Storer v. Freeman
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
This was an action of trespass for breaking and entering the plaintiff’s close, situate on Gamaliel’s Neck, in the town of Cape Elizabeth, in this county, including a parcel of flats between high water mark and low water mark, over which the sea ebbs and flows. The defendant pleaded two pleas: the general issue, and soil and freehold in himself.
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This was an action of trespass for breaking and entering the plaintiff’s close, situate on Gamaliel’s Neck, in the town of Cape Elizabeth, in this county, including a parcel of flats between high water mark and low water mark, over which the sea ebbs and flows. The defendant pleaded two pleas: the general issue, and soil and freehold in himself. On these pleas, issues were joined to the country, which were tried before Sedgwick, J., at the last October term in this county; and on both issues a verdict was taken for the plaintiff, subject to the opinion of the Court upon two questions, viz: —…
1Opinion of the CourtParsons, C. J.
The first question referred to our consideration *358in this case arises upon the construction of the two deeds, whether the flats did or did not pass by them. The plaintiff’s construction of the first deed is, that running to the shore is running to low water mark, and running by the shore is running by low [ * 438 ] water mark ; and, * to support this construction, he relies on a maxim of our common law, that the proprietor of land adjoining on the sea or salt water, where the sea ebbs and flows, shall hold to low water mark, where the sea does not ebb more than one hundred rods, which it is…
2Cited by122 opinions
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- Potomac Steamboat Co. v. Upper Potomac Steamboat Co.Supreme Court of the United States · 1884
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