Knox v. Gaines' heirs
Knox v. Gaines' heirs
Opinion of the Court
THIS is a controversy for land, claimed under adverse conflicting titles.
The aoneliees hold the elder patent, in virtue of winch, they obtained a judgment in ejectment, to stay proceedings upon which the appellant filed his bill, asserting a superior equity derived under an entry in the name of Hoomes.
On a final hearing, the bill was dismissed, and the appellant has brought the caseto this court by appeal.
Hoomes’entry, under which the appellant claims, was tor 10,000 acres, was made the 3rd or August, 1782, and calls for “ lying on the waters of Hammond’s creek and Benson’s creek, adjoining Cobb’s entry of 3000 acres on Hammond’s creek, on the west and north, and extended west and north over on the waters of Benson’s creek, excluding all former entries and ail lands unfit for cultivation.”
Cobb’s entry of 3000' acres was made the 13th of June, 1782, and calls “to adjoin colonel Stephen Trigg’s survey of 900 acres lying on the waters of Hammond’s creek, on the west side, to begin at his south-west corner, and running with the said line north, so far that lines at right angles west, will give the quantity.”
Trigg had, on the 3rd of February 1781, made a survey ot 900 acres, which calls to lie on the two main branches of Hammond’s creek. The entry upon which this survey was made, calls for locative objects of
The depositions of several witnesses who were present at the making of the survey, have been taken, and they speak of the survey having been frequently the subject of conversation, and of its notoriety; but they did not reside in the most contiguous stations, nor were they conversant in the neighborhood of the survey, and all that can be inferred from what they say of its notoriety, is, that in a remote station, where they and Trigg resided, it was generally known that such a survey had been made for Trigg, on Hammond’s creek. This evidence is clearly not sufficient, according to the uniform tenor of the decisions of this court, to establish the notoriety of the survey. Nor can the description contained in' the certificate of survey, aid the defect of proof, aliunde.
The only part of the description which could conduce in any degree to that purpose, is the call for(s lying on the two main branches of Hammond’s creek;” but this is evidently too vague and general to have enabled a subsequent locator to find it, with the exercise of reasonable diligence.
The decree must, therefore, be affirmed with costs.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.