Wheeler v. Benjamin

GRAY, C.

This action is brought to quiet title to a lot of land sixty-seven feet and one inch wide from east to west and one hundred and thirty-seven feet and six inches long from north to south, situated in block 574 in the Western Addition of the city of San Francisco, at the northeast corner of Broadway and Lyon streets, and in the southwest corner of said block, according to what is described as the official map of the city and county of San Francisco, prepared by William P. Humphreys. On a trial of the case without a jury, the plaintiff had judgment. This appeal is from said judgment and from an order denying a new trial, and is brought here by the said city and county, the other defendants not appealing.

The plaintiff deraigns title from the city and county of San Francisco by deed executed to plaintiff’s predecessor by said city and county in June, 1870. The theory of plaintiff and respondent is, that the said city acquired title to the disputed lot by the patent of the pueblo lands issued by the government of the United States to the city of San Francisco on the twentieth day of June, 1854, as the final step in proceedings initiated by said city by petition filed on the second day of July, 1852, with the commission appointed under an act of Congress to ascertain and settle the private land claims in the state of California.

The city claims title to the premises in dispute under the act of Congress of May 9, 1876, (19 Stats, at Large, p. 52,) entitled “An act to relinquish the interests of the United States in certain lands to the city and county of San Francisco in the state of California.”

In the pueblo patent the exterior boundaries of the four leagues of land conveyed are fully described by courses and distances as they had been surveyed in the field. By the terms of the patent some fifteen tracts within these exterior boundaries are excepted from its operation and are not conveyed

; among these

tracts is the “Presidio Military Reservation.” The exterior boundaries of said reservation are not

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given in terms by course and distance, but there is attached to and made part of the patent a map whereon the eastern, boundary of said Presidio reservation is indicated as the western line of Lyon Street. It is contended by respondent that this plat, being a part of the patent, must govern as to the boundary between the reservation and the pueblo lands, and that the land east of that line was conveyed to the city by the patent.