Case Name: Samuel L. Fox v. John Virgin et al.; Samuel L. Fox v. Christopher Hodgson
Court: Illinois Appellate Court
Jurisdiction: Illinois
Decision Date: 1882-10-24
Citations: 11 Ill. App. 513
Docket Number: 
Parties: Samuel L. Fox v. John Virgin et al. Samuel L. Fox v. Christopher Hodgson.
Judges: 
Reporter: Illinois Appellate Court Reports
Volume: 11
Pages: 513–514

Head Matter:
Samuel L. Fox v. John Virgin et al. Samuel L. Fox v. Christopher Hodgson.
Highway by prescription. — The public can acquire no right to a road over vacant and uninclosed land by use alone for twenty years.
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Morgan county; the Hon. Cyrus Epler, Judge, presiding.
Opinion filed October 24, 1882.
Messrs. Brown, Kirby & Russell, for appellant;
that there must be an intention to dedicate, or acts sufficient to amount to such intention, cited Fox v. Virgin, 5 Bradwell, 515; Kelly v. Chicago, 48 Ill. 388; Princeton v. Templeton, 71 Ill. 68; McIntyre v. Story, 80 Ill. 127; Marcy v. Taylor, 19 Ill. 634; Gentleman v. Soule, 32 Ill. 271; Godfrey v. Alton, 12 Ill. 29.
Messrs. Whitlock, Smith & Crawley, for appellees.

Opinion:
Per Curiam.
The first of these two cases was once before in this court and is reported in 5 Bradwell, 515. The second is for a trespass of a precisely similar nature, and the defense in both cases rests upon the same state of facts. Up to the •year 1874, when appellant first fenced the land, it was a timber tract, vacant and uninclosed. The public could therefore acquire no right to a road over it by use alone for twenty years. Kyle v. Town of Logan, 87 Ill. 67.
We are still of the opinion the evidence not only fails to show a road to have been established by dedication, but the evidence shows directly the contrary. When appellant fenced his land he expressly told the public authorities the-purposes for which he left the lanes on two sides of it, and from then until now he has persistently maintained a hostile attitude toward the road. The judgments will therefore be reversed and the causes remanded.
Reversed and remanded.