United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Edmondson v. Bloomshire, 78 U.S. 11 Wall. 382 382 (1870)

Edmondson v. Bloomshire

78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 382

Syllabus

A clause in the will of a woman who died in 1803 -- "My certificates that are in the hands of my brother Ben, I desire may be given to my husband, to dispose of as he may think proper" -- held not to include warrants for a large amount of bounty lands, though the words certificates and warrants, of the sort in question, were sometimes used synonymously, the same brother having had in his hands at the time of the making of the will some other instruments more properly called "certificates," the testator having devised all the lands she possessed to her husband "during his life," a settlement of her estate on the basis that the warrants did not pass as certificates, having been long acquiesced in by the party now complainant, and

"evidence of the most satisfactory character having been introduced by the respondents showing that the land warrant was never in the hands of the brother prior to the date of the will, or at any other time."

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Southern District of Ohio, in which court John Edmondson and Littleton Waddell in right of his wife Elizabeth, sister of the said John, filed a bill against Adam Bloomshire and others to compel a conveyance of certain lands in Ohio alleged to be in the possession of the defendants. The court below dismissed the bill, and the complainants appealed.

Page 78 U. S. 383