Thompson v. Holbrook
| Decision Date | 01 January 1876 |
| Citation | 1 Idaho 609 |
| Parties | S. C. Thompson, Plaintiff, v. N. B. Holbrook, Defendant. |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
TOWN LOTS-OCCUPANCY.-In order to entitle a person to a deed for lots or lands in the city of Lewiston from the mayor of the city, he must be an occupant thereof, and the occupancy must consist of actual residence thereon according to its legal subdivision into lots, blocks, etc.; an inclosure of the subdivision or a part thereof, or some permanent improvement thereon at the time of his application for the deed.
IDEM-OCCUPANCY.-An occupancy of one legal subdivision does not draw to it another legal subdivision, though contiguous to or immediately adjoining it.
IDEM-IMPROVEMENTS-ABANDONMENT.-If a person has at one time been the occupant of a lot within the meaning of the law, by erecting an inclosure around it but before his application for a deed has suffered such inclosure to be destroyed by freshets or taken away by tenants, so as to leave the lot open to the public, he shall be deemed to have abandoned it, and another person may enter thereon and become an occupant, so as to entitle him to a deed from the mayor.
CERTIFIED from the District Court of the First Judicial District, Nez Perce County.
No attorneys of record.
delivered the opinion.
This is a case adjourned from the district court of Nez Perce county on doubtful questions and principles of law, and the only question to be determined is, Which of the parties is entitled to a deed from the mayor of the city of Lewiston, for certain lots in said city, described in the pleadings? Both parties claim to be bona fide occupants of the lots in question, and entitled to deeds therefor under the provisions of an act entitled "An act to provide for the survey, platting, and disposal of the land in the city of Lewiston, Nez Perce county, Idaho territory, pursuant to the United States statutes made and provided," approved January 8, 1873, and both have filed their applications to the mayor for deeds under it, the defendants being first in point of time.
It appears from the evidence that the plaintiff purchased in November, 1866, of A. H. Robie, a tract of land described by metes and bounds, embracing the lots in controversy, to wit, lots 5 and 8, in block 6, as afterward surveyed, and that at the time of the purchase there was a sawmill on the land, but on what portion it does not appear, which was afterward removed. The plaintiff testifies that he caused the tract to be fenced in, and that it was only a short time since last spring (1875) that he had notice that defendant claimed the property.
The evidence shows that plaintiff rented, to one Holt, his house standing on lot 6, in the same block, and that Holt, during the first year of his occupancy, cultivated the "big lot," as he termed it, to wit, the premises in controversy, and that plaintiff furnished the seed. Before the expiration of Holt's tenancy most of the fence which plaintiff had built on the tract was swept away by a freshet, and when defendant entered upon the lots, there were but few...
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...law is valid, and there is also vested private rights in the streets. (Ashby v. Hall, 119 U.S. 526, 30 L.Ed. 469, 7 S.Ct. 308; Thompson v. Holbrook, 1 Idaho 609; Territory v. Nowland, 3 Dak. 349, 20 N.W. 430; Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, 2d ed., 310.) The ascertainment of the boundaries and the......
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