Barton v. Cannon
| Decision Date | 30 April 1874 |
| Citation | 66 Tenn. 398 |
| Parties | WM. BARTON AND WIFE v. WM. J. CANNON, Adm'r. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
FROM FAYETTE.
Appeal from the Chancery Court. HENRY J. LIVINGSTON, Chancellor.
J. W. & C. C. HARRIS for complainants.
E. H. SHELTON for defendants.
Kincheon Bass died in 1852, leaving a will, by which he appointed B. M. Patterson his executor. Patterson qualified, and took upon himself the duties of his office, and probably wound up the estate by collecting the assets and paying all the debts. He died, however, and in October, 1870, W. J. Cannon, one of the defendants, was appointed administrator, with the will annexed.
By the will of testator, in the second clause, he leaves all his personal property to his wife for life, “together with his tract of land on which he resided, with all appurtenances thereunto belonging,” with certain provisions therein for the benefit of his children then under age. By the concluding clause of the third item of his will he provides, “and at the death of my beloved wife, if my negroes can not be equally divided to advantage between all my children, it is my wish that they, with all the perishable property, be sold on a credit of twelve months, the land to be sold on a credit of one and two years, the proceeds arising from said sales, when collected, to be equally divided between all my children then living, or their descendants,” adding certain exceptions and qualifications as to portions of his children, not necessary to be noticed. In the concluding clause, he appoints his friend, Bernard M. Patterson, executor, “to carry out the provisions of his will,” and “grants him the liberty of bidding at the sale as any other individual.”
The widow died in 1870, and the negroes having been emancipated, left the place on which he resided subject to the provisions of the will.
Caroline Wirt, one of the defendants, in the meantime had purchased the interests of four of the legatees under the will. Thereupon, in November, 1870, she and Cannon, the administrator, filed a bill in the County Court of Fayette county, stating the fact of the purchase of the interests mentioned, that the debts had all been paid and the estate settled up, and charging that it was manifestly to the interest of all parties that the land be thus sold for cash; asking it to be sold if it could be done, but if it could not be done, then on a credit of one and two years. To this proceeding all the parties in interest were defendants, we believe, either by personal service or by publication, and, so far as the allegations of this bill show, the proceeding were regularly conducted.
An order of sale on a credit of one and two years was ultimately had, when Caroline Wirt became the purchaser of the land, at what the bill charges was a grossly inadequate price, and the sale confirmed by the court.
This bill is filed by the legatees having an interest in the proceeds of said lands, to declare said sale void, and to remove the cloud from the title, and then to have the land sold by the Chancery Court, in execution of the trust (the executor being dead), and the proceeds appropriated under the provisions of the clause of the will quoted.
We need not discuss all the questions of more or less interest presented in argument in this case. The bill was demurred to, so that its allegations are to be taken as true for the purposes of this opinion.
The question on which the case turns, and which is decisive of it, is, did the County Court have jurisdiction to sell the land on the petition of the purchaser and the administrator with...
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Stooksbury v. Pratt
...the question for decision here seems to have been conclusively determined adversely to this appellant in our case of Barton v. Cannon, 66 Tenn. 398, 399, 401-402. In that case the will provided that the executor, after the death of the widow, sell the land of the testator and divide the pro......