torn oaita' daily bee: Sunday, april 8, iooa
ROMANCE K REAL ESTATE
Btrarn'e Etory of Title to Taroel of l&nd
Located in Boston.
TRUTH THAT MUCH EXCEEDS FICTION
Creed el HeArs for Lccmer Start
Straae Clroalt ( Law gaits
that Bveataallr BJt
the Vni(
tn presenting fhta interesting- account of
the wandering of fee slmpls title from
one claimant to another w feel that a
word la necessary from the donor lest the
reader mar feal that we are placing too
much confidence In the credulity of our
friend.
We cannot teatlfy aa to the facta of Mr.
Crocker's remarkable etory, but Mr.
Crocker, now deceased, was a well known
attorney and trustee In Boscon and his
atandlnf aa a lawyer a well as the author
ities cited In the storjTj are sufficient evl
denoe of Ita veracity.
We are Indebted to Mr. Crocker brother,
Hon. Qeo. O. Crocker, the transit com
missioner of Boston, for the original copy
aa It was published by the Massachusetts
Title Insurance company and the American
Law Review In October, 1ST!.
History at a fltl.
Of the locality of the parcel ef real es
tate, the history of the UUe of which It Is
proposed to relate. It may be sufficient to
say that It lie In Boston within the limit
of the territory ravaged by the great fire
of November and 10, 1873. In I860 thla par
cel of land was In the undisturbed pos
session of Mr. Will am Ingalla, who referred
his title to It to the will of hla father, Mr.
Thomas Ingalla, who died In 1830. Mr. In
galla, the elder, had been a very wealthy
ciUsen of Boston; and when he made hla
Will, a few years before his death, he owned
this bne parcel of real estate, worth about
SOO,000 and possessed In addition, personal
property to the amount of between 1200,000
and MA0OO. By his will he specifically
devised this parcel of land to his
wife, for life and upon her death
to Ms only child, the William In
galls before mentioned. In fee, to whom,
after directing his executor to pay to two
nephews, William and Arthur Jones, the
urn of $36,000 each, he gave also the large
residue of bis property. After the date
of his will, however, Mr. Thomas Ingalls
engaged In some unfortunate speculatlona
and upon the settlement of his estate the
personal property proved to be barely suf
ficient for the payment of his debts and
the nephew got no portion of their lega
cies, The real estate, however, afforded to
the widpw a comfortable Income, which
enabled her during her life to support her
self In a respectable manner. Upon her
death in 1346 the son entered Into possession
of the estate, which had gradually In
creased In value; and he had been enjoying
for fifteen years a handsome Income de
rived therefrom, when he was one day sur
prised to hear that the two cousins, whom
his father had benevolently remembered
In his will, had advanced a claim that
this real estate should be sold by his
father's executor and the proceeds applied
.to the payment of their legacies.
Sarprlse to the Holders.
This claim, now first made thirty years
after the death of his father, was of course
a great surprise to Mr. Ingalls. He had
entertained the popular Idea that twenty
years' possession effectually cut off all
claim. Here, however, were parties,
after thirty years undisputed possession by
hi mother and himself, setting up in 1860
a claim arising out of the will of his
father, that will having been proved In
' 1830. Nor had Mr. Ingalla ever dreamed
that the legacies given to his cousins
could In any way have precedence over
the specific devise of the parcel of real
estate to himself. It wns, as a matter of
common sense, so clear that his father
had Intended by his first will to provide
for hla wife and son and then to make a
generous gift out of the residue of his es
tate to his nephews, that during the
thirty years that had elapsed since hla
death It had never occurred to any one to
suggest any other disposal of the property
than that which had actually been made.
