Cornwell v. Thurston

• Decision Date: 28 February 1875
• Citation: 59 Mo. 156
• Parties: NORA MARY CORNWELL, Respondent, by her guardian, MONSON LEMONDS, v. ALFRED THURSTON, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

59 Mo. 156

NORA MARY CORNWELL, Respondent, by her guardian, MONSON LEMONDS,

v.ALFRED THURSTON, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

February Term, 1875.

Appeal from Mercer Circuit Court.

Wright & Orton, for Appellant.

I. The description of the forty acre tract as described in the deed was no description of the lots in controversy. (Henry vs. Mitchell, 32 Mo., 512; Evans vs. Ashley, 8 Mo., 177.)

H. J. Alley, with S. H. Perryman, for Respondent.

I. Deeds and exceptions therein are construed most strongly against the grantor. (Nelson vs. Brodhack, 44 Mo., 596; Clemens vs. Rannells, 34 Mo., 579.) The authorities cited by defendant's counsel are not in point. The conveyances in those cases were made by virtue of sales under executions, and were construed most strongly in favor of the execution debtor; in those cases there was involved a matter of the sufficiency of the description to pass the title; in this case simply the intention of the parties to the conveyance.

NAPTON, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an ejectment to recover four lots in Girdner's addition to the town of Princeton.

There was an agreed state of facts as follows: 1st. That one Wm. J. Girdner was the owner of the south-west quarter of the south-east quarter of section 27, T. 65, R. 24 on March 2nd, 1854; 2nd. that on that day, said Girdner platted and laid out into an addition to the town of Princeton in Mercer Co., Mo., a part of said forty acre tract, said town plat being about one and one-half acres, consisting of two blocks and fourteen lots in all, dedicating streets and alleys to the public, and recorded his said plat in the recorder's office in Mercer Co., Mo., March 2nd, 1857; 3rd. that prior to the sale to Cornwell, hereinafter mentioned, he had sold four of said lots to persons who had improved them and built on two of them prior to the sale to said Cornwell--said streets and alleys were open to and used by the public ever since the recording of said plat; 4th. that before the sale hereinafter mentioned to Cornwell, said Girdner had sold and conveyed to two other persons other parts of said forty acre tract; to one about eight acres and to another about one and one-half acres; 5th. that there was on said tract a church with a lot of one acre which was excepted in the deed to Cornwell, occupied by the church, but conveyed by deed; 6th. that the lots in controversy remained unoccupied and unimproved, until defendant took possession in the spring of 1871 and put a...