patents and charters and the history of the time will hardly throw much light upon the question.

The great patent of New England, November 3, 1620 (see Trumbull's History of Conn., vol. 1, p. 546) granted the whole circuit from forty degrees of northerly latitude from the equinoctial line to fortyeight degrees of northerly latitude, and in length from sea to sea.

The old patent of Connecticut granted in 1630 by the council for New England to the Earl of Warwick, and by him transferred, in 1631, to Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brook and others, grants "All that part of New England in America which lies and extends itself from a river, there called Narragansett river, the space of forty leagues upon a straight line near the shore toward the southwest, west, and by south or west, as the coast lieth toward Virginia, accounting three English miles to the league, and also all and singular the lands, hereditaments, etc." (1 Trumbull's Hist. Conn., Appendix, 1.)

The charter granted to Governor Winthrop, April 23, 1662, describes Connecticut as "All that part of our Dominion in New England bounded on the east by Norrogancett river, commonly called Norrogancett bay, where the said river falleth into the sea, and on the north by the lyne of Massachusetts plantation, and on the south by the sea." (Colonial Records of Conn. from 1665 to 1678.)

The Duke of York's patent of March 12, 1664, grants a portion of New England from St. Croix to Pemaquid and extending back to Canada (St. Lawrence) river, "and also all that island or islands commonly called by several name or names of Matowacks or Long Island, situate, lying and being toward the west of Cape Cod and the Narrow Higansetts, abutting from the main land between the two rivers there

called or known by the several names of Connecticut or Hudson's river, together with the said river called Hudson's river, and all the land from the west side of Connecticut to the east side of Delaware bay, and also those several islands called or known by the names of Martin's Vineyard and Nantukes, otherwise called Nantuckett," together with all the harbors, etc., etc. (See Documents relative to Colonial History New York, by John Romeyn Brodhead [1858], vol. 2, p. 295.)

This description is followed in substance in the commissions to Andros and Dongan. (Id., vol. 2, pp. 215 and 328.)

Upon November 30, 1664, Richard Nichols, George Cartwright and Samuel Maverick, the commissioners appointed by the crown to examine into the claim of Connecticut to the ownership of Long Island, after consulting with the agent of Connecticut, did declare as follows: "We do declare and order that the southern bounds of His Majesty's Colony of Connecticut is the sea, and that Long Island is to be under the government of His Royal Highness the Duke of York." (1 Trumbull's Hist. Conn. 273. Conn. Hist. Collections, 19.)

By this decision that spirited contest was adjusted, and Connecticut lost Long Island.

Van Tienhoven, in his observations on the colonization of New Netherlands, describes the shore from Stamford toward New Amsterdam as the "main north coast." (1 N. Y. Colonial Doc. 360.)

The New Am. Cyc. Article, "Connecticut," describes its southern boundary as "the seacoast from Pancatuck river to the north of Byram river."

I am aware of the claim advanced by one Anderson, and referred to in the case of Coe v. Keyser, that the line, being a straight line, excluded a large part of the coast from Connecticut, but the state of New York has never put her claim on this ground.

It must, therefore, be conceded that the southern boundary of Connecticut is what is known as Long Island Sound, which was known and considered as the sea. The charter of the Duke of York, above referred to, describes Long Island as an island, with all the surroundings of an island, and not as a part of the shore connected by land under water with the Connecticut shore, and abutting on it, and does not specifically convey the sound by a particular description.

The Revised Statutes (1 Rev. Stat. N. Y., 5th ed., p. 77), after reciting that it is useful that the boundaries of the state "so far as its jurisdiction is now asserted, should be declared," declare that the state is bounded as follows: Beginning at "Lyon's Point, in the mouth of a brook or river called Byram river, where it falls into Long Island Sound, and thence up and along said river to a rock," etc., describing the boundaries north and west, reaching Sandy Hook and the disputed

ground, as follows: "Thence southerly along the west shore at lowwater mark of Hudson's river of the Kill Van Kull, of the sound between Staten Island and New Jersey, and of Raritan bay to Sandy Hook, and then to the place of beginning, in such manner as to include Staten Island and the island of Meadow on the west side thereof, Shooter's Island, Long Island, the Isle of Wight (now called Gardiner's Island), Fisher's Island, Shelter Island, Plum Island, Robin's Island, Ram Island, and the Gull Islands, and all the islands and waters in the bay of New York, and within the bounds above described."

If this claim of jurisdiction really intended to claim Long Island Sound up to low-water mark on the Connecticut shore, a more indefinite description of the line from Sandy Hook to the Byram river can hardly be imagined. To run a line from Sandy Hook to the Byram river "in such a manner as to include" a number of islands dotted over the sound, would seem of itself to presume that the line intended was not the line of the Connecticut shore.

It will be remembered that the boundary here given on behalf of the state of New York is not the boundary line as settled by any compact or decision, but is put forth as the extent of the claim of jurisdiction of the state.

When we examine into the subdivision of the state into counties, we find that Queens county is bounded on the north by the Sound, but that the islands are given to that county opposite her bounds and south of the main channel; and to Westchester, which is also bounded by the sound, is given all the islands in the sound to the east of Throg's Neck, and north of the main channel. The county of Suffolk is bounded by the sound, but is made to include the Gardiner's Island and other islands contiguous to it. The Revised Statutes, therefore, have not actually extended the other counties over the sound.