Upon consulting with counsel, however,
Mr. Ingalls learned that although the time
within which most actions might be
brought was limited to a specified number
of years, there was no such limitation af
fecting the bringing of an action to recover
a legacy, See Mass. Gen. St. o. 97. 12; Kent
against Dunham, 106 Mass. 686, 891; Brooks
against Lynde, 7 Allen, 84, 66. He also
learned that as his father's wilt gave him
after his mother's death the same estate
that he would have taken by Inheritance
had there been no will, the law looked upon
the devise to him aa void and deemed him
to have taken the estate by descent. Whiit
he had supposed to bo a specific devise of
the estate to him then was a void devise, or
no devise at all; and his parcel of real'
state, being In the eye of the law simply
a part of an undevised residue, was of
course liable to be sold for the payment
Of the leracle contained In hi father'
will. It was asset which the exeoutor was
bound to apply to that purpose. This exact
point bad been determined In the then re
cent ease of Ellis against Page, 7 Cu.nh,
Kl; and Mr. Ingalls wa finally compelled
to aee the estate, the undisputed posses
sion of which be had enjoyed for so many
year, sold at auction by the executor of
bis father will for $136,000, not quite
enough to pay the legacies to hla cousins,
which legacies, with Interest from the ex
piration of, one year after the testator's
death, amounted at the time of the sale in
18C2 to $143,000. The Messrs. Jone them
selves purchased the estate at the sale,
deeming the purchase a good Investment
of the amount of their legacies and Mr.
Ingall Instituted a system of stricter
economy In hi domestic expense and pon
dered much on the uncertainty of the law
and the mutability of human affair.
Another Claimant la Slant.
By one of those curious coincidence
which so often occur, Messrs. William and
Arthur Jones had scarcely begun to en
Joy the Increased supply of pocket money
afforded them by the rent of their newly
acquired property, when they each re
ceived one morning a summon to appear
before Justices of the superior court, "to
answer unto John Rogers In a writ of
entry," the premise described In the writ
being their newly acquired estate.
The Messrs. Jone were at first rather
startled by this unexpected proceeding; but
as they had, when they received their
deed from Mr. Ingalls executor, taken the
precaution to have the title to their estate
examined by a conveyancer, who had re
ported that he had carried hi examina
tion as far back as the beginning of the
century and had found the .title perfectly
clear and correct, they took courage and
waited for further developments. It was
not long, however, before the fact upon
which the writ of entry had been founded
were made known. It appeared that for
some time prior to 1730 the estate had be
longed to one John Buttolph, who died In
that year, leaving a will In which he de
vised the estate "to my brother William'
Thomas Buttolph had held the estate until
177$, when he died, leaving an only
daughter, Mary, at that time the
wife of Timothy Rogers. Mr. Rog
ers held the estate until 1790, when she
died, leaving two sons and a daughter.
This estate she devised to her daughter,
who subsequently. In 1800, conveyed It to
Mr. Thomas Ingalls, before mentioned.
Peter Rogers, the eldest son of Mrs. Rogers
was' a non-compos, but lived until the year
1SS4, when he died at the age of 75. He
left no children, having never been mar
ried. John Rogers, the demandant in the
writ of entry, wa the oldest son of John
Rogers, the second son of Mrs. Mary
Rogers, and the -basis of the title set up
by him was substantially aa follows:
Descent of Estate Tall.
He claimed that under the decision in Hay
ward against Howe, 12 Gray 49, the will of
John Buttolph had given to Thomas But
tolph an estate tall, the law construing the
intention of the testator to have been that
the estate should belong to Thomas But
tolph and to his Issue as long as such Issue
should exist, but that upon the failure of
such Issue, whenever such failure might
occur, whether at the death of Thomas or
at any subsequent time, the estate should
go to William Buttolph. It had also been
decided in Corbln vs. Healy, 20 Pick, 614.
EJS, that an estate tail doe not desoend tn
Massachusetts, like other real estate, to
all the children of the deceased owner, In
equal shares, but according to the old
English rule, exclusively to the oldest son.
If any, and to the daughter only in default
of any son, and it had been further decided
In Hall v. Priest, Gray. 18, 24, that an es
tato tall cannot be devised or In any way
sfTocted by the will of a tenant In tall.
