Noyes v. Collins

• Decision Date: 14 December 1894
• Citation: 61 N.W. 250,92 Iowa 566
• Parties: NOYES v. COLLINS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

92 Iowa 566

61 N.W. 250

NOYES

v.COLLINS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Dec. 14, 1894.

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

Action in ejectment. Judgment for defendant, and the plaintiff appealed. Affirmed.Jesse T. Davis, for appellant.

S. H. Cochran, for appellee.

GRANGER, C. J.

1. The plaintiff is the owner of lot No. 6, section 15, township 80, range 45 W. of the 5th P. M., in Harrison county. Section 15 is a part of the swampland grant from the United States to the state of Iowa, and from the state to Harrison county. The lot was conveyed by the county to one Morgaridge, and, after mesne conveyances, the title vested in the plaintiff. What was known as “Dry Lake” was in part on section 15, and was a body of water from 5 to 7 miles in length, and from 80 to 100 rods in width. Its depth was from 3 to 7 feet. The boundaries of lot No. 6 in the deeds of conveyance are as follows: “Commencing at the southeast corner of Sec. 15, Twp. 80, R. 45, and running to Dry Lake; thence southwest, by the meanders of said Dry Lake, to the south line of section 15; thence east along said line to the place of beginning,--containing thirteen acres more or less.” Because of ditches made by Harrison county, and the action of the Missouri river in washing away its banks, and its waters spreading into Dry Lake and depositing large quantities of earth, the lake, about 1881, ceased to be. What was the bed of the lake has been, by the county, divided into lots and sold, and the defendant owns, in pursuance of such a sale, lot No. 7. It is appellant's claim that, as Dry Lake was an unnavigable body of water, he takes, by the conveyance to him, to the center thread of it, which would include what is now lot No. 7; and this action is for its possession. If appellant's claim is sustained, instead of about 13 acres, as described in his deed, he gets some 23 or 24 acres of land. Some claim is made by appellant in argument that he is entitled to this additional land under the law of accretions. To our minds, such a law has no application to the facts. It is not a case of increase to the land by gradual deposits of soil through natural causes, but by both natural and artificial causes the lake was both drained and filled. Nor is it a case where there was that gradual recession of the water that the doctrine of reliction applies. It appears from the testimony that the ditch made by the county drained the lake to some extent at one end, and it seems that in 1881 the “Missouri river cut into the lake and drained the same.” It is said in evidence, “The water all disappeared in the lake in 1881.” The rule is, in order to entitle the adjoining property holders to the right of possession of land left bare by receding water, that the recession...