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John Coulson, Appellant v. James Walton and others 62 (1835)

handle is hein.slavery/ussccases0109 and id is 1 raw text is: SUPREME COURT. JOHN COULSON, APPELLANT V. JAMES WALTON AND OTHERS. Tennessee. A bond was executed in 1787 by which the obligor bound him- self to pay 100 pounds for a horse, or to make over to the obligee his i n- terest in a certain entry and warrant of land, and if the deed or grant for the land should issue to him, to transfer the land by deed, and to warrant and defend the said deed. The obligor elected to pay the bond by giving the land for the same. He made no valid conveyance of the land in his life time, but it was taken possession of by the obligee and has ever since been occupied under the title so acquired by the obligee. After the son and sole heir of the obligor came of age, he commenced an action of ejectment for the land, and those who claimed title under the obligee filed a bill for an injunction, and that the defendant, the plaintiff in the ejectment, be de- creed to convey the land according to the stipulations in the bond. This bill was filed in 1822. The court said, in considering the question as to the genuineness of the bond on which this controversy is founded, the first important fact that occurs to the mind is, the remoteness of the transaction. Nearly half a century has elapsed since this instrument purports to have been executed. The obligor and the obligee, and both the witnesses are dead. The contract belongs to the past age. It was executed, if at all, when the country was new and unsettled, and the parties to it seem to have been.illiterate men, and unac- quainted with business transactions. These circumstances are referred to, not to show that this bond should be received without proof, but to show that as strict proof should not be required of its execution, as if it were of recent date. The law makes some allowance for the frailties of memory, and where a great length of time has elapsed since the signing of an instru- ment attempted to be proved, circumstances are viewed as having an im- portant bearing upon the question. The case of Barr v. Gratz, 4 Wheaton 231, 4 Condensed Reports 426, cited. Construction of the statutes of limitations of North Carolina of 1815 and 1819. Statutes of limitations are applied by courts of equity, in all cases where at law they might be pleaded. At law, to make the statute a bar, there must be an adverse possession, and by analogy a court of equity, in a similar case, will hold the statute to be a good bar. But the statute insisted on as a bar in this case, does not depend upon pos- session. It bars a creditor who does not sue the heir within seven years, There can be no doubt that the statute applies, where a creditor seeks to make the heir liable for the debt of his ancestor, on the ground that either personal or real property descended to him. And this appears to be the de- cision of the supreme court of Tennessee on the statute. There is nothing in their decisions referred to, which show that they have given effect to the statute beyond this. By the statute of 1819, which is wholly different in its language from the act of 1815, a bar is created, indiscriminately, to suits in equity, as well as at law. The statutes do not apply to this case. The instruments under which a part of the complainants set up an equity de-

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