Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

traveling over the same, but without impairing its right to take toll on the remaining part of its road at the rate prescribed by law; and whenever any turnpike or plank-road company, now existing or hereafter created, shall abandon all or any part of its road within this state in the manner above provided, or whenever its charter or franchise of such company shall be annulled or revoked, the road of such turnpike or plank-road company shall revert to and belong to the several towns, cities and villages through which such road shall pass. And it shall be the duty of the several towns, cities and villages acquiring any road under this act to immediately lay out and declare the same a free public highway. And it shall be the duty of the several towns, cities and villages, to maintain and work every road acquired under the provisions of this act in the same manner as the other roads of such towns, cities and villages are maintained and worked. And any town, city or village may borrow money in the manner provided by law for the purpose of improving or repairing the same. (As amended by chap. 964 of 1896.)

§ 140. Taxation and exemption.-So much of any bridge or toll-house of any bridge corporation as may be within any town, city or village, shall be liable to taxation therein as real estate. Toll-houses and other fixtures and all property belonging to any plank-road or turnpike corporation shall be exempt from assessment and taxation for any purpose until the surplus annual receipts of tolls on its road over necessary repairs and a suitable reserve fund for repairs or relaying of plank, shall exceed sever per cent per annum on the first cost of the road. If the assess ors of any town, village or city and the corporation disagree con cerning any exemption claim, the corporation may appeal to the county judge of the county in which such assessment is pro posed to be made, who shall, after due notice to both parties, examine the books and vouchers of the corporation, and take such further proof as he shall deem proper, and decide whether such corporation is liable to taxation under this section, and his decision shall be final.

§ 141. Hauling logs and timber.-Any person who shall draw or haul or cause to be drawn or hauled, any logs, timber or othe material upon the bed of any plank or turnpike road, unless the same shall be entirely elevated above the surface of the road on wheels or runners, and the road-bed shall be injured thereby, of who shall do or cause to be done any act by which the road-bed

Turnpike, Plank-Road and Bridge Corporations.

SS 142-145

or any ditch, sluice, culvert or drain appertaining to any turnpike or plank-road shall be injured or obstructed, or shall divert or cause to be diverted, any stream of water so as to injure or endanger any part of such road, shall forfeit to the corporation the sum of five dollars for every offense in addition to the damages resulting from the wrongful act.

§ 142. Encroachment of fences.--Whenever the president or secretary of any turnpike or plank-road corporation shall notify any inspector of such roads in the county where situated that any person is erecting or has erected any fence or other structure upon any part of the premises lawfully set apart for any such turnpike or plank-road, the inspector shall examine into the facts and order the fence or other structure to be removed if it shall appear to be upon any part of any such road, and any person neglecting or refusing to remove the same within twenty days or such further time not exceeding three months, as may be fixed by the inspector, shall forfeit to the corporation the sum of five dollars for every day, during which the fence or other structure shall remain upon such road, but no such order shall require the removal of any fence, previously erected, between the first day of December and the first day of April.

8 143. Penalty for fast driving over bridges.-Any plank road, turnpike or bridge corporation may put up and maintain at conspicuous places at each end of any bridge, owned or maintained by it, the length of whose span is not less than twentyfive feet, a notice with the following words in large characters: "One dollar fine for riding or driving over this bridge faster than a walk." Whoever shall ride or drive faster than a walk, over any bridge, upon which such notice shall have been placed, and shall then be, shall forfeit to the corporation the sum of one dollar for every such offense.

§ 144. Acts of directors prohibited. No director of any such corporation shall be concerned, directly or indirectly, in any contract for making or working any road belonging to it during the time he shall be a director. No contractor for the making of such road, or any part thereof, shall make a new contract for the performance of his work, or any part of it, other than by hiring hands, teams, carriages or utensils to be superintended and paid by himself, unless such new contract and its terms be laid before the board of directors and be approved by them.

§ 145. Actions for penalties.-No action to recover any pen.

[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

alty against any turnpike or plank-road corporation, shall be commenced or maintained against it, or any of its officers or agents, unless commenced within thirty days after the penalty was incurred.

146. Proof of incorporation.-In any action brought by or against any domestic turnpike or plank-road corporation, which shall have been in actual operation, and in possession of a road upon which it has taken toll for five consecutive years, next preceding the commencement of the action, parol proof of such corporate existence and use shall be sufficient to establish the incorporation of the corporation, for all the purposes of the action, unless the opposing party shall set up a claim in his complaint or answer duly verified of title in himself to the road, or some part thereof stating the nature of his title, and right to the immediate possession and use thereof.

