THE State of Missouri brought here, in February, 1859, her original bill against the State of Kentucky, the purpose of the bill being to ascertain and establish, by a decree of this court, the boundary between the two States at a point on the Mississippi River known as Wolf Island, which is about twenty miles below the mouth of the Ohio. The State of Missouri insisted that the island was a part of her territory, while the State of Kentucky asserted the contrary. The bill alleged that both States were bounded at that point by the main channel of the river, and that the island, at the time the boundaries were fixed, was and is on the Missouri side of said channel.
The answer stated that Kentucky, formed out of territory originally embraced within the State of Virginia, was admitted into the Union on the 1st day of June, 1792, and that she had always claimed her boundary on the Mississippi to the middle of the river, and Wolf Island to be within her jurisdiction and limits as derived from Virginia; a part of Hickman County, one of the counties of Kentucky, opposite to which it lay. And it denied that the island belonged to Missouri, or that the main channel was on the eastern side of it when the boundaries of the States were fixed.
An immense amount of testimony, derived from maps as ancient as the earliest well-known navigation of the river; from the journals of ancient and later travellers; from official and quasi official surveys, &c., was introduced by the counsel of both sides, but more especially by those of Missouri, to show where the main channel had been and was-whether on the east or on the west of the island-in 1763, where the boundary between France and England, then owners respectively of the regions now known as Missouri and Kentucky, and more particularly where it was in 1783, when by our treaty of peace with Great Britain we succeeded to the rights of that government; and also where it was in 1820, when Missouri, part of the territory acquired from France, was admitted into the Union; the middle of the main channel of the river, confessedly, having been fixed in all these cases as the boundary. The depositions of many witnesses on both sides, particularly on the defendant's, were also read, testifying as to where within the memory of man the channel in dispute had been.
The witnesses of the complainant-to give the case of Missouri more particularly-stated that from the present time back to 1830 the main channel of the river was on the east side of the island, and that from 1830 as far back as 1794, both channels were navigable. They admitted that, from 1832 to the present time, the eastern channel had been chiefly used for navigation.
The early maps and charts of the river, introduced by the State of Missouri, laid down the island as nearly in the middle of the river, but the larger portion of it west of the middle line. Amongst these were the map of Lieutenant Ross, of the British army, made in 1765, in an expedition from Fort Chartres to New Orleans; the map of Captain Philip Pittman, published in London in 1770; the map of General Collot, in 1796; Hutchins's map, in 1778; and Luke Munsell's map of Kentucky, made in 1818.
Extracts from the books of early travellers stated their passage down the river on the east side; among these books were the travels of Ashe in 1806, and of Sir Francis Baily in 1796.
The Pittsburg Navigator, in several editions from 1806 to 1818, was relied on, stating the channel to be on both sides, but best on the east side.