Levi Boone, Administrator of Jesse Thomas, Deceased and the Heirs of Thomas, Complainants and Appellants v. the Missouri Iron Company

• Decision Date: 01 December 1854
• Citation: 58 U.S. 340,17 How. 340,15 L.Ed. 171
• Parties: LEVI D. BOONE, ADMINISTRATOR OF JESSE B. THOMAS, DECEASED, AND THE HEIRS OF J. B. THOMAS, COMPLAINANTS AND APPELLANTS, v. THE MISSOURI IRON COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

58 U.S. 340

17 How. 340

15 L.Ed. 171

LEVI D. BOONE, ADMINISTRATOR OF JESSE B. THOMAS, DECEASED, AND THE HEIRS OF J. B. THOMAS, COMPLAINANTS AND APPELLANTS, v. THE MISSOURI IRON COMPANY.

December Term, 1854

THIS was an appeal from the circuit court of the United States for the district of Missouri.

The bill was filed by Thomas, in his lifetime, and referred to a complicated history of transactions, running from 1836 to 1848, the date of the bill. A condensed narrative of these transactions is given in the opinion of the court.

The circuit court dismissed the bill, and the complainants appealed to this court.

The case was argued by Mr. Britton A. Hill, for the respondents, no counsel appearing for the appellant.

The argument of Mr. Hill was so intimately connected with the facts in the case, upon which he founded his legal inferences,

that the points of law could not be made intelligible without a detailed statement of the particular facts of the case. The argument is, therefore, omitted altogether.

Mr. Justice McLEAN delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal from the circuit court of the United States for the district of Missouri.

The bill prays the specific execution of a contract between Thomas and the Missouri Iron Company, dated 15th August, 1839, which requires the defendants to give up and cancel the notes of Thomas to Nancy Bullett, for $10,000, dated 2d November, 1836; to pay a debt due to Martin Thomas; to sell or transfer, on the books of said company, for the use of the complainant, $43,000 worth of stock of said company, or, in the alternative, that the American Iron Company may be decreed to reconvey the one undivided seventh part of the Iron Mountain tract to the complainant.

The complainant died in 1849, and, his death being suggested, an amended bill was filed, praying for an account of rents and profits, for the use of the land and consumption of ores, timber, &c., by the defendants, and for a decree of title, &c.

On the 2d November, 1836, Nancy Bullett, widow, sold to her brother, the complainant, one undivided seventh part of a tract of 20,000 arpens of land, in Washington county, Missouri, known as the Iron Mountain tract; and she executed to him a title-bond of that date, with the condition that she would convey to him the above interest, on the payment of two notes for $5,000 each, one payable at six, the other at twelve months, from the date of the bond. On the 15th of November, 1836, Thomas made a similar title-bond to John L. Van Doren, with the condition to make a deed, upon his paying the two notes of $5,000 each to Mrs. Bullett; and also three notes, of $5,000 each, given by him to Thomas, at eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months, from the date of the bond.

On the 31st of December, 1836, the Missouri Iron Company was...