Williams v. Baker Cedar Rapids Railroad Company

[Though the two cases here reported were decided in order of time prior to that of the Homestead Company v. Valley Railroad next in order of place (beginning on page 153), and are referred to in it, yet the reader who is not already acquainted with the facts of what is known in Iowa as the Des Moines River land litigation may, possibly, find it as well to read, before reading the cases now immediately given, the later one, beginning, as already said, on page 153, and in which a diagram will assist his comprehension of a topography common to both cases.]

ON appeals from the Circuit Court for the District of Iowa.

These were two suits in chancery, brought originally in the State courts of Iowa, and transferred to the Circuit Court of the United States for that district, to quiet title to real estate. In the first case the complainant was Baker, who held title under the Des Moines Navigation and Railroad Company. The defendant was Williams, and he held under the Cedar Rapids Railroad Company. In the second case, the Cedar Rapids Railroad Company was complainant, and the Navigation and Railroad Company, with others, defendants; and in this suit the complainant set up that suits at law had been commenced against numerous persons, its grantees, which were harassing and expensive, and prayed that its title and the title of its said grantees should be quieted. The defendants in that suit denied the title thus set up, and alleged that their own title, that of the Des Moines Navigation and Railroad Company, was the true title. The court below decided, in both cases, in favor of the parties claiming under the latter title, and in both cases the adverse side appealed to this court.

Messrs. I. Cook and B. R. Curtis, for the title under the Cedar Rapids Railroad Company; Mr. T. F. Withrow, contra, for that under the Des Moines Company.

Mr. Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.