Bell v. Brewster

• Citation: 44 Ohio St. 690,10 N.E. 679
• Parties: BELL and others v. BREWSTER and others.
• Decision Date: 01 March 1887
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Ohio

44 Ohio St. 690
10 N.E. 679

BELL and others
v.
BREWSTER and others.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

March 1, 1887.

Error to district court, Union county.

The original action was a suit by the plaintiffs below to quiet their title to certain lands situated in Union county, and which they claimed as the heirs at law of the person last seized. He died in that county on September 11, 1873, and was then known by the name of Robson L. Broome. The plaintiffs, however, claimed that his right name was Levi Brewster; that he was a son of Seabury Brewster, late of Norwich, Connecticut; that he intermarred with Lucy Waterman on March 13, 1820, by whom he had two sons, Richard Brewster, a plaintiff, and Sherman Brewster, deceased, whose widow and children were the other plaintiffs; that he afterwards abandoned his family, assumed the name of Robson L. Broome, removed to Union county, and there resided to the time of his death, and was possessed of a large amount of real and personal property, the subject of controversy. A number of rival claims were set up to that of the plaintiffs,-in one that his right name was Elisha Case; and in another that it was George Washington Broome; and the heirs of these persons were made parties defendant. An appeal was taken from the judgment of the common pleas court to the district court of the county, where judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiffs below.

The defendants took a bill of exceptions to the admission of certain evidence upon the trial. The admission of this evidence, against the objection of the plaintiffs in error, is the only error assigned upon the record.

The bill, omitting the style of the case, is as follows: ‘Be it remembered that, on the trial of said cause, it became and was material for said plaintiffs to show that Robson L. Broome, the decedent in the pleadings named, was not in fact Robson L. Broome, but that he was in fact, and that his true name was, Levi Brewster, and that he was the son of one Seabury Brewster, late of Norwich, in the state of Connecticut; that, for the purpose of establishing that fact, said plaintiffs put in evidence certain books and writings, which were either admitted or duly proven to have been in the genuine handwriting of the decedent, and written by him while living at Marysville, Union county, Ohio, under the name of Robson Lovett Broome; that, to further maintain the issue on their part, said plaintiffs offered, and against the objection of said answering defendants were permitted to put in evidence, certain writings purporting to have been written by Levi Brewster, viz.: A letter purporting to have been written from an academy in Plainfield, Connecticut, to one Elisha Brewster, in Vermont, in the year of our Lord 1810, and purporting to have been written by Levi Brewster, but without further proof of its genuineness as his writing than testimony tending to show that it was found in its proper place, among the family papers of the Elisha Brewster, to whom it was addressed, and showing that said Elisha Brewster, now deceased, was a brother of the Levi Brewster whose writing the letter purported to be; and also at the same time produced and offered, and against the objection of the said defendants were permitted to introduce, in evidence a certain ‘pay-roll’ of the war of 1812, found in the archives at Washington, which purported to bear the signatures of Levi Brewster, as receipting for pay due him as a soldier in said service, without other proof of its genuineness as his signature than some evidence tending to show that said Levi Brewster was engaged in said service, in the company of which said paper purported to be the pay-roll, and evidence showing that said pay-roll was found in its proper place, and the proper custody, among the archives of the government of the United States in the war department at Washington, D. C., and also, as tending to show the connection of said R. L. Broome with said pay-roll, said plaintiffs gave in evidence hand-books in the admitted handwriting of said R. L. Broome, giving the number of the regiment, and the officers thereof, and the company officers which are named as the company officers of the company in which Levi Brewster was as a soldier, corresponding with the pay-roll,-to the admission of which letter and pay-roll said defendants at the time excepted.'

It then shows that experts in handwriting were introduced, and permitted, against the objection of the plaintiff in error, to express an opinion that, on a comparison of hands, the said genuine writing of Robson L. Broome and the said letter and signature to the pay-roll were in the same handwriting. It then adds exhibits of the different writings; states the...