Case ID: mass_14/html/0131-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Daniel Lunt versus John Holland.
    Of tile construction of grants, as relates to the boundaries of the land granted.
    [Where a survey is referred to in a deed, the grantor is bound by it Land granted as bounded by a river, extends to the thread of the river. — Ed.]
    Trespass quare clausum fregit. Issue was joined on the plain tiff’s seisin, which was tried before Thatcher, J., at the last October term in this county.
    The plaintiff derived his title from a grant of the commonwealth, in which the premises conveyed are described as “ a certain tract of land lying in the township numbered one, in the county of Cumberland, * which was surveyed and laid out in April, 1789, by Samuel Titcomb, and is bounded as follows, viz., beginning at a hemlock tree standing by the south side of the River Androscoggin, thence south, &.C., to another hemlock tree also standing by said river, thence south-eastwardly and bounding by said river ■ to the first-mentioned bound, said tract containing 4880 acres, more or less.”
    The locus in quo was an island containing about thirty acres, the river running on each side of it, and lies between the said two hemlock trees, and nearest to the shore of the plaintiff’s said grant.
    In addition to the deed from the commonwealth, the plaintiff produced the deposition of the said Titcombi with a copy of his survey referred to in the said deed; from which it appeared that he intended to include the island in question, and that he returned the said survey to the commonwealth’s agents, previously to their executing the said deed.
    The defendant objected to the admission of the deed, deposition, and plan aforesaid, as evidence to prove the soil and freehold of the said island to be in the plaintiff. The judge overruled the objection. The defendant then contended that the tract of land granted to the plaintiff must be limited by the boundaries in the deed, and that by them the island in dispute was necessarily excluded from the land granted ; and that the boundaries, being definite, and fixed by monuments, could not be so extended, by any reference to said plan, as to include the island in the said grant.
    The judge directed the jury, that, as there was a direct reference in the deed to the survey taken by Titcomb and annexed to his deposition, the island should be considered as within the description of the land in the deed ; and as land granted as bounded by a river is held to extend to the thread or channel of the river, and as here were two channels, it might well be presumed the intent of the parties to the conveyance that the grant was intended to extend to that channel, which would include the island.
    *A verdict was returned for the plaintiff, subject to the opinion of the whole Court upon the direction of the judge, and the admission of the said deed, deposition, and plan.
    
      Fessenden, for the defendant.
    The land is described in the grant, and bounded by visible and known monuments, and by these the island in question is plainly excluded. There is no ambiguity in the language, and no construction ah extra should be admitted. "• Bounding by the river,” must intend that edge of the river or which the hemlock trees stood, or those trees cannot be any part of the boundary. But at the farthest, the land granted can be held to extend only to the thread of that branch of the river on which the trees were standing. The plan was improperly admitted. It was not an ancient one, and it was taken between other parties. 
    
    
      Whitman and Greenleaf for the plaintiff.
    
      
       2 Mass. Rep. 380, Howe & Al. vs. Bass.—4 Mass. Rep. 114, Crosby vs. Parker. —5 Mass. Rep. 357, Powell vs. Clark. — 6 Mass. Rep. 133, Pernam vs. Weed
      
    
   By the Court.

The commonwealth, in its deed to the plaintiff, having referred to TitcomVs survey, must be bound by it. The grantee must take in conformity to that survey, and the island, being included within the land surveyed, must pass by the deed. Besides, land granted as bounded by a river extends to the thread of the river, unless, from prior grants on the other side of the river, such a construction is negatived ; and in this case the channel on the farther side of the island may well be considered as intended by the description in this grant.

Judgment on the verdict