Martin v. United States Trust Co. of New York

STEPHENS, Justice.

Almost a century has passed since the Texas Pacific Land Trust issued its Certificate # 390, the only remaining outstanding certificate of the Trust, in the street name of Blake Brothers & Company, a stock brokerage house operating in Boston and New York. This suit is to determine the true owner of the certificate.

In 1885, the Texas and Pacific Railway went into receivership, only a few years after Texas had granted it millions of acres of public domain in return for its promise to build a railroad from Texarkana to El Paso. In 1887, a plan of reorganization was approved…