In November, 1880, the defendants in error brought an action of ejectment, in the circuit court of Chambers county, Alabama, against the East Alabama Railway Company, to recover premises described in the complaint as follows: 'A certain tract or parcel of land, being the railroad bed of the railroad, formerly known and called the 'East Alabama & Cincinnati Railroad,' from Lafayette to the county line of Lee county, together with all the land contiguous to said road-bed, on each side thereof, to the distance of 75 feet from the center thereof, said railroad being now known and called as the 'East Alabama Railway,' with the appurtenances, situate in the county of Chambers aforesaid.' Lafayette is in Chambers county, and Lee county lies south of Chambers. The suit was duly removed by the company into the circuit court of the United States for the Middle district of Alabama. It was tried before a jury, in December, 1881, on a suggestion that the company had been in adverse possession of the premises for more than three years before the bringing of the suit, and had made permanent and valuable improvements by building a railroad thereon; and on the plea of not guilty. The jury found for the plaintiffs 'for all the property described in the complaint,' and assessed their damages at $3,963.40, and there was a judgment accordingly. The company brings a writ of error.
The bill of exceptions sets forth all the evidence in the cause. The following are all the facts which it is needful to state: The Lafayette Branch Railroad Company was incorporated by the legislature of Alabama, February 7, 1848, to construct a railroad from Lafayette to intersect or connect with the Montgomery & West Point Railroad at some suitable point between Chehaw and West Point. By an amendatory act of April 9, 1854, the company was authorized to extend its road beyond Lafayette in the direction of the Tennessee river, and to connect the same with any railroad built, or being built, or to be built, so as to connect with some point on the Tennessee river. By an amendatory act of January 25, 1860, its name was changed to the Opelika & Oxford Railroad Company, and it was authorized to connect its road with the Alabama & Tennessee River Railroad at or near Oxford, Calhoun county. The companies were successively organized. In 1861 one Richards was elected president. The Opelika & Oxford Company acquired the right of way through the lands of all the proprietors of the soil, from a point on the Montgomery & West Point Railroad, about two miles northerly from Opelika, in Lee county, to Lafayette, by deeds from all the proprietors, (save in one case.) The deeds, except in the description of the land through which the road was to pass, were all in the form of the following one:
'MARY F. MCLEMORE TO OPELIKA & OXFORD R. R. CO.