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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



of streams, but both remained the property of the State. When 

 the colony of New Netherlands passed into the hands of the En- 

 glish government, the colonists were assured the peaceful enjoy- 

 ment of all the rights they then possessed. The beds of large 

 streams, never having been conveyed, became then vested in the 

 English government as ungranted lands, to which as a conse- 

 quence of the Revolution, the State of New York succeeded in due 

 course. 



Throughout the Colonial as well as the early State period this 

 right seems never to have been questioned; it was only after the 

 beginning of the era of internal improvement that questions aris- 

 ing under this head became leading ones in the jurisprudence of 

 this State. 



The English common law, which became in force in the colony 

 of Xew York after the English occupancy, differs from the civil 

 law of Holland in affirming the right of the riparian proprietors, 

 not only to the banks of non-navigable large streams, but also to 

 the beds thereof and hence to a right to the flow of the water 

 paramount to that of the State, which could only acquire rights 

 therein by the exercise of eminent domain and the granting of 

 just compensation. 



The principle of State ownership of the Hudson and Mohawk 

 rivers was strongly asserted over one hundred years ago, in 1792, 

 when on March 30 of that year an act passed the legislature in- 

 corporating the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, hav- 

 ing for its object the improvement of navigation of the Mohawk 

 river from the navigable portion of the Hudson to Rome, and 

 thence to Lake Ontario and Seneca lake, ami the Northern Inland 

 Lock Navigation Company, having for its object to open a like 

 communication from the navigable part of the Hudson river to 

 Lake Ohamplain. In an amendment to this act. passed Decern 

 ber 22, 1792, it is provided that all the land under the Mohawk 

 and Hudson rivers which may be occupied by those corporations 

 is vested in them during the continuance of the franchise "as a 

 free gift from the people of this State," saving and reserving to 

 the people the right to all the lands under the water not so 

 occupied as aforesaid, to be appropriated as the legislature might 

 from time to time direct. 



