Opinion of the Court. arising from his having once possessed it. It does not appear that either the devisee or her husband ever exercised any acts of ownership in any way, or ever claimed to own it. After he left Smithfield, two of his children were supported by the the town, and the agent of the town, appointed to search for any property belonging to the father, from the sale of which the children might be supported, reported that there was only the six-acre parcel, which was held by him in the right of his wife. He afterwards went to the poor-house, where he died in 1800. During the thirty-nine years after he left Smithfield, and notwithstanding his having been part of that time in the poor-house, no word appears to have come from him asserting that he had any interest in the property. It is difficult to reconcile his conduct or that of his wife, the devisee, if in truth the testator continued the owner of the property until his death, and it passed under the codicil to his will. While Ezekiel Fuller was still living, and for several years after he had left Smithfield, Jeremiah Richardson, the testator's grandson, asserted ownership of the tract by its sale to Stephen Jencks by a deed with covenants of title and warranty, which was recorded in the town records. No word of opposition to this sale or to the subsequent mortgage of the property by the grantee was ever made, so far as the record discloses. The fact that Jeremiah Richardson was a minor when his grandfather died does not militate against the presumption of a deed to him. Nothing would be more natural than a deed of gift from the grandfather to the grandson. It would also seem from the charge of the court, that in the deed of Jeremiah to Jencks he recited that the property had come from his honored grandfather, or words to that effect. If, however, the evidence which, as the record says, tended to show that the devisee and her husband entered into the possession of the property devised, and the recital in his deed of April 11, 1761, of the 20-acre parcel, that it was bounded on the north by his former land, can be considered as rebutting the presumption of such a deed by the testator, then the defendants may fall back on the presumption of a deed to Jeremiah Richardson by Ezekiel and Abigail Fuller, the de Opinion of the Court. visee, and her husband. There is nothing in the conduct or language of either of these parties which in any way repels such a presumption. Their silence and non-claim of the property would rather indicate that they had parted with their interest. The minority of Jeremiah at the time only shows his inability to purchase the property, but those, under whose charge he was, could have purchased it for him, and had the deed executed to him. His orphanage may have induced such a proceeding. We do not, therefore, think that his minority at the time can be urged against the presumption of a deed to him. For the refusal of the court below to give the instruction requested, the case must go back for a new trial. We will add, moreover, that though a presumption of a deed is one that may be rebutted by proof of facts inconsistent with its supposed existence, yet where no such facts are shown, and the things done, and the things omitted, with regard to the property in controversy, by the respective parties, for long periods of time after the execution of the supposed conveyance, can be explained satisfactorily only upon the hypothesis of its existence, then the jury may be instructed that it is their duty to presume such a conveyance, and thus quiet the possession. How long a period must elapse after the date of the supposed conveyance before it may be presumed to have existed has not always been a matter of easy determination. "In general," said this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Story, "it is the policy of courts of law to limit the presumption of grants to periods analogous to those of the statute of limitations in cases where the statute does not apply. But where the statute applies, it constitutes, ordinarily, a sufficient title or defence, independently of any presumption of a grant, and, therefore, it is not generally resorted to. But if the circumstances of the case justify it, a presumption of a grant may as well be made in the one case as in the other; and where the other circumstances are very cogent and full, there is no absolute bar against the presumption of a grant, within a period short of the statute of limitations." Ricard v. Williams, 7 Wheat. 59, Opinion of the Court. The general statement of the doctrine, as we have seen from the authorities cited, is that the presumption of a grant is indulged merely to quiet a long possession which might otherwise be disturbed by reason of the inability of the possessor to produce the muniments of title, which were actually given at the time of the acquisition of the property by him or those under whom he claims, but have been lost, or which he or they were entitled to have at that time, but had neglected to obtain, and of which the witnesses have passed away, or their recollection of the transaction has become dimmed and imperfect. And hence, as a general rule, it is only where the possession has been actual, open and exclusive for the period prescribed by the statute of limitations to bar an action for the recovery of land, that the presumption of a deed can be invoked. But the reason for attaching such weight to a possession of this character is the notoriety it gives to the claim of the occupant; and, in countries where land is generally occupied or cultivated, it is the most effective mode of asserting ownership. But, as Mr. Justice Story observes, in delivering the opinion of this court in Green v. Liter, 