Opinion of the Court. Mr. A. Leo Knott for the heirs of James Markham Marshall. Mr. John Howard for the heirs of John Marshall. Mr. James V. Brooke was on his brief. Mr. George E. Hamilton and Mr. Nathaniel Wilson for claimants under the Kidwell patent. Mr. Hugh L. Bond, Jr., and Mr. John K. Cowen for the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company, and for Joseph Bryan, John K. Cowen and Hugh L. Bond, Jr., Trustees. Mr. Charles F. T. Beale was on their brief. Mr. Henry Randall Webb for the Trustees of the estate of William Easby. Mr. John Sidney Webb was on his brief. Mr. J. Holdsworth Gordon for William F. Dunlap and the heirs of George Peter. Mr. Enoch Totten and Mr. Arthur Peter were on his brief. Mr. John Selden for the Washington Steamboat Company and the heirs of Moncure Robinson. Mr. William G. Johnson, Mr. Tallmadge A. Lambert and Mr. Calderon Carlisle for Johnson, assignee of the American Ice Company and others claiming under Notley Young. Mr. Holmes Conrad and Mr. Hugh T. Taggart for the United States. Mr. Enoch Totten and Mr. Edward A. Newman filed a brief for W. W. Rapley. Mr. J. M. Wilson filed a brief for Richard J. Beall. Mr. William F. Mattingly filed a brief for Daniel S. Evans. Mr. T. A. Lambert filed a brief for W. M. Easby-Smith. MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS delivered the opinion of the court. 1. The first question for our determination arises out of the claims of the heirs of James M. Marshall and the heirs Opinion of the Court. of John Marshall to the ownership of the entire bed of the Potomac River, from shore to shore, including therein the reclaimed lands. Their claims are based upon two distinct lines or sources of title, inconsistent with each other: One originating in the charter granted by Charles I, King of England, on June 20, 1632, to Cecilius Calvert, second Baron of Baltimore and first Lord Proprietary of the Province of Maryland; the other, in the charter granted by James II, King of England, on September 27, 1688, to Thomas, Lord Culpeper. We do not think it necessary to enter at length or minutely into the history of the long dispute between Virginia and Maryland in respect to the boundary line. It is sufficient, for our present purpose, to say that the grant to Lord Baltimore, in unmistakable terms, included the Potomac River and the premises in question in this suit, and declared that thereafter the Province of Maryland and its freeholders and inhabitants should not be held or reputed a member or part of the land of Virginia, "from which we do separate both the said province and inhabitants thereof." On September, 1688, King James II, by his royal patent of that date, granted to Thomas, Lord Culpeper, what was called the Northern Neck of Virginia, and described as follows: "All that entire tract, territory or parcel of land situate, lying and being in Virginia in America, and bounded by and within. the first heads or springs of the rivers of Tappahannock al' Rapahannock and Quiriough al' Patawonuck Rivers, the courses of said rivers from their said first heads or springs as they are commonly called and known by the inhabitants and descriptions of those parts and the Bay of Chesapeake, together with the said rivers themselves and all the islands within the outermost banks thereof, and the soil of all and singular the premises, and all lands, woods, underwoods, timber and trees, wayes, mountains, swamps, marshes, waters, rivers, ponds, pools, lakes, water courses, fishings, streams, havens, ports, harbours, bays, creeks, ferries, with all sorts of fish, as well whales, sturgeons and other royal fish. To have, Opinion of the Court. hold and enjoy all the said entire tract, territory or portion of land, and every part and parcel thereof, to the said Thomas, Lord Culpeper, his heirs and assigns forever." Owing to the conflicting descriptions, as respected the Potomac River, contained in these royal grants, a controversy early arose between Virginia and Maryland. A compact was entered into in 1785 between the two States, whereby, through commissioners, a jurisdictional line, for the purpose of enforcing the criminal laws and regulating the rights of navigation in the Potomac River, was agreed upon. Finally, the controversy as to the true boundary still continuing, in 1874 the legislatures of the two States agreed in the selection of arbitrators, by whose award, dated January 16, A.D. 1877, the jurisdictional line and boundary were declared to be the low-water mark on the Virginia shore. This award was accepted by the two States, and, by an act approved March 3, 1879, c. 196, 20 Stat. 481, Congress gave its consent to the agreement and award; but provided that nothing therein contained should be construed to impair or in any manner affect any right of jurisdiction of the United States in and over the islands and waters which formed the subject of the said agreement or award. It was a mutual feature of the legislation by which this conclusion was reached that the landholders on either side of the line of boundary between the said States, as the same might be ascertained and determined by the said award, should in no manner be disturbed thereby in their title to and possession of their lands, as they should be at the date of said award, but should in any case hold and possess the same as if their said titles and possession had been derived under the laws of the State in which by the fixing of the said line by the terms of said award they should be ascertained to be. (Act of Virginia, February 10, 1876, chap. 48; act of Maryland, April 3, 1876, chap. 198.) Whether the result of this arbitration and award is to be regarded as establishing what the true boundary always was, and that therefore the grant to Thomas, Lord Culpeper, never of right included the Potomac River, or as establishing |