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304 THE WHARF CASE.
result of his separate burthen, a distinct right to all the benefits
arising from or incident to his separate estate, as a right, privilege
and interest to be held in severalty, and not as joint tenants or
tenants in common.
The bill further states, that by virtue of this contract with these
plaintiffs, and of their compliance therewith, a right accrued to
each of them to demand and receive wharfage for any vessel
which should lie at, or property which should be landed upon the
wharves made by them respectively; which right will continue to
belong to each of them until the reserved privilege of filling up
the canal, and the whole space shall be exercised; which has not
yet been done; that so soon as the work was completed these
plaintiffs severally exercised their right to charge wharfage; and
continued to receive it, without molestation, from the year 1795
until some time in the year 1799; that after these defendants, as a
body politic, created by the act of 1796, ch. 68, had succeeded to
the rights of the commissioners of Baltimore town, they took
upon themselves to collect wharfage on those wharves, and have
collected a large amount, and altogether prevented these plaintiffs
from collecting any thing on that account. Whereupon these
plaintiffs prayed, that they might have an account of the wharfage
so illegally received by the defendants; that they might be quieted
in their rights, and have such other relief as the nature of their
case might require.
In the copy of the answer, made by The Mayor and City Coun-
cil of Baltimore, to the original bill, which seems to have been
filed in April, 1807, and which it had been agreed should be re-
ceived as an answer to this new bill, it was admitted, that the land
called Market space was vested in the commissioners of Baltimore
town; that the plaintiffs were the owners of the grounds imme-
diately adjacent; that they entered into the contract with the
commissioners; that they accordingly filled up the space and made
the canal and wharves as stated; which, however, they did not
finally complete until some time in the year 1797. And it was
further admitted, that these defendants, having succeeded to the
rights of the commissioners of Baltimore town, and being the
sole owners of the wharves at the head and sides of the canal,
bare collected, as they were legally warranted in doing, a large
amount of money for wharfage from various persons for the use of
those wharves. These defendants deny the right of the plaintiffs
to collect wharfage, the claim to which they never made until the
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