Cranger v. City of Canandaigua

• Decision Date: 15 July 1931
• Citation: 177 N.E. 394,257 N.Y. 126
• Parties: CRANGER et al. v. CITY OF CANANDAIGUA.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

257 N.Y. 126

177 N.E. 394

CRANGER et al.

v.CITY OF CANANDAIGUA.

Court of Appeals of New York.

July 15, 1931.

Action by Gideon Granger and another against the City of Canandaigua. From a judgment of the Appellate Division (230 App. Div. 774, 243 N. Y. S. 912) affirming a judgment of Special Term, entered on report of referee, dismissing upon the merits a complaint which sought to restrain defendant from entering upon lands under the waters of Canandaigua Lake, plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Harry C. Miller, of New York City, for appellants.

John Colmey and Fred D. Cribb, both of Canadaigua, for respondent.

POUND, J.

The question is as to the title of the bed of Canandaigua Lake. If it is in the state, the judgment must be affirmed. If it is in the plaintiffs, defendant must be restrained from entering upon such lands and filling them in for park purposes.

Plaintiffs' title is based on a deed, conveying, among others lands under the waters of fresh water inland lakes, all the lands lying under the waters of Canandaigua lake, executed by Stephen Bates, sheriff of Ontario county, to Gideon Granger, their ancestor, dated June 10, 1817. The deed conveyed the interest of Oliver Phelps in such lands. He had acquired title from Phelps & Gorham, who acquired title from the state of Massachusetts under the famous Treaty of Hartford (1786), so often referred to in judicial decisions (People v. Snyder, 41 N. Y. 397) and articles (Colson, ‘Title of Beds of Lakes in New York,’ 9 Cornell Law Quarterly, 159, 288), whereby Massachusetts ceded to New York sonvereignty over its lands within the borders of New York, and New York ceded to Massachusetts the right of pre-emption of the soil west of a line running north an south through Seneca Lake. Title of the present owners to the land here in question comes through the grant from New York to Massachusetts.

Canandaigua Lake is navigable in fact. It has been regularly navigated by steamboats for comercial purposes. It is fifteen and sixtenths miles long and has an average width of slightly over one mile. It is surrounded by country homes and farms. It is and was a link in the chain of internal commerce. The city of Canandaigua is at its north extremity. Its outlet communicates with Clyde river, an affluent of the Seneca river.

The question of the title to the bed of fresh water lakes in New York state has frequently been before the courts. It ‘has never been determined.’ Stewart v. Turney, 237 N. Y. 117, 123, 142 N. E. 437, 439, 31 A. L. R. 960. ‘Natural ponds and small lakes are private property. They pass by grant of land in which they are included.’ So said the court in Gouverneur v. National Ice Co., 134 N. Y. 355, 359,31 N. E. 865, 867,18 L. R. A. 695, 30 Am. St. Rep. 669, in holding that the riparian owners on Croton Lake, covering about forty-five acres, owned to the center of the pond. ‘All rights of property to the soil under the waters of Hemlock lake [seven miles in length and one-half mile in width] were acquired by and belong to its riparian owners,’ said the court in Smith v. City of Rochester, 92 N. Y. 463, 476,44 Am. Rep. 393, although steamboats plied on the lake, carrying passengers and freight. Ownership of the bed of the lake was unimportant. The decision was unnecessary but Judge Ruger entered into a long discussion to establish that title to the bed of the lake passed to Massachusetts under the Treaty of Hartford. In Sweet v. City of Syracuse, 60 Hun, 28, 14 N. Y. S. 421, reversed 129 N. Y. 316, 27 N. E. 1081,29 N. E. 289, the court declined to pass on the title to the bed of Skaneateles Lake, fifteen miles long and about one mile wide. In City of Geneva v. Henson, 195 N. Y. 447, 450,88 N. E. 1104, the court held that Seneca lake, 34.68 miles long and 3.46 miles wide, with one exception the largest lake wholly within the territorial limits of the state of New York, was navigable and navigated, but did not pass on the question of title to the bed of the lake. City of Geneva v. Henson, 202 N. Y. 545, 95 N. E. 1125.Chism v. Smith, 138 App. Div. 715, 716, 123 N. Y. S. 691;Id., 210 N. Y. 198, 104 N. E. 131;Id., 174 App. Div. 332, 334, 160 N. Y. S. 813, left the question in doubt as to Lake George.

In Stewart v. Turney, supra, all these cases and others were reviewed. The case went far toward holding that the title to the bed of Cayuga Lake, which is 38 miles long and from one to three miles wide, is in the state. The court pointed out (page 124, 237 N. Y., 142 N. E. 437, 439) that ‘where [the law] is unsettled the result of a proposed rule may turn the scale’ and that ‘were it necessary we would hold, however, that with regard to a grant of land on Cayuga Lake an exception should be made to the common-law rule’ (page 123 of 237 N. Y.,142 N. E. 437, 439) that the riparian owners owned to the center of the lake.

The author of this opinion, Andrews, J., in an able article in 16 Cornell Law Quarterly, 277, to which reference is made, indicates a grouping of our navigable inland lakes into large and small and medium. Lakes George, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida are large lakes; Croton and Hemlock are small....