## Facts

- The steamboat *America* sank in the Mississippi River in 1827 with a cargo of lead; over time, the wreck and cargo were treated as abandoned.
- In January 1855, Brazelton located the wreck and marked its location using a temporary buoy and markings on riverbank trees.
- Brazelton intended to return with equipment to raise the lead but left the site for months due to repairs and delay.
- On September 28, 1855, Eads and his salvage partners independently located the wreck and began raising the lead through active salvage operations.
- Brazelton claimed that his prior discovery and marking gave him a possessory right (title by occupancy) and sought to stop Eads’s recovery efforts.

## Issues

1. Whether discovery and marking of an abandoned wreck’s location, followed by an extended absence, constitutes sufficient possession or occupancy to establish enforceable title against subsequent salvors.
2. Whether later salvors who take physical control and begin recovery acquire superior rights to abandoned property on a public riverbed.

## Decision

- The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed the chancery decree for Brazelton and denied injunctive and damages relief.
- The court held that Brazelton’s conduct amounted to discovery and notice, not actual possession or occupancy.
- Because Brazelton did not take control consistent with the property’s nature and circumstances, he acquired no title by occupancy enforceable against Eads.
- Eads’s active salvage—physical engagement with the wreck and commencement of raising the cargo—established the superior possessory claim.

## Legal Principles

- Abandoned property is open to appropriation, but title by occupancy requires actual possession, not mere discovery.
- For property in a public place (including a riverbed), a claimant must show custody and control reasonably possible under the circumstances.
- Acts such as placing markers or a buoy may evidence knowledge of location, but without continued physical assertion of dominion they do not create possessory title.
- A prior locator who does not maintain control cannot exclude later actors who independently take physical possession and begin recovery.

## Conclusion

The court held that Brazelton’s prior location and marking of the wreck did not establish title by occupancy because he never achieved and maintained actual possession; Eads, who later took physical control and commenced salvage, acquired the superior right to the abandoned cargo.


Eads v. Brazelton, 22 Ark. 499 (Ark. 1861)