Alston v. Collins

Citations

• 29 S.C.L. 450

Syllabus

<p>1. Trespass to try titles. The ancestor of plaintiffs, in 1785, acquired title to five parcels or tracts of land, that had belonged to separate owners, which he devised to them in 1838, and soon afterwards died. Said tracts were not described or mentioned in any of the deeds produced, as one or adjoining ; but the fact that they were contiguous, was ascertained by a plat of survey made in 1787, designating them by numbers from one to five. Defendant, under junior grants, held a part the tract No. 5, long enough to acquire a statutory title, but his possession commenced after 1785, and after the tenants of the ancestor undertook to hold under his title. It did not appear from the plat of re-survey of 1787, made by a duly commissioned surveyor, for what purpose, or for whom, it was made, but it was found amongst the papers of the plaintiffs’s ancestor. There was a succession of tenants on tract No. 1, of a ferry and the adjacent fields, all of whom acknowledged themselves as the tenants of the plaintiffs’s ancestor. On the side of the river, opposite, resided the general agent of the owner, who had the supervision of his lands on both sides, in reference to whose authority the tenants held; but neither the tenants nor the agent knew the true boundaries of their landlord’s ownership.</p> <p>2. Although the plat of re-survey did not appear to have been made for the then owner of the land embraced in it, yet as it was found amongst his papers, it was ancillary to support and explain the united title; and from the time of its execution, the several tracts constituted an entirety.</p> <p>3. Although the tract had been owned in separate parcels, by different proprietors, yet, from the time that the ancestor of the plaintiffs acquired the whole interest, they became united.</p> <p>4. It was held that the possession of the tenants was co extensive with the boundaries of the entire tract, although they were ignorant of their extent, and that defendant could not claim more o