Malone v. Long

Constable, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs in an action of quare clausum fregit instituted for the purpose of trying title to land. The declaration describes the land upon which the trespass was alleged to have been committed as being located in Worcester County, and known as Mill Lot, and as having been devised to the plaintiffs by the will of their mother, who acquired title thereto by deed duly recorded, dated December 28th, 1871, from Francis Boon and wife. The defendant entered a plea of not guilty, and upon the application of the plaintiffs a warrant of resurvey was issued.

The record contains seven exceptions to the rulings of the Court, six being exceptions to rulings upon the testimony. The plaintiff offered one prayer, which was granted, but which is not in the record for the reason as stated that it was lost and no copy preserved of it. The defendant offered three "prayers, all of which were rejected. Before the execution of the warrant of resurvey both parties filed with the surveyor and sheriff a list of their title papers.

The defendant claimed title to the disputed area by virtue of a patent to Furman L. Mulford, dated May 22nd, 1873, of a tract called Gray’s Neglect, and adopted as the beginning of his tract the beginning point located by the plaintiff as the beginning of Mill Lot. The plaintiffs claimed title by virtue of a patent issued to William Fooks> dated July 29th, 1811, of the tract called Mill Lot, and through conveyances beginning September 18th, 1855, and ending December 28th, 1871, and by the will" of their mother, Ida Long, probated May 20th, 1898. None of the deeds through which the plaintiffs claim contains any description of the ³⁷⁹ land by courses and distances, metes and bounds, but the property is designated by the name under which it was patented, and described as located in the Seventh Election District of Worcester County. The defendant excepted to the admission of these deeds in evidence, on the ground that they had not been located on the plat.

There is no force in this contention. The patent was located on the plat and the lines of Mill Lot were, run according’ to the courses and distances therein contained. These deeds, the subject of the exception purported to convey the wdiole tract known as Mill Lot, and this being so it has been repeatedly held by the decisions of this Court that it then becomes unnecessary to locate such deeds on the plat in order to make them admissible evidence at the trial. These deeds were filed with the surveyor and sheriff by the plaintiffs as a part of their title papers, and the Court below was correct in admitting them.

Hall v. Gittings, 2 H. & J. 380; Beall’s Lessee v. Bayard, 5 H. & J. 127 ; Denn v. Jones, 26 Md. 462 ; Dorsey on Ejectment, p. 47. The plaintiffs offered in evidence, over the objection of the defendant, the patent for Gray’s Neglect and also the patent for Tilghman’s Choice. All of the land in controversy was unenclosed woodland, and the beginning' for Mill Lot and Gray’s Neglect was unmarked. In the patent for Tilghman’s Choice, its beginning point was described as “a marked pine tree, standing at the end of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth line of a tract of land called Mill Lot, resurvoyed for William Looks, October 30th, A. D. 1799, and patented July 29th, 1811.” The marked pine tree was located and from it the surveyor ran the fifth, fourth, third, second and first lines of Mill Lot reversed, and thus located the beginning point for both Mill Lot and Gray’s Neglect.

We are therefore of the opinion there was no error committed in admitting these patents. The defendant made a proffer of proof by which he sought to set up in himself title by adverse possession. The Court rejected the proffer and this, ruling was correct. The