Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. State of New York
| Decision Date | 12 April 1926 |
| Docket Number | O,No. 14,14 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS v. STATE OF NEW YORK et al. riginal |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
[Syllabus from pages 65-67 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Edwin H. Abbot, Jr., Jay R. Benton, Atty. Gen., and J. Weston Allen, all of Boston, Mass., for the commonwealth of Massachusetts.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 67-74 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Anson Getman, of Albany, N. Y., and Albert Ottinger, Atty. Gen., for the people of the state of New York.
Mr. Charles L. Pierce, of Rochester, N. Y., for defendant city of Rochester.
Mr. Eugene Van Voorhis, of New York City, for defendants commissioners of appraisal.
Mr. Harry Otis Poole, of Rochester, N. Y., for defendants McIntyre and others.
Mr. Harry C. Miller, of New York City, for defendant Granger.
Mr. Clarence P. Moser, of Rochester, N. Y., for defendant Bartholomay Co.
Mr. Daniel M. Beach, of Rochester, N. Y., for defendants New York Cent. R. Co. and another.
Mr. Arthur E. Sutherland, of Rochester, N. Y., for defendants Ontario Beach Hotel & Amusement Co. and another.
Mr. George V. Holton, of Rochester, N. Y., for defendant Twentieth Ward Co-operative Savings & Loan Ass'n.
Mr. George Y. Webster, of Rochester, N. Y., for defendant Hotchkiss.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 74-80 intentionally omitted]
This is an original suit in equity brought by the commonwealth of Massachusetts against the state of New York, the city of Rochester in New York, and certain corporations and individuals, to quiet title to land located
in the city of Rochester, and to enjoin the city from taking it by eminent domain, or in the alternative, to have the amount of compensation for the taking determined by this court. The case was heard upon bill and answer and the report of a special master appointed to take proofs and to make an advisory report upon the questions of fact raised by the pleadings, except as to the amount of damages to be paid for the property if taken by eminent domain.
The land in dispute is a narrow strip of about 25 acres fronting upon Lake Ontario within the city limits of Rochester. By the Treaty of Hartford, entered into between New York and Massachusetts December 16, 1786, land within the territorial limits of New York was granted to Massachusetts in private ownership. The title to the land in controversy depends upon the meaning and effect of this treaty, and upon the construction of a subsequent conveyance by Massachusetts of a part of the land thus acquired, through which conveyance the several defendants other than the state of New York derive their title.
Before 1786 Massachusetts and New York claimed, under conflicting royal grants, both sovereignty and title of a large area of what is now western New York. The controversy was settled by the Treaty of Hartford by which Massachusetts gave up all its claim to sovereignty over the territory, and its claim to private ownership in part of it, and New York ceded to Massachusetts—
'the Right of pre-emption of the Soil from the native Indians and all other the Estate, Right, Title and Property (the Right and Title of Government Sovereignty and Jurisdiction excepted) which the State of New York hath * * * in or to all the Lands and Territories within the following Limits and Bounds that is to say, BEGINNING in the north boundary Line of the State
of Pennsylvania in the parallel of forty-two degrees of north Latitude at a point distant eighty-two miles west from the north east Corner of the state of Pennsylvania on Delaware River as the said boundary Line hath been run and marked by the Commissioners appointed by the States of Pennsylvania and New York respectively and from the said Point or Place of beginning running on a due meridian north to the boundary Line between the United States of America and the king of Great Britain thence westerly and southerly along the said boundary Line to a meridian which will pass one mile due East from the northern Termination of the Streight or waters between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie thence South along the said Meridian to the South Shore of Lake Ontario thence on the eastern side of the said Streight by a Line always one mile distant from and parallel to the said Streight to Lake Erie thence due west to the boundary Line between the United States and the king of Great Britain thence along the said boundary Line until it meets with the Line of Cession from the State of New York to the United States thence along the said Line of Cession to the northwest corner of the State of Pennsylvama and thence East along the northern boundary Line of the State of Pennsylvania to the said place of beginning.'
Article 10 of the Treaty provided that Massachusetts might grant the right of pre-emption in the lands thus acquired, 'to any person or persons who by virtue of such Grant shall have good right to extinguish by purchase the claims of the native Indians,' by compliance with certain conditions not now important.
By act of the Massachusetts Legislature, approved April 1, 1788 (Laws and Res. 1786-87, c. 135, p. 900), it was provided that 'this Commonwealth doth hereby agree, to grant, sell & convey' to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, for a purchase price stated in the act, 'all the Right, Title & Demand, which the said Commonwealth
has in & to the said Western Territory' ceded to it by the Treaty of Hartford. On July 8, 1788, the Five Indian Nations (Mohawks, Oneidas, Onandagas, Cayugas, and Senecas) executed a deed or treaty extinguishing the Indian claim to the territory described in it and conveying that territory to Phelps and Gorham. The description embraces approximately the east one-third of the territory ceded to Massachusetts by the Treaty of Hartford, and begins at a point 'in the north boundary line of the State of Pennsylvania in the parallel of forty-two degrees north latitude at a point distant eighty-two miles west from the northeast corner of Pennsylvania on Delaware river.' The description proceeds by various metes and bounds to a point on the Genesee river from which, so far as now material, it reads as follows:
'* * * Thence running in a direction due west twelve miles, thence running in a direction northwardly, so as to be twelve miles distant from the most westward bends of said Genesee River to the shore of the Ontario Lake thence eastwardly along the shores of said Lake to a meridian which will pass through the first point or place of beginning. * * *'
By legislative act (Laws and Res. 1788-89, c. 23, p. 35), approved November 21, 1788, the commonwealth of Massachusetts granted to Phelps and Gorham the land which had been conveyed by the deed or treaty with the Five Tribes, the description of the land conveyed being, so far as it is now material, identical with that in the conveyance from the Five Tribes, which we have quoted. By treaty between the Six Nations and the United States, executed November 11, 1794, known as the Pickering Treaty (7 Stat. 44), the Indians formally disclaimed any rights in the land lying east of the west line of the Phelps and Gorham tract.
