Salem Capital Flour Mills Co. v. Stayton Water-Ditch & Canal Co.

33 F. 146, 13 Sawy. 99, 1887 U.S. App. LEXIS 2914
CourtUnited States Circuit Court
DecidedDecember 19, 1887
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 33 F. 146 (Salem Capital Flour Mills Co. v. Stayton Water-Ditch & Canal Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Salem Capital Flour Mills Co. v. Stayton Water-Ditch & Canal Co., 33 F. 146, 13 Sawy. 99, 1887 U.S. App. LEXIS 2914 (uscirct 1887).

Opinion

Deady, J.

This suit is brought by the Salem Capital Flour-Mills Company, a British corporation, against the Stayton Water-Ditch & Canal Company, a corporation formed under the laws of Oregon, and Silas A. and S. W. B. Jones, citizens of Oregon, to have said defendants enjoined from interfering with the prolongation of the plaintiff’s ditch, whereby waier is taken from the Santiam river and conducted in the channel of Mill creek to Salem, for the use of the plaintiff’s mills; and from diverting the water from the same.

The defendants demur to the bill, for that the plaintiff is not entitled to the relief sought.

For a proper understanding of the case, a somewhat full abstract of the lengthy second amended bill, and the amendment thereto, must be made.

It appears therefrom that on December 17, 1856, the legislature of the territory of Oregon passed an act incorporating the Wallamet Woolen Manufacturing Company, hereinafter called the “Woolen Company,” and thereby conferred upon it “power to bring water from the Santiam river to any place in or near Salem,” through the channel of Mill creek, as far as practicable; and for such purpose authorized it to enter “upon lands, and also upon said creek, and do all things proper and suitable for a safe, direct, and economical conveyance of water as aforesaid;” and conferred on said company the exclusive right to the hydraulic powers and privileges created by the water which it takes from the Santiam river,” [148]*148and to “use, rent, or sell the same, or any portion thereof, as it may deem expedient.”

Under this act the woolen company, at great expense, forthwith dug a ditch from a point on the right-hand bank of the Santiam, near the town of Stay ton, to a point in the channel of Mill creek, and did thereby coni duct water from the Santiam through said channel to Salem; that in 1857 the woolen company erected woolen mills at Salem on the bank of said Mill creek, on land then belonging to it, and particularly described in the bill, and thenceforward, until May, 1876, when the building was destroyed by fire, operated the same continuously by force of said water; that said water-power was and is of great value, and the woolen company kept the exclusive use of the same until April 11, 1870, when it granted to the Salem Flouring Mills Company the right to have one-half the water flowing through said ditch and channel to Salem, conducted to its premises therein, and the water-right granted to William Waldo on May 1, 1874.

On August 24, 1875, the woolen company executed and delivered to the Bank of British Columbia a mortgage on all the said property, rights, and privileges so owned by it, and thereafter, in a suit brought in this court to enforce the lien of said mortgage, the same was sold and conveyed to William Reed on September 6, 1882, who afterwards sold and conveyed it to the City of Salem Company, which company, on June 1, 1884, sold and conveyed the same to the plaintiff, which thereupon became, and still is, the owner thereof; that the grant to Waldo was a perpetual right to use the water so brought to Salem for the purpose of operating a flour mili to be built on a tract of ground on the bank of Mill creek just below the property of the woolen company, and containing about two acres, whereupon he erected a flour mill, which, since 1877, has been operated by the water aforesaid, and about June 1, 1884, the plaintiff, by mesne conveyances from Waldo to itself, became and still is the owner of said mill property and water-rights.; and that in 1882 the plaintiff built another flour mill on property adjacent to said mill, and said flour mills have ever since been operated by the water of the Santiam, and would be comparatively valueless without the same.

The ditch was constructed from near the town of Stay ton to the Santiam on the donation of Stephen Porter and his wife, who theretofore, on April 3,1856, for a valuable consideration,.had by their deed granted to George H. Williams, Joseph Watt, and A. H. Reynolds, to the use of said woolen company, “the right of a canal way through all and any lands then owned or occupied by them in Marion county, necessary to be passed through in conveying the water of the 'Santiam into the channel of Mill creek,” and also granted to said persons, for the benefit of said company, authority “to enter on the same for the purpose of cutting a canal sufficiently large to admit the flow of any amount of water required by said company for their puposes at Salem,” and agreed “to allow them all the rights and privileges necessary for the construction, use, and preservation of said canal;” that at the date of such conveyance, [149]*149s'iid Williams, Watt, and Reynolds were tho trustees of the corporation for whoso benefit said rights were conveyed, and the plaintiff by the mesne conveyances aforesaid “has become and now is the owner of and entitled to all tho rights, powers, and privileges thereby granted.”

On May 7, 1852, the dato of the official survey of the donation of ¡M oplien Porter and wife, the meandered line of the north bank of the Santiam was the southern boundary of the same, whicli included all the land in the fractional S. E. 1 of section 10, and the fractional S. W. i of section 11, in township 9 S., of rango 1 W., of tho Wallamet meridian, lying north of said mean derod line, as shown on tho map entitled “Ex-idbit A;” that at tho time of the execution of the deed by Porter and wife, and the construction of the ditch, the position of the Santiam had gradually changed to tho northward, so that the north bank of the same crossed the line between said seel ions 10 and 11, 8.25 chains north of its intersection with said meandered line: that said ditch took water from the north bank of the Santiam at a point 15 chains west of the line dividing said sections, and 6.75 chains from the nearest point on said meandered line, and designated on Exhibit A as “W. W. Mfg. Co.’s dam, built in 1857;” and said woolen company continued to receive water into its ditch at said point for the use of its mills at Salem until 1872, when, by reason of a freshet in the river, the channel thereof was suddenly changed to tho southward 30 chains from the point whore the ditch connected therewith, and lias ever since flowed in this new channel; wherefore said woolen company was obliged, and did, in 1878, prolong its diioh eastward from its eastern terminus, along the right bank of the old channel of the river to the junction with the new. and in so doing expended a largo sum of money in excavating said channel, in banking the left side of tho ditch, and in constructing wing-dams and head-gates thereon, and thereby received and used the water of tho Santiam, as before.

On July 20, 1876, Stephen Porter and wife made a conveyance, to sundry persons, of the land on winch the ditch was prolonged as aforesaid, and thereafter the grantees therein,on January 12,1877, and Drury Stayton, who had been placed in possession of tho ditch by the woolen company, to care for the,same and regulate the flow of water therein, conspired together and took possession of the prolongation of the ditch, claiming a right to the same, and on November 12, 1879, said grantees conveyed the same to tho defendant Silas A. Jones.

In January, 1880, the defendants Silas A. and S. W. R.

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Bluebook (online)
33 F. 146, 13 Sawy. 99, 1887 U.S. App. LEXIS 2914, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/salem-capital-flour-mills-co-v-stayton-water-ditch-canal-co-uscirct-1887.