Statement of the case.-Samuel King, his disappearance and death.

He had nothing, and was able to purchase nothing. About this time I frequently saw both Allen and Vint. They were sometimes in jail and sometimes out. I thought both of them without property or means."

A fourth witness, one Stout, however, testified in rather an opposite way. He said:

"I recollect the sale by John Allen to John Vint of his interest in the estate of William King, for the sum of about $18,000. I understood from John Allen that at the time of the sale he owed to him, Vint, a small sum, about $2000, and that the balance of the purchase-money was paid by Vint in goods, which Allen afterwards told me he had received. I farther know of my own knowledge that Allen did receive a great many goods from Vint."

However, as stated, infra (see p. 433), by Vint himself, this sum of $18,000 was not a true consideration.

We now return to Samuel King, already mentioned as intemperate, poor, and visionary. We have stated that he lived in Kentucky and was obliged to come in the beginning of each year, in person, to Saltville or Abingdon, to give his personal receipt for the $150 left to him by his brother's will. He came for the last time in January, 1812, when he claimed payment for two years.

A witness, resident at Abingdon, thus testified:

"When he came to Abingdon, he came to Allen's; Allen kept a public house. He came there drunk, riding a little chunk of a pony, and dressed in a common dress. He was almost always drunk during the time that he was there. When he got to Abingdon he was asked by Allen's family how he had paid his expenses from Kentucky, and whether he had put up at private houses or at taverns? He said that he had put up at any place that he could get in at, and told the persons with whom he put up that he would pay them on his return; for that he would get this year two years' payment. Allen told him that he could get but one, for that he had not come for the last year's payment at the right time, and that under the terms of the will it was gone. Allen's family told me that he was a poor man; and Mrs. Allen, his sister, told him in my presence to return to

Statement of the case.-Deed of Allen and wife to Vint.

his family, for that they would suffer in his absence. I thought him to be deranged from intemperance, and this opinion was entertained by the family of Allen generally."

Having got payment for either one or for two years, King set off on his pony to go back to his home, in Kentucky. He arrived at the house of a man named Pridemore, about sixty miles from Abingdon, to stay all night, and “while there," according to the language of a person who saw him, appeared "during the evening to be very uneasy, going frequently to the door in a state of alarm, and saying that he feared a man by the name of John Allen, and other persons who were following him from Abingdon, and that he would be assassinated." In the morning his hat and boots, pocketbook and saddle-bags were in his room, but he himself could not be found, and was never again seen or heard of. For some time grave suspicions of murder rested both upon Pridemore and upon Allen. But it finally rather appeared that King had gone out of the house in the middle of the night under the influence of mania a potû, and wandering through the forests thereabouts had fallen into a rapid stream, swollen by recent rains, and was lost among the gorges of the mountains which rise in that region. The whole matter, however, remained much a mystery.

His pony, saddle-bags, pocket-book, hat, and boots were sent back to his brother-in-law, Allen, by whose wife the saddle-bags and pocket-book were opened and examined. They contained papers but no money.

The unfortunate man himself left, at the time of his death, three children, aged respectively about one, three, and five years.

Allen died not long after, also leaving several children, all young.

We come now more particularly to certain facts of this

case.

It seemed plain enough that on the 16th of November, 1810, Allen and wife executed a deed by which, for the pro fessed" consideration of $18,901.27, current money, to them in hand paid,' they conveyed to Vint all the right and in

Statement of the case.-Deed of Samuel King and wife to Vint.

terest which the said Allen, in right of his wife, and also which his said wife had in the estate of the said William King, that is to say one-eighth part of that estate; and also a certain fifth part of the eighth of the estate which came to Samuel King as one of the heirs, which fifth the deed recited that the said Samuel had conveyed to Allen, who was to reserve it as a compensation to counsel, for services in the suits already mentioned at the beginning of the report of this case (page 422), brought to establish in effect an intestacy, and the rights of the heirs.

This deed had apparently been witnessed on the day of its date, November 16th, 1810, in the ordinary way, by three witnesses; but was not then acknowledged, proved, or recorded. On the 27th of April, 1812, fifteen months after the date of its execution, and as was specified on it, “at the request of Allen," its execution was attested de novo by two other witnesses. On the 7th of May following, it was proved for record in the way required by the laws of Virginia.

