Holman v. Hodges

• Decision Date: 17 January 1901
• Parties: HOLMAN ET AL. v. HODGES.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

112 Iowa 714

84 N.W. 950

HOLMAN ET AL.

v.HODGES.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Jan. 17, 1901.

Appeal from district court, Woodbury county; G. W. Wakefield, Judge.

The plaintiffs, as owners of lots 3 and 4, bordering the Missouri river, in this suit asked that title be quieted in them to a bar or island formed in the river, a part of which was occupied by the defendant. The district court denied the relief, but adjudged them to be owners up to what is called the “Iowa Channel,” the lines to be established by a commissioner. They appeal. Affirmed.Lewis & Beardsley, for appellants.

E. J. Stason, for appellee.

LADD, J.

There is little controversy concerning the facts of this case. The plaintiffs have been owners of lots 3 and 4, bordering the Missouri river, since 1862. A bar began to form opposite these, near the middle of the stream, in 1857. Certainly it had not appeared in 1856, as the ferryboat went directly across without obstruction. The following year a steamboat ran aground on the bar, and for several years afterwards boats were compelled to avoid it by following the current on either side. As early as 1861, according to one of the plaintiffs, it was a half mile wide, and has been added to until it is now two or three miles long. By 1870 the northern part was overgrown with willows, and, though the main current of the river had gradually changed to the west of the bar or island, that part to the east was still 15 or 20 rods wide, with a distinct current. Since then willow and cottonwood trees have sprung up on the bar, a small part was cultivated in 1878, and it has been occupied for agricultural purposes since 1886. During all these years alluvial deposits have been added to the north, south, and west. In 1870 accretions began to form on plaintiffs' lots, and this has been going on ever since. The water at ordinary stage continued to flow between plaintiffs' land and the island until about 1887, and it had run through a well-defined channel during the spring and June rise of the river up to the present time. Without setting out the evidence in detail, it is enough to say that the formation of the bar or island has been entirely distinct from any accretion to the shore. It arose near the middle of the river, though probably east of the thread of the then main current, without any connection with the Iowa shore, and was gradually added to by accretion or reliction until an island of the proportions mentioned was formed. Not only is this true, but the conclusion seems inevitable from the circumstances shown that the additions to plaintiffs' land, whether from accretion thereto or the receding of the waters, have resulted from the formation of the island. Its existence undoubtedly changed the main current of the river, and by its growth to the northeast gradually cut off the stream formerly flowing between it and the shore. Whether this be true, however, need not now be determined. It is enough for the purposes of this case that the land beyond the channel last mentioned was formed independently of plaintiffs' land. It then never became part of their lots through the process of accretion or reliction.

2. But the appellants insist that, even if all we have said be true, yet are they the owners of the island. They argue that, as the state acquired title to the soil at the bottom of the river as the latter receded towards Nebraska, it ought to be excluded from any claim to the part of the bottom abandoned; in other words, it seems to be thought the state's title ought to be limited to the soil covered by the waters. And it is said that, even though it may have owned the island when surrounded by water, that title moved from beneath it as the river receded, and the land became plaintiffs' as soon as connected with shore. It is conceded that no authorities have been found announcing such a doctrine, and we have been unable to discover any case awarding a riparian owner land because connected to his own, save when this has occurred through the imperceptible accretion or the reliction thereof by the gradual receding of the waters. The argument that this should be the rule, for that, while he may gain, he is equally likely to lose, is that on which ownership to the center of an unnavigable stream is grounded. And it may have had some influence in decisions declaring title in the riparian owner to the middle of a navigable stream above tide water. See Morgan v. Reading, 3 Smedes & M. 366. No question is made but the Missouri river at this point is a navigable stream, and that ordinarily the riparian owner has no title beyond high-water mark. McManus v. Carmichael, 3 Iowa, 1;Haight v. City of Keokuk, 4 Iowa, 199;Tomlin v. Railway Co., 32 Iowa, 106;Houghton v. Railroad Co., 47 Iowa, 370;Bennett v. Manufacturing Co., 103 Iowa, 207, 72 N. W. 507. Nor is it doubted that title to the soil at the bottom of such a river from high-water mark to the middle of the channel is in the state. Railway Co. v. Porter, 72 Iowa, 426, 34 N. W. 286;Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 225, 11 L. Ed. 565;Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U. S. 371, 11 Sup. Ct. 808, 838, 35 L. Ed. 428. As said in last case: “Such title to the shore and land under water is regarded as incidental to the sovereignty of the state, a portion of the royalties belonging thereto, and held in trust for the public purposes of navigation and fishery, and cannot be retained or granted out to individuals by the United States. Such title being in the states, the lands are subject to state regulations and control, under condition, however, of not interfering with the regulations which may be made by congress with regard to public navigation and commerce.” Contrary to the views of this court expressed in Dunleith & Dubuque Bridge Co....