(Download) "Newhall v. Sanger" by United States Supreme Court # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Newhall v. Sanger
- Author : United States Supreme Court
- Release Date : January 01, 1875
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 54 KB
Description
The object of this suit is to determine the ownership of a quarter-section of land in California. The appellee, who was the complainant, claims through the Western Pacific Railroad Company, to whom a patent was issued in 1870, in professed compliance with the requirements of the acts of Congress commonly known as the Pacific Railroad Acts. The appellant derives title by mesne conveyances from one Ransom Dayton, the holder of a patent of a later date, which recites that the land was within the exterior limits of a Mexican grant called Moquelamos, and that a patent had, by mistake, been issued to the company. The court below decreed that the appellee was the owner in fee-simple of the disputed premises; and that the junior patent, so far as it related to them, should be cancelled. The act of July 1, 1862 (12 Stat. 492), grants to certain railroad companies, of which the Western Pacific, by subsequent legislation, became one, every alternate section of public land designated by odd numbers, within ten miles of each side of their respective roads, not sold, reserved, or otherwise disposed of by the United States, and to which a homestead or pre-emption claim may not have attached at the time the line of the road is definitely fixed. It requires that, within a prescribed time, a map designating the general route of each road shall be filed in the Department of the Interior, and that the Secretary thereof shall then cause the lands within a certain distance from such route to be withdrawn from pre-emption, private entry, and sale. The precise date when the Western Pacific Company filed its map is not stated in the record; but we infer that it was between the first day of the December Term (1864) of this court and the thirteenth day of February, 1865. At all events, the withdrawal for this road was made on the 31st of January, 1865; and our records show that the Moquelamos grant, which had been regularly presented to the commissioners, under the act of March 3, 1851, and duly prosecuted by appeal, was rejected here Feb. 13, 1865. It is a conceded fact, that the lands embraced by it fall within the limits of the railroad grant, which were enlarged by the amendatory act of 1864 (13 Stat. p. 358). This act also declares that any lands granted by it, or the act to which it is an amendment, 'shall not defeat or impair any pre-emption, homestead, swamp-land, or other lawful claim, nor include any government reservation or mineral lands, or the improvements of any bona fide settler.' There can be no doubt that, by the withdrawal, the grant took effect upon such odd-numbered sections of public lands wih in the specified limits as were not excluded from its operation; and the question arises, whether lands within the boundaries of an alleged Mexican or Spanish grant, which was then sub judice, are public within the meaning of the acts of Congress under which the patent, whereon the appellee's title rests, was issued to the railroad company.