Where a grant issued in 1722, by the French authorities of
Louisiana, cannot be located by metes and bounds, it cannot serve
as a title in an action of ejectment, and it was proper for the
circuit court to instruct the jury to this effect.
Page 57 U. S. 243
The case depended on the construction of an old French grant
which is stated in the opinion of the Court. It would not be
possible to explain the nature of the dispute to the reader,
without the introduction of maps, and as the decision in this case
cannot possibly serve to illustrate any that may hereafter occur,
it is not deemed expedient to increase the size of this volume by
their introduction, or the arguments of counsel to show that the
grant could or could not be located.
MR. JUSTICE CATRON delivered the opinion of the Court.
This suit was brought in 1844, in the Circuit Court for the
Missouri District to recover sections nine and ten, and the half of
sections numbers fifteen and sixteen, adjoining to nine and ten, in
township thirty-eight north, range two east of the principal
meridian; making 1920 acres, of which it is alleged the defendant
Ruggles was in possession. The cause was tried before a jury in
1851, and a verdict rendered for the defendant.
The object of the suit is to establish a claim of Renault's
heirs to a tract of land containing upwards of fifty thousand
acres. The claim depends on a grant, a translation of which, from
the French, was given in evidence in the circuit court, and is as
follows:
"In the year one thousand seven hundred and twenty-three, and on
the fourteenth of June, granted to Mr. Renault, in freehold, for
the purpose of forming his establishment on the mines."
"One league and a half of ground fronting on the Little Maramecq
on the River Maramecq, at the place of the first arm, branch, or
fork which leads to the collection of cabins called the Cabanage de
la Renaudiere, by six leagues eighteen miles in depth; the river
forming the middle of the point of compass, and the streamlet being
perpendicular, as far as where Mr. Renault has his furnace, and
thence straight to the place called the Great Mine."
A copy of the original, in French, being in the record also, it
is here insisted for the plaintiffs, that the foregoing translation
is erroneous and does not truly describe the boundaries of the land
granted; that it should be one and a half leagues fronting on the
Little Maramecq in the River Maramecq, at the place of the first
branch which leads to the collection of cabins, called the Cabanage
de la Renaudiere, by six leagues in depth,
"the
Page 57 U. S. 244
river forming the middle of the Rhumb line, and the lead stream,
as far as where Mr. Renault has his furnace, and thence a direct
line to the spot named the 'Great Mine.'"
The fork of Little Maramecq called for, and the old furnace on
it, were proved to exist on the trial, by Mr. Cozzens, who was sent
to survey the grant, by order of court, at the instance of the
plaintiffs. He says the Grand Mine is marked on the map -- that is,
on a copy of the map of public surveys of the United States,
obtained from the land office at St. Louis. He furnished no plot
because, as he reported and deposed, he could not make a survey of
the land claimed; the description in the grant being too vague and
unmeaning for him to lay down the land corresponding to the objects
called for on the ground. He further deposed, that he understood
the French, and was governed by both the English and French copies.
On the question whether the tract of land claimed could be
ascertained, and the true boundaries identified by survey, the jury
was instructed as follows:
"The court is of opinion that the grant to Renault, unaided by a
survey under the French or Spanish government, did not separate the
land from the public domain: that it cannot now, from its
uncertainty, be located; it is not therefore a grant for any
specific lands, and does not entitle the plaintiffs to the
locus in quo."
Thus the circuit court held, that notwithstanding the Little
Maramecq River, the lead stream, the smelting furnace, and the
Grand Mine, existed as indicated on the public surveys, and as
claimed to exist by the plaintiffs, still the grant was void for
uncertainty, and the impossibility of locating the same.
As the first instruction took the case from the jury, and put an
end to the suit on legal grounds, we will proceed to examine this
instruction.
The land is to front on the river. When the point of beginning
is established on the river, then it is to be meandered up or down,
until a straight line will reach a league and a half from the first
to the second corner.
It is insisted that the mouth of the streamlet is to be the
place of beginning, and that the first line is to run up the river,
and that the northwestern side line is to meander the streamlet to
the old furnace, called for in the grant.
