Case ID: tenn_24/html/0047-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Tukley, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Hunter vs. Bryan et als.
    
    To create an estate in fee simple, the land must be conveyed to the purchaser and his heirs. .Where it is conveyed to the purchaser alone, a life estate alone is created.
    Catharine-Hunter, thp widow of Thomas Hunter deceased, filed this bill in the ' Chancery Court of Greenville, in 1843, against Mary Bryan and others, the heirs of John Hunter, and also against the heirs of her deceased, husband, to have dower decreed her.
    The bill charges, that on the 8th day of January, 1813, John Hunter, by deed, conveyed to his son Thomas Hunter, a tract of land, lying in Green county; that Thomas Hunter continued in uninterrupted possession of said land till his death, in 1842; that since that period she and her children had remained in, possession of it, and that during this entire period the possession had been held adversely. The bill also charged, that the heirs of John Hunter set up a claim to the land on the ground, that John Hunter conveyed by the terms of the deed only a life estate to Thomas Hunter.
    The bill made an exhibit of the deed, by which it appeared that John Hunter “released all his right,- title, claim and interest to Thomas Hunter.”
    
      Note. — See 4 Kent, 4, 5.
    The defendants, demurred to the bill, and after the argument of the demurrer, the Chancellor sustained the demurrer and dismissed the bill.
    The complainant appealed.
    
      T. A. R. Nelson, for complainant.
    
      II. J. McKinney Sneed, for defendant.
   Tukley, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

On the 8th day of January, 1813, John Hunter executed a written instrument, under seal, in the words following:

“Know all men by these presents, that I, John Hunter, Sr., of the county of Green, State of Tennessee, do release all my right, title and claim in and to a tract of land to Thomas Hunter, of the county aforesaid; the land lying and being on Grassy creek, in the county of Green, for a sum to me in hand paid; the land on which Hive, two hundred acres.”

Thomas Hunter took possession of the land and resided upon it till his death, which event took place some thirty years af-terwards, as the bill alleges. Upon his death his widow, complainant, files her bill for dower in the premises, and the question presented is, what estate did her husband take under the conveyance from John Hunter, Sr.; and we are constrained by long and well settled principles, to hold it to be an estate for life only, in the 1st vol. of his Treatise upon Tenures, Little-ton says, that “to create an estate in fee simple, the land must be conveyed to the purchaser and his heirs.” This as a rule of property, although of feudal Origin, has 'been invariably enforced, and we have no power to change it. Thomas Hunter, then being only seized and possessed of an estate for life, there is nothing out of which his widow is endowable, and the decree of the Chancellor must be affirmed.