Lovingston v. County of St. Clair

Citations

• 64 Ill. 56

Syllabus

<p>1. Accretion—title by, to alluvion on Mississippi river. The proprietor of lands bounded by the Mississippi river is entitled to all accretions thereto caused by the deposition of alluvion, without regard to the question whether such river is a navigable stream or not.</p> <p>S. Same—alluvion defined. By the common law, alluvion is the addition made to land by the washing of the sea, a navigable river or other stream, whenever the increase is so gradual that it can not be perceived in any one moment of time. When the public easement is not interrupted, the question of the navigability of the stream, as at common law, does not arise.</p> <p>3. Same—act of Congress in relation to navigable streams. The act of Congress of 1706, (1 Stat. 468, sec. 9,) which declares all navigable rivers in a certain district, public highways, has no bearing upon this question. The riparian owner has a right to the alluvion, whether the stream be navigable or not.</p> <p>4. Same—attaches only to lands bounded by the river. Where grants from the United States conveyed land to the then bank of the Mississippi river, so that the river formed one of its boundaries: Held, that the grantees and those succeeding them in title were riparian proprietors, and as such would take title by accretion to all the alluvial formations to their lands And it matters not that there were definite calls and lines in the survey, provided the bank of the river was one of the boundary lines. The grant may have been so limited as not to carry it to the middle of the river, and yet not exclude the right to the alluvion.</p> <p>5. Same—prn'tly caused by artificial means. Where the accretions were slow and gradual, and their formation ivas facilitated by the construction of coal dykes and other improvements for the benefit of the public, and the adj acent proprietors prevented the soil thus formed from washing away, it not appearing that they would not have been formed without such aids, and it appearing that the