Village of Winnetka v. Prouty

Citations

• 107 Ill. 218
• 1883 Ill. LEXIS 253

Syllabus

<p>1. Dedication—what essential thereto. To make a good dedication, either under the statute or at common law, there should be a definite and certain description of that which is proposed to be dedicated, and an acceptance by the public before the withdrawal or abandonment of the offer to dedicate.</p> <p>2. Same—plats of towns and milages—of the requisite certainty in description. The statute in force in' 1858 relating to plats of towns and villages, required that such plat or map should particularly describe and set forth all the streets, alley's, commons or public grounds, etc., giving the names, width, corners, boundaries and extent of all such streets and alley's; and the plat thus made out, acknowledged and recorded, as required, had the force of a conveyance, vesting the fee simple of the streets, etc., in the town or city'.</p> <p>3. A plat of a village recorded in 1858 contained lines indicating blocks, with spaces between them, probably' intended for .streets, but no streets were named, and no length or width of the spaces between the blocks, or any scale, was given by which the streets could be ascertained and located: Held, that where the owner of adjoining blocks had fenced the same, including the unknown space between, and such inclosure had been maintained for over twenty' y'ears without complaint, the village authorities were property enjoined from opening the supposed street through such inclosure, as no surveyor could, from the plat, find the limits of the street.</p> <p>4. Same—presumed to the extent used. Where the public have taken' possession of a street, and improved and used it to a particular width, a dedication, (the other requisites thereto existing,) it seems, will be presumed coextensive with the improvement and use.</p> <p>5. Same—abandonment. Where a village was laid out, iu 1855, into blocks and streets, but the plat failing to give the length or width of the streets, and the owner of two adjacent blocks, in 1861, fenced them, includi