Frost v. Wheeler

• Decision Date: 07 February 1888
• Parties: FROST v. WHEELER.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

12 A. 612

43 N.J.E. 573

FROST

v. WHEELER.

Prerogative Court of New Jersey.

February 7, 1888.

Appeal from orphans' court, Middlesex county; COWENHOSEN, O'GORMAN, and NEWTON, Judges.

The material facts appear in the opinion.

Allen H. Strong and James H. Van Cleef, for appellant. George C. Ludlow, for defendant.

MCGILL, Ordinary. This case presents two appeals from the orphans' court of Middlesex county,—one, from a decree, dated on the 10th of March, 1887, which directs the admission of a paper which purports to be the last will of Mary Richards Ransom Jones to probate; and the other, from an order dated on the 15th day of March, 1887, which provides that the appellant herein, who was the caveatrix below, shall pay the costs of the litigation in the orphans' court, except the proponent's costs up to and including the taking of the depositions of the testamentary witnesses. The appellant is one of the two children of the decedent. By the paper in dispute, she will take $100 of her mother's estate; while her sister, Frances E. Wheeler, with whom the mother resided at her death, will take the entire residue. It does not appear what this residue will amount to, but there is sufficient in the evidence to satisfy me that the bequest to the caveatrix is insignificant in comparison with it. The contest is upon two grounds: That Mrs. Jones was incompetent to make a will, and that there was undue influence in procuring the paper offered for probate. At her death Mrs. Jones was in the sixty-seventh year of her age. Her husband died in 187—. She had two children, both daughters. The eldest, who is the caveatrix, is the wife of "William Frost; and the younger, Frances E. Wheeler, is the wife of Francis B. Wheeler, but is separated from him, and suing for a divorce. From the spring of 1883 till the spring of 1886, Mrs. Jones resided upon a farm near New Brunswick, which was owned and maintained by her brother, Charles Ransom, as a home for his sisters, who were severally, more or less, dependent upon him. Her sisters, Mrs. Knox, Mrs. Foote, and Mrs. Bryant, and two daughters, and Mrs. Bryant's daughter, also lived there. For a time, the farm was managed by a man named Jackson, who had married a daughter of Mrs. Knox, and then it was put in charge of William Frost, the husband of the caveatrix. Frost had been a fireman in New York, but was retired upon half pay, amounting to about $750. Mrs. Foote died in October, 1884, and Charles Ransom died in December, 1885. By his will, Charles Ransom devised the farm at New Brunswick to Frost and Ransom's three surviving sisters, and directed that it should be worked by Frost, and that the profits realized from it should be so divided that one-half of them should be paid to Frost, and the other half should be paid to Ransom's three sisters. In the event of the farm not proving to be productive enough to pay the expenses of its management and preservation, and some dividend to the beneficiaries interested in it, it 'was to be sold, and the proceeds of sale were to be divided, one-half to Frost, and the other half to the three sisters. After making provision for his widow, the testator divided his residuary estate between his three sisters. That which Mrs. Jones took under the will of her brother constitutes her entire estate. Shortly after Charles Ransom's death, it was announced that the farm did not pay as...