Case ID: mass_18/html/0156-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Inhabitants of Mendon versus The Inhabitants of Bellingham.
    A settlement in Massachusetts, lost by a subsequent settlement gained in the District of Maine before it became a separate State, did not revive by that event.
    Assumpsit for expenses incurred in the support of certain paupers. By a statement of facts agreed upon by the parties, it appeared, that the paupers, having a settlement in Bellingham, removed in 1810 to Plantation No. 4, in the District of Maine, where they acquired a new settlement. Afterwards they removed to Mendon, and resided there several years, but without acquiring a settlement.
    The question was, whether the settlement in Bellingham evivdd, when the District of Maine became an independent
    __ Hastings, for the plaintiffs,
    contended that the paupers’ settlement in Bellingham .was not lost, but only suspended, by their acquiring a settlement in the District of Maine ; in the same manner as if they had acquired a settlement in another State. Townsend v. Billerica, 11 Mass. Rep. 411.
    Lincoln, for the defendants,
    was stopped by the Court.
    
    
      
       This case was argued and determined at an adjourned session of the Court. The same point had been recently argued at October term, in Essex, in the case of The Inhabitants of Newburyport v. The Inhabitants of West Newbury — Reporter.
      
    
   Per Curiam.

A pauper cannot have two settlements m this Commonwealth at the same time. As soon as these paupers gained a new settlement in Plantation No. 4, which was then a part of this Commonwealth, they lost entirely their old settlement in Bellingham.

The acts relating to the separation of Maine make no provision respecting paupers. The legislature might perhaps have considered it proper for the State to support them under circumstances like the present; but it is more probable, that lathing was thought about the subject.

Plaintiffs nonsuit. 
      
       See Belfast v. Leominster, ante, 127, note (1).