Bartlett v. Judd. reformed. He was the purchaser at the sale. He stood by and heard the proclamation of the sheriff, that the sixty-three acres were excepted from the sale, and he purchased knowing that he was not bidding upon this land, and that he was to have no title to it. Being chargeable with notice before he received his deed, it is both dishonest and inequitable for him to lay by for fourteen years after he has received his deed, during all which time the property has been constantly occupied by others under a title which no one pretended to question, and then seek to recover land to which of right he has not the shadow of a claim. The case of Mason v. White (11 Barb., 173), which is much relied on by the counsel for the plaintiff, decides nothing adverse to these views; or if it does, it cannot be followed as an authority in this court. There the deed was given, not to the purchaser at the sheriff's sale, but to the assignee of the certificate, a third party who did not appear to have been present at the sale, and was chargeable with no notice of what there took place. The question also was entirely different. The description of the land in the certificate and deed was so vague and uncertain that it was doubtful which of two pieces, either of which might be made to answer the description, was really intended to be sold; and the point of the inquiry was to ascertain what was the intention of the sheriff. The whole evidence was of the most vague and undecisive character, so much so as to induce the court to say they should have come to a conclusion upon it differing from that of the referee. In such a case it may well be that such evidence should not be received. But when the learned judge in that case states that although, as between man and man, deeds may be explained and reformed by reason either of fraud or mistake, but that the deed of a sheriff cannot thus be reformed, he states a proposition for which I can find no authority in the books, and from which I am constrained to dissent. The only case referred to for this doctrine is Jackson v. Delancy (13 John, 539), which certainly decides nothing more than that in a sheriff's deed the land must be described with reasonable certainty. The deed Bartlett v. Judd. in that case having undertaken to convey, with two parcels well described, all the other lands of William Earl of Stirling in the county of Ulster, it was held to be void for uncertainty. No such principle as this was necessary to the decision in the case of Mason v. White, which can well stand without its aid; and if fully carried out, this doctrine would place both the cer tificates and the deeds of sheriffs utterly beyond the reach of the law, although its aid were invoked upon the clearest proof of inadvertence, mistake or fraud. III. There is no difficulty in this case arising from the provisions of the statute (2 R. S., 302, § 52) requiring bills for relief to be filed within ten years after the cause thereof shall accrue. In the first place, this case does not come within the letter of the statute, which applies to bills filed by a plaintiff for specific relief and not to a defendant resisting an unrighteous claim by an equitable defence. But if it is within its spirit, the statute does not bar the defendant's claim for relief. Varick v. Edwards (11 Paige, 290) is a decisive authority to show that when a party to whom land belongs in equity, is in possession and is afterwards evicted by one claiming a legal title, the statute does not begin to run until such eviction. A bill consequently may be filed at any time within ten years after the eviction. Here the plaintiff really had no legal title in the strict sense of the term; and neither the defendant nor any of his predecessors in the occupation and ownership of the land had any reasonable ground even of suspicion, that he would, after the lapse of fourteen years, attempt to put such a construction upon his deed as to disturb a possession so long and so quietly held. The defendant is chargeable neither with knowledge nor notice of any such claim until this suit was brought. The reply alleges that the supposed mistake in the deed was discovered by Moore and the other grantees more than ten years before the commencement of this suit. Of this allegation not a particle of proof was offered upon the trial, and from the very nature of this case it is manifest that none of the parties can be presumed to be chargeable in law with any such knowledge. The judgment should be affirmed. McKinnon v. Bliss. All the judges concurred upon both grounds; DENIO, J., preferring to put the judgment upon the construction of the sheriff's deed. Judgment affirmed. MCKINNON et al. v. BLISS. The will of Sir William Johnson, made in 1774, asserting his title, under letters patent from the British Crown, to a tract of over ninety thousand acres, called Kingsland, together with recitals in private acts of the legislature, admitting the fact of such a grant and asserting the forfeiture of the estate by reason of the treason of Sir William and some of his devisees held no evidence of the fact that such a grant had been made by the Crown as against a person not shown to claim title under the People of this State by grant subsequent to the Revolution. There is no presumption against one in possession of land, that his title is derived from the People and not from the Crown of Great Britain or the Colonial Government.. The assertion of title in a deed or will, however ancient, is never evidence in favor of persons claiming under the person who executed the instrument, nor against strangers, except when supported by other proof of a long continued and undisputed possession, in accordance with the title asserted. The recitals