A 77-year-old North Carolina man is accusing the U.S. Forest Service of illegally claiming ownership of part of his 420-acre farm, which has been in his family for five generations.
Rom English said he met with Forest Service officials Thursday and was told his farm had shrunk to 360 acres.
“They (the Forest Service) have this claim for 60 acres of my land, and I think the claim isn’t real,” said Mr. English, of rural Ashford, N.C.
He said he has tax receipts and deeds dating back to 1835 that prove his family owns the property in question and that no portion of the land has ever been sold. The property is mostly hilly pasture near Humpback Mountain, part of the Blue Ridge chain.
“We’re using the land today. We have 50 cows and three horses on it,” Mr. English said.
Terry Seyden, spokesman for the Forest Service in Asheville, N.C., said the land in dispute was part of 1,588 acres that the government bought in 1941 from J.G. Stikeleather and the estate of Edwin Guy. The agency, which is part of the Department of Agriculture, said a federal court ruling that year determined the Forest Service owned the land.
Asked whether local property owners knew of the ruling, Mr. Seyden said, “I’m told they were notified of the hearing, and that the notification gave them the opportunity to go to court.”
In a subsequent e-mail message, Mr. Seyden said federal records show that in February 1941, U.S. Marshal Charles Price served a court summons on Mr. and Mrs. Garvel English, identified as Rom English’s parents, as well as others in the English family and adjoining property owners. The proceeding also was advertised in a weekly newspaper in nearby Marion, N.C.
But Mr. English and his wife, Bobby Jean , said they were shocked last year when the Forest Service said it owned a chunk of their land.
Officials in McDowell County, where Ashford is located, also said they were surprised by the Forest Service’s assertion.
County Manager Chuck Abernathy said Mr. English has always paid taxes on the entire 420 acres.
“The U.S. Forest Service has determined that the property line Mr. English has always observed is inaccurate, and we in the McDowell County government want to make sure his situation is addressed correctly by the federal government,” Mr. Abernathy said.
Asked why this has come to light at this time, Mr. Seyden said the Forest Service “had to re-establish our boundary lines” after major hurricanes and mudslides ravaged parts of western North Carolina and the Blue Ridge Parkway in fall 2004. He said the independent survey conducted last year essentially reaffirmed the results of the 1941 federal ruling.
“We’re confident the line is correctly marked,” he said. “But we want to share everything we have with Mr. English and look at what he has … if we made a mistake, we want to know about it.”
Mr. Seyden said additional meetings between his agency and the Englishes are likely. He pointed out that citizens opposed to Forest Service decisions can appeal them.
The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a nonprofit public interest law firm, said it is considering entering the case on the Englishes’ behalf.
“Mr. English could file [an] action against the federal government and ask the court to declare his title valid,” said Valerie Fernandez, managing attorney for the PLF’s Florida-based Atlantic Center, which handles East Coast legal cases.
Mr. English said he hopes PLF does provide him with pro bono legal defense. He said he also is looking for a surveyor to assist him.
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