1 Foster 206 | Pa. | 1873
The opinion of the court was delivered, May 17th 1873, by
It is certainly true, that under the Acts of the General Assembly, providing for the sales of unseated lands for taxes, the land is the debtor, and is subject to sale without
It has been strongly urged, however, that an actual line run on the ground by any claimant, with or without title, was sufficient authority to the assessor to return such survey as a separate tract. The assessor, it is said, has nothing to do with the title. He returns the tracts as he finds them on the ground. Perilous, indeed, would be the condition of the owner if such were the law. The assessor finds a line marked by trees in the wilderness, and is told that somebody claims that part of what he knows to be one entire tract, under an original survey. He returns it as a separate tract for taxation. The owner, ignorant of this transaction, pays all that he is charged with for the tract he holds. He assumes the number of acres described in his deed to be the true content of his survey. He sleeps in security, but wakes up to find that, perhaps, the most valuable part of his property has been swept from him, without his default. It is supposed that Biddle v. Noble, 18 P. F. Smith 279, supports the contention, that all that is required to sever a tract of unseated land for taxation, is a line actually marked on the ground. But this is a misapprehension of that case. The entire tract there was seated, in consequence of a settlement upon part. The owner sold to the settler, two hundred acres where the improvement was, so as not to interfere with the claim of any other settler. It was held that in the absence of a line on the ground, made with notice to the vendor, there was no severance, and that a sale of the remainder of the tract as unseated was void. Judgment affirmed.