in a public statute are admissible, it seems, in suits between private individuals, only as prima facie, and not as conclusive evidence of the facts therein stated; per SELden, J. The recitals in a private statute, are, in general, evidence that the facts were so represented to the legislature, and not that they actually existed. Where such recitals appear to be based upon the information of public officers specially charged with the duty of ascertaining the truth of the representations upon which the legislature acted, although they may operate as admissions. against the State or its subsequent grantees, they do not affect those who are in no manner parties to them. A party relying upon historical facts must produce some evidence thereof to the jury. The court, pon appeal from a non-suit, will not take judicial notice of such matter which was not presented upon the trial. Whether an historical work may be read in evidence while its author is living and might be called as a witness, Quere. A local history, e. g., that of Herkimer county, is not, it seems, admissible evidence. To warrant its introduction, it must relate to such facts as are of a public and general nature, and of interest to the whole State. McKinnon v. Bliss. That the letters patent for the Royal Grant, a tract including many thousand acres and now occupied by several thousand persons, were buried in the ground by the descendants of the patentee during the Revolution, and thus perished by decay, is, it seems, a fact which from its nature and the necessity of the case may be proved by tradition. Such evidence, however, is inadmissible without proof that the residents upon the Royal Grant generally held their possessions and claimed their titles under the alleged patent, and thus had an interest in acquainting themselves with its history. Jackson v. Lunn (3 John. Ca., 109); Doe v. Phelps (9 John., 169), and Jackson v. Lamb (7 Cow., 431), considered and distinguished. APPEAL from the Supreme Court. Ejectment for land in Herkimer county described as being part of Susanna Johnson's three thousand acre tract, in the fourth allotment of the Royal Grant. Upon the trial before Mr. Justice PRATT and a jury, the plaintiffs read in evidence an exemplified copy of the will of Sir William Johnson, dated January, 27, 1774, and which was proved before the surrogate of Tryon county in July, 1774. This will recited that "his present majesty George the Third, was graciously pleased, as a mark of his favour and regard, to give me a patent under the great seal for the tract of land now called Kingsland." It devised to different persons ninety-two thousand acres of that tract, designating it as Kingsland, or the Royal Grant. Among the devisees were the eight natural children of Sir William by his housekeeper Mary Brant, an Indian woman. Susanna, one of these children, was the devisee of three thousand acres, and the plaintiffs proved a chain of conveyances by her and her grantees, one of which, dated April 1st, 1797, was to James Cochran, who conveyed to the father of the plaintiffs. They also proved that fruitless search had been made for the patent to Sir William Johnson, or a copy thereof, in all the State offices in Albany, and in various other public offices in this State. They then called Mr. Ford, who testified that he was a counsellor at law, had resided in Herkimer county forty years, and had been conversant with titles and real property in that county. He knew the tract of land designated as the Royal Grant, which included several towns and parts of towns, and knew the tradition current among The McKinnon v. Bliss. settlers on that tract concerning the letters patent. The plaintiffs then proposed to ask him, "what is reported among the settlers of this tract to have been the disposition made of the instrument of letters patent?" The testimony was excluded, and the plaintiffs took an exception. The plaintiffs then read in evidence two statutes of this State. One, an act for the relief of Jacob Merkle and others, passed February 26, 1797 (3 Greenleaf, 271), recites that "it is represented to the legislature that the Commissioners of Forfeitures for the Western District of this State have, by mistake, sold certain lands in the Royal Grant, belonging to the estates of Peter Johnson, the natural son of Sir William Johnson, Baronet, deceased, as a part of the forfeited estate of Sir John Johnson, Baronet, which lands did of right belong to Susanna Johnson (and others named) the surviving brothers and sisters of the said Peter Johnson as devisees of the said Sir William Johnson, deceased." It further recited that three of such sisters had been convicted of adhering to the enemy and their estates forfeited, and that no record of such conviction and forfeiture existed against the other four, of whom Susanna was one. It provided for the payment of four-sevenths of the proceeds of the sales of such land to certain purchasers from Susanna and the other heirs of Peter Johnson who were not convicted of adhering to the enemy, provided the Attorney-General exam ined their title and certified its validity. James Cochran was named as one of these alleged purchasers. The other act was of a similar character, passed March 31, 1798 (Andrews, 430). The plaintiffs here rested, and being nonsuited took an exception. Judgment upon the nonsuit having been affirmed at general term in the fifth district, the plaintiffs appealed to this court. David Dudley Field, for the appellants, argued, among other things, that the courts should take judicial notice that there was a patent from the British Crown, before the Revolution, of a tract of land known as the Royal Grant. He referred, in addition to the statutes read in evidence upon |