Land and Oil Dispute: Shades of ‘Dallas’ and ‘Dynasty’

The British talent for tracing ancestries back to 11th-Century Norman Conquests may help up to 500 descendents of a Tennessee rancher collect millions of dollars from oil companies they allege robbed them of their land.

Burke’s Peerage, a 150-year-old publication that traces the lineages of Britain’s bluest blood, is trying to settle an 80-year-old dispute between the heirs of Pelham Humphries and the mighty oil firms of Texaco, Amoco, Atlantic Richfield and Mobil.

“It is a tale of money, murder and passion which makes ‘Dallas’ and ‘Dynasty’ combined look like a tale of simple country folk,” Burke’s Peerage publishing director Harold Brooks-Baker said when he began his research in October, 1986.

More than two years later, he stands by his assessment.

“We accomplished what we set out to do in spite of the fact that we also were intimidated by representatives of one of the oil companies, which I’d prefer not to name,” Brooks-Baker said.

Why were the powerful companies worried about the arcane research of British genealogists?

Burke’s aimed to prove that Pelham Humphries, who bought 4,000 acres of scrub land in east Texas from the Mexican government in 1835, was the ancestor of up to 5,000 people living in every state of the union and seven foreign countries. On those acres around Beaumont, Tex., abandoned by the Humphrieses when bachelor Pelham died in a brawl 1840, the oil gusher Spindletop was discovered 1901.

All four oil companies now own stakes in the Spindletop field, and therefore would be liable for the heirs’ claims.

The Heirs of Pelham Humphries Assn. have lodged a claim against the companies for unpaid royalties and interest of $200 billion in a Greeneville, Tenn., district court.

Brooks-Baker said when he began his work on behalf of the heirs, an oil company sent representatives from the United States to London to tell him it was unlikely that he would find any new information on the case.

“Several suits have been filed in the past, but the problem was none of the people could prove they were descendents,” Brooks-Baker said. “The oil companies have made it very clear they are interested in talking this through and hinted strongly they are willing to speak about a settlement.”

His 44 U.S. researchers faced greater problems.

“All of the genealogists I know of have . . . (gotten) stuck in the United States as soon as they have come close to the truth in this case: some were bought off, some intimidated and some met sad accidents,” he said. “Certainly, it’s the most difficult case we’ve had.”

Others, including the MacFadden family who moved onto the land in 1850, have been unable to prove their claim, but Burke’s believes it has uncovered material that proves that at least 50, and perhaps 500, of the Humphries heirs have a strong case.

President of the heirs assocation, Brown Peregoy, 50, from Johnson City, Tenn., near Pelham’s Carter County birthplace, said he is the fifth generation nephew of Pelham on William’s side.

Peregoy founded the association in 1986 and toured southern states speaking to groups of people who thought they may be related.

In October, 1986, 6,000 people filled the Freedom Civic Center in Johnson City to hear Burke’s outline its research methods, which cost each prospective heir $750.

With Burke’s new evidence, the heirs are going to court.

“Pelham Humphries bought the land on Feb. 14, 1835. We filed our case 154 years to the day on,” Peregoy said, acknowledging an out-of-court settlement may be the most likely outcome.

“We anticipate it’ll take 20 days for the oil companies to look at the case, then we’ll have to file an amended complaint.

“We haven’t had a chance to review the case fully yet,” said James F. Robertson, spokesman for Texaco’s Houston office.

But Brooks-Baker believes the case will “open a Pandora’s box of litigation” involving genealogical research that may kindle an interest in the United States in ancestry similar to that created by Alex Haley’s best-selling book about a black family tree, “Roots.”

And the researchers may have a profitable incentive--Brooks-Baker said “mathematically there could be between 20,000 and 30,000 heirs (of Pelham Humphries) who just won’t know it.”