This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0014_01C02BA9.C0282E20 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I know some of you are researching the Summers family and I just typed = this up and thought someone might use this. Boston Gerenger vs. Ludwick W. Summers, 24 N. C. 229 (1842).=20 the Summers family had owned property along Reddy Fork of Haw River = since 1796, when Peter Summers purchased the property. The propery then = contained a milldam. In 1812 Peter Summers rebuilt the dam about 1 foot = highter thatn the original milldam. In 1826, Boxton Gerenger owned = property upstream of the Summers property and erected a grist and = sawmill on his property. In 1839, the defendant. Ludwick Summers (son of = Peter Summers), who now owned the Summers property, built a new dam = above the dam that his father had renovated. Gerenger claimed that the = new dam raised the water level of the Summers pond to such an extent = that it raised his mill whells and caused damage. Summers countered that his new dam was not higher, but rather just = tighter and able to retain water better than the dilapidated dam it = replaced. He siad Gerenger's mill doundation was faulty and was sinking, = and that that was the true cause of the damage. Summers claimed, = finally, that his pond had been at the same level for over twenty years = and thus he had acquired an easement or pirivilege of ponding the water = on Gerenger's land at that level. At trial during the spring term, 1842 of Guilford Court, there was = contradictory evidence about whether the new Summers dam was higher than = the dam it replaced. The trial judge, Judge Dick, instructed the jury that an uninterrupted = ponding level of twenty years or more would in fact entitle Summers to = an easement or privilege of ponding on Gerenger's property and that = temporary lowering of the pond level-such as by drought, the need for = repairs or sudden breaches of the dam-would not defeat Summers' right. = Judge Dick further instructed that Gerenger's construction of hi mill in = 1826 did not defeat Summers' right. The jury found in favor of Summers, and Gerenger appealed. Gerenger = chose to go unrepresented by counsel for the appeal, and Summers was = represented by J. T. Morehead. The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Ruffin, affirmed the = trial count judgment. The Court felt that the jury could have reasonably = found from the evidence that Summers did not raise the water level = higher that that maintained by his father. The jury could also have = reasonably found from the evidence, the Court said, that the pond had = been kept at that height for the twenty years or more necessary for = Summers to obtain a legal easement or privilege to pond water on = Gerenger's property, Finally, the Court agreed with Judge Dick that = Gerenger's construction of his mill in 1826 was not sufficie