Massie & Patterson v. Halstead

• Citation: 127 F. 176
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia
• Decision Date: 30 November 1903
• Parties: MASSIE & PATTERSON v. HALSTEAD et al.

127 F. 176

MASSIE & PATTERSON v. HALSTEAD et al.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. West Virginia.

November 30, 1903

James F. Brown, for plaintiffs.

Adam Littlepage, for defendants.

KELLER District Judge (orally).

This was a suit in equity brought by the plaintiffs against the defendants for the purpose of setting aside, and having decreed null and void, as a cloud upon their title, a certain tax deed obtained by defendants from the clerk of the county court of Nicholas county, W.Va., in alleged pursuance of a sale made by the sheriff of Nicholas county of a tract of 432 acres of land returned delinquent in the name of W. E Chilton for nonpayment of the taxes of 1897, and sold by the sheriff to Maggie L. Halstead in March, 1900. The particular ground upon which it is asked that this deed be decreed to be void as a cloud upon the title of plaintiffs is that the 432 acres actually sold in the name of said Chilton was the balance of a tract of 1,100 acres, 668 acres of which were within the boundary of land owned by plaintiffs, and for which portion so lying within their boundary they had, in 1891, obtained a verdict against Chilton, under a compromise in the United States Circuit Court for the District of West Virginia, but that the deed made by the clerk was for the land they had thus recovered from Chilton, and described land lying within their boundary. The facts in the case seem to be as follows: The plaintiffs are trustees of the estate of R H. Maury, who owned what is known as the 'Jacob Skiles Survey' of 32,097 acres situated in Nicholas and Clay counties, and patented July 21, 1797, to said Skiles by the commonwealth of Virginia. In 1885 a controversy had arisen between the predecessors of plaintiffs in the trust and the owners of a junior patent known as the 'Pryor & Tupper Patent' of 14,500 acres, lying to the northeast of the Skiles patent, and calling for the Skiles patent as a boundary line, but which junior patent, if run out by course and distance, would interlock with the Skiles. This junior patent had been forfeited to the commonwealth of Virginia and was proceeded against and decreed to be sold, and was so sold after being subdivided by the commissioner into lots for convenience of sale. One of these lots, containing 1,100 acres, came by mean conveyances into the possession of one Peter Baker, and in 1885, when ejectment was brought by the predecessors of plaintiffs herein against the various defendants who were within the interlock, Peter Baker was one of the defendants.

In that ejectment suit, brought in the United States District Court for the District of West Virginia (exercising circuit court powers), the true line on the northeast side of the Skiles survey was established by the verdict, and the lots of Baker and other holders of the Pryor & Tupper patent were found to be largely within the correct boundary of the Skiles survey but the jury found for the defendant Baker in that suit on the ground of adverse possession. On September 3, 1890, said Baker sold his 1,100-acre tract of land to the defendant W. E. Chilton, and, as before stated, in 1891 the predecessors of plaintiffs bought that portion of said 1,100 acres which lay within the Skiles survey from said Chilton, and, instead of taking a deed therefor, instituted an action of ejectment, and took a verdict for such...