The several corporate and individual defendants who are in possession of or claim an interest in land now in
controversy, derive their title, through mesne conveyances, from Phelps and Gorham, who took under the grants last described, from the Five Tribes and from the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Massachusetts is not entitled to relief in this suit unless title in the locus quo was acquired by it by the Treaty of Hartford and remained in it after its grant to Phelps and Gorham.
After the Act approved November 21, 1788, Phelps and Gorham having failed to pay the purchase price stipulated in the Resolve of April 1, 1788, a settlement of the contract or agreement between them and the commonwealth of Massachusetts was effected. By this they retained the easterly one-third of the lands which had been released and confirmed to them by the Five Tribes and later conveyed to them by the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and they released and quitclaimed to the commonwealth all their right and title in the remainder of the land.
It is established that since the grant to Phelps and Gorham, there has been a shifting of the shore line of Lake Ontario, and that the land now in dispute, which certainly in 1803 and probably at the time of the Phelps and Gorham grant, was under water, north of the shore line of Lake Ontario, is now above water and south of the high-water mark of the lake. Whether the change in the shore line and in the physical condition of the land in question was due wholly to accretion, or partly to accretion and partly to filling, does not clearly appear, and in the view we take of the case is not material.
The argument of the commonwealth of Massachusetts is that the legal effect of the Hartford Treaty was to release and convey to Massachusetts within the limits of the description in the grant, the bed of Lake Ontario as it then existed, and that by the treaty it acquired title to the land now in dispute; that its grant to Phelps and Gorham, bounding the land conveyed by a line running 'to the Shore of the Ontario Lake; thence eastwardly
along the Shores of the said Lake,' carried only to high-water mark; and that title to all the land below high-water mark as it then existed remained in Massachusetts. Even though this contention that the bed of the lake vested in Massachusetts be decided against it, Massachusetts nevertheless takes the position that the land in dispute was due to accretion, and that all the benefits of the accretion accrued to Massachusetts, because it did acquire title to the shore of the lake by the Treaty of Hartford, and did not part with the title to the shore by its grant to Phelps and Gorham.
The first question which must receive our consideration is whether...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Oneida Indian Nation of NY v. State of NY
...the Crown passed to the States upon their independence.37See Johnson v. McIntosh, supra. See also Massachusetts v. New York, 271 U.S. 65, 85-86, 46 S.Ct. 357, 359-360, 70 L.Ed. 838 (1926); Oneida Nation of New York v. United States, supra 37 Ind.Cl.Comm. at 538 n. 3. Therefore, at the time ......
-
Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Kneip
...of congressional and administrative actions in other respects carries but little force. 28 Cf. Massachusetts v. New York, 271 U.S. 65, 87, 94, 46 S.Ct. 357, 360, 362, 70 L.Ed. 838 (1926); Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet. 367, 411-412, 414, 418, 10 L.Ed. 997 (1842). A showing of long-standing assu......
-
Bostick v. Smoot Sand and Gravel Corporation
...U.S. 567, 39 S.Ct. 9, 63 L.Ed. 424, affirmed 1919, 249 U.S. 540, 39 S.Ct. 371, 63 L.Ed. 759; Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. State of New York, 1926, 271 U.S. 65, 46 S.Ct. 357, 70 L.Ed. 838. A state may grant to its citizens privileges in its navigable waters without extending the same pri......
-
Angelo v. R.R. Comm'n
...S. 56, 63, 64, 41 S. Ct. 237, 65 L. Ed. 500;Appleby v. N. Y., 271 U. S. 364, 46 S. Ct. 569, 70 L. Ed. 992;Massachusetts v. New York, 271 U. S. 65, 86, 89, 46 S. Ct. 357, 70 L. Ed. 838;Fox River Paper Co. v. R. R. Com., 47 S. Ct. 669, 71 L. Ed. 1279, affirming 189 Wis. 626, 208 N. W. 266;U. ......
-
Amoral Water Markets?
...against their separation from sovereignty must be indulged.” (first alteration in original) (quoting Massachusetts v. New York, 271 U.S. 65, 89 (1926))). 84. See Holyoke Co. v. Lyman, 82 U.S. (15 Wall.) 500, 506 (1872). 85. See 141 A.L.R. 639 (noting that some jurisdictions have stretched ......
-
Police Power Versus Riparian Rights in the Interstate Compact Context: New Jersey v. Delaware, 128 S. Ct. 1410 (2008)
...U.S. 376 (1990); New Jersey v. Delaware II, 291 U.S. 361 (1934); Vermont v. New Hampshire, 289 U.S. 593 (1933); Massachusetts v. New York, 271 U.S. 65 240. See 1 Henry Philip Farnham, The Law of Waters and Water Rights §§60-64 (1904); John M. Gould, A Treatise on the Law of Waters, Includin......