75 Tenn. 98 | Tenn. | 1881
delivered the opinion of the court.
In 1866 James purchased of J. F. Mills a tract of land on the Mississippi river, a few miles north of Memphis. Two of the boundary lines of the grants from the State, embracing the lands of James, are as follows: “ Two hundred and forty-six chains fifty links to a cottonwood marked W. & C., on a chute of the Mississippi river, thenpe down said river with its meanders south,” etc., the latter line being the western boundary.
In front of this line a sand-bar formed, and in a few years increased to two or three hundred acres of tillable land, and the part in front of James was in a good degree cleared and put in cultivation by him. It was claimed by him as accretions to his land.
On the 30th of January, 1874, McClure obtained a grant for this new land, and now files this bill, alleging title in himself and a trespass by James, enjoining James and his tenants from further operations, asking damages, etc. The defendant sets up title in
One of the questions is, Is the newly made land an island formation commencing in the river, away from the main land, or is it accretions to the land of James by deposits beginning upon his land and extending into the river? Another is, Is James confined to the call for the cottonwood tree described ?
In County of St. Clair v. Lovingston, 23 Wallace U. S. Reports, the court says: “ In the light of the authorities, alluvion may be defined as an addition to riparian land, gradually and imperceptibly made by the water to which the land is contiguous. It is different from reliction and is the opposite of avulsion. The test as to what is gradual and imperceptible in the sense of the rule is, that though witnesses may see from time to time that progress has been made, they could not perceive it while the process was going on. Whether it is the effect of natural or artificial causes, makes no difference. The result as to the ownership in either case is the same. ’ The riparian right to future alluvion is a vested right. It is an inherent and essential attribute of the original property. The title to the increment rests in the law of nature. It is the same with that of the owner of a tree to its fruit, and of the owner of flocks and herds to their natural increase. The right is a natural, not a civil one. The owner takes the chances of benefit and of injury arising from the situation of the property. If there be x gradual loss he must bear it, if a gradual gain it is his.”
In the case already cited from 23 Wallace, it is said: “ Where a survey and patent show a river to be one of the boundaries of the tract, it is a legal deduction that there is no vacant land left for appropriation between the river and the river boundary of such tract.” Citing 4 Monroe, 62; IB. Monroe, 26; 5 Dana, 100. “Where a deed calls for a corner standing on the bank of a creek, thence down said creek with the meanders thereof,” the boundary is low-water mark. Where a deed calls for an object on the bank of a stream, “thence south, etc., and with the course of the bank to the place of beginning,” the stream at low-water mark is the boundary.
The same case also holds: “ Where premises are ■described' as bounded by a monument standing on the bank of the river and a course is given as running from it down the river as it winds and turns to another monument, the grantee ■ takes usque jUivrn aqua>, unless the river be expressly excluded from the grant by the terms of the deed.”
Martin v. Nance et al., 3 Head, 649, was an action of ejectment for land on the shore of Cumberland river. The plaintiff claimed by grant from the State in 1857. He insisted the land entered by him was vacant at the time. It embraced a bar or strip of land of twenty-two acres between the top of the bank and low-water mark. The defendant insisted the State
. In 20 Wallace case, already cited, the court says: “ Tt may be considered a canon in American Jurisprudence that where the calls in a conveyance of land are tor two corners at, in, or on a stream or its banks, and there is an intermediate line extending from one such corner to the other, the stream is the boundary, unless there is something which excludes the operation of this rule by showing that the intention of the parties was otherwise.”
In Branham et al. v. Bledsoe Creek Turnpike Co., this court (Judge Cooper delivering the opinion) held : “ In the conveyance of land on a creek, a call for one-half the creek, or for a line down the centre of the creek with its meanders, carries title to the middle of the main branch, if the stream is divided by an island into two unequal branches.”
There is some conflict in the testimony in the case at the bar as to whether the formation by alluvion commenced on Janies’ land, or began as an island formation in the river. The decided preponderance is in favor of the formation on and from the bank. The fact that in times of high water a slough runs through the new-made land near the bank, does not weaken the proof that the accretions began at the bank. River men, who have had an experience of many years and whose duty it was to observe such things, fix the beginning on the bauk, and explain the depression through which water passes at high water, by the statement that the superior height out in the river
In the Railroad and Schurmier case reported in 7 "Wallace, the slough was more extensive and the water ordinarily deeper than here, yet the court awarded the land to the riparian owner.
Upon the authority of the principles in the cases quoted, and which we adopt, we think the decree of the chancellor correct.
Affirmed.