(Download) "Russel Et Al v. the Trustees of the Transylvania University" by United States Supreme Court # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Russel Et Al v. the Trustees of the Transylvania University
- Author : United States Supreme Court
- Release Date : January 21, 1816
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 69 KB
Description
The object of this bill is to obtain a conveyance from the defendants, of a tract of land in the state of Kentucky, granted to one Alexander McKee, through whom both parties claim. The survey was made under a warrant from Lord Dunmore, then governor of Virginia, issued the 2d of April, 1774. The complainants claim under a chain of title regularly deduced from McKee; the defendants, under an act of the legislature, vesting McKee's lands in them as confiscated property. But it appears, and is explicitly acknowledged in the bill, that the conveyance from McKee describes, by metes and bounds, a tract of land wholly different from that which the trustees hold. This court feels no difficulty in conceding, that whatever equity the complainants have a right to claim against McKee, this court is bound to decree against the trustees; for the act of the legislature could only have been intended to operate upon the interest of McKee, and not to defeat the rights of those who held, or might claim, the land to the prejudice of McKee himself. The equity set up by the complainants depends upon the following allegations: that the warrant was placed in the hands of one Douglas, a surveyor. That under that warrant, together with a number of others then in his hands, he surveyed what, in that country, is called a block of surveys, (by which we understand a number of connected and dependent surveys, each containing the same quantity of land.) That in this block of surveys were contained both that which was conveyed to the claimants, and that which the defendants hold, each of 2,000 acres. The bill then proceeds in the following words: 'That the said McKee, who resided at a great distance from the land in question, was furnished with a boundary of a 2,000 acre survey, agreeably to that which is contained in his aforesaid deed as the boundary of his 2,000 acre survey.' 'And, afterwards, without his knowledge, the surveyor substituted the 2,000 acres which is described in the survey, for that which was originally intended for him.' But they aver, 'that it was the intention of the parties to the said deed, that by it should pass the 2,000 acre survey, by whatever boundary described, to which the said McKee was entitled under the warrant granted to him as aforesaid.' By the land laws of Virginia, the return of the surveyor into the office is the only legal identification of the land on which the right of the individual attaches. So that the warrant of Lord Dunmore being a general, not a specific warrant, there can be no doubt that McKee never acquired any right, legal or equitable, in the land described in his conveyance. It is also admitted that the land, of which the defendants are seised, was McKee's land, and derived to him through a warrant of Lord Dunmore, and a survey made by Douglas; so that if the other material allegations of the bill were supported by evidence, it is possible that this court might be induced to think the complainants' case a good one.