Gouverneur v. Nat'l Ice Co.

• Decision Date: 01 October 1892
• Citation: 134 N.Y. 355,31 N.E. 865
• Parties: GOUVERNEUR et al. v. NATIONAL ICE CO.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

134 N.Y. 355

31 N.E. 865

GOUVERNEUR et al.

v.NATIONAL ICE CO.

Court of Appeals of New York,

Second Division.

Oct. 1, 1892.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, second department.

Action by Mary M. Gouverneur and others against the National Ice Company. From an order of the general term reversing a judgment of the special term in favor of defendant, and granting a new trial, defendant appeals. Reversed.

BOUNDARIES-LAND ABUTTING ON POND-CONSTRUCTION OF DEED.

1. A deed of land bordering on a small nonnavigable lake or pond is presumed to convey title to the center of the lake or pond, unless the contrary appears. Wheeler v. Spinola, 54 N. Y. 377, distinguished. 11 N. Y. Supp. 87, reversed.

BOUNDARIES-LAND ABUTTING ON POND-CONSTRUCTION OF DEED.

2. The fact that a deed described the property conveyed as commencing at a known monument on the shore of a pond, and running thence ‘along said pond,’ does not show an intention to convey only to the shore. 11 N. Y. Supp. 87, reversed.

Calvin Frost, for appellant.

Eugene Frayer, for respondents.

The other facts fully appear in the following statement by BRADLEY, J.:

The action is ejectment, and was brought in January, 1883, to recover the possession of certain premises consisting of water and land under water of a natural pond or lake known as ‘Hinckley Pond’ or ‘Croton Lake,’ situated in the town of Patterson, county of Putnam, and is about 2,500 feet in length, and 800 feet in width, in the broadest place, and covers 45 acres. Two streams, constituting its surface inlets, enter in at the southerly end. The outlet at the north end is known as ‘Muddy Brook.’ The pond is within a tract of land granted June 17, 1697, to Adolph Phillipse by William III., king of England, by letters patent, which embraced the present Putnam county. The plaintiffs, by descent and as successors in interest of the patentee, who died intestate, seised of the premises, in 1749, have title to them, unless it has in the mean time been alienated or otherwise defeated. The plaintiffs' ancestors, by five deeds, of dates January 13, 1796, February 6, 1813, March 9, 1813, May 1, 1828, and September 30, 1845, conveyed all the lands surrounding and adjacent to the pond to grantees therein mentioned. The several deeds, respectively, described parcels of lands, and mentioned the quantities embraced within the boundaries; and the following are the only portions of the descriptions given by the said conveyances, in the order of their dates, essential to the questions here for consideration. In the first: ‘Thence north, sixteen degrees west, forty-three chains and seventy-nine links, to Muddy brook, and down the same as it rups until it bears due west,’ etc. This first-mentioned course intersected the pond some distance southerly from what now appears to be the outlet. In the second: ‘Thence south, eighty-one degrees east, five chains, * * * to Hinckley pond, near a large rock; thence northerly, along said pond, to the outlet thereof; that is, to Muddy brook.’ In the third: ‘Thence running north, nineteen degrees west, fourteen chains forty links, * * * to a birch sapling marked, on the east side of Hinckley pond; thence south, thirteen degrees west, three chains twenty-six links, along said pond; thence south, seven degrees fifteen minutes west, seven chains sixty links, along do.; thence south, thirty minutes west, two chains, along do.; thence south, five degrees east, two chains, along said pond; thence south, fourteen degrees fifteen minutes east, two chains ninety-five links, along do., to a bunch of basswood sprouts marked, at Abiol Crosby's corner.’ Another description in the same deed: ‘Thence nine degrees thirty minutes east, ten chains eighty-eight links, along Abiol Crosby, to a bunch of basswood sprouts marked; then due west one chain, along Hinckley pond; thence south, sixty-five degrees west, four chains, along do.; thence south, thirty-seven degrees west, five chains eighty-five links, along do.; thence north, seventy-one degrees thirty minutes west, six chains eighty-eight links, along do., to the brook leading in said pond.’ In the fourth: ‘Beginning near the south side of a large rock, on the west side of Hinckley pond; * * * thence running south, sixteen degrees west, five chains sixteen links, along said pond.’ In the fifth: Beginning at a stake in a swamp south of Hinckley pond; thence several courses and distances; then ‘north, sixteen degrees east, six chains forty-eight links, to a maple marked, by said pond; then north, sixty degrees west, four chains ninety links, along said pond, to the beginning.’ About twelve hundred feet in length of the northerly portion of the premises in question lies along the two courses of the lines so given in the first two deeds, and the balance, about thirteen hundred feet in length, of the southerly portion of them, is between the lines so described as along it, in the last three deeds. Through those five deeds, and sundry mesne conveyances, the defendant took title to uplands adjacent to and surrounding the whole of the pond, except a portion at the northeasterly corner, formerly owned by one William Merritt, and such rights as the New York & Harlem Railroad Company acquired to a strip along its west shore. In 1850 and 1851 William Merritt, who then had title to a portion of the upland, conveyed to the predecessors of the defendant all his interest in the premises in question. And in 1850 or 1851 the defendant's predecessors filled in a portion of the pond, built an ice house thereon, and provided some other appliances for gathering ice. After the construction of the New York & Harlem Railroad, and in the winter of 1850 and 1851, the defendant's predecessors commenced gathering ice there, and shipping it to market on the railroad. This was done every year thereafter, unless the winter of 1853-54 may be excepted. And the defendant acquired its interest there in 1867, then made preparations for the business of gathering ice from the pond, and storing it for shipment and market, and erected buildings and provided means and facilities for such business, which it has since then carried on quite extensively there. The trial court found that the plaintiffs had no title to and were not entitled to the possession of the premises, and refused to find that by the lines, as defined in the deeds of the parcels of land around and adjacent to the lake, excluded the premises in question from the conveyances, and directed judgment for the defendant.BRADLEY, J., ( after stating the facts.)

