Rutz v. Seeger

• Decision Date: 11 February 1888
• Citation: 35 F. 188
• Parties: RUTZ v. SEEGER et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Illinois

35 F. 188

RUTZ v. SEEGER et al.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. Illinois.

February 11, 1888

Edsall & Edsall and R. A. Halbert, for plaintiff.

Levereet Bell and William C. Kueffner, for defendants.

GRESHAM J.

This cause having been heretofore, to-wit, on the 10th day of November, 1886, in pursuance of the written stipulation of counsel for the respective parties on file herein, heard and tried by the court, without a jury, and the court having considered the evidence, including the admissions and agreements as to facts made by the respective parties upon the trial, and having also heard the arguments of counsel thereupon took the case under advisement. And now, on this the 11th day of February, 1888, the court, being sufficiently advised in the premises, doth find the following facts:

1. That in the year 1849 one August A. Blumenthal acquired and then owned the title in fee to surveys numbered 149, 150, 151 152, 153, 154, 155, and 156 of the common fields of Prairie du Pont, in the county of St. Clair, in the state of Illinois; and that Edward Rutz, the plaintiff in this suit, acquired from said Blumenthal his said title to said land prior to the commencement of this suit.

2. That the map or plat made by G. F. Hilgard, county surveyor of St Clair County, Ill., produced in evidence and marked 'Plaintiff's Exhibit B,' is a correct map and plat of said premises, and of the several surveys and lines indicated thereon; which said map is included in and made a part of these findings, and to which reference is had for greater certainty.

3. That it appears from the evidence, field-notes, and plats in evidence that said surveys, numbered 149, 150, 151, 152, and 155, are each one arpent, or about 12 rods, in width, and the said surveys 153 and 154 are each two arpents, or about 24 rods, in width; and that the said survey numbered 156 is three arpents, or about 36 rods, in width; and that the said several surveys adjoin each other, and lie side by side in the order the same are respectively numbered, survey 149 being upon the extreme northerly and survey 156 being upon the extreme southerly side of the entire tract; and that each and all of said surveys extended to and are bounded by the Mississippi river on the north-westerly ends thereof, and extend south-easterly from the Mississippi river, the average distance of about 1,000 rods to the hills or bluffs on the Illinois side of said river.

4. That the said title of the said Blumenthal to said lands so acquired and held by the said plaintiff is derived from and based upon the title, and claim of the inhabitants of the village of Prairie du Pont, mentioned in the report of the commissioners, Michael Jones and E. Backus, dated at the commissioner's office, Kaskaskia, December 31, 1809, read in evidence from volume 2, the 'American State Papers-- Public Lands,' commencing on page 167 of said volume, and which report was confirmed by section 3 of the act of congress of February 20, 1812, entitled 'An act for the revision of former confirmations, and for confirming certain claims to lands in the district of Kaskaskia,' contained in 2 U.S.St.at Large, 677, 678. And it appears from the said report of said commissioners that the tract of land therein described and awarded to the said claimants as inhabitants of the said village of Prairie du Pont, together with certain land awarded to the inhabitants of the village of Cahokia, was 'bounded on the west by the Mississippi, including the adjacent islands, beginning a quarter of a league above the little river Caho Kia, and extending south and east for quantity so as to contain a tract of four leagues of land square.'

5. That said Blumenthal, in the year 1849, after he had acquired title to said surveys in said Prairie du Pont common fields as aforesaid, took possession under his deeds of the property mentioned in said surveys; and that his actual possession never extended further west than the eastern edge of the Mississippi river; and that the plaintiff, Rutz, succeeded to the possession of said lands of the said Blumenthal prior to the commencement of this suit.

6. That the premises described in the declaration, and sued for, are located at the present time, and were at the commencement of this suit, eastwardly of the center of the main channel of the Mississippi river, in the county of St. Clair, in the state of Illinois.

7. That there was no dry ground formed in the Mississippi river in the year 1850, in front of the water's edge, as it then existed, opposite to the said land of the said Blumenthal, on the main shore.

8. That, as appears from a survey of said lands made by William Deneen, as the county surveyor of St. Clair County, Ill., on November 15, 1850, at that time, the dry land of said surveys numbered 149 to 156, inclusive, extended westwardly to the line indicated by the words, 'River Bank, 1850, by Deneen,' on the map marked 'Plaintiff's Exhibit B;' and that the main land of said surveys, numbered 149 to 156, inclusive, in the year 1850, extended westwardly over and across and included about 60 rods in width of the lands described in the declaration, to-wit, that portion of said lands lying between the river bank in 1850, as indicated by said Deneen's survey, and the line marked 'Old Surveyed River Bank, 1814,' as said lines are respectively designated on said map, and that in the year 1863 the main and dry lands of the surveys 149 to 156 extended about 15 chains, or 60 rods, further westward, and beyond the line of the river bank so surveyed by said Deneen in 1850; and that the eastern bank of the river, in 1863, was about one-half a mile west of a dwelling-house, hereinafter mentioned, then standing on survey No. 151.

9. That the greater part of the so-called 'Arsenal Island,' which now extends over and is embraced with the boundaries of the land described in the...