Williams v. Baker Cedar Rapids Railroad Co v. Des Moines Navigation Co

• Decision Date: 01 December 1872
• Citation: 21 L.Ed. 561,84 U.S. 144,17 Wall. 144,18 Wall. 144
• Parties: WILLIAMS v. BAKER. CEDAR RAPIDS RAILROAD CO. v. DES MOINES NAVIGATION CO
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

84 U.S. 144

21 L.Ed. 561

17 Wall. 144

18 Wall. 144

WILLIAMS v. BAKER.

CEDAR RAPIDS RAILROAD CO.

v. DES MOINES NAVIGATION CO.

December Term, 1872

[Though the two cases here reported were decided in order of time prior to that of the Homestead Company v. Valley Railroad next in order of place (beginning on page 153), and are referred to in it, yet the reader who is not already acquainted with the facts of what is known in Iowa as the Des Moines River land litigation may, possibly, find it as well to read, before reading the cases now immediately given, the later one, beginning, as already said, on page 153, and in which a diagram will assist his comprehension of a topography common to both cases.]

ON appeals from the Circuit Court for the District of Iowa.

These were two suits in chancery, brought originally in the State courts of Iowa, and transferred to the Circuit Court of the United States for that district, to quiet title to real estate. In the first case the complainant was Baker, who held title under the Des Moines Navigation and Railroad Company. The defendant was Williams, and he held under the Cedar Rapids Railroad Company. In the second case, the Cedar Rapids Railroad Company was complainant, and the Navigation and Railroad Company, with others, defendants; and in this suit the complainant set up that suits at law had been commenced against numerous persons, its grantees, which were harassing and expensive, and prayed that its title and the title of its said grantees should be quieted. The defendants in that suit denied the title thus set up, and alleged that their own title, that of the Des Moines Navigation and Railroad Company, was the true title. The court below decided, in both cases, in favor of the parties claiming under the latter title, and in both cases the adverse side appealed to this court.

Messrs. I. Cook and B. R. Curtis, for the title under the Cedar Rapids Railroad Company; Mr. T. F. Withrow, contra, for that under the Des Moines Company.

Mr. Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.

The foundations of the title on each side of this controversy rest on acts of Congress, and the decision of the cases requires their construction. The cases are identical, except that as the holder of each of the conflicting titles becomes plaintiff in turn, he is thrown upon the strength of his own title, rather than the weakness of the opposing one.

The title of Baker has its inception in the act of August 8th, 1846, the material part of which is in these words:

'There is hereby granted to the Territory of Iowa, for the purpose of aiding said Territory in improving the navigation of the Des Moines River from its mouth to the Raccoon Fork, so called, in said Territory, one equal moiety in alternate sections of the public lands remaining unsold and not otherwise disposed of, incumbered, or appropriated, in a strip five miles in width on each side of said river, to be selected within said Territory by an agent or agents, to be appointed by the governor thereof, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.'

It was also provided that the lands should become the property of the State of Iowa on her admission as such into the Union, which was soon expected.

The State of Iowa passed laws for the work of improving the navigation of the river, which contemplated a series of locks and dams, and after prosecuting the work for some time under a State board of public works, made a contract with a corporation called the Des Moines Navigation and Railroad Company for the further progress of this improvement. By this contract the lands of the Congressional grant, which constituted the sole fund for making the improvement, were to be conveyed by the State to the company, at fixed prices, as they earned them in the progress of the work.

The Secretary of the Treasury, as the lands were selected by the agent of the State and the selections approved by him, certified the approved lists to the State, and this was, and always has been, considered the appropriate mode of evidencing the title of the State under the grant. The State conveyed by patent to the navigation company the lands so certified as the progress of the work authorized it, according to the terms of the contract. All the lands in controversy here have been so certified to the State by the Secretary of the Treasury, or of the Interior, to which department, on its organization, that matter was transferred.

But in the progress of the work, and after the lands lying between the mouth of the river and the Raccoon Fork had been nearly or entirely exhausted, a question arose in the land department whether the grant included any lands above that point. This was a very important question, for, if it did not, the whole scheme was a failure, much the larger portion of the lands below that point having been entered by individuals before the passage of the act, and the river being quite as long, or longer, above the fork, and within the State, than below.

This question was the subject of opposing decisions by at least three secretaries and as many attorneys-general, and occupied several years of negotiation between the State and the department. At one period of the controversy the lands were all certified to the State by the secretary, Mr. Stuart.

While this controversy was going on between the State of Iowa and the department, Congress passed the act of 1856, which will be more fully considered hereafter as the source of title of the Cedar Rapids Company, by which there was granted to the State of Iowa alternate sections of land for building several railroads across the State east and west, which roads run through the lands we have been speaking of as in controversy under the act of 1846.

In 1857 or 1858, Mr. Litchfield, who had such title as the navigation company could give under the State of Iowa, brought a suit in the Circuit Court of the United States to recover possession of a tract of these lands, in which he was resisted by the Dubuque and Pacific Railroad Company, one of the beneficiaries under the railroad grant of 1856, and that suit coming to this court,¹ it was here held that the original grant did not extend above the Raccoon Fork, and that the acts of the Secretary of the Interior in certifying such lands to the State of Iowa were void and conferred no title, and that Mr. Litchfield had none.

This decision was received as a final settlement of the long-contested question of the extent of the grant. But it left the State of Iowa, which had made engagements on the faith of the lands certified to her, in an embarrassed condition, and it destroyed the title of the navigation company to lands of the value of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which it had received from the State for money, labor, and material actually expended and furnished. What was also equally to be regretted was, that many persons, purchasers for value from the State or the navigation company, found their supposed title an invalid one.

This decision was made and published in 1860, and to remedy the grave evils above mentioned, Congress, on the 2d day of March, 1861, passed a joint resolution in the following words:

'Resolved, That all the title which the United States still retain in the tracts of land along the Des Moines River, and above the mouth of the Raccoon Fork thereof, which have been certified to said State improperly by the Department of the Interior as part of the grant by act...