Proprietors Rural Cemetery in Worcester v. Commissioners of Worcester County
| Decision Date | 25 October 1890 |
| Parties | PROPRIETORS OF THE RURAL CEMETERY IN WORCESTER v. COMMISSIONERS OF WORCESTER COUNTY. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Thos G. Kent and Geo. T. Dewey, for petitioners.
Frank P. Goulding, for respondent.
By their original act of incorporation, (Sp.St.1838, c. 17,) the petitioners were authorized to receive and hold for Daniel Waldo a certain tract of land, and also land adjoining thereto, not exceeding 20 acres. This land was, by the third section of the act, to be taken and held for a rural cemetery. Power was given to lay out the same in suitable lots for burial, and to grant rights of burial therein, which rights were not to be subject to attachment or execution, or liable to taxation; and it was added: "Nor shall said corporation be liable to be taxed for said land." The corporation was authorized also "to erect on said premises a dwelling-house, with suitable appendages thereto," and "to set off a portion of said land as a garden." The tract of land, the taxation of which is now in question, was acquired by the corporation in 1853 after it had acquired the Waldo lot, and the 20 acres in addition thereto. It is on the opposite side of the highway from the other tracts of land, which have been laid out into burial lots, and permanent avenues thereto. Upon it are a small dwelling-house, occupied by the superintendent of the cemetery, who pays no rent, but whose salary is fixed with reference to this privilege, and two small barns used for the keeping of the horses, carts, and tools owned and used by the corporation for the work on the cemetery grounds. By the act of 1856, c. 62, the corporation was authorized to take and hold, by purchase or otherwise, so much real or personal estate as was necessary for the objects of its organization, any limitation in the original act notwithstanding, to be devoted "exclusively to purposes connected with and appropriate to the objects of the corporation."
The effect of the act of 1856 was to confirm and justify the purchase of the lot made in 1853, if there was no other objection thereto except that arising from the fact that the corporation had at that time exceeded in quantity the amount of real estate which it was entitled to purchase. It is the contention of the respondent that the statute cannot be construed as extending the exemption from taxation to lands held or purchased by it which was applicable to the smaller area held under the statute of 1838, even if it operated to remove the limitation to the power to take land which existed under that statute. While, in terms, it is not stated that the additional land, held under authority of the statute of 1856, shall be exempted from taxation, it does, we think appear that the same...
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