Wilson v. Smith

Le Grand, C. J., delivered the opinion of this court. This was an action of replevin, instituted in the circuit court for Calvert county, on the 30th day of April 1850, for the recovery of negro woman named Milly, claimed by the' plain tiff as the property of Samuel Owens, late of that county. The usual pleas in replevin were filed, including actio non accrevit infra tres annos. The plaintiff proved that Samuel Owens died in Calvert county in the year 1815, and that it no where appeared among the records of the register of wills of said county that any letters testamentary, or of administration, were ever granted upon ⁷⁴ the estate of Samuel Owens, or other proceedings had in reference thereto, prior to the appointment of the plaintiff as administrator ad colligendum.

The plaintiff also proved that up until the time of his death, Samuel Owens occupied and worked a piece of land, the annual rent of which was about $150, and that he had farming utensils, household furniture, and certain negroes, among which was Milly. The defendant then gave in evidence the will of Owens, by which he devised, for life, to his wife, Mary, all his property, real and personal, with remainder to his children and grand-children, and declared his wish to be that his wife should be administratrix. And also that Samuel Owens, at the time of his death, was indebted to the extent of $178, which debts, prior to 1828, were paid off by one Richard Hance, at the request of the widow, Mary, and that sometime after the payment of the debts, she executed, on the 7th day of October 1828, a mortgage to Hance of certain property of her late husband, to secure said Hance against loss by said paymeirt. That Samuel Owens, at the time of his death, had the following named children and grand-, children, viz: Sarah Owens, who was fourteen years old at the death of her father, and who, in 1824, married William T. Wilson; Mary Owens, who was twenty-five years old when her father died, and who, ten or fifteen years after her father’s death, and before 1828, married Enoch Neale; and Francis Hollingshead, and Samuel and Mary Hollingshead, children of Francis and Rebecca Hollingshead, the latter a daughter of Samuel Owens, who died before the said Samuel; that Sarah and Mary Owens lived with their mother until their respective marriages; that Francis Hollingshead and his children (who were then minors,) lived on a farm adjoining that of Samuel ■Owens, at his death, and that they removed to Baltimore in 1823; she (the defendant) proved that in 1834 the said widow, Mary Owens, sold the woman Milly, with others, issue of Milly, born after the death of Samuel Owens, to a certain Abraham Lowe, as slaves for life, and executed a bill of sale for the same.

To this bill of sale William T. Wilson,