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BALTIMORE v. McKIM. 473
patent can issue from the Land Office, but according to its settled
rules; or for any thing not allowed by law to be sold there accord-
ing to those rules. Nothing can be sold in the Land Office, but
the state's right of soil in land, and the improvements affixed thereto
as parcel thereof. The title of the state of which it there makes
sale, is only in such land as had never before been granted to any
one; or where an individual had done some acts towards acquir-
ing a title which he had neglected to complete; or where the com-
plete title which had been granted, had fallen back, or escheated
for want of an heir or successor of the original grantee, or him who
claimed under him, who could take and hold.
Hence it is always distinctly understood, that every one who goes
into the Land Office, with an intention to buy, only proposes to
purchase of the state its title to lands held in one or other of these
modes; because nothing else can be sold there. A patent from
the Land Office can convey nothing else; it cannot give to the
grantee any franchise or privilege which is not necessarily and
always embraced in a grant of the legal title to the land itself; it
cannot give to the grantee a mere right of way; or a right to de-
mand and collect toll or wharfage any where; because such things
are not, and cannot be sold or granted in the Land Office. And,
therefore, no question concerning any right to demand and receive
toll or wharfage any where can be incidentally heard and decided
by the Chancellor upon a caveat in the Land Office.
But if land, to which the state has a title, is in any way incum-
bered, such incumbered title may well pass by a patent from the
Land Office; and the grantee will take and hold, subject to such
incumbrance. As where the owner in fee, after having leased the
land for years, died intestate and without heirs; so that his right
escheated. It was held, that the grantee from the state, under an
escheat warrant, could only take subject to the lease, (q) So, too,
where the land had been mortgaged before the title reverted to the
state, (r) And where the state had granted land covered with
navigable water; it was held, that the grantee could only take sub-
ject to all the public rights of navigation, &c., which he could not
in any manner obstruct or impair, (s)
(q) Line's Case, 1680.—At a council held in the Land Office.—Land Records, lib.
B. C . fol. 118.—(r) Hix v. The Attorney-General, Hard. 176; 1799, ch. 70, s. 7;
1805, ch. 93.—(s) Brown v. Kennedy, 5 H. & J. 195; Blundell v. Catterall, 7 Com.
Law Rep. 108.
60 v.3
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