154 U.S. 578 - Riley v. Welles — 154 U.S. 578

How this case has been cited

Cited by 19 later decisions (7 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2000

3 federal appellate · 5 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

¶1APPEAL PROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OP THE UNITED STATES POR THE DISTRICT OP IOWA.

¶2 Wolcott v. Des Moines Co., Wall. 681, followed.

¶3The case is stated in the opinion.

¶4Mr. Justice Nelson

¶5delivered the opinion of the court.

¶6This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Iowa.

¶7This case is not distinguishable from that of Wolcott v. The Des Monies Company, 5 Wall. 681.

¶8Welles, the plaintiff below, derives his title by deed from this company, the same as Wolcott in the former ease. The suit in that case was brought to recover back the consideration money from the Des Moines Company, the grantors, on the ground of failure of title. The court held that Wolcott received a good title to the lot in question under his deed.

¶9In that case it was insisted that the. title was not in the-Des Moines Company, but in the Dubuque and Pacific Railroad Company.

¶10In the present ease the defendant claims title under, and in pursuance of, the preemption act of September 4, 1841.

¶11Her husband took possession of the lot in 1855, and she was permitted by the register to prove up her possession and occupation, May, 1862. The patent was issued October 15,1863.

¶12It will appear from' the. case of Wolcott v. The Des Moines Company that the tract of land, of which the lot in question was a part, had been withdrawn from sale and entry on account of a difference of opinion among the officers of -the land department as to the extent of the original grant by .Congress of lands in aid of the improvement of the Des Moines River, from the year 1846 down to the resolution of Congress of March 2,1861, and thé act of July 12,1862, which acts we held confirmed the title in the Des Moines Company. As the husband of the plaintiff entered upon the lot in 1855 without right, and the jiossession was continued without right, the permission of the register to prove up the possession and *579improvements, and to make the entry under the preemption lavs, were acts in violation of law, and void,, as was also the issuing of the patent.

¶13Mr. Thomas F. Withrow, Mr. Galusha Parsons, and Mr. William H. Kelsey for appellant.

¶14Mr. Edwin C. Litchfield for appellee.

¶15The reasons for this withdrawal of the lands from public sale or private entry aré stated at large in the opinion in the case of Wolcott v. The Des Moines Company, and need not be repeated. The point of reservation was very material in that case, and we have seen nothing in the present one, either in the facts or in the argument, to distinguish it. The decree below affirmed.