White Rock

To own an island was long the wish of Mrs. Helen K. Morton of San Francisco. In this she was like many another person who yearns for the sovereign feeling of ruling a bit of water-locked land.

Four years ago Mrs. Morton started for Mexico to induce that country to part with one of its insular possessions in the Pacific. On the way she learned that an islet lying in San Pedro Channel off Southern California apparently belonged to nobody.

Seventeen miles out to sea she sailed to inspect White Rock Island, under the lee of Santa Catalina Island.* Its two acres of level tableland formed of whitish rock, sheering out of the sea and covered only with stunted growth, looked good to her. Her desire to possess it became fixed.

On investigation she found that White Rock did not belong to Santa Catalina, nor to California, nor to the U. S. It was on no map.

She took White Rock up with the General Land Office in Washington. U. S. officials had never heard of it, refused to believe its existence until it had been officially surveyed and "claimed" by the U.S. Having rescued the island from geographic oblivion, Mrs. Morton was more determined than ever to possess it. She asked the Land Office to sell it. But the U. S. does not sell such public domain.

Government officials told Mrs. Morton there were two ways she could "own" White Rock: 1) Go to it, "enter" it, make a "habitable home" on it, live on it for three years, thus acquire title to it under the homestead law.

2) Purchase enough Valentine scrip to exchange for White Rock.

Mrs. Morton, for social reasons, did not care to acquire the island by living on it for three years. So she had to learn about, and collect, Valentine scrip.

When California was admitted to statehood, Juan Miranda assigned 13,400 acres of land near Petaluna to one Thomas B. Valentine. A poor protector of his own interests, Valentine failed to file this assignment with the U. S., with the result that he was "squatted" out of his holdings. He filed suit. The courts refused to give him back his own land, improved by squatters, but the U. S. recompensed him by issuing to him scrip (certificates) for 13,400 acres of public domain land anywhere else in the U. S. Valentine did not take up his acreage, but dribbled his scrip out in small sales to those who wished to buy from the U. S. land not otherwise purchaseable. Thus the scrip was scattered over the U. S., gradually finding its way back to the General Land Office to be redeemed. Even today the General Land Office does not know exactly how much unredeemed Valentine scrip is still in circulation, though the amount is supposed to be small.

Valentine scrip dealers were hard to find. Mrs. Morton finally discovered one in Colorado from whom she bought enough to acquire White Rock. Recently she presented the scrip at the General Land Office, received her patent to White Rock, was thoroughly happy. Said she: "I never owned an island before. It seems even now that it may be the result of a belated reading of 'Cinderella' and an indiscreet rarebit. I am quite frankly undecided what to do with it and am open to suggestions."

* Ovvned by Chicago's William Wrigley Jr., chewing gum tycoon. Other famed island-owners: Detroit's Motorman Howard Earle Coffin (Sapelo, Ga.), Boston's Lawyer Albert Cameron Burrage (Bumkin, in Boston Harbor), Maine's onetime Governor Percival Proctor Baxter (Macworth, Casco Bay), Mr. & Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks, Will Hays, Arthur Brisbane (Ona. Fla.), Assistant Secretary of the Navy Ernest Lee Jahncke (Jahncke's Bayou, St. John, La.).