Mr. John Roger claimed then' that the
estate tall given by the will of John But
tolph to Thomas Buttolph had descended
at the dee.th of Thomas to his only child1,
Mary Rogers; that at her death, Instead of
passing, aa had been supposed" at the time,
by virtue of her will, to her daughter, that
will had been wholly without effect upon
the estate, which had, in fact, descended
to her oldest son, Peter Rogers. Peter
Roger had Indeed been disseised In 1800, if
not before by the acts of his sister In tak
ing possession of and conveying away the
estate; but as he was a non-compos during
the whole of his long life, the statute of
limitations did not begin to run against
him ahd his heir In tall, namely John
Rogers, the, oldest son of his then de
ceased brother, John, was allowed by Mass.
Gen. st. c. 145, par. 6, ten years after his
uncle Peter's death, within which to bring
his action. As these ten years did not ex
pire until WA, this action, brought in 1863,
was seasonably commended, and It was
prosecuted with success, Judgment In his
favor having been recovered by John Rog
ers in 1S65.
Work of a Bright Lawyer.
The case of Rogers v. Jones was nat
urally a subject of remark among the
legal profession; and It happened to occur
to one of the younavr member of that pro
fession that It would be well to Improve
some of Mj Idle moments by studying np
the farts of this rase tn the Ruffolk Regis
tries of Iwds and of Probate. Curiosity
prompted this gentleman to extend his In
vestigation beyond the facts directly Ih
volved In the case and to trace the" title of
Mr. John Buttolph back to an earlier date.
He found that Mr. Buttolph had purchased
the estate In 1730 of one Hosea Johnson,
to whom It had been conveyed In 1710 by
Benjamin Parsons.- The deed from Parsons
to Johnson, however, conveyed the land to
Johnson simply, without any mention of
his "heir; and th young lawyer, having
recently read t,n case of Buffum v. Hutch
inson, 1 Allen, W, perceived that Johnson
took under this deed only a life estate In
the granted premises and that at his death
the premises reverted to Parson or his
heirs. The young lawyer, being of an en
terprising spirit, thought It would be well
to follow out the Investigation suggested
by his discovery. He found, to hi sur
prise, that Hosea Johnson did not die un
til 17P6, the estate having In fact been pur
chased by him for a residence when he
wa twenty-one year of age and about to
be married. He had lived upon It for
twenty year, but had then moved hi
residence to another part of the city and
sold the estate, as we have seen to Mr.
Buttolph. When Mr. Johnson died In 1786
at the age of ninety-seven. It chanced that
the sole party entitled to the revision a
heir of Benjamin Parson, was a young
woman, hi granddaughter, aged eighteen,
and Just married. This young lady and her
husband lived, a sometime happens, to
celebrate their diamond wedding In 1861,
but died during that year. A she had been
under the legal disability of coverture from
the time when her right of entry upon the
estate a heir of Benjamin Parsons, first
accrued, at the termination of Johnson's
life estate, the provision of the statute of
limitations, before cited, gave her heir ten
years after her death, within which to
bring their action.
Parsons' Heir Como la.
These heirs proved to be three or four
people of small means residing tn remote
parts of the United States. What arrange
menta the young lawyer made with these
parties and also with a Mr. John Smith, a
speculating moneyed man of Boston,- who
was supposed to have furnished certain
necessary funds, he was wise enough to
keep carefully to himself.. Suffice It to say
that In 1869 an action was brought by the
heir of Benjamin Parson to recover from
Rogers the land which he had Just re
covered from Willlnm and Arthur Jones.
In this action the plaintiffs were success
ful, and they had no sooner been put tn
formal possession of the estate than they
conveyed It, now worth a couple of
hundred thousand dollar, to the aforesaid
Mr. John Smith, who was popularly sup
posed to have obtained In this case, as he
usually did In all financial operations In
which he was concerned, the lion's share
of the plunder. The Parsons heirs probably
realised very little from the results of the
suit; but the young lawyer obtained suf
ficient to establish him s a 'brilliant spec
ulator In suburban lands, second mort
gages and patent rights. Mr. Smith had
but a short time been In possession of his
new estate when the gTeat fire of Novem
ber, 1872, swept over It. He was, however,
a most energetic cltlxen and the ruins were
not cold before he wa at work rebuilding.
