LONG EDDY, NY — In the proposed expansion of the fishing access on the Upper Delaware River in Long Eddy, the plan has been for the owner, the estate of Juanita Copeland, to sell the parcel of land to the Delaware Highlands Conservancy (DHC), which would then transfer the parcel to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. But the transfer has been held up because of legal issues.

In the September 24 issue of this newspaper, a legal advertisement appeared, pitting Copeland’s estate against named Connie Edwards and Ada Halsey, “if living,” directing them to answer the summons regarding an action to declare that the Copeland Estate is the rightful owner of the property in question.

In the meantime, Long Eddy resident Eric van Swol wrote a letter to the editor of this newspaper (see page 6-7) saying the entire parcel does not belong to the Copeland Estate, but rather part of it belongs to the heirs of a Robert Halsey. He wrote, “Forty percent of the acreage, including the prime water frontage, has been owned by the Halsey family since the late 1800s.”

Court documents dating back to the 1870s show that William and Robert Halsey acquired about 1,100 acres in Long Eddy in 1865 in exchange for a “bond and mortgage” in the amount of $7,000 to a man named Martin Smith, who was supposed to have repaid the bond. If he did so, then he and his heirs and assigns, and not the Halsleys, would have title to the acreage. But the Halseys—who according to van Swol were related to the World War Two hero Admiral “Bull” Halsey—had a court battle with a Smith and others over whether or not Smith paid off mortgage on the 1,100 acres, which may or not have included the proposed fishing access property.

The New York Appellate Court documents show a man named Marshall Batsford testified that he would have been in a position to see any documents showing that the mortgage had been satisfied, and he did not see them. Batsford further testified that another man named James Mackey was asked by Smith’s lawyer—a man named D. D. McKoon—to say that he, Mackey, had overheard William Halsey saying the mortgage was fully paid, “or nearly so.” McKoon said other witnesses were going to say that was what happened. Mackey reportedly responded that two others “might swear to his damned lies, but that I would not, and McKoon told me I need not stay, and I came away.”

The testimony was part of a response filed by the Halseys to an application by Smith for an appeal against an earlier decision in which the court had ruled in favor of the Halseys, and against Smith and his lawyer D.D. McKoon. The appellate court denied the appeal, and at the time, the Halseys clearly owned some land in Long Eddy, but it is not clear if that land included the fishing access property, or what may have happened to the land subsequently.