Baird v. Chapman

• Decision Date: 12 May 1887
• Citation: 120 Ill. 537,12 N.E. 73
• Parties: BAIRD v. CHAPMAN and others.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

120 Ill. 537

12 N.E. 73

BAIRD

v.CHAPMAN and others.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 12, 1887.

Appeal from Lee.

A. C. Bardwell, for Seth F. Baird, complainant.

John D. Crabtree, for Marianna O. Chapman and others, defendants.

CRAIG, J.

This was a bill for partition brought by Seth F. Baird, a son of Daniel Baird, deceased, against Charlotte F. Baird, the widow, and Caroline Pumphrey, Marianna O. Chapman, two daughters, of the deceased, to divide a certain farm of 100 acres of which Daniel Baird died seized on the twenty-sixth day of March, 1866. Baird died intestate, leaving complainant and defendants as his only heirs. No objection was interposed by defendants to a division of the farm into three equal parts between the three children of the deceased, saving the rights of the widow; but, in addition to a partition, the complainant in his bill set up that in October, 1864, he enlisted in the army of the United States, and received from Lee county $1,000 in bonds as a bounty for so enlisting; that in December of the same year he delivered the bonds to his father, Daniel Baird, under an arrangement or understanding, in substance, that the bonds should be used in the payment of the father's debts, including an indebtedness on the farm, and that the money so advanced should be held for the use and benefit of the complainant.

The bill seeks to charge the farm with the payment of the bonds so advanced, and interest thereon, and prayed that the same may be decreed a lien on the land, and that partition be made, subject to the lien so created. But, on the hearing on the evidence of the respective parties, the court rendered a decree against complainant as to the claim predicated on the Lee county bonds, and ordered an equal division of the lands between the three heirs. To reverse this decree, the complainant in the bill appealed.

There is no controversy in reference to the fact that the complainant received the bonds in question from Lee county, and in the last part of December, 1864, delivered them to his father, but there is much conflict in the evidence in regard to the terms and conditions of the arrangement under which the complainant turned the bonds over to his father. It was proven by several witnesses that the complainant made a present of the bonds to his father, that they were given as a Christmas gift.

On the other hand, the complainant testified as follows: ‘Let father have them latter part of December, 1864; offered them to him as a present, but he said he wouldn't take them in that way; he would use them in paying the mortgage on the place, but it should be put in the place to keep for me.’ Mr. Austin testified for complainant as follows: ‘He said he had had Seth's $1,000, but that he should have it all back again; that he had used it in payment on his land, but when the land was sold or divided he should have every cent of it.’ Mrs. Baird, the widow, testified that her husband ‘said Seth should have it all back again, and more with it.’ There was other evidence that the deceased, in his life-time, made similar declarations. There was also evidence tending to prove that Daniel Baird used the proceeds of the bonds in payment of his indebtedness, and it is fair to presume, from the evidence, that he intended at some time to repay his son the money he had received.

But we find no evidence in the...