Merrifield v. Canal Commissioners

212 Ill. 456
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 24, 1904
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 212 Ill. 456 (Merrifield v. Canal Commissioners) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Merrifield v. Canal Commissioners, 212 Ill. 456 (Ill. 1904).

Opinions

Mr. Justice Boggs

delivered the opinion of the court:

The appellees the Canal Commissioners of the Illinois and Michigan Canal of the State of Illinois, and the appellee the Ottawa Hydraulic Company, a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Illinois, filed this their bill in chancery praying for an injunction restraining the appellants, Louis W. Merrifield and George Galloway, his employee, and other persons and corporations, from removing weirs which the canal commissioners had placed or were about to place in certain flumes which had been constructed for the purpose of conveying water from the Fox river feeder of the Illinois and Michigan canal to certain industries operated by the defendants to the bill. The bill was dismissed as to all the defendants thereto except the defendants Merrifield and Galloway. A hearing on bill, answer, replication and proof resulted in a decree restraining the appellants substantially in accordance with the prayer of the bill. This is an appeal perfected to reverse the decree.

In 1838 the board of commissioners of the Illinois and Michigan canal were about to enter upon the work of constructing a “feeder” by which to convey water from Fox river southwardly from a point near the village of Dayton, on said Fox river, to the main channel of the canal at Ottawa, a distance of about four miles. John Green and William Stadden then owned the east half of section 29, town 34, north, range 4, east of the third principal meridian, at Dayton. This tract of land formed the west shore line of Fox river at the point where it was determined to begin the construction of the feeder to receive the water from said river. Said Green and Stadden, on the fifth day of June, 1838, executed an instrument in writing anthorizing the canal commissioners to enter upon their premises and proceed to the construction of a dam and lock and other necessary structures in that part of the bed of Fox river to which the riparian rights of Green and Stadden extended, and also to construct a “channel” on the said land for the purpose of receiving the water to be taken from the river, and conveying the same from thence to and discharging it in the Illinois and Michigan canal at a point some four miles below. The instrument reads as follows:

“Whereas, the board of commissioners of the Illinois and Michigan canal, in surveying different routes for a navigable feeder from the best practicable point on Fox river to the Illinois and Michigan canal at the town of Ottawa, and such basins of lateral canals connecting the Illinois river with said canal at that point as in their opinion will most enhance the value of the property of the State pursuant to an act entitled ‘An act to amend an act entitled an act for the construction of the Illinois and Michigan canal, approved January 9, 1836,’ have surveyed one route passing over the lands and premises of the subscribers:
“Now, therefore, we, the subscribers, for the purposes of encouraging the construction of said feeder, as also said canal, and also for the application of water to manufacturing purposes for the use of the State, or any person claiming, by purchase or otherwise, under the State, and as an inducement for determining on such route and location for said feeder and basins as will pass over or otherwise benefit our lands and premises, do hereby fully and absolutely release, acquit and discharge the People of the State of Illinois and the board of commissioners of said canal of and from all damages which we may sustain or might claim in consequence of the construction of the feeder and basins, or their or either of their fixtures and appendages, of whatsoever kind, at, on, over of through our lands and premises, and of and from all claims and demands for or on account of any lands, waters or streams that may be entered upon, taken or appropriated for the construction and use of the said feeder and basins and their fixtures and appendages: Provided, however, that these presents be understood with this' limitation, viz.: That the subscribers forbear to relinquish, and hereby reserve to themselves, whatever claim or right they may have acquired to one-fourth part of the water that may flow in the Fox river, diminished as that quantity may chance to be, in the just measure of its proportion, by the leakage, evaporation, etc., necessarily incident to such good and workmanlike dam and lock structures as shall be deemed requisite for the said feeder and basins and useful to the State and after the necessary quantity has been drawn out for the purpose of the navigation of said canal, but agreeing that in the application or use of said fourth part aforesaid, the same shall be drawn out of said feeder within seven-eighths of one mile from the head of the guard lock, according as and in the manner to be directed by said commissioners or other authorized agents. This reservation being subject to the farther limitation that it shall not at any time authorize the subscribers, even within the quantity of said proportion, to reduce the water of the said Illinois and Michigan canal during the season of navigation below the depth of six feet, which, only, shall be done by the permission of some authorized agent of the State. They, the said subscribers, hereby relinquishing to the People of the State of Illinois, for the reasons and purposes assigned, as aforesaid, all and whatever right and claim they may have to the residue and all other portions or portion of the waters of the said Fox river beyond and above the one-fourth reserve as aforesaid, and they do hereby acquit and discharge the People of the said State of Illinois and the board of commissioners of the said canal from all liability whatsoever for the constant use and exercise of the rights and powers herein declared: Provided, if the board of commissioners shall alter or change the dimensions of said feeder as now located, the said board are to pay to said subscribers, or either of them, such damages as they may sustain in consequence of said change.
“In witness whereof we hereunto set our hands and seals this 5th day of June, in the year of our Lord, 1838.
John Green, (Seal.)
William Stadden. (Seal.)
“Signed, sealed and delivered in presence of Giles Spring and James Turney.”

A dam was constructed by the commissioners across Fox river at this point; also a lock at the dam on the premises of said Green and Stadden on the west side of the river; and the commissioners also dug the feeder from the lock to the outlet thereof in the canal at Ottawa. The feeder was, when constructed, a channel of the width of sixty feet at the top and forty feet at the bottom, and was capable of conveying water to the depth of five feet a portion of the way and four feet the remainder of its length. Four flumes were by the commissioners put in the banks of the feeder within the limits of the Green and Stadden land for the purpose of receiving water for power uses reserved by .said Green and Stadden. These flumes were constructéd in 1838 or 1839, and remain in practically the same condition to this day. The water power reserved by Green and Stadden by proper assignments came to be owned, at the time of filing this bill, as follows: Three parts thereof by the appellant .Merrifield, three parts by the Standard Fire Brick Company and two parts by the Columbia Straw Paper Company.

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Bluebook (online)
212 Ill. 456, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/merrifield-v-canal-commissioners-ill-1904.