Crosby v. Buchanan

• Decision Date: 01 October 1874
• Citation: 23 Wall. 420,90 U.S. 420,23 L.Ed. 138
• Parties: CROSBY v. BUCHANAN
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

90 U.S. 420

23 L.Ed. 138

23 Wall. 420

CROSBY v. BUCHANAN.

October Term, 1874

[Syllabus from pages 420-422 intentionally omitted]

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the Western District of Virginia. The case was thus:

William King, of Abingdon, a village of Washington County, in the southwest courner of Virginia—a man possessed of valuable brine springs, at Saltiville, close by it, and of other large estate—died in 1808 childless, leaving a wife and eight brothers and sisters; among the brothers one named Samuel, and among the sisters one named Hannah, married to John Allen. He left also a nephew, William King, Jr.

By his will he devised the bulk of his estate, valued at about $500,000, to his nephew (the said William King, Jr.), on a condition which, as things turned out, proved impossible. The fact of the impossibility of the condition led at once to litigation, and in 1830 and 1836, the will in two different suits was the subject of construction in this court.

It was held in the first suit,¹ that the whole estate was devised to William King, Jr. (the nephew), subject to the life estate of the widow, but as it belonged to a court of chancery to determine whether he took the estate to his own use or in trust for the heirs of the testator, that question was left undecided. Accordingly, a bill in chancery was filed to test that question, and in that case, the second one, this court decided that he did take in trust for the heirs.²

Samuel King, and Mrs. Hannah Allen, the wife of John Allen, thus each became entitled to an eighth part of the estate. Samuel King lived at Somerset, a place in Pulaski County, in the southeast corner of Kentucky; Allen and his wife at Saltville. The two places were, perhaps, two hundred miles apart.

Independently of any general interest acquired as just mentioned by Samuel King in his brother William's estate, the brother by his will had made a special provision for him thus:

'I leave to the said Samuel, in case of personal application to the manager at Saltville, or to my executors at Abingdon, on the 1st day of January annually, $150. If not called for on that day to be void for that year. Receipt to be personally given.'

The testimony of different witnesses thus described Samuel King.

One said:

'He was notoriously and incorrigibly intemperate; though not often in such a condition that he could not go about.'

Another said:

'I do not recollect that I ever saw him where spirituous liquors were to be had that he did not drink to excess.'

A third:

'He was generally intoxicated; that is to say, generally speaking, when I saw him he was so.'

A fourth:

'If I ever saw him sober, I have no recollection of the fact. He was in the habit of constantly drinking.'

This Samuel King, as the testimony further showed, was not only intemperate but was always considered very poor. One witness, Mr. Fox, of Somerset, clerk of the County Court of Pulaski, Kentucky, thus testified:

'To the best of my recollection he was at all times in a manner destitute of any property or credit. I well recollect that he applied to me as often as three times to borrow the sum of $5, each time, as he said, to defray his expenses to Abingdon, Virginia, where he was going to draw his legacy coming to him from the estate of his brother William King, which sums I lent him, he promising to refund the amounts upon his return, which, however, he never refunded.'

Mr. Benjamin Estill, a lawyer, long resident in Abingdon, Virginia, said:

'He was believed to be totally insolvent for three years before his death, which event took place in 1812. I have seen him several times in Abingdon applying for his annuity, and understood that he came on foot from Somerset in Kentucky, where he lived.'- Besides being poor and given to drinking spirituous liquor in excess, there was testimony about him thus, and there was no testimony to contradict it.

One witness said:

'I always considered him as a very wild and visionary man, incapable of making bargains to any amount, when he had been drinking, and especially when there was any intricacy in the transaction.'

Another said:

'I never saw him at any time in a condition when he could contract or trade to any advantage to himself or his family.'

Additional witnesses confirmed this account of him; one saying:

'I never saw him after the death of his brother, that I thought him capable of transacting business of any kind. He ought to have had a guardian, and if he had been in the North would have had one.'

We have mentioned that one of the heirs of William King, of Abingdon, was his sister Hannah, married to John Allen.

Allen's character was thus testified to.