He bought an adjoining lot In order to
Increase the else of hla estate, the whole
of which wa soon covered by an elegant
block, oonsplcuous on the front of which
may be seen bis Initial "J. 8." cut In the
atone.
Ingalls Again , Active.
While the estate " which had once be
longed to Mr. Ingalls wa passing from
lone person to another In the bewildering
manner we have endeavored to describe,
Mr. Ingalls had himself,, for a time, looked
on in amazement. It finally occurred to
him, however, that he would go to the root'
of this matter of the title. He employed a
skillful conveyancer to trace that title
back, if possible to the Book of Posses
sion. The result of this Investigation was
tht the. parce which he had himself
owned, together with the additional parcel
bought and added , to It by Smith, had tn
1643 or .1644, when the .Book of Possessions
wa compiled, constituted one parcel, which
was then the "possession of one "Madid
Engle," who subsequently In 1660, under the
name of "Mauditt Knglcs," ; conveyed it
to John Vergoose, on the express condi
tion that no building should ever be erected
on a certain portion of the rear of the
premises conveyed. ' Now, It had so hap
pened that this portion of these premises
had never been built upon before the great
fire, but Mr. Brglth's new buildings had
covered the Whole of the forbidden ground.
It wa evident, then, that the condition
had occurred so recently that the right to
enforce a forfeiture was not barred by the
statute and could not be deemed to have
been waived by any neglect or delay, and
that consequently, under the decision In
Gray against Blanchard, 8 Pick. 284, a for-
SIDEWALK AND
DUILDING
BRICK
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PLAQTCR Ai:D PINION
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OAND'
CLIPPINGO,
CONCRETE. GTONE
feltur of the estate for breach of thla con
dition could now be enforced If the true
parties entitled by descent and by residuary
devise under the original "Engle" or "En
gle" could only be found. It occurred to
Mr. Ingalla, however, that this name "En
gle" bore a certain similarity In sound to
his own, and as he had heard that during
the early year after the settlement of this
country great change In the spelling of
names had been brought about, he Insti
tuted an Inquiry Into his own genealogy,
the result of which was. In brief, that he
found be could prove himself to be the
Identical person entitled, as heir of Madid
Engle, to enforce, for breach of the con
dition In the old deed of laso, the forfeiture
of the estate now In the possession of
John Smith.
Smith Loaea Heart and Property.
When Mr. Smith heard of these facts he
felt that a retributive Nemises was pursu
ing him. He lostMhe usual pluck and bull
dog determination with which he had been
accustomed to fight at the law all claims
against him, whether Just or unjust. He
consulted the spirit, and they rapped out
the answer that he must make the best
settlement he could with Mr. Ingalls or ho
would Infallibly lose all his fine estate not
only that part which Mr. Ingalla had orig
inally held and which he had obtained for
almost nothing from the heir of Benjamin
Parsons but also the adjoining parcel for
which he had paid Its full value, together
with the elegant building which he had
erected at a cost exceeding the whole value
of the land. Mr. Smith believed In the
spirits; they had made a lucky guess once
tn answering an Inquiry from him; he was
getting old; he had worked like a steam
engine during a long and busy life, but now
his health and hla digestion were giving
out, and when the news of Mr. Ingalls'
claim reached hi ear he became In a
word demoralised.. He Instructed his law
yer to make the best settlement of the
matter that he could and a settlement wa
soon effected by which the whole of Mr.
Smith' parcel of land In the burnt dis
trict was conveyed to Mr. Ingalla. who
gave back to Mr. Smith a mortgage for the
whole amount which the latter had ex
pended in the erection of hie building, to
gether with what" he had paid for the
parcel added by him to the original lot.
Mr. Smith, not liking to have anything to
remind him of hla one unfortunate specula
tion, soon sold and assigned this mortgage
to the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insur
ance company, and as the well known
counsel of thai institution ha now exam
ined and passed the title, we may presume
that there are In It no more flaws remain
ing to be discovered.
fna-alls New View of Law.
