Gilford v. Winnipiseogee Lake Co.
Supreme Court of New Hampshire
Case, by the town of Gilford against the Winnipiseogee Lake Cotton and Woolen Manufacturing Company, for flowing land on the shore of Lake Winnipiseogee, by means of a dam maintained at Lake Village, across the Winnipiseogee river, the outlet of the lake. The writ was dated August 7, 1866, and the plaintiffs claimed damages for flowage during the six years prior to that date.
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Case, by the town of Gilford against the Winnipiseogee Lake Cotton and Woolen Manufacturing Company, for flowing land on the shore of Lake Winnipiseogee, by means of a dam maintained at Lake Village, across the Winnipiseogee river, the outlet of the lake. The writ was dated August 7, 1866, and the plaintiffs claimed damages for flowage during the six years prior to that date. The defendants claimed that they had acquired the right by prescription to flow the plaintiffs’ land as much as it had been flowed during those- six years. They offered no evidence of any other right. Prior to 1829,…
1Opinion of the Court
Smith,* J.
If the instructions requested had been given, it is not improbable that the jury might have understood therefrom, — first, that the height of the dam, and not the height of the water, is the tost of a prescriptive right; second, that the adverse enjoyment “ need only be coextensive with the wants of the party claiming the right.”
The first proposition is erroneous.
Merely maintaining a dam for twenty years, without thereby raising the water on the plaintiffs’ land often enough to give notice that they claimed the right to flow it, would not give the defendants a prescriptive right to…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Stiles v. HookerNew York Supreme Court · 1827
3Cited by3 opinions
- Town v. FaulknerSupreme Court of New Hampshire · 1875
- Griffin v. BartlettSupreme Court of New Hampshire · 1875
- Griffin v. BartlettSupreme Court of New Hampshire · 1875