Lehigh Valley Railroad v. Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures

The Chancellor.

The complainants, the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, are, under lease from the Morris Canal and Banking Company, the proprietors of a line of canal, of about one hundred miles in length, from the Delaware to the Hudson. The defendants, the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, were incorporated in 1791. The charter of the canal company was granted in 1824. At and prior to the latter date, the society claimed to be entitled, as riparian owners, to all the waters of the Passaic river at the great falls at Paterson, and they then, as they have ever since, derived revenue…