One witness said:

'John Allen's general character as to correctness of dealing in money matters was bad. I am not able to say whether Samuel King was an easy subject for fraud. But Allen's general character was such that he would take advantage of any man if an opportunity offered, and he would do it so smoothly that the person imposed on would consider him a friend.'

A second one said further:

'I was well acquainted with John Allen, and knew no good of him. I though him capable of committing frauds of any enormity.'

In addition to these two persons, connected, as we have said, by marriage with one another, and by their common right to participate in the large estate of William King, there appear d a third person, a principal actor in the controversies the subject of this report. His name was John Vint, and he was entitled 'of Washington City in the District of Columbia.'

Vint was an Englishman, who came to the United States in 1800. His relation to the parties connected with this suit begins about the year 1810, when he is found in intimate relations with Allen; but the mode of origin of his said relation was nowhere distinctly shown, nor with any detail. His name was connected, in the present case, with large transactions. How far property was traced with distinctness as being really his, so as to enable him to purchase in the way, as it will be seen in the sequel, that he alleged he truly did purchase in this case, will appear by the testimony which follows.

One witness said:

'I never saw him till he and John Allen came to purchase a negro girl I owned. I knew nothing of his pecuniary condition. I was acquainted with Allen before. I sold them the girl. They never paid me.'

Another witness, one Russell, said:

'In November, 1810, Mr. Vint had a store in the house of Mr. John Allen, and had there a considerable quantity of goods, which were said to be Vint's; but I do not recollect that I ever heard either Allen or Vint say that they belonged to Vint. I was frequently at the store. The shelves were pretty well filled with a good display. I heard it spoken of about that time, that Vint had sold out to Allen. Previous to that time Allen was frequently embarrassed, but as respects the condition of property I am not informed.'

A third witness, Francis Smith, an attorney at law, who had married the widow of William King in 1811, but who testified that he had no interest whatever in the result of the suit, confirmed the view of these two witnesses:

'Previous to September 5th, 1812, there were placed in my hands for collection large claims on Allen. I know that he was hard pressed long before in his pecuniary affairs, and that he was never able to purchase and pay $11,600 for any property. He had nothing, and was able to purchase nothing. About this time I frequently saw both Allen and Vint. They were sometimes in jail and sometimes out. I thought both of them without property or means.'

A fourth witness, one Stout, however, testified in rather an opposite way. He said:

'I recollect the sale by John Allen to John Vint of his interest in the estate of William King, for the sum of about $18,000. I understood from John Allen that at the time of the sale he owed to him, Vint, a small sum, about $2000, and that the balance of the purchase-money was paid by Vint in goods, which Allen afterwards told me he had received. I farther know of my own knowledge that Allen did receive a great many goods from Vint.'

However, as stated, infra (see p. 433), by Vint himself, this sum of $18,000 was not a true consideration.

We now return to Samuel King, already mentioned as intemperate, poor, and visionary. We have stated that he lived in Kentucky and was obliged to come in the beginning of each year, in person, to Saltville or Abingdon, to give his personal receipt for the $150 left to him by his brother's will. He came for the last time in January, 1812, when he claimed payment for two years.

A witness, resident at Abingdon, thus testified:

'When he came to Abingdon, he came to Allen's; Allen kept a public house. He came there drunk, riding a little chunk of a pony, and dressed in a common dress. He was almost always drunk during the time that he was there. When he got to Abingdon he was asked by Allen's family how he had paid his expenses from Kentucky, and whether he had put up at private houses or at taverns? He said that he had put up at any place that he could get in at, and told the persons with whom he put up that he would pay them on his return; for that he would get this year two years' payment. Allen told him that he could get but one, for that he had not come for the last year's payment at the right time, and that under the terms of the will it was go e. Allen's family told me that he was a poor man; and Mrs. Allen, his sister, told him in my presence to return to his family, for that they would suffer in his absence. I thought him to be deranged from intemperance, and this opinion was entertained by the family of Allen generally.'

Having got payment for either one or for two years, King set off on his pony to go back to his home, in Kentucky. He arrived at the house of a man named Pridemore, about sixty miles from Abingdon, to stay all night, and 'while there,' according to the language of a person who...