Joseph Story

“ The answer of the defendants in the court below, admits that Charles Beatty deceased, did designate a lot in his addition to Georgetown, by inscribing on the plot thereof these words, 'for the Lutheran church;' that they always understood and believed that he meant by that inscription to manifest an intention to appropriate that lot to the use of the Lutherans, provided they would build on it, within a reasonable time, a house of public worship, which would conduce to diffuse piety, to enhance the value of his property, and to adorn his addition to Georgetown. ”

“ But they further say, that if the Lutherans had enjoyed the possession alleged in the complainants' bill, they might and should have enforced the rights thereby acquired at law, and ought not to have come into equity for a remedy. Finally, confessing that they had resumed possession of the property, they deny the authority of the complainants to act in behalf of the pretended German Lutheran church, and pray the same benefit of these defences as if they had been urged by plea to the bill. ”

“ It was originally consecrated for a religious purpose; it has become a depository of the dead; and it cannot now be resumed by the heirs of Charles Beatty.
The next question is as to the competency of the plaintiffs to maintain the present suit. If they were proved to be the regularly appointed committee of a voluntary society of Lutherans, in actual possession of the premises, and acting by their direction to prevent a disturbance of that possession, under circumstances like those stated in the bill, we do not perceive any serious objection to their right to maintain the suit. ”

“ The Lutherans in Georgetown, who have possessed the lot in question, are not and never have been incorporated as a religious society. The congregation has consisted of a voluntary society, acting in its general arrangement by committees and trustees, chosen from time to time by the Lutherans belonging to it. ”

“ They will at least remember, that if the appellees rely on their pretended erection of a pretended church, as an execution on their part of the pretended contract, they admit that they were bound by that contract to erect a church; while it will be impossible to regard a log school house, afterwards converted into a dwelling house, and now destroyed, whoever may have called it a church and have preached in it, as such a building to be applied to such a purpose as is called for by a contract to build a church. ”

“ It is proved that, shortly after the appropriation, and more than fifty years ago, the Lutherans of Georgetown proceeded to erect a log house on the lot, which was used as a church for public worship, by that denomination of Christians; and was also occasionally, and at different times since, used as a school house under their direction. That at a much later period, a steeple and bell were added to the building; that the land was used as a church yard; that a sexton appointed by Lutherans had the direction of it; that more than half of the lot is covered with graves ”

“ Though divine service was frequently administered in that building, there was, at no other periods than those just mentioned, a stationed preacher who ministered to a congregation in regular attendance there, except a Mr Brooke, who was an Episcopal clergyman, and who, Dr Balch testifies, had possession of that building as a church in 1779. ”

“ Bills founded on the solet are used 'where a man is entitled to a rent out of lands, as chief rents or quit rents, and from length of time the remedy at law is lost, or become very difficult;' relief has, in such case, been given in equity, on the sole ground of long and undisputed payment of the rent. 1 Mad. Ch. 29. But the appellees in this case, or those whom they pretend to represent, never had such an adverse possession of the lot in question as gave them a title to it ”