135 Wis. 374 | Wis. | 1908
It is established as a general rule of law, both in our own court and in the courts of the United States, that where by the original survey and government plat a tract of land appears to have as its boundary a body of water, such body of water is a natural monument and will constitute the boundary, however distant or variant from the position indicated for it by the meander line, and hence will control as a call of the survey over either distances or quantity of land designated in the conveyance or on the government plat. Railroad Co. v. Schurmeier, 7 Wall. 272; Mitchell v. Smale, 140 U. S. 406, 414, 11 Sup. Ct. 819; Shufeldt v. Spaulding, 37 Wis. 662; Lyon v. Fairbank, 79 Wis. 455, 48 U. W. 492. This rule is subject to some exceptions, as where the lake or body of water is so remote from the premises that it cannot in reason be supposed that the plat indicates a purpose to make it the boundary of the premises; but such exception can have no restrictive effect to the present •case, where the contour of the lake shore is so nearly similar
Another limitation or modification of the absolutism of the rule above stated, urged upon us by the appellant, has been recognized and applied to the effect that where the meander line is drawn on one side of one of the regular survey lines, either section line, one-quarter line, or one-sixteenth line, the boundaries cannot be extended across such line in order to reach the water front, especially when such survey line appeared upon the government plats as a boundary of another lot or subdivision conveyed to some one else. Whitney v. Detroit L. Co. 78 Wis. 240, 47 N. W. 425; Lally v. Rossman, 82 Wis. 147, 51 N. W. 1132; Underwood v. Smith, 109 Wis. 334, 85 N. W. 384. Such limitation cannot have application to the present situation, for the reason that, while in some places the meander line falls south of the east and west one-sixteenth line and west of the north and south one-sixteenth line, yet at other points it confessedly is located north of the one and east of the other, thus' conclusively refuting the inference that the government intended that the lot line should be confined within either of said one-sixteenth lines. True, in running the boundary of said lot according to the present condition of the shore the surveyor must pass from the south to the north side of the
We therefore conclude that the judgment awarding to plaintiffs all of the premises south and west of the lake which fall within the exterior boundaries of the southeast quarter ■of section 32 was correct.
By the Gourt. — Judgment affirmed.