Memphis & St. Louis Packet Co. v. Grey

72 Ky. 137, 9 Bush 137, 1872 Ky. LEXIS 25
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedOctober 24, 1872
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 72 Ky. 137 (Memphis & St. Louis Packet Co. v. Grey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Memphis & St. Louis Packet Co. v. Grey, 72 Ky. 137, 9 Bush 137, 1872 Ky. LEXIS 25 (Ky. Ct. App. 1872).

Opinion

JUDGE PETERS

delivered the opinion op the court.

This action ordinary was brought by appellee, in 1869, to recover of appellant (a foreign corporation, as is alleged) the sum of one thousand and eighty dollars for landing its boats at a wharf or landing at Kentucky City from February 1, 1868, to July 10, 1869, of which wharf and landing he claims to be the owner.

The number of landings made by its steamers at the point designated between the periods named in the petition is not denied by appellant, nor is the reasonableness of the prices controverted. But it denies that appellee is or was the owner of the bank of and landing on the river, or that the same were in his possession. It also denies that appellee during said period, or at any time whatever, had made and kept a wharf or wharfs, or had made any improvement for the reception of boats on the bank of the river in front of Columbus, at the place designated or at any other place. But it is averred in the answer that during the years 1868-69 appellant’s boats landed at a wharf-boat kept by Halladay & Co. in front of that portion of the river-bank owned and possessed by the Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company as depot-grounds, which boat was kept by the authority and in the interest of said railroad company; that it is necessary to the successful operation of said company’s railroad; that it is kept at said point as matter of right in said company, and not by permission of appellee.

The fourth paragraph of the answer controverts appellee’s right to recover, on the ground that the Mississippi River, for the landing on the bank of which in front of Columbus appellee claims a right to demand wharfage, is a navigable stream of the United States, is the boundary - line between states, and that any attempt to charge any tax, toll, or wharf-age by appellee or any one else is and would be in violation of the constitution and laws of the United States.

[140]*140A demurrer having been filed by appellee to the several paragraphs of the answer, was overruled as to all but the fourth, and as to that it was sustained.

The cause was then tried by a jury, which resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of appellee for the amount claimed by him; and a new trial having been refused, appellant now asks a reversal of that judgment.

From the bill of evidence allowed in the ease it appears that on the trial appellee introduced a deed from himself to the Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company for a lot or parcel of land on the bank of the Mississippi River, to begin at the southeast corner of the Barton Mill lot (so called), which is three hundred feet measured perpendicularly from the center line of the location of the railroad; thence eastwardly, and parallel to said center line of the railroad, thirteen hundred and twenty feet to Center Street “ proposed;” thence southwardly with Center Street, and parallel with the river-bank, five hundred and fifty feet; thence westwardly, and parallel to the center line of the railroad, to the brink of the river-bank; thence up said river with the meanders thereof to the southwest corner of the Barton Mill lot; thence with the south boundary of said Barton Mill lot twenty-seven poles to the beginning; including all the rights, privileges, and immunities from the top of the river-bank to the channel along the entire front. After providing in the deed for a public way, to be furnished by said railroad company, for crossing the railroad tract from South to North streets, for the use of the public, of a specified width, and to furnish access to passengers from North and South streets to depots and cars not further than six hundred feet from the river-bank; for the appropriation by said company of a strip of land out of that conveyed to it, on the north and south sides of its depot-grounds, of at least thirty feet in width, for a street, on' condition that the grantor appropriates a like width of adjacent ground for the same [141]*141purpose; it is then provided that said company is not invested with any right to have a fei’ry or ferry privileges across said river from any portion of the ground thereby conveyed, except for the transportation of cars or trains of cars belonging to the said company, or for the transportation of passengers, freight, baggage, etc., from and to their roads or any other railroads, etc.

The deed contains a further grant to said company of the privilege and unrestrained right to construct and use any railroad tracks, turn-outs, and switches it “may desix’e” over and upon any lands owned by the gx'antor in Hickman County, and concludes with a warranty of right and title to the land therein granted for the uses and purposes expx’essed, as well as all privileges, rights, uses, and easements included in the grant.

Bullock, a witness introduced by appellee, proved that the land covered by said deed is within the limits of Kentucky City (now a part of the town of Columbus), and that Kentucky City was carved out of a tract of one hundred and fifty acres of land claimed by appellee for many years prior to the Avar, and px’evious to the establishment of said Kentucky City; that immediately after the execution of the deed aforesaid the railroad company took possession of the land conveyed to it; that no question of wharfage as between appellee and said company had ever been raised, but since then appellee has claimed whax’fage of said company as an incident to the land he conveyed, and that the company had always denied his right and resisted his claim. He also px’oved that the small map dated-day of-was used on the ground on the day the lots were sold; by it they were sold, and it was in the hands of bidders for and buyers of lots; that the large map of said city was not correct — the lots as shown by it are incorrectly numbered, but the blocks of lots are correctly shown on it. On being cross-examined the witness proved that the map dated August 15, 1855, was prepared by the direction of the [142]*142trustees of Kentucky City, was lithographed by them, and •circulated throughout the United States, as generally as possible, as an advertisement of the sale of lots in Kentucky City, which sale took place in October, 1855. He also stated that' the smaller map exhibited by appellee was prepared by the trustees of said town, and that as much pains had been taken by the trustees to exhibit and publish it as the other map; that the trustees of said city never did set up any claim to the right of wharfage as against appellee. The map recorded in the county court clerk’s office he said he never saw before it was exhibited on the trial, and he did not know where the original map was.

There is an agreement of the parties, copied in the record, to the effect that the two maps exhibited on the trial in the court below should be brought up and read on the trial in this court, and they are before us; and a copy of the l’ecorded map or plan of Kentucky City is also before us.

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Related

Marshall v. Kent
276 S.W. 563 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976), 1925)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
72 Ky. 137, 9 Bush 137, 1872 Ky. LEXIS 25, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/memphis-st-louis-packet-co-v-grey-kyctapp-1872.