The defendant alleges several defenses, and the one founded upon the denial of the plaintiffs' title is that their ancestors conveyed the premises in question by deeds to certain grantees many years before this action was commenced. If this proposition of fact is sustained, the other alleged defenses will require no consideration.

The premises which are the subject of controversy consist of a body of water formerly known as ‘Hinckley Pond,’ and later as ‘Croton Lake,’ and land under the water, situated in the town of Patterson, county of Putnam. This is a natural pond or lake, about 151 rods in length, and in the broadest place about 48 rods in width, and covers about 45 acres. It has two inlets at the southerly end, and an outlet known as ‘Muddy Brook’ at the north end; and the court found that there was a slight and very sluggish current running through the pond from south to north. The plaintiffs do not claim title to any of the land adjacent to the lake, as that was all conveyed by their ancestors by five deeds made in the years 1796, 1813, 1828, and 1845. Natural ponds and small lakes are private property. They pass by grant of land in which they are included. They are also presumed, if nothing appears to the contrary, to belong to the riparian owners. And there would seem to be no substantial reason for the application of a different rule in the legal construction of grants of land bounded on them than is applied to conveyances bounding premises on fresh-water streams. Our attention has been called to no case in this state where the question has arisen, and essentially been the subject of determination. In Canal Commissioners v. People, 5 Wend. 447, and in Canal Appraisers v. People, 17 Wend. 597, the chancellor said: ‘The principle itself does not appear sufficiently broad to embrace our large fresh-water lakes or inland seas, which are wholly unprovided for by the common law of England;’ and that a different rule must probably prevail as to them, ‘and also as to those lakes and streams which form the natural boundaries between us and a foreign nation.’ A like remark was made in Smith v. City of Rochester, 92 N. Y. 463, by Judge RUGER, who added: ‘We have arrived at the conclusion that all rights of property to the soil under the waters of Hemlock lake were acquired by and belong to its riparian owners.’ Hemlock lake is about seven miles long, and a half mile in width. And the fact that the title to the land in western New York, within which is Hemlock lake, was not derived from this state, was not deemed and is not important upon the question of its proprietorship, because it came within the class of small lakes the bed of which is the subject of prinate ownership. In Ledyard v. Ten Eyck, 36 Barb. 102, it was held that land conveyed by deed bounding it on Cazenovia lake, which was five miles long and three fourths of a mile in width, extended to its center. But the conclusion reached in that case may have been supported upon another ground, which was there considered. In Wheeler v. Spinola, 54 N. Y. 377, the question was considered in its application to a pond the size of which does not appear; and it was there said that ‘a boundary upon it does not carry title to its center, but only to low-water mark. Such is the rule as to boundaries upon natural ponds and lakes;’ and, in support of the proposition, are there cited Canal Commissioners v. People, 5...