Doe on the demise of ADELAIDE AND ELIZABETH KRON v. MARTIN HINSON.
A grant from the State, purporting to be made in obedience to acts of the General Assembly, providing for the relief of persons whose title deeds had been destroyed by the burning of the courthouses, &c., of Hertford and Montgomery counties, was held to be color of title.
This was an action of ejectment, tried before French, J., at the Fall Term, 1860, of Montgomery Superior Court.
The lessors of the plaintiff offered in evidence a grant from the State, dated on the 11th of December, 1819, which purported to have been issued “in obedience to an act of the General Assembly of this State, passed at the session of 1811-5,' chapter 53, ratified on the 1st of January, 1815, entitled “ An act to extend the provisions of an act passed at the General Assembly of 1830-1, entitled an act for the relief of such ptersons as may suffer from the destruction of the records of Hertford county, occasioned by the burning of the courthouse and clerks office, to the counties of Montgomery and Stanly.” To entitle themselves to the benefit of said acts of Assembly, the lessors of the plaintiff produced evidence to show that the title deeds under .which they claimed the land in question, were consumed by the fire which burned the courthouse of Montgomery county in the year 1813; that they had made advertisement of a survey in 1819, setting fourth their boundaries, and the grounds on which they claimed a right to an *348entry and grant for the said land. They also proposed to show the entry made in 1849, and which is recited in the said grant. They farther proved that they had had seven years possession of the land in question, and insisted that at least the grant offered by them was color of title. The Court rejected the evidence, and the plaintiff took a nonsuit, and appealed.
Ashe, for the plaintiff.
No counsel appeared for the defendant in this Court.
Manly, J.
We do not think it necessary to discuss other questions presented upon this record. There is one ruled erroneously, without doubt, to the prejudice of the appellant,, and for that he is entitled to a venwe de novo: the grant of the 14lh of December, 1849, to Adelaide and Elizabeth Kron, is color of title. We perceive no reason why it is not so.— The public authorities decided upon the evidence before them that the grantees were entitled, under the provisions of the acts of Assembly, and, accordingly, they made the grant. It in form purports to convey title — emanates from proper and the highest officers of the State, and is, therefore, of a character to induce a man of ordinary capacity to confide in it as sufficient to secure the enjoyment of the land. This is all that is necessary to constitute color; Dobson v. Murphy, 1 Dev. and Bat. 586; Tate’s heirs v. Southard, 3 Hawks 119.
Many forms of conveyance, much less imposing than this, have been held to be color ; as, for instance, an unregistered deed — an unconstitutional act of the Legislature' — a deed without consideration, and intended, merely, as color; Den on the demise of Campbell v. McArthur, 2 Hawks 33; Episcopal Church of Newbern v. The Academy, 2 Hawks 233; Rogers v. Mabe, 4 Dev. 180.
The nonsuit should be set aside and a venire de novo awarded.
Per Curiam,
Judgment reversed.