Case Name: Blount vs. Benbury
Court: North Carolina Superior Court
Jurisdiction: North Carolina
Decision Date: 1805-10
Citations: 2 Hayw. 353
Docket Number: 
Parties: Blount vs. Benbury.
Judges: 
Reporter: North Carolina Reports
Volume: 3
Pages: 353–354

Head Matter:
Edenton,
October Term, 1805.
Blount vs. Benbury.
uT’HE plaintiff offered a copy of a grant from the Secretary’s office : it was not signed by the Governor.

Opinion:
Hall, Judge.
It cannot be received as the copy of a grant, but it may as a circumstance to shew that there was once a gram: in existence.
It was read. The dispute concerned the title of land between two parallel lines — The lower of them Was said to be J. Blount's patent line ; and if so, defendant was not in possession of plaintiff's land 5 but if the. upper parallel line was J. Blount's patent line, then the defendant was in the possession of the plaintiff's land. The patent under which the defendant claimed, called for Beasly's line and J. Blount's line, S. 85 E. as one of the boundaries ; and the grantor to Beabury, in 1788, called for J. Blount's line, and marked the line now contended for by the defendant, at the time of malcmg his deed. One question was, whether the line thus marked, should be considered the line which the deed extended to $ or whether J. Elotm-.'s line, wherever it might be, should be considered the boundarv of the deed, notwithstanding the demarcation.
Hall, Judge. The act of limitation would make a title for the defendant, if the deed extended to the marked line — but l am of opinion it extended no further than to J. Blount's line, whoever that was. The demarcation is not an ascertainment of the line, which he meant as James Blount's line, called for in dm deed 5 and of course the defendant has no colour of title to the land in dispute. Also, though the patent calls for Beasley's line, and the patentee's old line, S, 8.5 E. for one boundary, still the jury may consider Beasley's line the boundary, so far as it goes ; and then the marked line, which is 51 poles to the north oí it and parallel to the line drawn from the termination of Beasle* ' . the same course with Beasley's, because there have been nwr.v decisions in this country which warrants departure from the 'line described in a deed or patent, to follow a raaiked line which the jury have good reason to believe was the true one.