1. A plat of an addition to a town, not executed, acknowledged,
and recorded in conformity with the laws of Illinois, operates in
that state as a dedication of the streets to public use, but not as
a conveyance of the fee of the streets to the municipal
corporation.
2. A conveyance, by the proprietor of such an addition, of a
block or lot bounded by a street, conveys the fee of the street to
its center, subject to the public use.
Page 69 U. S. 58
3. When a street of such an addition is bounded on one side by
Lake Michigan, the owner of the block on the other side takes only
to the center, while the fee of the half bounded by the lake
remains in the proprietor, subject to the easement.
4. When the lake boundary so limits the street as to reduce it
to less than half its regular width, the street so reduced must
still be divided by its center line between the grantee of the lot
bounded by it and the original proprietor.
5. Accretion by alluvion upon a street thus bounded will belong
to the original proprietor, in whom, subject to the public
easement, the fee of the half next the lake remains.
6. The limitation of the 8th section of the bankrupt act of 1841
does not apply to suits by assignees or their grantees for the
recovery of real estate until after two years from the taking of
adverse possession.
This was an ejectment brought to December Term 1859, in the
Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois to recover a
lot of ground,
A A, formed by accretion on the western
shore of Lake Michigan. The case was thus:
Kinzie, being owner in fee of a fractional section of land
bounded on the east by the said lake and lying immediately north of
the original Town of Chicago, made a subdivision of it in 1833,
which he called Kinzie's Addition, and deposited a plat of it in
the office of the county recorder, where it was recorded in
February, 1834, though not in accordance with certain statutes of
Illinois which, it was contended in the argument, give an effect to
plats properly made, acknowledged, and recorded that changes the
rule of the common law regarding the streets on which the lots are
sold.
The north and south street of the subdivision nearest the lake
was called Sand Street; the east and west street nearest the north
line of the fraction was named Superior Street. The waters of the
lake limited Sand Street on the north by an oblique line extending
from a point on its eastern side, about a hundred feet below, to a
point on its western side about a hundred feet above Superior
Street, as indicated on the diagram opposite. The northeastern
block of the subdivision, numbered 54, was bounded, on its eastern
side, in part by Sand Street and in part by the lake. Sand Street
therefore terminated in a small triangular piece of land,
Page 69 U. S. 59
image:a
Page 69 U. S. 60
b, c, d, between the lake and Block 54. This triangle
was less than thirty-three feet wide at its lower or southern end,
and diminished to a point at its northern extremity. Upon this
triangle, distinctly shown by the plat, new land was formed in
1844-1845 -- the date must be observed --
by accretion,
and extended eastwardly in the direction of the dotted lines more
than two hundred feet. The question was to whom did this
new
land belong?
In 1842, Kinzie had been declared a bankrupt under the bankrupt
act of 1841, and his whole property passed of course by operation
of law to his assignee.
Under this title, the assignee claimed, subject to public use as
a street, the eastern half of the triangle, and the newly formed
land as accretion. Acting upon this claim, he sold, under petition
and order of the district court, made in 1857, part of the
accretion, being the land in controversy, to one Sutherland, who
conveyed to Banks, plaintiff in the ejectment. Of course this newly
formed land had not been included in the assignee's inventory of
the bankrupt's effects.
On the other hand, Ogden, the defendant, deriving title by
regular conveyance in 1833 from Kinzie, to that part of Block 54 to
which the triangle was adjacent, conceived that the fee of the
whole triangle, subject to the public use, passed to
him
with the land bounded by it. His theory was that Sand Street, which
was sixty-six feet wide below its meeting with the lake, continued
sixty-six feet wide to its northern termination, and that the whole
triangle being everywhere less than thirty-three feet wide, was
west of the middle line of the street, and therefore belonged to
him as owner of the adjoining land. As the legal result of these
propositions, he claimed the whole accretion as formed upon land of
which he held the fee.
It is necessary here to state that the bankrupt act, under which
Banks, the plaintiff, claimed, enacts, by its eighth section,
that
"No suit at law or in equity shall in any case be maintained by
or against the assignee of the bankrupt touching any property or
rights of property of the bankrupt,
Page 69 U. S. 61
transferable to or vested in him, in any court whatever unless
the same be brought within two years of the declaration of
bankruptcy, or after the cause of suit shall have first
accrued."
At what date Ogden, the defendant,
went into possession did
not appear. The bankrupt act (§ 10) also enacts that all
proceedings in bankruptcy shall, if practicable, be brought to a
close by the court within two years after a decree.
Upon this case, the court below instructed the jury that the law
was for the defendant, and, judgment having been so entered after
verdict, the case was now before the court on error.
Page 69 U. S. 67
THE CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the Court, and, after
stating facts, proceeded as follows:
The rule governing additions made to land bounded by a river,
lake, or sea has been much discussed and variously settled by usage
and by positive law. Almost all jurists and legislators, however,
both ancient and modern, have agreed that the owner of the land
thus bounded is entitled to these additions. By some the rule has
been vindicated on the principle of natural justice that he who
sustains the burden of losses and of repairs imposed by the
contiguity of waters ought to receive whatever benefits they may
bring by accretion; by others, it is derived from the principle of
public policy that it is the interest of the community that all
land should have an owner, and most convenient that insensible
additions to the shore should follow the title to the shore
itself.
