65 Iowa 248 | Iowa | 1884
I. The undisputed facts of the case, and the questions in controversy between the parties, may be briefly and clearly stated without reciting the pleadings. The plaintiff conveyed to the defendants a tract of land, part of the northern boundary of which is described as the center line of Buckeye street, in the town of Monticello. This street was in the addition to the town made by plaintiff, and was the southern limit thereof at that locality. When the addition was surveyed, stones were set up at some of the corners of lots abutting upon the street, and stakes were planted at other corners. The surveyor, in platting the addition, through mistake made the plat to show a tier of lots south of the real survey, so that there were five more lots shown by the plat than were really surveyed, thus causing the south boundary of the addition, and the south boundary of Buckeye street, to appear in the plat to be 60 feet further south than they were, in fact, as surveyed. The plat was duly acknowledged by plaintiff, and was approved by the proper officers, and recorded. The contentions of the parties involve the boundary of the addition and of the street; plaintiff insisting that it is controlled by the plat, while defendants maintain that it
III. Plaintiff insists that by reason of non-compliance with the law, which requires stakes in the corners of the lots, and for other reasons, the plat does not operate as a statutory dedication of the land. Let this position be admitted, and
Y. We need-not determine whether evidence of the parties’ declarations and statements prior to or at the time of the execution of the deed is competent to show the line of the land as it was understood by them. If evidence of this character introduced in this case be competent, it surely does not show that the line as indicated by the plat was contemplated by the parties. Nor is there evidence establishing an agreement between the parties that this line should be regarded as the true line of the street. The case is simply that of a conveyance of lands, bounded by a line indicated in
Affirmed.