Dougherty v. Welshans

Citations

• 233 Pa. 121
• 81 A. 997
• 1911 Pa. LEXIS 475

Syllabus

<p>Real estate — Adverse possession — Uncultivated lands — Legal title.</p> <p>1. Where lands are wild and mountainous, and have never been the subject of an actual pedis possessio, proof of actual possession is not required to show the right of possession, inasmuch as the legal title to such lands draws to it the possession.</p> <p>Real estate — Deed—Presumption of grant — Quieting title — Ancient Deeds — Recitals—Ejectment.</p> <p>2. After a great lapse of time and a series of circumstances disclosing the enjoyment of an unchallenged title to land during such period, the courts will presume whatever grant may be necessary to quiet the title; and such presumption may be invoked not only against a mere •intruder, but also against one claiming under color of title.</p> <p>3. If an outstanding title in a third party is set up as a defense in an action of ejectment, it must be a present subsisting one, otherwise it will be presumed to have been extinguished by a conveyance to the one who has asserted title to and exercised rights of ownership over the land for a long period of years.</p> <p>4. Recitals in ancient deeds, where possession accompanies the deed, are prima facie evidence of the facts recited even against third persons.</p> <p>5. In an action of ejectment it appeared that the plaintiff’s predecessor in the line of the record title had purchased the land sixty-years before the institution of the suit at an orphans’ court sale for the payment of a decedent’s debts. In the deed from the administratrix to the purchaser there was a'recital that the title of the original patentee from the state “by sundry conveyances became vested in” the decedent. There was nothing on the record and no evidence otherwise to show how the title had passed from the original patentee to the decedent. The defendants in the ejectment claimed title under a tax sale made years after the date of the deed. Held, (1) that the deed was admissible in evidence; (2) that the recital in the deed