Trenouth v. San Francisco

• Decision Date: 01 October 1879
• Citation: 25 L.Ed. 626,100 U.S. 251
• Parties: TRENOUTH v. SAN FRANCISCO
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

100 U.S. 251

100 U.S. 251

25 L.Ed. 626

TRENOUTH v. SAN FRANCISCO.

October Term, 1879

ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State of California.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Walter Van Dyke for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. S. M. Wilson, Mr. Edward Janin, and Mr. Edmond L. Goold, contra.

MR. JUSTICE FIELD delivered the opinion of the court.

This was a suit to charge the defendants as trustees of certain land in the city of San Francisco, and to compel a conveyance of the legal title to the plaintiff. The case is free from difficulty, but to understand the positions of the plaintiff it will be necessary to state briefly the history of the titles to lands in that city.

At the time of the conquest of California by the forces of the United States, on the 7th of July, 1846, there was a Mexican pueblo at the site of the present city of San Francisco. This term 'pueblo,' in its original signification, means people or population, but is used in the sense of the English word 'town.' It has the indefiniteness of that term, and, like it, is sometimes applied to a mere collection of individuals residing at a particular place, a settlement or village, as well as to a regularly organized municipality. Grisar v. McDowell, 6 Wall. 363. The pueblo at San Francisco was a small settlement, but it was of sufficient importance, as early as 1835, to have an ayuntamiento, composed of alcaldes and other officers; and it was under their government for some years. At the time of the conquest, and for some time afterwards, it was under the government of justices of the peace, or alcaldes.

By the laws of Mexico, in force in California on the acquisition of the country, pueblos or towns, when once recognized by public authority, became entitled, for their benefit and that of their inhabitants, to the use of the lands embracing the site of such pueblos or towns and adjoining territory within the limits of four square leagues, to be measured and assigned to them by the officers of the government. Under those laws the pueblo of San Francisco asserted a claim to four square leagues, to be measured off from the northern portion of the peninsula upon which the present city is situated.

The alcaldes of a pueblo exercised the power of distributing the lands of the town in small parcels to its inhabitants for building, cultivation, or other uses, the remainder being generally retained for commons or other public purposes.

When the town of San Francisco was occupied by our forces, citizens of the United States were appointed by the military or the naval commanders to act as alcaldes in the place of the Mexican officers. Upon the sudden increase of population at that place, following the discovery of gold, the alcaldes were called upon for building-lots in great numbers, and those officers distributed them with a generous liberality usually attending the grant of other people's property. Numerous persons, however, arriving at the town were not disposed to recognize the authority in this respect of the American magistrates, and finding it less troublesome to appropriate what land they needed than to apply to the magistrates for it, they asserted that the land on which the pueblo was situated belonged to the United States, and, as evidence of the sincerity of their convictions, immediately proceeded to take as much of it for themselves as they could conveniently enclose and hold. Thus the town was soon filled with an active and restless population, making large and expensive improvements upon lands held in some instances under grants from the alcaldes, and in others by the right of prior possession. Sometimes the same parcel was claimed by different parties; by one party as a settler, and by another as the holder of an alcalde grant. Disputes both in and out of the courts, the natural consequence of this difference in the origin of the titles of the claimants, were greatly increased in bitterness by the enormous value which in a short period the lands acquired.

In April, 1850, soon after the organization of the State government, San Francisco was incorporated as a city by the legislature. She at once made claim to the lands of the pueblo, as its successor; and, when the board of land commissioners was created under the act of Congress of March 3, 1851, she presented the claim for confirmation. In December, 1854, the board confirmed the claim for only a portion of the four square leagues. Dissatisfied with the limitation of the claim, the city appealed from the decree of the commissioners to the District Court of the United States. The government also appealed, though subsequently it withdrew its appeal. The case remained in the District Court undetermined until September, 1864, a period of nearly ten years, when, under the authority of an act of Congress, that court transferred the case to the Circuit Court, where it was decided in the following October. The decree, finally settled and entered May 18, 1865, confirmed the claim to a tract of land embracing so much of the upper portion of the peninsula upon which the city is situated, above the ordinary high-water mark of 1846, as would contain an area of four square leagues,—the tract being bounded on the north and east by the bay of San Francisco, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and on the south by a due east and west line, drawn so as to include the area designated, subject to certain deductions,...