McKee's Administrators v. McKee's Administrators

Goldsuorough, J., delivered the opinion of this court: This was an action of trover, instituted in the Circuit court for Prince Georges county, by the administrators of Alexander McKee against the administrators of his wife, Margaret McKee, who died in 1851, to recover the value of a number of negroes, which the plaintiffs claimed to have been the property of their intestate. For the purpose of showing title in their intestate, the plaintiffs proved, that Margaret, the defendants’ intestate, died in the year 1851; and her husband, Alexander, the plaintiffs’ intestate, survived her and died in 1855; and then proved, by a competent witness, that for several years prior to the death of Alexander, he (the witness) knew the negroes in controversy; that he was the overseer or manager of the said Alexander two years before his death, and that during all the time he knew said negroes, he, the said Alexander, held them and exercised absolute control over them as their master, and that all of said negroes continued in his possession up to the time of his death. The defendants, for the purpose of proving title to the negroes in their intestate, offered to prove, by William A. Quinn, that, on the 18th day of January 1847, he had in his hands, as deputy sheriff of Prince Georges county, a writ of vendi. exponas, which had issued out of the Court of Appeals, at the suit of Magruder if Pratt vs. Alexander McKee if others,, and that negroes Charlotte, Silvey and Martha, (three of the negroes, and the mothers of the remaining negroes in controversy,) had been previously seized on a ft. fa., issued in the same case; and that on the same 18th day of January 1847,. the witness, as deputy sheriff, sold the said three negroes to-Mr. Carroll (who said he bought them for Margaret McKee) for the sum of §700, and that it was her money. The defendants further offered to prove, by the same witness, that ⁵²⁰ he delivered said negroes to said Carroll, and that he-signed the following receipt to Mrs. Margaret McKee for the puichase money. “Nottingham, January 18th, 1847.

Received, of Mrs. Margaret McKee, seven hundred dollars in full, for the purchase money of negro woman Charlotte, Silvey and Martha, this day sold by me at public auction to said Margaret McKee, under a writ of vendi. exponas, issued from the Court-of Appeals, at the suit of C. C. Magruder & Thomas G. Pratt vs. Alexander McKee, John W. Harvey & Michael B. Carroll. William A. Quinn, Dep’ty Sh’ff.” And which receipt was proved to be signed by said Quinn. But the counsel for the plaintiffs objected to the admissibility of said evidence, on the ground that the writ of