To take possession of what belongs to another. Especially to jump a [mining] claim.
1839. They steal from whom they please; and, if the person they take from accuses them, they jump on more of his property.—‘History of Virgil A. Stewart,’ p. 18 (N.Y.).
1851. Here was no jumping of claims, but as one after another arrived, all were satisfied to select from that part of the vast surface of the whale around which lines had not been run.—Gustavus Hines, ‘Oregon,’ p. 198.
1854. To jump a claim.—Melbourne Argus (N.E.D.)
1855. I have had my claim in the digging more than once, of ten feet square; if a man “jumped” it, and encroached on my boundaries, and I did’nt knock him on the head with a pick-axe, being a Christian, I appealed to the “crowd.”—F. S. Marryat, ‘Mountains and Molehills,’ p. 240 (Bartlett).
1856. Davis “jumped” (as the squatters term it) the city of Fort Calhoun, which at the time had not an inhabitant in it, and but one log cabin.—Mr. Bennet of Nebraska, House of Repr., July 22: Cong. Globe, p. 964, App.