The scrivener who drew the deed testified that he drew it carefully; the transaction being large; but that he knew nothing about the true consideration of it.

It seemed further, plain enough, that on the 1st of January, 1811, Samuel King had executed a deed by which, for the professed" consideration of the sum of $10,000 to them in hand paid," he and his wife had transferred to this same Vint four-fifths of their interest in the estate of William King, brother of the said Samuel; the remaining fifth having, as the deed declared, been conveyed by them to Allen, in the way already mentioned, as compensation to counsel, in attending to the suits to establish the rights of the heirs.

The wife's execution of this deed, as it was produced, was by a mark. The execution of this deed was not witnessed, nor did the deed itself state where it had been executed, that is to say, whether in Virginia (at Abingdon or Saltville), where Allen lived, or at Somerset, in Kentucky, where King and his wife, the grantors, lived. But it appeared that on the 29th of January, 1811, that is to say twenty-eight days after the day stated in the instrument as the date of its exe

Statement of the case. The pleadings.

cution, the instrument had been acknowledged by King and his wife in Somerset, Kentucky, where King and his wife lived, and by King then given to the recorder there for record, and afterward by the recorder returned to King; Vint not anywhere appearing in this transaction.

Pulaski County, in Kentucky, in which State the lands conveyed by this deed did not lie, was not the proper place for the record of the deed of King and wife to Vint. The deed was not proved in Washington County, Virginia, where the lands did lie, till the 25th of September, 1837.

With this statement by way of proscenium, we will now state the pleadings and further developments in the case:

In January, A.D. 1825, during the pendency of the litigation in some of its forms, about the estate of the original owner of it, William King, who, as we have already said, died in 1808, a bill was filed in the Circuit Court of the United States by some of the heirs to obtain a partition of the lands not incumbered by the widow's life estate, and on the 25th of April, 1836, after the last of the decisions in this court, an order was entered appointing commissioners to make this partition. These commissioners afterwards made a report, and, among other things, assigned to the children and heirs of Samuel King, and the children and heirs of Hannah Allen, the wife of John Allen, one-fourth the property divided.

On the 24th of September, 1888, Vint filed an original bill against the heirs of Samuel King and the heirs of Allen and wife, in which he set forth substantially that each bad become owners of one-eighth of the estate of William King, of Abingdon, and then alleged that he was the owner in fee of their interest in the estate. He stated that his title to the Allen interest and one-fifth of the King interest was obtained by the already mentioned deed from Allen and wife, dated November 16th, 1810, in which, for the consideration of $18,901.27, they conveyed the same to him; and that his title to four-fifths of the King interest was by the already mentioned deed from King and wife, dated January 1st,

Statement of the case. -The pleadings.

1811, in consideration of $10,000, executed and recorded in Kentucky. Of both these deeds, their tests, probates, &c., he appended copies to his bill. But he appended nothing else; nor did he state or intimate in the bill, or by anything appended to it, that the transactions were in reality in the least other or different than what a reader would infer from reading the two instruments themselves. He stated rather, on the contrary, that he did not desire a suspension of the proceedings in partition any further than was necessary to protect his rights, and that he was willing to accept the lands set off to the heirs as and for his share. And the prayer of the bill was to the effect that he might be substituted for these heirs in the partition proceedings, and that whatever was assigned to them might be adjudged to him.

In September, 1839, all the defendants answered the bill, and in substance stated that they were very young when the transactions referred to occurred, and that they had no personal knowledge as to the matters in controversy. They denied generally all the allegations in the bill adverse to their interests, and suggesting many serious grounds of suspicion against the validity of the claim of Vint, demanded from him full and express proof of all the material averments of his bill, and especially for proof of the fairness of the deeds, and of the full payment of the consideration thereof, and of the circumstances of the execution of the deeds and the alleged payments. The death of the widow of William King, the original owner, was also suggested, and the heirs of Samuel King stated that they had conveyed their interest to a certain Findlay.

On the 19th of September, 1839, Vint filed his supplemental bill, making Findlay a party, and also alleging the death of the widow, and asserting his right to the interest of Samuel King and Hannah and John Allen in the property devised to her for life and assigned to her for dower. In this supplemental bill he stated as follows:

"Your orator cannot suppose that it will be necessary for him to allege or prove the payment of the consideration, acknowl edged in solemn form by the parties to said deeds, until the