Why the beginning point should be at the mouth of the lead
stream it is difficult to comprehend. The grant was intended to
cover Renault's mining establishment, but if surveyed, as contended
for, the second line would run through the center of his smelting
furnace, and also through the center of the mine where the ore was
obtained. By such construction the main
Page 57 U. S. 245
object of the grant, when it was made, would have been defeated.
We suppose the following would be a more plausible construction:
take the streamlet, from its mouth to the furnace, to be the
perpendicular of the front line on the river; then draw a straight
line from its mouth to the furnace to give the course of the side
lines, they being drawn parallel on each side of the foregoing
middle line and a league and a half apart. By such survey the
smelting furnace would have been included. But where these side
lines were to begin or end, treating each as a unit, no one could
tell; nor was it possible to reach the Grand Mine, or include it,
by this mode of survey, and therefore this construction could not
be relied on.
The jury was bound to find the lines of the grant from its
calls, and the objects proved to exist on the ground corresponding
to the calls. Nor could this be done by conjecture; lines and
corners must be established by the finding, so as to close the
survey.
If, after admitting all the verbal evidence to be true, as to
objects on the ground, to the extent insisted on for the
plaintiffs, and disregarding the defendant's evidence, it was still
plainly impossible to locate the grant by its words of description;
then the instruction given by the circuit court was proper.
The argument assumes that the second corner is four and a half
miles above the mouth of the lead stream on the Maramecq, and the
beginning corner at the mouth of the streamlet; that this is the
front; that the northwestern side line meanders the lead stream to
the furnace; and then runs straight through the Great Mine,
extending to a point beyond eighteen miles in depth from the mouth
of the streamlet; that, from this last point, a line must be drawn
four and a half miles long, and corresponding in its course to the
front line on the river; and, from the termination of this line,
one must be drawn to close on the upper corner on the river. This
is the theory of a survey predicated of the translation relied on
in this Court. No mode of survey is here claimed, as being
indicated by the translation furnished to the circuit court, and on
which the instruction is founded.
As the court below was influenced, in its construction of the
grant, by the objects claimed by the plaintiffs, and admitted to
exist on the ground, so this Court must look to the same source of
information for aid, in coming to a practical result. Renault's
furnace is not found on the map presented to us, but the Great Mine
is. We must assume, however, for the purposes of this action, that
the furnace lies so high upon the Mineral Fork as that a straight
line run from it to the Great Mine, would include
Page 57 U. S. 246
the land sued for. A survey, made on this assumption, would
require a line so acute to the Mineral Fork, as to strike the
Little Maramecq River not far above the upper corner on the river,
and give the grant the form of a triangle. Place the furnace on any
part of the Mineral Fork where probable conjecture can locate it,
and still the second line, as here claimed, running through the
furnace, and the Great Mine, would have an acute angle in it, so
that no depth could be obtained by this mode of survey. Nor could a
corresponding line to the front on the river be obtained. nor a
line be laid down corresponding to the northwestern side line; as
this hypothetical line would vary so much in its courses as not to
afford space for the two other lines. We can say with entire
confidence that no such theory of survey can be carried out, taking
the objects called for and found as the governing rule; and it is
equally certain, in our opinion, that no specific boundaries were
contemplated as having been given to Renault's grant when it was
made, but that the lines were to be afterwards established by
survey, as in cases of Spanish concessions covering improvements
where the exterior boundaries were left to the discretion of the
surveyor.
We are therefore of opinion, that the circuit court properly
held that the grant did not separate any specific tract of land
from the public domain, and that the jury could not locate it.
The court having held that the plaintiffs had no title to
support their action, it was useless to give any further
instructions: nor does it matter whether those given in addition to
the first one were right or wrong.
We therefore order that the judgment be
Affirmed.
Order
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of
Missouri, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it
is now here ordered and adjudged by this Court, that the judgment
of the said circuit court in this cause be, and the same is hereby
affirmed, with costs.