Snow v. Inhabitants of Orleans

• Decision Date: 03 March 1879
• Parties: Calvin Snow v. Inhabitants of Orleans
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

126 Mass. 453

Calvin Snow v. Inhabitants of Orleans

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

March 3, 1879

Barnstable.

Exceptions overruled.

J. M Day & H. P. Harriman, for the demandant.

G Marston, for the tenant.

Colt J. Ames & Soule, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Colt

This is a writ of entry, brought in May 1877, to recover a small triangular lot in Orleans, bounded on all sides by the highway. In 1850, an academy building stood upon it, which in that year was raised up, repaired and improved by one Otis who then took charge of it as a teacher, and remained in charge until some time in the following year. Otis had no title to the land, and when he went away, the amount expended by him in repairs was raised by a subscription, divided into thirty shares of ten dollars each, and the money paid over to him. He gave no written conveyance of any interest in the land or building to any one, but the shareholders took possession of the academy, and maintained a school in it until 1857, the lot being used for a playground. In 1859, they sold the building, to be removed from the premises, for $ 200, and divided the proceeds. From that time to 1864, the lot remained vacant, unfenced and unused. In that year it was fenced, planted with ornamental trees, and furnished with a flagstaff. This was done with money raised by the contributions of neighbors and former pupils of the academy, in token, as they declared, of their interest in and love for an institution which had been of such lasting benefit; and for the purpose of preserving the place for the benefit of the town. After this, and until the library building was erected by the town in 1877, the lot was kept in order by the demandant and others, some of whom were shareholders, so called, in the money raised to pay Otis.

The demandant was one of the original shareholders, and at the trial claimed to be the owner of a majority of the shares. He produced deeds from Seabury and Snow, two other shareholders, dated in March and April 1877, which were delivered on the premises. But his right to the land depends upon his having acquired title by his own adverse possession and the possession of those whose rights he has obtained since 1857, and he claimed no other title.

The tenant claimed the premises under a deed dated in 1820 from Timothy Doane to John Doane, who by deed executed February 28, 1877, acknowledged in March, and recorded in April of the same year, conveyed the same to the town, upon the express condition, that the building in which Snow's library was to be deposited and kept should be erected thereon. The tenant also, for the purpose of showing title in John Doane, put in a deed to him from Sparrow Horton, dated in 1841.

Against this title by deed in the tenant, the jury must have found that the demandant had acquired no title by disseisin; and there was abundant evidence to justify this finding, on the ground that the demandant had not shown an adverse, exclusive and uninterrupted possession for such time as to defeat the record title of the tenant.

We find nothing, in the rulings and instructions given at the trial, now open to the demandant's exceptions.

The subscription papers of 1864 and 1865, signed by Seabury and Snow, were properly admitted as showing that the relation of those persons under whom the demandant claimed was not that of parties claiming title to the land at that time. And the demandant's offer to prove that a person not a subscriber to the fund asked his permission to make the contemplated improvements, was properly refused, as an offer to prove the act of a mere stranger.

The deed of Sparrow Horton to John Doane in 1841 ^[*] does not appear to have been improperly admitted in evidence; for although he describes himself as agent of the proprietors of the Orleans academy, yet the deed is sealed with his own seal, and he binds himself and his heirs by the covenants contained in it. It does not appear what title Horton had, and the judge properly ruled that the deed was sufficient in form to convey real estate, and would pass the title of Horton, if he had any, to the academy building, as well as the fence, and the land enclosed by it. It is within those cases where the grant of a house, a barn, a shop, a mill, is held to carry a title to the land under it and necessary to its enjoyment and use. Greenwood v. Murdock, 9 Gray 20. Horton is estopped by his covenants at least from claiming any title as against his grantee. Sumner v. Williams, 8 Mass. 162. Whiting v. Dewey, 15 Pick. 433. It was not necessary for the tenant to prove that Horton had title to the land, in order to make a recorded deed from him prima facie evidence. There was no evidence outside the deed, arising from its application to the subject-matter, which had any...