Aldrich v. Thurston
| Decision Date | 31 January 1874 |
| Citation | 1874 WL 8666,71 Ill. 324 |
| Parties | KILDROY P. ALDRICH et alv.JAMES M. THURSTON. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
WRIT OF ERROR to the Circuit Court of Madison county; the Hon. JOSEPH GILLESPIE, Judge, presiding.
Mr. DAVID GILLESPIE, for the plaintiffs in error.
Messrs. DALE & BURNETT, for the defendant in error.
This was an action of ejectment, for the recovery of the possession of the south-west quarter of the south-east quarter of a certain section of land.
The plaintiffs' claim of title is by a purchase of the premises by their ancestor, at an administrator's sale of the whole quarter section, made November 30, 1861, for the purpose of paying the debts of Alfred W. Hinch, deceased, who died seized in fee of the quarter section.
The defendant married the widow of said Hinch, and his ground of defense is a homestead right in the premises, in her. It appears, from the testimony, that the dwelling house in which Alfred Hinch resided at the time of his death, was situated on the premises in controversy, the south-west quarter of the quarter section, and stood about four rods south of the line dividing the south-west quarter from the north-west quarter of the quarter section; that there were only about five acres on the forty in dispute fenced and under cultivation; that the house lot was mainly on the north-west forty--that forty being mostly under cultivation; that the barn stood thereon; that it was supposed by some that the dwelling house was on the north eighty of the quarter section, and there was evidence of Hinch's declarations to that effect.
In view of this evidence, it is insisted that the homestead claim, if still subsisting, will only include the house and that portion of the south-west forty which was under cultivation at the time of the death of Hinch, about five acres, and that plaintiffs should have had judgment for the unoccupied portion of the forty at least. The homestead exemption, as given by the statute, is: “the lot of ground and the buildings thereon occupied as a residence, and owned by the debtor.”
A quarter quarter section is a legal subdivision of land, and, as such, is marked as a lot of ground. We see nothing in the language giving the homestead right to prevent the homestead occupant from claiming as his homestead the whole lot of ground upon which his dwelling house is situated, if it do not exceed the limited value, although his...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Kimball v. Salisbury
... ... Buxton v. Derrborn, 46 ... N.H. 43; Hubbell v. Canady, 58 Ill. 425; Hastie ... v. Kelly, 57 Vt. 291, 294; Aldrich v. Thurston, ... 71 Ill. 324; Stevens v. Hollingsworth et al., 74 ... Ill. 207; Houston v. Winter, 44 Tex. 597; West River ... Bann v. Jail, ... ...
-
Darby v. Dixon
...the tract occupied as a homestead and for this purpose the court will take judicial notice of the lines of governmental surveys: Aldrich v. Thurston, 71 Ill. 324; Hay v. Baugh, 77 Ill. 500; Reinbach v. Walter, 27 Ill. 393; Tourville v. Pierson, 39 Ill. 446; Hill v. Bacon, 43 Ill. 477; Hubbe......
-
Miller v. McAlister
...without the intervention of a jury. Gardner v. Eberhart, 82 Ill. 316;Hill v. Bacon, 43 Ill. 477;Linton v. Quimby, 57 Ill. 271;Aldrich v. Thurston, 71 Ill. 324;Raber v. Gund, 110 Ill. 581. In the case at bar, the exemption of Mrs. McAlister, if she had a homestead at all, is confined to the ......
-
Lehmann v. Revell
...cases, among many others which could be cited, illustrate the elasticity with which the term is applied: In the case of Aldrich v. Thurston, 71 Ill. 324, in construing the Homestead Exemption law, providing that ‘the lot of ground and the buildings thereon occupied as a residence, and owned......