Case ID: mass_27/html/0153-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Court\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Elijah Hagar versus William Wiswall et al.
    
    On a petition for partition of an estate consisting of several parcels of land, the commissioners are not obliged to set off to each cotenant a portion of every parcel, but are authorized to assign to one or more, or all, an entire parcel each, according to the situation and circumstances of the estate.
    Petition for partition. The estate to be divided consisted of several detached parcels. The parties were desirous that the whole of one parcel might be assigned to one, the whole of another to another, and so on; but the commissioners thought they had not the power to make such a division, under the statute of 1783, c. 41, and so divided each parcel among ad the cotenants. The application to the Court was to recommit the report to the commissioners, for the purpose of making a division upon the former principle, if in the opinion of the Court they have authority to do so.
   The Court

were clearly of opinion, that where the land held in common consists of several parcels, it is to be considered as one entire subject-matter of partition, and it is competent to the commissioners to give to each tenant a part to hold in severalty, equal to his share of the whole estate thus held, and for that purpose to give to one or more, or all, an entire parcel each, as their respective purparties, according to the situation and circumstances of the estate.