Gilpin v. Carroll

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court: The appellee, Mary M. Carroll, a citizen of the District of Columbia, filed a bill of complaint, on May i, 1899, in the Circuit Court for Cecil County, for the sale of certain mortgaged real estate situate near the town of Elkton in that county, which had been conveyed to her by John and Thomas Gilpin, her brothers, residents of the State of Pennsylvania, to secure the payment of an annuity of one thousand dollars due by them to her. The mortgagors died before the payment of the indebtedness and before the institution of this suit, and their descendants, C. Montieth Gilpin, of the State of New York, Mary E. A. Gilpin, Oliver W. Gilpin, Olive Gilpin, of Pennsylvania, and Sallie E. Howard and Harry M. ⁴⁵ D. Howard, of Cecil County, were made defendants to the suit. It appears that Oliver W. Gilpin, the appellant, appeared to the suit in the Circuit Court for Cecil County, on the 14th of June, 1899, and filed a petition to have the case removed to the United States Circuit Court for the District of Maryland, stating as a reason for the removal, the peridency in that Court of a prior proceeding, instituted on the 9th of June, 1897, by C. Montieth Gilpin, one of the defendants against Mary M. Carroll, the plaintiff here, and, others, for the purpose of having a partition of the real estate, whereof John Gilpin and Thomas Gilpin died seized and possessed among their heirs, and for a sale thereof, if it cóuld not be divided among the parties. Mrs. Carroll, the plaintiff here, was made a party to the prior suit, and on the 12th of September, 1899, she filed an answer, in which she denied the right of the plaintiff to the relief prayed, and asked that the bill be dismissed so far as her rights were concerned.

On the 19th of June, 1899, an order of removal was passed, but subsequently this order was rescinded, and a decree for the sale of the property was passed by the Circuit Court of Cecil County, and it is from this decree, that the appeal in this case has been taken. There can be no doubt, under the decisions in this State,