Between, Joseph Wilkins, Administrator of His Late Defunct Wife Sarah, One of the Grandaughters and Legataries of Thomas Williamson, and Widow, When She Was Married Last of Hartwell Cocke, Plaintiff, and, John Taylor, and William Urquhart, Executors of the Said Thomas Williamson, Defendents

From Wythepedia: The George Wythe Encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

by George Wythe

Between Wilkins and Taylor
George Wythe bookplate.jpg
Title not held by The Wolf Law Library
at the College of William & Mary.
 
Author George Wythe
Editor
Translator
Published n.p. (Richmond, VA?): n.p. (Thomas Nicolson?)
Date n.d. (1799?)
Edition
Language
Volumes volume set
Pages 30,(1)
Desc. 8vo (20 cm.)

Between Wilkins and Taylor[1] is a published opinion by George Wythe, for the case Wilkins v. Taylor, Wythe 338 (1799), in Virginia's High Court of Chancery.[2] The report was published in pamphlet form in 1799 or later—almost certainly printed by Thomas Nicolson of Richmond, Virginia, who had published Wythe's Reports in 1795, and at least seven other supplements for Wythe, in 1796 and after.[3]

B.B. Minor, editor of the second edition of Wythe's Reports in 1852, summarizes the case, thusly:

Bequest of the interest of stock to testator's daughter for life; then said interest over equally to testator's grandchildren; and "at their decease principal and interest to be disposed by them to their heirs, in such proportions ah they, by their wills, respectively, may direct; and in case of the death of grandaughter S. C. without issue, her part to grandaughter E. C."

The Chancellor held, that this was only a bequest of the interest, to the grandchildren, who were to reserve the principal and distribute it among their heirs respectively. The Court of Appeals held, it was an absolute gilt to said grandchildren after said daughter's deith, and, confirming the decree of the County Court, reversed that of the H. C. C., in the Appeal, 5 Call, 150.

The same point is involved in Goodwyn v. Taylor, 4 Call, 305; S. C. 2 Wash. 74; and decided the same way.[4]

Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

Upon his death, a copy of this pamphlet which had belonged to Wythe was bequeathed with his books to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson had the pamphlet bound into a volume with seven of Wythe's other Chancery decisions which were published as supplements.[5] Subsequently, the volume became part of the collection at the Library of Congress, titled on the spine: Wythe's Reports. Supplement. Virginia. 1796-99.[6] The pamphlet for Between Wilkins and Taylor has a handwritten notation, "no. 5," on the first page.[7]

This pamphlet contains an errata sheet on the last page; Wythe made manuscript notations in his hand, correcting the errors.[8]

See also

References

  1. George Wythe, Between, Joseph Wilkins, Administrator of His Late Defunct Wife Sarah, One of the Grandaughters and Legataries of Thomas Williamson, and Widow, When She Was Married Last of Hartwell Cocke, Plaintiff, and, John Taylor, and William Urquhart, Executors of the Said Thomas Williamson, Defendents [sic] (Richmond, VA: Thomas Nicolson, 1799?).
  2. George Wythe, Decisions of Cases in Virginia by the High Court of Chancery with Remarks upon Decrees by the Court of Appeals, Reversing Some of Those Decisions, 2nd ed., ed. B.B. Minor (Richmond: J.W. Randolph, 1852), 338.
  3. Charles Evans, in his American Bibliography, vol. 11 (1942), estimates the date of publication as 1796.
  4. Wythe, Decisions (1852), 338.
  5. "Six tracts originally bound together in calf for Jefferson by Milligan on June 30, 1807 (cost $1.00). Rebound in Buckram for the Library of Congress." E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1953), 2:208 [1763].
  6. This volume contains pamphlets for: Case upon the Statute for Distribution (1796); Field v. Harrison (1794); Fowler v. Saunders and Goodall v. Bullock (1798, together in the same pamphlet); Wilkins v. Taylor (1799); Yates v. Salle (1792); and Love v. Donelson (1801). See also: Aylett v. Aylett (1793), and Overton v. Ross (1803).
  7. For the pamphlet numeration, see WorldCat.
  8. "Manuscript corrections by Wythe." Sowerby, 2:209.

External Links