Smith v. Houtz

22 F. Cas. 568, 25 Leg. Int. 244

This text of 22 F. Cas. 568 (Smith v. Houtz) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Smith v. Houtz, 22 F. Cas. 568, 25 Leg. Int. 244 (circtwdpa 1868).

Opinion

MeCANDLESS, District Judge

(charging jury). The jurisdiction of the circuit court of the United States, in civil actions, extends only to cases between the subjects of foreign nations and citizens of the United States; and to cases between citizens of the United States residing in different states. Also to cases of patents for new and useful inventions, and to all actions where the government is a party. Pruner and Burley, the warrantees, being citizens of Pennsylvania, could not sue another citizen of Pennsylvania, but would be compelled to resort to the courts of Clearfield county, where the lands lie. Their vendee, Samuel C. Smith, being a citizen of New Jersey, gives us jurisdiction. This provision was designed to give citizens of other states a forum, free and unembarrassed by the supposed partialities and prejudices which might exist in the locality of the subject matter in controversy. Jurors in the federal courts are selected from the body of an extensive district,which, in this district, is two-thirds of the territory of Pennsylvania. You come here wholly ignorant of the parties or the subject matter, and after a patient hearing of several weeks, whatever your decision may be, the paxties are bound to presume that they have had a fair and impartial trial, before an upright and enlightened jury.

Except life and liberty, there is nothing so important to the citizen, as that the rules of propeity should be known and certain, and that he should feel secure in the enjoyment ot his title. What gives gravity and significance to this ease is, not merely the land immediately in dispute, but the fact that its .result may affect and unsettle surveys for miles around, and disturb parties who have been for years in the peaceable and quiet possession of their lands. In all matters of litigation, the courts of the United States, are independent of the eourts of the state, with the exception of the laws regulating landed property. However we may differ on these questions, we are bound by their decisions, and it always affords us pleasure to concur with them in opinion. In the conclusion, therefore, at which you and the court may arrive, in the adjudication of this case, we shall be guided and governed by the land laws of Pennsylvania.

With these pi'eliminary observations, we shall now proceed, as briefly as possible, to consider the merits of the controversy which has occupied nearly four weeks of your time. This is an action of ejectment brought by Samuel C. Smith against Dr. Daniel Houtz, to recover between six and seven hundred acres of land in Clearfield county. The plaintiff derives title by two warrants from the land office, one dated 3d October, 1859, to B. J. Pruner, a survey by H. P. Trezulney for Mr. Cuttle, the deputy surveyor, which was accepted at the laud office oh the 29th of the same month, and a patent from the commonwealth, dated the same day; the other warrant to Jacob Burley, dated the 3d October, 1S59, survey made by the same person, on the 15th October, returned and accepted on the 29th, and a patent issued on the same day. Both of these surveys have a warning written upon them by the deputy surveyor, that they are believed to interfere with the surveys of 1793. On one it is said, “the above survey is believed to interfere with the surveys made in 1793 on warrants granted to George Bick-ham and Benjamin Johnston,” &c., and on the other, that, “the above survey is believed to interfere with surveys in the name of George Bickham, William Shaff, Jacob K. Howell, &c., made on warrants dated in 1793.” With this notice of prospective litigation, the plaintiff accepts a deed from Pruner and Burley, on the 30th December, 1804, for the consideration of $17,000, for what his grantors paid the commonwealth about $200, five, years before.

Thus far, this shows a prima facie case for the plaintiff. To repel this the defendant exhibits warrants to Bickham, Howell, Wm. Johnston and Loast, dated in 1793, surveys regularly made and returned into the land office, patents to Richard Peters, and with the exception of one deed, deduces a regular legal title from Morgan, Rawle and Peters, the owners of a batch of thirteen surveys, through the Bank of North America, at Philadelphia, and the representatives of the Rawle and Peters estate, by deeds dated in May, 1853, to Daniel Houtz, the defendant. They further show a continued possession by the payment of taxes from 1805 to 1863, a period of nearly sixty years. They then call the deputy surveyor, who locates their surveys on the land in dispute and within the surveys of 1793. This, being the elder survey, must prevail- unless the plaintiff can show you that the location was not made there, but upon other and different ground, and that is a question of fact for the determination of the jury.

Here really begins the wager by battle — the point in controversy'. The plaintiff throws down the gauntlet which is promptly taken up by his adversary, with what success you must decide. The plaintiff shows the warrants, surveys and patents for the surveys of 1784, and also the warrant and survey of 1794 on the north, and the residue of the batch of thirteen, of 1793, relying upon that of Casper Haines as the leading warrant, by the location of which as contended for by him, all the rest are to be governed. This warrant calls for “400 acres on the north side of Big Mushanon creek, [570]*570.•and west of the upper Beaver dam, beginning .at a beech, comer of land surveyed for John Musser & Co., bounded on the southeast by a line of marked trees, that run south fifty de.grees west, and to extend north and west-wardly.” It will be well for the jury to keep in mind this description. The plaintiff claims that this warrant was located west and north ■of the line of the surveys of 1784, beginning at the Anderson white oak, and to sustain this •position calls five surveyors, Mr. Africa, Judge Guinn, Mr. Trezulney, Mr. Moore and Mr. Mc-•Closkey. They do so locate it, but their testimony as to what they found upon the ground was more of a negative than of a positive character. They found some lines and corners which corresponded with the surveys of 1793, hut omitted or failed to find others, and they ■did find a line at the southern base which ■earned them into, and overlapped the Phillips •surveys. That line was so faintly exhibited ■on the plaintiff’s map, that I requested Mr. Africa to define it more distinctly in the one before the court, and which exhibits on that side a correspondence with defendant’s location. It could not be expected that at the period when these gentlemen ran the lines the •artificial marks upon the trees made in 1793, ■would manifest themselves as distinctly to them, as they did to surveyors of an earlier ■date. These are liable to decay, but natural ■objects, such as rocks, streams of water, beaver dams, &c., are more durable and more ■satisfactory.

It is not my purpose to advert further to the •testimony of these witnesses. Tou have heard it ably and eloquently discussed by distinguished lawyers, and it is your province, and not that of the court, to decide upon the facts. Does it satisfy you that the Casper Haines warrant was actually located on the ground, •as claimed by plaintiff, and that on their map it is “on the north side of the Big Mushanon ■creek, and west of the upper Beaver dam.” Has it satisfied you that the Haines survey on -the ground, “begins at a beech, corner of land surveyed for John Musser & Co.,” and is bounded on the southeast by a line of marked ■trees that runs south fifty degrees east,” and that it extends “north and westwardly?” If 1 am not mistaken, in the connected draft from tiie land office, the Casper Haines should lie in the same range with the Benj.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
22 F. Cas. 568, 25 Leg. Int. 244, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smith-v-houtz-circtwdpa-1868.