Missionary Society of Church v. Dalles City

by William Burnham Woods

United States Supreme Court

107 U.S. 336

Missionary Society of Church  v.  Dalles City

This was a bill in equity filed by Dalles City, a municipal corporation organized under the laws of the state of Oregon, against the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a corporation.

The complainant was incorporated by an act of the legislature of Oregon passed January 26, 1857, which was afterwards amended by an act passed January 20, 1859. By the last-named act the boundaries of Dalles City were established. Long prior to the passage of said acts of incorporation, to-wit, in the year 1852, a large portion of the land within said boundaries was settled upon and occupied as a town-site for the purposes of business and trade, and not for agriculture, and has been so occupied ever since that time. During the year 1855 the lawfully-constituted authorities of the county of Wasco, within which Dalles City was situate, caused the land so occupied to be surveyed and platted into lots, blocks, streets, and alleys, and the plat thereof to be recorded in the recorder's office of said county. A survey was made by the United States of the lands so occupied as a town-site and such survey was approved on February 4, 1860, and on April 19, 1860, the corporate authorities of Dalles City entered at the land-office of the United States in Oregon City the fractional north-west quarter of section 3, in township 1, of range 13 E., containing 112 acres, in trust for the several use and benefit of the occupants thereof, according to their respective interests. All this was done in pursuance of the act of congress approved May 23, 1844, and of the act of July 17, 1854, (10 St. 305,) by which the provisions of the act first named were extended to the territory of Oregon. The said fractional quarter is the land occupied by Dalles City as a town-site. The corporate authorities paid to the receiver of the land-office $1.25 per acre for said fractional quarter, and Dalles City claimed to have thereby acquired title thereto in trust as aforesaid.

The defendant, the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, claimed to own in fee-simple a tract of land containing 643 acres and 37-100 of an acre, for which a patent was issued to it by the United States on July 9, 1875. The land described in the patent included the fractional quarter to which Dalles City claimed title and of which it was in possession. The bill filed in this case asserted the validity of the title of Dalles City, the complainant, to said fractional quarter, and averred that the patent for 643 acres and 37-100 of an acre, which included said fractional quarter, was improvidently issued to the Missionary Society in violation of the rights of complainant, and prayed for a decree declaring the complainant to be the owner of said fractional quarter in trust for the use and benefit of the owners and occupants thereof, declaring that the defendant held the legal title in trust for the complainant, and directing it to make a conveyance to the complainant therefor, to be held by it in trust for the respective occupants thereof. Upon final hearing the circuit court rendered a decree in favor of the complainant, in accordance with the prayer of the bill. This appeal is prosecuted to reverse that decree.

E. L. Fancher, for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from 337 intentionally omitted]

Jas. K. Kelly and John H. Mitchell, for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from page 338 intentionally omitted]

WOOD, J.

Notes