New Jersey § acts:saved-15 - (1)

§ acts:saved-15. (1)

1. That if the owners of a majority of the number of acres of any body or tract of marsh

or swamp exposed to the overflow of the tide and capable of being laid dry and put

in a proper state for improvement by one general bank or dam are desirous to improve

the same, and the whole cannot agree, such owners, desirous of improving as aforesaid,

after giving three weeks' previous notice to those who refuse or neglect to join in

such improvement, by notice left at each of their places of abode or by advertising

their intentions in three of the most public places in the neighborhood at least three

weeks previous thereto, may apply to the court of common pleas of the county in which

such marsh doth lie, or, in case a county line shall run through the marsh or swamp

proposed to be improved as aforesaid, to the court of common pleas nearest thereto;

on which application the members of such court, who are disinterested and unconnected

with the parties, shall and they are hereby required to appoint by certificate, under

their hands and seals, three or more judicious and disinterested men, well acquainted

with banking and improving tide meadows, as commissioners; which commissioners, after

giving notice of the time and place of meeting, shall view the premises and hear the

parties, and if they then think proper, lay out the bank, dam, sluices, floodgates

or other works necessary for securing the marsh or swamp from the overflow of the

tide in such place or places as may appear most safe and beneficial to the whole of

the owners of the marsh or swamp intended to be secured from the overflow of the tide

and make an actual survey thereof, describing the place of beginning, courses and

distances and places where the sluice or sluices or floodgates shall be laid, and

where the bank or dam shall join the fast land; and also fix a name for the company

and appoint the time and place of their first meeting and deliver a certificate of

their proceedings signed by a majority of them to the clerk of the court from which

they receive their appointment, which clerk shall forthwith record the said certificate

in the road-book kept in his office; provided, always, that no navigable water shall

be stopped by virtue of this act, the use of which navigation may, in the opinion

of the majority of the men appointed as aforesaid, be of more than half the value

to the inhabitants of the neighborhood that the improvement of the meadow would be

to the owners thereof; and provided, also, that nothing in this act shall be construed

to authorize the stopping out of any creek or river capable of navigation for shallops

or flats that can carry eight cords of wood.