Stephen Johnson Field

“ The owners of property, especially if it be valuable and available, do not often allow it to remain in the quiet and unquestioned enjoyment f others. Such a course is not in accordance with the ordinary conduct of men. When, therefore, possession and use are long continued, they create a presumption of lawful origin; that is, that they are founded upon such instruments and proceedings as in law would pass the right to the possession and use of the property. ”

“ Where any proprietary right is exercised for a long period, which, if not founded upon a lawful origin, would in the usual conrse of things be resisted by parties interested, and no such resistance is made, a presumption may be indulged that the proprietary right had a lawful origin. ”

“ No taxes were ever assessed to the Fullers, or paid by them. Neither plaintiff nor defend ants, nor their ancestors, ever resided on the premises, and the land was occupied and possessed by the ancestors in title of the defendants only in the way mentioned.
Upon the case thus presented, and we have not omitted, we think, any material circumstance in the statement, the defendants asked an instruction to the jury as to the presumption they might make of a lost grant to their ancestor in title, which the court refused. ”

“ If, in the intermediate time between the different acts of occupancy, there is no existing intention to continue the possession, or to return to the enjoyment of the premises, the possession, if it has not ripened into a title, terminates, and cannot afterwards be connected with a subsequent occupation so as to be made available towards gaining title ”

“ This is an action of ejectment to recover possession of twenty-seven twenty-eighths undivided parts of a tract of land, containing about 14 acres, situated in the town of Lincoln, formerly Smithfield, in the state of Rhode Island. The plaintiff, a citizen of Connecticut, sues the defendants, citizens of Rhode Island, in his own right, and as trustee for others. ”

“ The land has never been put under cultivation. Prior to 1858 it was covered with wood, and every year from 1829 to 1857 the ancestors of the defendants cut wood upon it for family use. In 1857 the father of the defendants cut and applied to his use all the wood of value then remaining. The land had an extensive ledge of rock running across its center from north to south, which was opened by defendants' ancestors as early as 1835. ”