Case ID: root_1/html/0423-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Town of Lisbon v. Town of Franklin.
    Residing in a town more than one year, under certain circumstances, will not obtain a settlement.
    ActioN of the case for supporting one Hannah Tracy and her children, the wife of Samuel Tracy, whom the town of Franklin, on the 15th of December A. D. 1791 caused to be transported to said town of Lisbon, demanding £25 damages. Plea- — -Not guilty. Issue to the court.
    The state of the case was —• Said Samuel Tracy was born in that part of the ancient town of Norwich, which now was Franklin. Some years before A. D. 1786 he.removed to that part of said ancient town, which now was Lisbon, and resided there two or three years. In A. D. 1785 he removed to the town of Mansfield; in A. D. 1786 the ancient town of Norwich was divided by act of the general assembly into four towns, viz. Norwich, Franklin, Bozrah and Lisbon. In April A. D. 1787 said Samuel returned from Mansfield, not having gained a settlement there, to the town of Franklin, and there resided more than one year without being warned. In June A. D. 1790 he removed to Walpole in the state of New Hampshire and returned in September A. D. 1791 without having gained a settlement there. The act of assembly dividing the ancient town of Norwich, is that Franklin, Lisbon and Bozrah shall take to themselves and maintain their proportion of the poor people, now supported or assisted by said .town of Norwich, and shall receive and acknowledge their proportion of those inhabitants of said town of Norwich, who now dwell in other places by permission, certificate or otherwise, and shall be hereafter returned as legal inhabitants of said ancient town of Norwich, and shall bear their proportion of the expenses which shall arise on such inhabitants when i*etumed as aforesaid.
    The poor of said ancient town who were returned after the division aforesaid, were supported at the common expense of all the towns, according to their several proportions, until the 20th of January A. D. 1791, when the ancient town of Norwich, comprehending all said new towns, voted and agreed, that the inhabitants of said ancient town who were absent, out of it at the time of said division, viz. in May A. D. 1786, should be inhabitants of such town or towns, within the limits of said ancient town, which now comprehends the place of their last residence, before said division.- On the 15th of February A. D. 1791, the town of Lisbon voted to accept all such inhabitants of said ancient town, who were absent as aforesaid at the time of said division, and whose last place of residence in said ancient town, was within the limits of said Lisbon, and had not gained a settlement in any other town'; that said Tracy’s wife, etc. became chargeable and was removed by order of said town of Franklin to Lisbon.
   The court found that the defendants were not guilty and gave judgment for them to recover their cost, upon the principle that although said Tracy dwelt in the town of Franklin more than a year,' without warning, after he returned from Mansfield in April A. D. 1787; yet during the whole of that time, he was' considered as one of the poor of said ancient town and supported'at the common expense of all the towns, and so not in a situation tu be removed or to gain a settlement by commoráncy; and his last place of residence in said ancient’town,' before the division, was within the limits of the present town of Lisbon. ' '