WAY. A passage, street, or road.
2. A right of way is the privilege which an individual, or a particular description of individuals, as, the inhabitants of a village or the owners or occupiers of certain farms, have of going over another's ground. It ie an incorporeal hereditament of a real nature, entirely different from common highway. Cruise, Dig. tit. xxiv. s. 1.
A right of way may arise by prescription and immemorial usage, or by an uninter rupted enjoyment for twenty years under a claim of right. Coke, Litt. 113 ; 1 Rolle, Abr. 936 ; 5 Harr. & J. Md. 474 ; 36 Eng. L. & Eq. 564 ; 4 Gray, Mass. 177, 547 ; 20 Penn. St. 331, 458 ; 4 Barb. N. Y. 60 ; 4 Mas. C. C. 402 ; 8 Pick. Mass. 504 ; 24 N. H. 440. By grant: as, where tbe owner grants t,,) another the liberty of passing over his land. 3 Lev. 305 ; 1 Ld. Raym. 75 ; 17 Mass. 416 ; 19 Pick. Mass. 250 ; 20 id. 291 ; 7 Barnew. & C. 257 ; Crabb, Real Prop. 366. If tbe grant be of a freehold right, it rnust be by deed. 5 Barnew. & C. 221 ; 4 R. I. 47. By necessity : as, where a man purchases land accessible only over land of the vendor, or sells reserving land accessible only over land of the vendee, he shall have a way of neces sity over the land which gives access to his purchase or reservation. 2 Lutw. 1487 ; 5 Taunt. 311 ; 23 Penn. St. 333 2 Mass. 203 ; 14 id. 56 ; 3 Rawle, Penn. 495'; 11 Mo. 513; 29 Me. 499 ; 27 N. H. 448 ; 19 Wend. N. Y. 507; 15 Conn. 39. The necessity must be absolute, not a mere convenience, 2 M'Cord, So. C. 445 ; 24 Pick. Mass. 102 ; 8 Rich. So. C. 158 ; and when it ceases the way ceases with it. 18 Conn. 321 ; 1 Barb, Ch. N. Y. 353. By reservation expressly made in the grant of the land over which it is claimed. 10 Mass. 183 ; 25 Conn. 331. By cv,stotn: as, where navigators have a right of this nature to tow along the banks of navigable rivere with horses. 3 Term, 253. By acts of legis
lature ; though a private way cannot be so laid out without the consent of the owner of the land over which it is to pass. 15 Conn.39, 83 ; 4 Hill, N. Y. 47, 140 ; 4 B. Monr. Ky. 57.
3. A right of way may-be either a right in gross, which is a purely personal right incommunicable to another, or a right ap pendant or annexed to an estate, and which may pass by assignment with the estate to which it is appurtenant. 3 Kent, Comm 420 ; 6 Mod. 3 • 2 Ld. Raym. 922 : 1 Watts, Penn. 35 ; 19 Pick. Mass. 250 ; 3 Mete. Mass. 457. A right of way appurtenant to land is appurtenant to all and every part of the land, and if such land be divided and con veyed in separate parcels a right of way thereby passes to each of the grantees. 1 Cush. Mass. 285 ; 1 Serg. & R. Penn. 229.
Twenty years' occupation of land adverse to a right of way and inconsistent therewith bars the right. 2 Whart. Penn. 123 ; 16 Barb. N. Y. 184.
Lord Coke, adopting the civil law, says there are three kinds of ways: a footway, called iter; a footway and horseway, called actus ; a cartway, which contains the other two, called via. Coke, Litt. 56 a. To which may be added a driftway, a road over which cattle are driven. 1 Taunt. 279 ; Pothier, Pandectte, lib. 8, t. 3, 1 ; Dig. 8. 3 ; 1 Brown, Civ. Law, 377.
See 3 Kent, Comm. 419 ; Washburn, Ease ments ; Crabb, Real Prop.; Cruise, Dig.; HIGHWAY.
A writing in which are set down the names of passengers who are carried in a public conveyance, or the description of goods sent with a common carrier by land, when the goods are carried by water, the instrument is called a bill of lading.