[134] Laws of California, 1868, Ch. 230.
[135] City of Oakland v. Oakland Water Front Company, transcript of testimony, sup. cit. pp. 976-80.
[136] City of Oakland v. Oakland Water Front Company, transcript of testimony, pp. 657-64, deposition Horace W. Carpentier.
[137] See the Ordinance of the City of Oakland, No. 302 (April 2, 1868). An excellent account of these transactions is given in an unpublished manuscript in the University of California Library, prepared by Stephen S. Barrows, one-time student in the University of California. It is of some interest to observe that among the direct beneficiaries of the agreements cited were Messrs. Carpentier, Felton, and Merritt, all three at one time or other mayors of Oakland. Mr. Merritt was mayor at the time ordinances Nos. 300, 301, and 302 were passed. The compromise described was effected under authority of an act of the California legislature dated March 21, 1868.
[138] By ordinance passed August 31, 1867, the Oakland City Council voted to pay Mr. Felton a fee equal to 15 per cent of all the property recovered by the city in the water-front litigation. (Transcript of testimony, sup. cit. p. 759.) Mr. Merritt was subsequently accused of having promoted the settlement between the city of Oakland and the Oakland Water Front Company in order to derive a pecuniary profit for himself. In 1869 the city council of Oakland authorized the appointment of a committee of three to ascertain by what title Mr. Merritt held certain water-front property near the foot of Broadway in Oakland. On report of the committee the council exonerated Mr. Merritt. (Ibid., pp. 1406-7, 1410-21.)
[139] City of Oakland v. Oakland Water Front Company, 118 Cal. 160 (1897).
[140] Western Pacific Railway Company v. Southern Pacific Company, 151 Fed. 376 (1907). The court also pointed out in the decision that although the low-tide line was projected across the mouth of the estuary for the purpose of determining the boundary of Oakland, this should not be done in ascertaining the limit of the railroad grant.
[141] The boundaries are set forth in the San Francisco Times of March 7, 1868. As later amended and confined to the area north of Point Avisadero, they are described in the Daily Alta of March 14, 1868.
[142] Appendix to journals of Senate and Assembly of the California Legislature, 17th Session, Vol. 3, 1868.
[143] San Francisco Bulletin, March 7, 1868.