Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/197/510.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 11:17:00+00:00

Document:
This was an action commenced on June 27, 1898, in the district court of Buffalo county, Nebraska, and terminated by a decision of the supreme court of the state. 65 Neb. 137, 90 N. W. 966. The facts found by the district court are that McBride and Killgore were respectively the owners and in possession of tracts of land bordering on the Platte river, one on the north and the other on the south side thereof. Between these two tracts, and in the main channel of the Platte river, is an island, containing about 22 acres. This island had [197 U.S. 510, 511] been in the possession of McBride and Killgore for more than ten years prior to the bringing of the action, but during that time they were contending as to how much of the land each was entitled to. It had never been surveyed by the government.
It appeared in evidence that Whitaker, in 1897, settled on the island, claiming the right to enter the same as a homestead; that application to the Land Department of the government to have the island surveyed was, in 1897, refused, the Department declining to take any action in the matter. These lands were a part of the Fort Kearney Military Reservation, which was surveyed and sold under a special act of Congress, dated July 21, 1876 ( 19 Stat. at L. 94, chap. 220), the patent to McBride, who had entered his tract as a homestead, bearing date March 28, 1885. There was testimony tending to show that the island was at the time of the survey of the reservation frequently covered with water, and that since then-perhaps owing to the construction of bridges and dykes-overflows had been less frequent and the land better adapted to occupation and cultivation. The decree directed by the supreme court was adverse to Whitaker, and quieted the title to McBride and Killgore to the island, giving to each one half.
Messrs. Francis G. Hamer and E. E. Brown for plaintiffs in error.
Messrs. M. P. Kinkaid, E. C. Calkins, and H. M. Sinclair for defendants in error.
See also Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 45 , 38 L. ed. 347, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 548; Lowndes v. Huntington, 153 U.S. 19 , 38 L. ed. 618, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 758; Grand Rapids & I. R. Co. v. Butler, 159 U.S. 87, 92 , 40 S. L. ed. 85, 87, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 991; St. Anthony Falls Water Power Co. v. St. Paul Water Comrs. 168 U.S. 349 , 42 L. ed. 497, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 157; Kean v. Calumet Canal & Improv. Co. 190 U.S. 452 , 47 L. ed. 1134, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 651; Hardin v. Shedd, 190 U.S. 508 , 47 L. ed. 1156, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 685.
Nothing herein stated conflicts with Horne v. Smith, 159 U.S. 40 , 40 L. ed. 68. 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 988; Niles v. Cedar Point Club, 175 U.S. 300 , 44 L. ed. 171, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 124; French-Glenn Live Stock Co. v. Springer, 185 U.S. 47 , 46 L. ed. 800, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 563; or Kirwan v. Murphy, 189 U.S. 35 , 47 L. ed. 698, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 599. In the first of those cases it appeared that the survey stopped at a bayou, and did not extend to the main channel of the Indian river, a mile distant; and we held that the line of that bayou must be considered as the boundary of the grant; that it could not be extended over the unsurveyed land between the bayou and the main channel of the Indian river; that it was a case of an omission from the survey of land that ought to have been surveyed, and that such omission did not operate to transfer unsurveyed land to the patentee of the surveyed land bordering on the bayou. In the second we held that, as the survey showed a meander line bordering on a tract of swamp or marsh lands, the grant by patent terminated at the meander line, and did not carry the swamp lands lying between it and the shores of Lake Erie. In the third, it appeared that there was no body of water in front of the meandered line, [197 U.S. 510, 515] and we held that that line must, therefore, be the limit of the grant, and the fact that outside the side lines extended there was a body of water did not operate to extend the grant into any portion of that body of water. In the last of these cases the complainants, the owners of 859.38 acres as shown by the descriptions in their patents of fractional lots, claimed by reason thereof to be the owners of 1,202 acres lying between the meandered lines and a lake, and sought by injunction to restrain the Land Department from making a survey of these latter lands. We held that injunction would not lie, and that the officers of the government could not be restrained from making a survey; that the rights of the complainants could be settled, after a survey and transfer of the legal title from the government, by an action at law.
It must also be noticed that the government is not a party to this litigation, and nothing we have said is to be construed as a determination of the power of the government to order a survey of this island, or of the rights which would result in case it did make such survey. As we reserve the rights of the United States we do not even impliedly sanction the intimation contained in the opinion of the court below that, under the decision in Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U.S. 371 , 35 L. ed. 428, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 808, 838, although, on non-navigable waters, riparian rights were not conferred by the state law, nevertheless the land beyond the banks passed to the state in virtue of the patents of the United States to the lot owners. Upon that question we express no opinion.
Our conclusion, therefore, is that by the law of Nebraska, as interpreted by its highest court, the riparian proprietors are [197 U.S. 510, 516] the owners of the bed of a stream to the center of the channel; that the government, as original proprietor, has the right to survey and sell any lands, including islands in a river or other body of water; that if it omits to survey an island in a stream, and refuses, when its attention is called to the matter, to make any survey thereof, no citizen can overrule the action of the Department, assume that the island ought to have been surveyed, and proceed to occupy it for the purposes of homestead or pre- emption entry. In such a case the rights of riparian proprietors are to be preferred to the claims of the settler.
We see no error in the judgment of the Supreme Court of Nebraska, and it is affirmed.

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