Such are the general facts from the charters and our Revised Statutes, and referring to the decisions, it will be found that the very point in controversy has been touched upon, and on several occasions received judicial construction.

In Manley v. The People, 3 Selden, 295, the plaintiff in error was tried and convicted at the general sessions in September, 1850, on an indictment charging him with larceny from one Williams, at New York, in July, 1850.

The plaintiff was steward of the steamer Knickerbocker, on a trip from New York to Norwich, and the offense was committed about 8 o'clock, when the steamer was close to the Long Island shore opposite Huntington, in the county of Suffolk, and the money was brought to the city of New York, and the prisoner there indicted and tried for that

reason.

It was contended that the offense was committed without the state of New York and overruled, and an appeal was taken.

con

Wells, J., in delivering the opinion reversing the judgment of the court below, held that the locus in quo was the high seas, and not in the state. Ruggles, C. J., Gardiner, Hewett and Johnson, JJ., curred in reversing the judgment, on the ground that the offense was committed in Suffolk county, and not in the county of New York; that the prisoner could not be tried in New York county if the money was brought there; and that the portion of the sound where the steamer was at the time of the offense was an arm of the sea, and not a river, lake, or canal, within the meaning of the 2 R. S. 727, §§ 44 and 50, providing that where a felony is perpetrated on board a steamer navigating a river, etc., and the property is brought to another county, an indictment would lie.

In this case, however, Welles, J. (p. 298), discussed the proper mode of drawing the line through the sound, saying there were two ways: 1. By a direct line from Fisher's Island to Lyon's Point (which we have seen would not include the Bridgeport oyster-bed); and 2. By a line running directly from Sandy Hook to the Byram river, diverging from a direct course only far enough to include the islands, etc., and, as soon as the object is attained, returning to its original course, and preferring the latter.

The latter method, as explained by the learned justice, seems extremely indefinite, but neither would include the Bridgeport oysterbed.

Edmonds, J., claimed that the boundary line from the east end of Long Island to the boundary of Connecticut, ran straight from one point to the other across the sound, and did not, as claimed by the prisoner's counsel, follow the windings of the inner or north shore of

Long Island to a point opposite the mouth of Byram river, and then in a straight line across the sound.

This line would also exclude the oyster-bed in question.

In the case of Keyser v. Coe, 9 Blatch. C. C. 32 (1871), this question was elaborately discussed.

The action was a bill in equity to enjoin a nuisance carried on by the defendant in a factory on an island called Goose Island, situate at the mouth of the Norwalk river, and over a mile from the shore, the question in dispute being whether the island lay in New York or Connecticut. The bill was originally filed in the superior court, and was removed to the United States court, and a demurrer to the jurisdiction filed. The demurrer was overruled by Woodruff, J., orally, and the opinion of the court afterward prepared by Judge Shipman.

The court discusses the whole question and holds the boundary of

Connecticut to be the sound, and to include the island in question, and that the most extended jurisdiction to which New York can lay claim is to all that portion of the sound lying south of a straight line drawn from Point Judith to Lyon's Point.

Mahler v. The New York Transportation Company, 35 N. Y. 352, was an action under the statute, for negligence brought for the death of a person on board a sloop in Long Island Sound, within a short distance of Sand's Point.

The court below held the place of the accident to be out of the state, and that the true line was to be run by following low-water mark along the northern shore of Long Island.

The court above reversed the judgment. Porter, J., delivering the opinion, holds that the place of the accident was clearly within the jurisdiction of the state, but declined to decide the question whether the line should be run in a straight line from Fisher's Island to Lyon's Point, as claimed by Judge Edmonds in Manley v. The People, “or whether it should follow the thread of the sound, with such deflections as may be required to include the islands confessedly within our jurisdiction."

The personal opinion of Judge Porter, from this case, would apparently concede to each state territorial dominion over the sound, from its own shore to the center of the sound, so far as the possession of New York and Connecticut is co-terminous, and to give the residue entirely to New York, where she is the sole owner on either side, not by the grants, but as abutting owners.

In the case of the United States v. Jackalow, in the United States circuit court, district of New Jersey, tried before Judge Dickerson in 1861, the prisoner was charged with robbery on the high seas, committed on board a sloop lying in the waters adjoining the state of Connecticut, between Norwalk harbor and Westchester county, and about one and a half miles from the Connecticut shore at low-water mark, and the question of jurisdiction was raised and elaborately discussed.

Dickerson, J., was of the opinion that the robbery was not upon the high seas, but ordered a special verdict to present the question of law. In his opinion upon this question, he decides as follows: "I think the proper and natural way of connecting these points (Fisher's Island and Lyon's Point'), would be by a direct line drawn from one to the other, which would be nearly parallel with the Connecticut shore, in its whole extent on the sound, and divide the sound in such a manner as to leave about three-fourths of it included in the territory of New York, and one-fourth in that of Connecticut. To this extent New York is fairly entitled, according to her territorial bounds, and I am not prepared to say that she is not entitled to the whole of the sound, by virtue of the