Schaeffer v. Berry

Citations

• 62 Tex. 705
• 1884 Tex. LEXIS 314

Syllabus

<p>1. Evidence — Maps — Statutes construed. — The deposit of a map in the land office in 1847, though accompanied by an explanatory letter of the surveyor, but without field notes, cannot be regarded as such a compliance with the requirements of a survey and return of field notes to the land office in the confirmation act of February 10, 1853, nor with the provisions of the act of August 15, 1870, nor with those of the constitution on the same subject, as to entitle a claimant under the grant to extend the lines in conformity with such map, where to do so would violate natural boundaries, distance, quantity and configuration as designated in the grant, stamp and amparo.</p> <p>2. Boundary—Possession.— Where natural boundaries, course, distance, quantity and configuration are all satisfied, the limits of a grant will not be extended merely because of long claim and possessory acts, so as to include a more extensive tract, violating all of these except course.</p> <p>3. Construction — Survey.— That construction is to prevail which is most against the party claiming under an uncertain survey. It is his duty to show and establish his corners.</p> <p>4. Survey — Evidence.— The lines of the survey, as actually marked upon the ground, if they can be found and traced, will control course and distance. But that is where the actual survey can be found and identified as the same called for in the grant. It is not meant that, where the grant calls for certain known and established natural or artificial monuments and boundaries, these may be controlled by parol proof of a survey entirely inconsistent and repugnant to all the calls of the grant. No case has gone to any such extravagant length as that. That would be virtually to destroy the written evidence of title, and substitute parol evidence in its stead.</p>