Case ID: tenn_19/html/0001-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Reese J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Brown vs. Baldridge.
    
      Grant. When it begins to exist — dale—registration—relation. Th'e Uaí<5 'oí •a grant, not that of its registration* designates its commencement* as a mum*. wient of title. Whenever registered, a grant -relates to* and has fall and «complete existence, fot all purposes, from its date, the registration not being intended to give it existence, but to preserve and perpetuate the evidences that'it already exists, and being itself as good with out as with a date. Seo Van Pelt vs. Pugh, 1 Dev. & Bat. 210.
    Same. Limitations. Hence, the time of prescription is tobe counted the dale, and not from the registration of the grant.
    This action of ejectment, for '640 acres 'of land, Was Submitted to Barry, Judge of the 11th, sitting for Harrjs, Judge of the 6th circuit, at October Term, 1837, Of Weak-ley Circuit Court, upon an agreed case, in which it appeared—
    That military warrant, 5071, dated December 6, 1797, had been issued by North Carolina to Martin Armstrong, requiring him to survey for Daniel Baldridge, a private 640 acres within the limits of the lands reserved by law for the officers and soldiers of the Continental line of the State; that the Board of Commissioners for West Tennessee had given Baldridge a certificate, dated July 10,1822, that, by virtue of said warrant, he -was entitled to enter 640 acres, by location 873, with any of the principal surveyors, South and west Ci She Congressional Reservation Line: that thereupon entry 725 had been made, dated December 24, 1822: that by an instrument under seal, dated March 7, 1823, Baldridge had, ins consideration of love and affection given to his sons, William,, the defendant, and Andrew, their heirs and assigns, all his-right, &c. to said 640 acres, if located, and if not, then to the warrant, &c.; that the land had been surveyed in the name of Baldridge, the father, - July 17,1823; that the plat and certificate had been assigned by the Trustees of the University of North Carolina, by their attorney in fact, Samuel Dickens, to the lessor of the plaintiff, December 14, 1824; that in January 1825, the defendant, William Baldridge, had taken possession of the premises, claiming to hold them under the above gift from his father; that a patent founded upon the aforesaid entry had been issued by the State of Tennessee to the lessor of-the plaintiff, dated January 1, 1827, which had been registered in the register’s office of the Western-District, May 29, 1827; that the defendant had continued his possession down to April 22,1834, when this action was commenced. And the question was—
    April 4, 1838.
    Whether land is, in legal. contemplation, granted from the clafe, or from the registration of the grant? If from the date, then the plaintiff’s right of action had accrued more, but if from the registration, then less than seven years before the .commencement of the suit.
    The defendant had judgment, from- which the plaintiff pros?' ecuted his appeal in error.
   Reese J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

Seven years having intervened between the date of the grant, under which the'defendant claims, and the institution of the suit, the statute of limitations constitutes a bar to the recovery of the plaintiff in the present case, if the date of the grant itself, and not the time of its registration shall designate the commencement of the grant as a muniment of title. And, at the threshold, we may remark, that the exclusive object in requiring a date to be annexed to all such instruments, is to establish and perpetuate the evidence of the fact as to when the instrument had its existence. The endorsement of the register in this case is necessary to show the fact of registration, but it would be as good without as with a date. In the thousands of instances in which grants have been produced in courts of justice, it has never been ruled or intimated, that for the purpose of giving effect to the statute of limitations or for the purpose of determining the. question of elder or younger title, the date, not of the grant, but of the registration of it must be resorted to.. The registration of the grant is not intended to give it existence, but to preserve and perpetuate the evidence that it already exists. It is unnecessary, however, that we should in this case determine whether the registration be necessary to the validity of the grant, entertaining as we do no doubt whatever that the grant when registered relates to, and has full and complete existence for ail purposes, from the date which it bears. This point, though not reported, was determined many years since in the case of Peck’s Lessee vs. Hanes, when that case was a third time before the Supreme court. The principle has been settled in North Carolina, in several cases; and indeed, in the absence of all authority, the reason of the thing, if not the necesity of the case, would dictate the same conclusion.

'Let .the Judgment'.be affirmed.