Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/302

 274

The Green Bag

and kept forever in good and suﬂicient repair one publick, common and general highway to extend from the scite of the City of New York thro' the City and County of West Chester of the breadth of four rod English measure at the least, to be, continue and remain forever the

publick common general road, and highway from the said City of New York to the adjacent collony of Connecticutt.’ This act was continued in force until 1708 (1 Colonial Laws. p. 632, c. 182) by subsequent acts. The commissioners appointed by the act, by their certiﬁcate dated June 16, 1707, made a return that they had viewed and laid out the highway contemplated by the part of the act above quoted, and which was in fact that part of the Bloomingdale road,

as it came to be designated,extending from the present Twenty-ﬁrst street and the Bowery to the present 116th street. The stipulated case says: ‘The Bloomingdale road was originally laid out under this act (of June 19, 1703) to the width of four rods. . . .' "The road of 1707 remained unchanged until after 1751, in which year an act was passed

relating thereto.

(3 Colonial Laws, c. 910.)

It

recited that, in pursuance of the act of 1703, the

commissioners therein named ‘did lay out a road of the breadth of four rods from the now dwelling house of John Home (present Twenty-ﬁrst street and the Bowery) thro' Bloomingdale district or invision to the now dwelling house of Adrian Hoogellandt' (present 116th street) and the in habitants' of that district, ‘who are but few in number, have been under great hardships not only by keeping the said road in repair (which

(Twenty-ﬁrst street and the Bowery) to Nicholas De Peyster's barn (116th street) be immediately opened to its proper and legal width of four rods ‘and thence to the Post road. at Mr. Watkins, of the same width if the proprietors will give the land;’ and appointed a committee to attend the opening of the said road and confer with the proprietors of the land on the subject. From Nicholas De Peyster's barn (Adrian Hoogel landt's house) to the Post road was the laying out of a new road. On August 25, 1794, the common council ordered the road committee to inquire into and report on the expediency of continuing the Bloomingdale road until it intersects the Post

road

on

Harlem

Heights,

and

what

the breadth of it ought to be, to the end that the proprietors of the land through which the said road will pass may be applied to as to their willingness to give the land for the purpose." The opinion of the Court closes thus: -— "The judgment appealed from should be reversed and judgment ordered for the defendant, adjudging, that by the said deed of March 24, 1795, made by James Stryker and others, an easement of, or in that part of the premises, described in the contract of sale herein, lying in the Bloomingdale road, was conveyed to the mayor, aldermen, and commonalty of the City of New York; that the plaintiff had not a good and marketable title to said lands lying in Bloomingdale road at the time of the tendering of the deed to the defendant; that the defendant recover from the plaintiff the sum of $500, with interest from July 25, 1907, with costs in both Courts."

is double the breadth necessary) but also by

having been obliged to work on the repairing the Post road between New York and Kings bridge,’ and provided, in order to remedy the said hardships and to better keep the road in repair, for the appointment annually by the justices of the peace of a surveyor of mid road, and the surveyor ﬁrst to be appointed ‘is hereby required to view and survey the said road or highway and lay out the same of the breadth of two rods as the same now runs.‘ In pursuance of this act, the legal width of the Bloomingdale road was made two rods instead of four, and the

easement of the City of New York in two rods thereof was thereupon surrendered and aban doned. (Blackman v. Riley, 138 N. Y. 34 N. E.

This decision, that the City had only acquired an easement and not a fee, affects not only the titles to land formerly a part of the old Bloomingdale road,

but also all other lands which formerly were portions of the streets and highways subsequently abandoned in whole or

in part, such as the old Kingsbridge road, Hamilton street, Apthorpe Lane, Stuyvesant street, etc., etc. It also

opens the way to a ﬂood of‘ litigation, and property owners may expect any number of blackmailing or strike suits

214.) by alleged heirs of the original owners "In May, 1793, the common council of the City of New York, proceeding under the act of March 21, 1787, ordered that the Bloomingdale road from its commencement at Horne's house

one hundred or two hundred years ago,

which will be very expensive to defend, or which will require the payment of