Starke-Belknap v. New York Central Railroad

Headnote

Real property — title — ejectment — Cortlandt manor — lands under water of coves and bays appurtenant to upland passed under royal grant to original proprietor — subsequent grant by state of such lands under water conveys no title.

Starke-Belknap v. N. Y. Central R. R. Co., 197 App. Div. 249 , affirmed.

Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial

department, entered June 21, 1921, unanimously affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a decision of the court on trial at Special Term. The action was in ejectment. The complaint described two parcels, one to the east and the other to the west of defendant’s railroad tracks along the shore of the Hudson river in the town of Cortlandt, Westchester county, both parcels having originally been below high-water mark, as parts of bays or coves oh the eastern side of said river. In straightening its tracks the defendant filled in one of these parcels, and in part appropriated the other parcel under a land grant or patent from the state of New York for this and other submerged lands on the river, dated December 26, 1873. The question was whether the royal grant by letters patent of June 17, 1697, to Stephanus Van Cortlandt, creating Cortlandt manor, had included these submerged lands. The trial court held that it did and that consequently the state of New York had no title to grant to the defendant.