Trustees, Etc., of Town of Southampton v. Betts

• Decision Date: 19 June 1900
• Citation: 57 N.E. 762,163 N.Y. 454
• Parties: TRUSTEES, ETC., OF TOWN OF SOUTHAMPTON v. BETTS.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

163 N.Y. 454

57 N.E. 762

TRUSTEES, ETC., OF TOWN OF SOUTHAMPTON

v.BETTS.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 19, 1900.

Appeal from supreme court, appellate division, Third department.

Ejectment by the trustees of Southampton against Frederic H. Betts for the possession of beach land. From a judgment of the appellate division (47 N. Y. Supp. 697) affirming a judgment of the special term in favor of defendant, plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

Thomas Young and Timothy M. Griffing, for appellants.

James R. Sheffield and Frederic H. Betts, for respondent.

GRAY, J.

The plaintiff brought this action, in ejectment, to recover a tract of land in the town of Southampton, Long Island, lying between the shore of the town pond, on its northerly side, and the Atlantic Ocean, on its southerly side. It involves that portion of the shore of the ocean which lies above high-water mark, and the legal question which the plaintiff raises concerns the power of the ‘trustees of the proprietors of the common and undivided land of the town of Southampton’ to sell the land of the beach. The deed under which the defendant claims was made to his predecessor in title by these trustees in 1881. It bounds the premises conveyed on the ocean side by ‘the line of the ocean,’ and it reserves, in the conveyance, the right to the public of passing and repassing along the ocean shore, of bathing in the ocean, and of landing boats at the head of the pond, etc. Since this conveyance, the beach hills or sand dunes have been used for the building of the defendant church and of various cottages for summer residents. The plaintiff's success in the action was dependent upon the strength of its own showing of title, and the burden of proving that title and the consequent right to the possession of the land described in the complaint rested upon it. I think it to be perfectly clear that the plaintiff has had no title since the passage of chapter 155 of the Laws of 1818. Originally, under the patent issued by Gov. Andros, in 1676, the legal title to all the lands was vested in the plaintiff, then created a corporation, and subsequently, by Gov. Dongan's charter, in 1686, that title was confirmed in the trustees, etc., of the town of Southampton, in trust for the original purchasers and proprietors, their heirs and their assigns. By reason of the increase of the population of the town by the advent of new inhabitants who were not proprietors, in later times, some friction existed in the community as to the respective rights and interests of the proprietors and of those of the inhabitants who had no interest in the unallotted lands of the town. The act of 1818 was then passed, as a measure of compromise agreed to by the parties. That act created a body of trustees for the proprietors of the undivided lands and meadows in the town of Southampton, and there were conferred upon them all rights of management of the ‘undivided lands, meadows, and mill streams' of the town, and the power to ‘sell, lease, and partition’ the same, while there was reserved to the trustees of the town (this plaintiff) the right of management of the waters within the town, and of ‘the fisheries, seaweed, and productions of the waters,’ for the benefit of the town, and to its inhabitants was reserved ‘the privilege of taking seaweed from the shores of any of the common lands of the town.’ The title to the lands which was conferred by the earlier patents or charters, which have been referred to, and the effect upon that title of the act of [163 N.Y. 458]1818, have been passed upon by this court in the case of this plaintiff against the Mecox Bay Oyster Co., 116 N. Y. 1, 22 N. E. 387,-a case which leaves but little ground for much further contention over the title of the trustees of the proprietors, through whose grant the defendant's title is derived.

The appellant claims that lands of two descriptions are dealt with by the act, viz. the ‘undivided lands, meadows, and mill streams,’ and ‘the common lands of said town,’ and that there were in fact the one kind of land, of a tillable nature, and another kind of land, having a different character, and being essentially of that public nature which highways, cemeteries, and beaches are deemed to have. It is insisted that the beach was a part of the common lands of the town, held by its trustees for a public use, and that it necessarily was so from its peculiar character, and from the uses to which...