In conclusion w may say that Mr.
William Ingalls, after having been for
some teh years a revller of the law, espe
cially of that portion ofVlt which relates
to the title to real estate, Is now Inclined
to look more complacently upon It, being
again In undisturbed and undisputed pos
session of his old estate, now worth much
more than before, and tn the receipt there
from of an ample Income which will enable
him to pass the remainder of his days In
comfort. If not In luxury. But though Mr.
Ingalls 1 -content with the final result of
the history of his title, those lawyers who
are known as "conveyancers" are by no
mean happy when they contemplate that
history, for it ha tended to Impress upon
them how full of pitfall is the ground
upon which they are accustomed to tread,
and how extensive Is the knowledge and
how great the care required of all who
travel over It, and they now look more dis
gusted than ever, when, a so often hap
pen, they are requested to "Just step
over" to the registry and 'look down" a
title, and are Informed that the title la a
very simple one and will only take a few
minute, and that So-and-so, "a very care
ful man,' did It In less than half an hour
last year, and found It all right, and that
hla charge waa $S.
Moral.
It would be presumptlous on our part to
suggest the moral of this tale even to the
simplest mind. It' I far better to merely
Impress It upon you. In Omaha today
many titles to real estate are changing
hands and the abstract and Ita examination
are hot given the attention It deserve by
the buyer and seller. With them It Is a
question of economy and they even fre
quently feel that it Is an expensive and al
most unnecessary detail of the transaction.
The parcel of real estate In Mr. Crocker
story Increased In value during the story
from $50,000 to over $250,000. With such
possibilities Is It not worth while to exer
cise the greatest care In selecting the ab
stracter who la to make the abstract of
title and to see that It la examined care
fully? The time 1 fast approaching when
owner of real estate will rely not only
upon a careful examination of the titles,
but will have their title Insured, as Is the
custom in the east.
DIAMOND RINGSTILL HELD
Valuable. Article Whleh garvlves
Stag Art Await Owner,
Who Denies It.
A fine dlntnond ring 1 waiting It owner
In the Orpheum theater box office, and
meanwhile Manager Relter I wondering
how large a damage suit a certain woman
will bring - against hi company. Relter
thinks the ring 1 worth not more than
$150, but he know bow value expand In
court The management ha done It beat
to induce the woman to take possession
of her property but she won't.
She parted with It Friday night during
the performance in response to a request
from Hermann, the sllght-of-hand man, for
three rings from the audience. The woman
sat In the second row. Hermann took the
rings, apparently pounded them to piece
In a pestle, loaded a gun with the piece
and fired them Into a box from which
he extracted the three ring a good a
when taken from the audience.
But the woman in the aecond row didn't
think so. She insisted It waa not her ling
and wouldn't take It No amount of per
suasion would Induce her to do so. Rather
than stop the performance Hermann had
to keep the ring and turn it over to the
house management Tfje woman did not
give her name or make any other explana
tion of her conduct
WOMAN IS CALLED A WITCH
Party to Welchhorhood Wranal
Cast Strang; Spell Over
Her Adversary.
"X am afraid of that woman. She 1 a
witch. Bh throw poison over the fence
to -my chicken and ha said she Would
burn the bouse down."
This emphetlo declaration waa mad on
the witness stand In county court Saturday
by Mrs. John Craig in the case in which
Mrs. Hannah Baker sought to secure a
peace warrant against Mr. Calg. Mrs.
Craig was testifying for ber husband and
he declared she believed Mrs. Baker had
supernatural power and she did not want
anything to do with her.
The trouble started Sunday, April 1,
when Mr. Baker says Craig threw a lot
of brick at her. The Cralgs came back
with counter charges against Mrs. Baker,
and the testimony on both sides wa very
emphatic. It developed the Craig have
built a high board fence between their
place and Mrs. Baker since the trouble.
Mr. Baker is a small, wrinkled German
woman, and I Craig' next door neighbor
at Tenth and Paul streets. Judge Ieelie
Olsoharged toe Sslsadaab
nnn n
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