Le Beau v. Gaven

• Decision Date: 31 March 1866
• Citation: 37 Mo. 556
• Parties: ANDREW A. LE BEAU, Appellant, v. DOMINIQUE GAVEN, GALLIS FAHRMANN AND JOHN BUCHIED, Respondents.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

37 Mo. 556

ANDREW A. LE BEAU, Appellant,

v.DOMINIQUE GAVEN, GALLIS FAHRMANN AND JOHN BUCHIED, Respondents.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1866.

Appeal from St. Louis Land Court.

Morehead, for appellant.

T. T. Gantt, for respondents.

HOLMES, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff claimed title under the act of Congress of the 13th of June, 1812. He endeavored to prove a possession of the land in controversy by John B. Petit, prior to the 20th day of December, 1803. He put in evidence a concession to one Amoit, dated September 7, 1780, of a lot bounded north by Cotte, south by Little river, and on the one end by the public road leading to the bridge over Little river, and on the other end by the King's domain, or the shore of the Mississippi, and containing 120 feet in width by 150 feet in depth; also a deed from Amoit to Petit, dated September 12, 1780, by the same description, and a derivative title downward, by a similar description, until 1825. In 1835 this lot was marked on Brown's plat of surveys of block No. 46 of the city of St. Louis, with the dimensions called for in the concession and deeds, but not going to the Mississippi river on the eastern boundary, and thereafterwards the several conveyances down to the plaintiff describe the lot with those exact dimensions, and as bounded on the east by owners unknown, or by parts of the same block. There was never any approved and recorded public survey of this lot. The plaintiff further read the deposition of a witness as tending to prove a possession by Petit prior to 1803, of the land in controversy here, fronting westwardly on Second street, and running back eastwardly several hundred feet to the Mississippi river, including all the accretions made since the date of the concession.

The defendants claimed title under a confirmation by the Board of Commissioners under the act of Congress of March 3, 1807, dated December 6, 1811, to the legal representatives of John B. Provenchere, on the ground of ten years' consecutive possession prior to the 20th of December 1803; the land to be surveyed conformably to the possession, and it was officially surveyed in 1835, and the survey was finally approved and recorded on the 13th of June, 1845. The original concession, the confirmation, and the survey, distinctly call for the bank of the Mississippi river as the eastern boundary of the land granted and confirmed. The defendant also gave evidence tending to prove a continuous possession of the land from 1805, under this claim of title, down to the present time. No patent appears to have been issued. As to whether or not the calls and descriptions contained in the concession and deeds, under which the plaintiff claims, were...