John Catron

“ This will, from the time it was probated in 1813, stood as the true succession of Daniel Clark for more than forty years. An immense estate in lands and personal property has been acquired under it, by all classes of innocent purchasers, without any suspicion of the fact that any other and better title existed. It is admitted on behalf of the respondents, by stipulation in this cause, that each purchaser who bought in 1820, and every subsequent purchaser under the first one, bought for a full price, paid the purchase money, and got a regular conveyance for the land purchased. ”

“ But the respondents would have been bona fide purchasers had the will of 1811 never existed. Mary Clark was the apparent legal heir of her son in the ascending line. Daniel Clark was known and recognised in New Orleans as an unmarried man; he had resided there from his youth, and was extensively and uncommonly well known, having represented the Territory of Orleans in Congress. A number of witnesses prove, and most conclusively, that he was deemed and recognised universally as a man who had never been married up to the time of his death. ”

“ It is altogether immaterial, however, whether Clark did or did not marry Des Grange's wife, as it could be of no value to the complainant if he did. Clark must have been an innocent and deluded party to give Mrs. Gaines the benefit proposed by the will of 1813-as in case of an adventurer, from abroad, marrying an innocent single woman, leaving a wife behind him. There, the children of the second marriage cannot be disinherited and condemned; they can take as bastards, from the mother. So the courts of Louisiana hold. ”

“ It is admitted in this case that both the power of attorney from Mary Clark and the deeds to purchasers made under that power were not recorded in the office of the probate judge, but that they were recorded in a notary's office in New Orleans; and it is assumed, and the cause is made to depend mainly on the fact, that the sales of Chew & Relf, as attorneys of Mary Clark, are null as to third persons for this reason. This is an entire mistake. The act of 1810, section 7, never had any application to the parish of Orleans, where the land in dispute lies. ”

“ As to four-fifths of a moiety, we are by this bill called on to try the precise issue of heir, or no heir, that we tried in the former suit.
If the decision reported in 12 How. be overthrown, ruin must be the consequence to very many who have confided in its soundness. In a rapidly-growing city like New Orleans, much of the property supposed to be protected by our former decree must have changed hands. Large improvements must have been made in the nine years since that suit was deciced. It covered all Daniel Clark's estate as it existed at his death, and had over sixty defendants to it. ”

“ Conceding the fact that the parents intermarried after Caroline's birth, then that marriage made Caroline a legitimate child of the marriage, and equal heir with Myra; such being the law of Louisiana. Nor could the father, by the laws of that State, take from his legitimate child more than one-fifth part of his estate by devise. ”