Munroe v. Eastman

• Decision Date: 29 January 1875
• Citation: 31 Mich. 283
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Stephen Munroe and another v. Galen Eastman and another

31 Mich. 283

Stephen Munroe and another v. Galen Eastman and another

Supreme Court of Michigan

January 29, 1875

Submitted on Briefs January 27, 1875.

Case made from Ottawa Circuit.

Judgment affirmed, with costs.

Akeley & Stewart, for plaintiffs.

Lowing Cross & Angel, for defendants.

Cooley J. Graves, Ch. J., and Campbell, J., concurred. Christiancy J., did not sit in this case.

OPINION

Cooley, J.:

This was an action of ejectment for lands in the county of Ottawa. All parties claimed title through Edward H. Macy, the original patentee.

The plaintiffs gave in evidence a deed from Macy, whose residence was stated to be in Kalamazoo county, to Joseph W. Brown, of Ionia, Michigan, dated February 20, 1837, and purporting to be acknowledged on that day, before Darius Winsor, a justice of the peace of Kent county, who certified that Macy, "the signer and sealer of the subjoined deed," personally came before him and acknowledged that he executed the deed "for the purpose therein expressed." Upon the deed was an endorsement showing that it was recorded in the Kent county register's office, February 18, 1837. This deed was objected to on several grounds, some of which have nothing in the record to justify them; but the following are entitled to notice:First, That the certificate of acknowledgment is insufficient; that there is nothing showing that the grantor was known to the acknowledging officer;Second, On the face of the deed it appears that the number of the section in the description is written over an erasure which is nowhere noted on the deed, and must therefore be presumed to have been made after its execution;Third, The endorsement of the recording in Kent county is prior to the execution of the deed.

These objections were overruled, and we think properly. The acknowledgment was in a form not uncommon in this state, and was in compliance with the statute in force at its date, which only required that it should "be acknowledged by the party or parties executing the same."--Laws Mich. Territory, Vol. 2, p. 361. The justice certifies that "the signer and sealer of the subjoined deed" acknowledged it, and this implies a knowledge on his part of the facts. The New York decisions referred to on the argument were made under statutes quite different from ours. There is no significance in the use of the word "subjoined." We have not the original deed before us, but we infer from the record that the acknowledgment was somewhere on the same sheet, and it is immaterial where. The discrepancy between the date of the deed and of the record in Kent county, is not of itself a suspicious circumstance, but in the absence of any showing, is fairly referable to clerical mistake. The writing of a word over an erasure may or may not be suspicious. The judge who had the deed before him seems to have thought in this case it was not, and we cannot say without inspection that he has erred. The presumption commonly is, where nothing suspicious appears on the face of the deed beyond the fact that an erasure is manifest, that the alteration was made before the deed was executed.--2 Cool. Bl. Com., 308, note, and cases cited.

The plaintiffs then put in evidence a deed from Joseph W. Brown to ...