There is no question in this case that the accretion from Lake
Michigan belongs to the proprietor of land bounded by the lake. The
controversy turns on ownership.
In deciding this controversy, we derive to important aid from
the statutes of Illinois referred to in the argument.
Page 69 U. S. 68
The plat of Kinzie does not appear to have been executed,
acknowledged, and recorded in conformity with either of them.
[
Footnote 1] It operated,
therefore, only as a dedication, and the law applicable to
dedications must control our judgment.
It is a familiar principle of that law that a grant of land
bordering on a road or river carries the title to the center of the
river or road unless the terms or circumstances of the grant
indicate a limitation of its extent by the exterior lines. There is
indeed a passage in one of the judgments of the Supreme Court of
Illinois which, if taken literally, would exclude grantees of lots
in towns and cities from any interest whatever in the streets
beyond the common use. The court said: "In the case of a valid
plat," that is, a plat duly executed, acknowledged, and
recorded,
"the title to the ground set apart for public purposes is held
by the corporation for the use and benefit of the public; in the
case of a dedication by a different mode, the fee continues in the
proprietor, burdened with the public easement. [
Footnote 2]"
This rule would limit the grantee of Block 54 to the lines of
the block, and he would take nothing in Sand Street, but the
propositions quoted were not essential to the decision of the
question before the court, and there are other cases [
Footnote 3] which seem to warrant a belief
that when the operation of an ordinary dedication shall come
directly before that tribunal, it will not apply any other
principle to its construction than that generally recognized.
We shall assume, therefore, that the owner of the southeast part
of Block 54 was the owner of the adjacent part of Sand Street to
its center. But adjacent to that part of the block, Sand Street had
been reduced, as the plat clearly shows, to the small triangle
already described, and it must follow that it was to the center
line of the street thus reduced that the defendant acquired title.
He took, subject to the public use, the westerly half of the
triangle and no more.
But Kinzie was the original owner of the whole fractional
Page 69 U. S. 69
section. He retained every part of which he did not divest
himself by deed or dedication. By the dedication of Sand Street, he
gave to the public the use and only the use of the land within the
artificial and natural lines marked on the plat. By the conveyance
of Block 54 west of the street, he conveyed the fee of Sand Street
within those lines to its center. On the east side of the street,
opposite that block, he conveyed nothing, for he had nothing to
convey. The fee, therefore, of the eastern half of the triangle
which there formed the street remained in him. In the words of the
Supreme Court of Illinois, clearly just when applied to the land in
question, "the fee continued in the proprietor, subject to the
easement."
Upon Kinzie's bankruptcy, the fee of this strip of land passed
to the assignee. It was about this time or shortly afterwards that
the alluvion began to form upon it, and continued to increase until
the commencement of the suit below. The title to the accretion thus
made followed the title to the land, and vested in the
assignee.
It is unnecessary to consider the effect of the accretion, under
the dedication, upon the width of the street, for whatever that
effect may have been, the fee of the east half and of the accretion
beyond the true width, whatever that width was, remained constantly
in Kinzie or the assignee. A part, therefore, of the bankrupt's
estate remained unsold when the order of sale, under which the
plaintiff in error claims, was made by the district court, and the
only remaining inquiry is whether that order was lawfully made.
The eighth section of the bankrupt act of 1841 limited suits
concerning the estate of the bankrupt by assignees against persons
claiming adversely, and by such persons against assignees, to two
years after decree of bankruptcy or first accrual of cause of suit.
There is no express limitation upon sales, nor any limitation upon
any action other than suits, by the assignee except a general
requirement in the tenth section that all proceedings shall, if
practicable, be brought to a close by the court within two years
after decree. We are not satisfied that the limitation in the
eighth
Page 69 U. S. 70
section can be applied to sales of real estate made by assignees
under orders of district courts having general jurisdiction of
proceedings in bankruptcy. But it is not necessary now to pass upon
this point. The limitation certainly could not affect any suit, the
cause of which accrued from an adverse possession taken after the
bankruptcy, until the expiration of two years from the taking of
such possession, and there is nothing in the record which shows
when the adverse possession relied on by the defendant in error
commenced, and therefore nothing which warrants the application of
the limitation to the petition for the order of sale.
We think the court below erred in instructing the jury that the
defendant in error, upon the case made, was entitled to their
verdict. Its judgment must therefore be reversed, and the cause
remanded with directions to issue a
New venire.
[
Footnote 1]
Jones v.
Johnson, 18 How. 153.
[
Footnote 2]
Manly v. Gibson, 13 Ill. 312.
[
Footnote 3]
Canal Trustees v. Havens, 11 Ill. 557;
Waugh v.
Leech, 28
id. 488.
