Hamilton Mfg. Co. v. City of Lowell

• Decision Date: 26 February 1904
• Citation: 185 Mass. 114,69 N.E. 1080
• Parties: HAMILTON MFG. CO. v. CITY OF LOWELL. APPLETON CO. v. SAME.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

185 Mass. 114

69 N.E. 1080

HAMILTON MFG. CO. v. CITY OF LOWELL.

APPLETON CO. v. SAME.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

February 26, 1904

The following is the agreed statement of facts referred to in the opinion:

'The tract of land in question was formerly owned by the proprietors of the locks and canals on Merrimack river. In 1826 and 1828 said proprietors conveyed to the Hamilton Manufacturing Company several tracts of land, reserving all of the land lying northerly of Jackson street and southerly of the Hamilton Canal. On July 14, 1843, said proprietors leased to the Boston & Lowell Railroad Corporation a strip of land thirteen (13) feet wide on the northerly side of Jackson street, now included within the limits of the tract of land in question, to be held so long as they should continue to occupy the same for a railroad for the transportation of merchandise, and no longer. Said proprietors still retained a strip of land between said 13-foot strip and the Hamilton Canal. By indentures dated October 1, 1853, and July 1, 1873, said proprietors leased to the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, for a term of 999 years, all that strip of land situated between the aforesaid land leased to the Boston & Lowell Railroad Corporation and the Hamilton Canal. In the meantime said railroad corporation had filed with the county commissioners under the statute a location of its railroad along the northerly side of Jackson Street, including the abovementioned 13-foot strip; but the location so filed like many of the railroad locations filed under the earlier statutes of the commonwealth relating to railroads, was somewhat indefinite, and in 1883, pursuant to the provisions of chapter 149 of the Acts of 1882, said corporation filed a new location with the county commissioners, which covered said 13-foot strip, and also a further width of about 7 feet, making the whole location as filed, 20 feet in width along the northerly side of Jackson street, and thereby, as was claimed by the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, encroaching upon land included within the lease of July 1, 1873. On February 12, 1879, the Boston & Lowell Railroad Corporation had by indenture authorized and empowered the Hamilton Manufacturing Company to maintain its buildings over said railroad location as it had been doing prior to that time, and to erect walls and buildings over that portion of the strip of land included in the location not built upon, so far as the railroad corporation had the right to so authorize.

'Inasmuch as a controversy had arisen between the Boston & Lowell Railroad Corporation, on the one side, and the Hamilton Manufacturing Company and the proprietors of the locks and canals, on the other, on account of the filing of the new location by the railroad in 1883, said parties to this controversy, together with the Boston & Maine Railroad Corporation, the lessee of the Boston & Lowell Railroad Corporation, joined in indentures dated June 29, 1888, and August 31, 1888, copies of which have been introduced in evidence as 'Exhibit No. 4,' by the terms of the former of which indentures the railroad corporation limited its location to a strip of land eight hundred and sixty-two and four one-hundredths (862.04) feet in length and fourteen and forty-five one-hundredths (14.45) feet in width at its westerly end, and fifteen and fifty one-hundredths (15.50) feet in width at its easterly end, which included the original 13-foot strip. By the same indentures the railroad corporation authorized the Hamilton Manufacturing Company 'to maintain and keep the walls and buildings and arch already existing over a portion of said strip and over the track of said Lowell Railroad thereon as the same are now built and constructed, and further authorize and empower the said manufacturing company to extend walls and buildings of substantially the same construction with an arch not less than eighteen (18) feet in height above said railroad tracks over the remainder of said strip, the said walls on the Jackson street side to be not over two (2) feet in thickness and the southerly line thereof to be on the line of said street, and said walls and buildings as now erected and constructed, or as hereafter erected and constructed pursuant to this indenture, or any others erected in their stead, to be maintained on said strip so long only as the same shall be used by said manufacturing company, its successors or assigns, for purposes substantially similar to those for which the said manufacturing company now uses...