Province v. Crow

• Decision Date: 20 November 1871
• Citation: 70 Pa. 199
• Parties: Province <I>versus</I> Crow.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

70 Pa. 199

Province versus Crow.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

November __, 1871.

November 20, 1871.

November __ 1871.

Before THOMPSON, C. J., READ, AGNEW, SHARSWOOD and WILLIAMS, JJ.

Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Fayette county: No. 129, to October and November Term 1873.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

W. Parshall and A. E. Willson, for plaintiff in error.

Collins, Baily and Campbell, for defendant in error.

The opinion of the court was delivered, November 20th 1871, by SHARSWOOD, J.

In the view which we take of this case, the only question to be examined is, whether the plaintiff below succeeded in showing a good title to the premises described in the writ of ejectment. As the conclusion at which we have arrived upon this question is adverse to him, it will be altogether unnecessary to consider whether the case of the defendant as presented by the evidence upon the bar of the Statute of Limitations and upon the estoppel, ought to have been submitted to the jury, and whether the verdict was sufficiently certain to authorize the court to enter judgment upon it.

Albert Gallatin laid out the village of New Geneva upon the Monongahela river in the year 1797, and entered of record in the recorder's office of the county a plat of his intended town — on which certain lots were laid out and numbered. In a certificate attached to this plat he stated that "the course of Ferry street from the corner of lot No. 53 to the river not being yet precisely ascertained, and also that the lines of the lots Nos. 158 159 and 160, are not yet precisely ascertained." This is just as it is given to us in the paper-book of the plaintiff in error, without any correction or explanation by the defendant. No copy of the certificate in full is found in the record. As the sentence is broken and ungrammatical, it is probable that the words "and also" should be omitted. The sense would then be that in consequence of the course of Ferry street not having been precisely ascertained, the lines of lots Nos. 158, 159 and 160 were not precisely ascertained, because they would depend upon the course of the street. It may be that in the certificate these two sentences are disjoined and others intervene between them. It is not, however, very material, as it does not appear by anything in the evidence that the course of this street or the lines of these lots ever were more precisely ascertained. I will notice presently what is alleged to amount to an ascertainment of one of the lines of lot No. 160. On the 10th of July 1830, Mr. Gallatin conveyed to Tazewell P. Martin inter alia lot No. 160, by no other description, and with no boundaries. There is no other source of information, then, to which to resort than to the recorded plan — upon the face of which lot No. 160 is enclosed within five lines, of which Ferry street is one, and the river another. The triangle upon the other side of Ferry street, the premises in controversy, adjoining lot No. 53, is a distinct and separate lot enclosed by three lines, of which Ferry street is one, and without any number upon it. There is no mark or line to connect these two lots on the opposite sides of the street, as it seems very clear that there would have...