Powers v. Jackson

California Supreme Court
Powers v. Jackson, 50 Cal. 429 (Cal. 1875)

Powers v. Jackson

Opinion of the Court

By the Court :

In case of a conveyance of land described only as being a township or subdivision of a township, the actual survey and monuments of the United States surveyor are referred to on the face of the deed, since there is and can be no township ” on the public lands of the United States, except such as has been thus actually surveyed and marked.

The deed from Messinger to Giddings, therefore (if the map referred to and the note on the margin thereof be incorporated in the deed), contains a sufficient description. It refers to physical objects on the surface of the earth, to *433wit, the township or section lines as marked by the government surveyor. From these may be ascertained the point of commencement of the survey contained in the marginal note, and from this, as an initial-point, the courses and distances mentioned in the marginal note will include a tract of land.

No stakes or monuments, other than those of the government survey, are named or referred to in the conveyance from Messinger to Giddings. Stakes, by whomsoever placed, cannot therefore be used to control the courses or distances of the description in that conveyance. To permit this would be to permit the deed to be contradicted whenever the location of the stakes did not agree with the termini of the lines mentioned in the deed. The question here is not whether, in locating a tract of land, stakes or monuments, named or referred to in the deed, shall control courses and distances also mentioned in the deed. In such cases, the stakes or monuments will ordinarily be regarded as fixing the true points.

Here we are called on to say that objects not named or referred to in the deed shall fix the bounds of a tract of land otherwise perfectly well defined. This we cannot do without violating correct rules of construction.

' Judgment and order reversed and cause remanded.

Reference

Full Case Name
WARREN POWERS v. HENRY JACKSON
Cited By
12 cases
Status
Published
Syllabus
Monuments eeeeeeed to in Deed.—When a tract of land comprising a subdivision according to the United States survey is conveyed by deed, and described in the deed, only by the name of the township or subdivision of the township, the line of survey made by the United States and the monuments then placed are considered as referred to on the face of the deed. Townships on Public Lands.—There can be no township on the public lands except it has been actually surveyed and marked. Deed eeeeeein» to otheb Document.—A deed which refers to a plat of an addition to a town, recorded in the recorder’s office, for a particular description of the land conveyed, incorporates said plat into its descriptive part. Monument eeeeeeed to in Deed.—If a deed describes the land conveyed by adopting the corner of a subdivision according to the United States survey, as a starting-point, said corner is a monument and will control, although the party selling, at the time of sale, by an actual survey, fixed the stake at a different point and run the lines accordingly.