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The St. Paul Daily Globe, July 16, 1884, p. 2


The Prescott Suit Against the City.


The civil suit of Harriet A. Prescott and Charles A. Prescott against Ferdinand Berger, the Dakota avenue contractor and the city of St. Paul for entering upon their bluff bordering on the St. Paul and Owatonna highway beyond the bounds originally staked out by the engineer for the improvement of Dakota avenue was taken up before Judge Simons in the district court late yesterday afternoon and the hearing will be likely to occupy the court for the balance of the week.

Warner & Stevens appear in the trial for the plaintiiffs, and City Attorney W. P. Murray and H. J. Horn for the defendants. The plaintiffs assert that the "monument" for the widening of the avenue at the point in question have been moved three times since the improvement commenced and that the city engineer is locating the avenue "line at his own sweet will and claiming the land thus covered as public property," while the city turns up a deed given the city by the former owner of the Prescott bluff conveying some portion of the bluff to the city, which deed has never been recorded.

The fight of the Prescotts seems to be against the city's encroaching west of where the engineer originally laid out the avenue line without the city paying for the land thus taken, and the case seems to hang in some manner on the proof of the location of the old St. Paul and Owatonna highway west line, for which, as in the present Thompson case against the city in regard to land on the same avenue, all the older citizens, familiar with how it was "in the olden times," are to be called to the stand to testify.

This civil action is for the nominal damage of $500, and an injunction has been laid on the work being carried on for 700 feet along the bluff, owned by the Prescott's, and will remain there until this suit is decided. It will be remembered that the grand jury found two indictments against Mr. Prescott at the May term of court for assaulting the workmen and police officers in driving them from these premises, the trials on which were continued by Judge Brill in the next general term. Further proceedings in these will also hinge on the decision of this civil suit by Judge Simons.


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