Will Sunday baseball strike out at Abrams Park?

What started as a century-old rumor has led the city of Ridgefield to ask a judge whether the public can play baseball on Sundays in Abrams Park.

The city on Friday filed a complaint in Clark County Superior Court to quiet the title on property once owned by D.K. Abrams — believed to be Daniel Kendrick Abrams, a widower with no living children, who died in 1911. A complaint to quiet title seeks to establish ownership and remove any other potential claims of ownership.

Abrams’ property was deeded to the city on Feb. 28, 1910, the complaint says, and is a portion of the larger, 40-acre Abrams Park, a bucolic spot named in D.K.’s honor. The small city’s principal park offers walking trails, a children’s play area, an area for playing Frisbee or volleyball, a horseshoe pit, and soccer fields. It also has a rental room with picnic tables, a fireplace and kitchen facilities.

Abrams Park is home to Ridgefield Little League and has featured baseball fields since at least the 1950s, though several longtime residents were unable to pinpoint the exact year.

And it’s likely baseball has been played there on Sundays for all of those years.

One longtime resident first raised the question as to whether a restriction existed on Sunday baseball about a year and a half ago. The story had been passed down over the years, so the city began to look into it, according to Ridgefield City Manager Steve Stuart.

“It was a rumor from our perspective that was significant to either confirm or dispel,” Stuart said Monday.

No Sunday baseball

After some research, the city found the 1910 Warranty Deed, which does contain a restriction clause that reads, “the playing of baseball on Sunday, on the land hereby deeded, is prohibited and in the event of this agreement being broken the land hereby deeded shall revert to D.K. Abrams, his heirs or assigns.”

Stuart said he had never heard of such a restriction before, and there is no explanation for the clause.

“There’s enough uncertainty that we want to get it cleared up,” he said.

But Ridgefield isn’t the only place where baseball was prohibited on Sundays.

According to an article in the journal Political Theology Today, bans on Sunday baseball coincided with “blue laws,” which are rooted in the Sabbath, and regulate activities on Sundays. In some places where blue laws are observed, entertainment and leisure activities are prohibited on Sundays.

It’s unclear if D.K. Abrams’ restriction clause was included for religious reasons.

The city believes that Abrams left his estate to two sisters and eight nieces and nephews, but that those heirs also have died. After 105 years, it’s unknown whether Abrams has any living heirs, the complaint says.

For decades, the city did not have knowledge of the deed restriction, because it was lost. So the city has allowed the public to play baseball without restriction on the Abrams Dedication since at least 2005. It also has allowed local baseball leagues to reserve and play baseball on Sundays in the park, the city’s complaint says.

“The deed restriction … is more than 100 years old and is an unreasonable cloud on the city’s title and use of Abrams Park,” the city argues in the complaint. “The restriction does not reflect the changed circumstances that exist at Abrams Park in 2016.”

Stuart said it will be up to the court to decide which piece of land the clause pertains to.

The city is asking that the court grant its continued ownership of the property and the right to allow baseball to be played on Sundays. It also asks that any unknown heirs not be granted rights to the property.

“We’re hopeful the community will be able to continue its use of the park, as it has for the past 100 years,” Stuart said.

The Abramses

D.K. Abrams was born June 1, 1829, in Sanbornton, N.H., to John and Nancy Abrams. He traveled with his brother to Portland in 1851, where he lived for two years, according to RootsWeb, an online site supported by Ancestry.com. He returned to New Hampshire about a year before his marriage to Mary M. Chapman on April 2, 1854. A son, John Abrams, was born in 1860, but he died six years later. They also may have had a daughter, named Emma Abrams, who was born in approximately 1864 and died in 1886 in Revere, Mass.

After the death of Mary Abrams, sometime between August 1864 and August 1866, D.K. Abrams returned to Oregon and made his way to Union Ridge, now called Ridgefield, where he farmed and raised livestock. He died Aug. 26, 1911, according to RootsWeb.

D.K. Abrams had one brother, William Penn Abrams (1820-1873), who’s buried in River View Cemetery in Portland. William Abrams had six children, the eldest, Sarah Abrams Hogue, lived until 1926. D.K. Abrams also had four sisters. One sister, Rebecca Abrams Otway, died the same year as D.K. Abrams and another sister, Nancy Abrams Simons, died in 1922, according to the online site, Find a Grave. Simons appears to have had two children, who died in the 1940s and 1960s.