8 Cranch, 249, “In the simplicity of ancient times there were no means of ascertaining titles but by the visible seizin; and, indeed, there was no other mode, between subjects, of passing title, but livery of the land itself by the symbolical delivery of turf and twig. The moment that a tenant was thus seized he had a perfect investiture; and, if ousted, could maintain his action for the realty, although he had not been long enough in possession even to touch the esplees. The very object of the rule, therefore, was notoriety; to prevent frauds upon the lord and upon the other tenants." There may be acts equally notorious, and therefore equally evincive of ownership, which, taken in connection with a long possession, even if that possession has been subject to occasional intrusion, are as fully suggestive of rightful origin as an uninterrupted possession. Where any proprietary right is exercised for a long period, which, if not founded upon a lawful origin, would in the usual course of things be resisted by parties interested, and no such resistance is made, a presumption may be indulged that the proprietary right had Opinion of the Court. a lawful origin. The principle is thus stated by Mr. Justice Stephen of the High Court of Justice of England, in his Digest of the Law of Evidence, using the term grant in a general sense, as indicating a conveyance of real property, whether corporeal or incorporeal: "When it has been shown that any person has, for a long period of time, exercised any proprietary right which might have had a lawful origin by grant or license from the Crown or from a private person, and the exercise of which might and naturally would have been prevented by the persons interested, if it had not had a lawful origin, there is a presumption that such right had a lawful origin and that it was created by a proper instrument which has been lost." Art. 100. This presumption may, therefore, in some instances, be properly invoked where a proprietary right has long been exercised, although the exclusive possession of the whole property, to which the right is asserted, may have been occasionally interrupted during the period necessary to create a title by adverse possession, if in addition to the actual possession there were other open acts of ownership. If the interruptions did not impair the uses to which the possessor subjected the property, and for which it was chiefly valuable, they should not necessarily be held to defeat the presumption of the rightful origin of his claim to which the facts would otherwise lead. It is a matter which, under proper instructions, may be left to the jury. In the present case, acts of ownership over the property in controversy by the ancestors in title of the defendants, so far as they could be manifested by written transfers of it, either as conveyances of title or by way of security, were exercised from 1768 for more than a century. The first conveyance, from which the defendants trace their title, was duly recorded in the land records of the town soon after its execution in that year. The assessment of taxes on the property to those ancestors, and their payment of the taxes for twenty years between 1770 and 1805, and the assessment of taxes to them or to the defendants for seventy-seven years after 1805, and the payment of the taxes by them, such assessment being required to be made, under the laws of the state, to occupants or owners Opinion of the Court. of the land, are circumstances of great significance, taken in connection with their constantly asserted ownership. In Ewing v. Burnet, this court speaks of the uninterrupted payment of taxes on a lot for twenty-four consecutive years as "powerful evidence of claim of right to the whole lot." 11 Peters, 41, 54. Here, as seen, the taxes were uninterruptedly paid by the defendants or their ancestors in title for a much longer period. In St. Louis Public Schools v. Risley's Heirs, the Supreme Court of Missouri said: "Payment of taxes has been admitted in questions of adverse possession, and may have an important bearing, as it is not usual for one owning realty to neglect paying taxes for a period which would be sufficient to constitute a bar under the statute of limitations, or for one to pay taxes having no claim or color of title." 40 Missouri, 356, 370. In Davis v. Easley, which was an action of ejectment, the Supreme Court of Illinois held that receipts for taxes paid by the plaintiff were admissible, and said: "The payment of taxes indicated that the plaintiff claimed title to the whole tract. It likewise tended to explain the character and extent of his possession." 13 Ill. 192, 201. In this case, the ancestors of the defendants entered upon the land under claim of title, and opened and worked the ledge of rock running through it as early as 1835, and from 1846 they or their tenants or lessees continued, with occasional intervals, to work that ledge to the time of trial in 1882, a period of thirty-six years, and it does not appear that during that time any one ever interfered with their work or complained of it. To constitute an adverse possession it was not necessary that they should have actually occupied or enclosed the land. It was sufficient that they subjected it to such uses as it was susceptible of to the exclusion of others. Ellicott v. Pearl, 10 Pet. 412, 442. That subjection might be shown by the quarrying of the ledge and the removal of the stone, without disturbance or complaint from any quarter. The exclusive working of the quarry, under claim of title to the whole tract by virtue of conveyances in which it was described, might operate in law to carry the possession over the whole; and the payment of taxes thereon might authorize the jury to infer |