Cragin v. Powell

Citations

• 128 U.S. 691
• 9 S. Ct. 203
• 32 L. Ed. 566
• 1888 U.S. LEXIS 2264

Syllabus

<p>When lands are granted according-to .an official plat of their .survey, the plat, with its notes, lines, descriptions and landmarks? becomes as much a part of the grant or deed by which they are conveyed, and, so far as limits are concerned, controls as much as if such descriptive features were written out on the face of the deed or grant.</p> <p>It is not within the province of a Circuit Court of the United States or of this court to consider and .determine whether an official survey duly made, with a plat thereof filed in the District Land Office, is erroneous; but, with an exception referred to in the opinion, the correction of errors in such surveys has devolved from tbe earliest days upon the . Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the supervision of his official superior, and his decisions are unassailable by the courts, except in a direct proceeding instituted for that purpose.</p> <p>When the General Land Office has once made and approved a governmental survey of public lands, the plats, maps, field notes and certificates having been filed in the proper office, and has sold or disposed of such lands, the courts have power to protect the private rights of a party who has . purchased in good faith from the government, against the interferences or appropriations 'of subsequent corrective resurveys made by the Land Office.</p> <p>One who acquires land knowing that it covers a portion of a tract claimed, by another will be held either not to mean to acquire the tract of the other, or will be considered to be watching for the accidental mistake of others, and preparing to take advantage of them, and as such not entitled to receive aid from a court of equity.</p>