147. When stockholders to be directors.-When the whole number of stockholders in any turnpike or plank-road corporation shall not exceed the number of directors specified in the certificate of incorporation, each stockholder shall be a director of such cor poration, and the stockholder shall constitute the board of directors, whatever may be their number, and a majority thereof shall be a quorum for the transaction of business.

148. Dissolution of corporation.--Every turnpike, plank road or bridge corporation may be dissolved by the legislature when, by the income arising from tolls, it shall have been compensated for all moneys expended in purchasing, making, repairing and taking care of its road, and have received in addition thereto an average annual interest at the rate of ten per cent, and on such dissolution all the rights and property of the corporation shall vest in the people of the state. Any such corporation, which shall not within two years from the filing of its certificate of incorpora. tion, have commenced the construction of its road or bridge and actually expended thereon ten per cent of its capital, or which shall not within five years from such filing have completed its road or bridge, or, in case such bridge is destroyed, shall not rebuild the same within five years, or which, for a period of five consecutive years shall have neglected or omitted to exercise its corporate functions shall be deemed dissolved. Where the corporation has neglected or omitted for five years to exercise its corporate functions, and its road-bed or right of way shall have been used as a public highway for that period, or where any such corporation shall

Turnpike, Plank-Road and Bridge Corporations.

S$ 149-150

have become dissolved, or where the road or any part of it of a turnpike or plank-road corporation, or the bridge of any bridge corporation, shall have been discontinued, such road-bed or right of way, and such discontinued road or bridge, and the road or bridge of any such dissolved corporation shall thereafter be a public highway, with the same effect as if laid out by the commissioners of highways of the town, and be subject to the laws relating to highways and the erection, repairing and preservation of bridges thereon.

§ 149. Towns must pay for lands not originally a highway.— When the corporate existence of any plank-road or turnpike corporation shall have ceased by limitation of time, or where any judgment of ouster or dissolution, or restraining the exercise of its franchise has been rendered in any action against it, such portion of the line of its road as was built over lands which were originally purchased by it and not previously a public highway shall not be used as a public highway, nor be taken possession or control of by the town in which the same may be, or by any of the authorities thereof or be claimed or worked or used as a public highway until the town shall pay over to the treasurer, receiver or other legal representatives of the corporation, or its assigns, the principal sum of the amounts paid by it for such lands, as shown by the deeds of conveyance thereof to it, and every such judgment shall provide accordingly. Such payments shall be made within three months after the expiration of the corporate existence of the corporation, or if any such judgment has been or shall be rendered within three months after service of written notice of the entry therefor of the supervisor of the town, and the person receiving such payment shall execute a proper discharge therefor and a conveyance to the town of all the title and interest which the corporation had in such lands at the expiration of its corporate existence.

§ 150. Highway labor upon line of plank-road or turnpike.Every person liable for highway labor living or owning property on the line of any plank-road or turnpike may, on written application to the commissioners of highways of the town, on any day previous to making out the highway warrant by the commissioners, be assessed for the highway labor upon his property upon the line of such road, in the discretion of the commissioners to be worked out upon the line of such road as a separate road district, and the commissioners shall make a separate list of the persons and prop.

[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

erty so assessed, as for a separate road district, and deliver the same to one of the directors of the corporation owning such road, who shall cause such highway labor to be worked out on such road in the same manner that oversees* of highways are required to do, and such directors shall possess the powers and have the authority to compel the performance of such highway labor or the payment of the tax therefor as such oversees* now have by law, and shall make like returns to the commissioner of highway, and any person so assessed may commute for the highway labor assessed upon him or his property by paying the sum now fixed by law as the commutation for such highway labor.

8151. Extension of corporate existence.-No turnpike, plankroad or bridge corporation shall extend its corporate existence, pursuant to the provisions of the general corporation law, without the written consent of the persons owning at least two-thirds of its capital stock, nor without the consent of the board of supervisors of each county in which any part of its road or bridge is situated, which consent shall be given by a resolution of the board adopted at any regular or special meeting, and a copy of such resolution, certified by the clerk of the board, or verified by the affidavit of some member thereof, together with such consent of the stockholders, and a statement verified by the affidavit of the president and treasurer of the corporation, showing the actual capital expended upon the construction of the road, exclusive of repairs, the name of each town or ward through or into which the road passes, and, if any part of the road shall have been abandoned, the actual cost of the remaining part, exclusive of repairs, shall be filed with the certificate of the continuance of the corporate existence. No further abandonment of any road belonging to a corporation whose corporate existence has been so extended shall be made, except with the consent of a majority of the board of supervisors of the county in which the abandoned portion of the road may lie, which consent shall be filed in the office of the clerk of the county..

ARTICLE X.

MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS.

SECTION 160. Laws repealed.

161. Saving clause.

162. Construction.

163. When to take effect.

*So in the orginal.

« AnteriorContinuar »