Case Name: The Inhabitants of Attleborough versus The Inhabitants of Harwich
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1821-10
Citations: 16 Tyng 397
Docket Number: 
Parties: The Inhabitants of Attleborough versus The Inhabitants of Harwich.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 17
Pages: 321–323

Head Matter:
The Inhabitants of Attleborough versus The Inhabitants of Harwich.
The son of an inhabitant of Harwich, who remonstrated against the incorporation of Brewster, who removed with his father from Harwich before coming of age, and acquired no new settlement in his own right, was held to retain his derivative settlement in Harwich.
Assumpsit for money expended by the plaintiffs, in the support of one Malachi Nickerson and his wife and children, whose legal settlement the plaintiffs aver to be in Harwich.
The parties agreed that the pauper had no settlement in Harwich, unless it was a derivative one under his father, Uriah N., who had a settlement in that town prior to and until the incorporation of the town of Brewster, and was one of the remonstrants against the said incorporation, and complied with all the requisitions prescribed in the second section of the act incorporating Brewster , to entitle him to continue an inhabitant of Harwich, although living within the exterior limits of Brewster. Several years after the passing of the said act, the said Uriah removed to the town of Orleans, the pauper being then a part of his family, and coming of age after such removal, and before the said Uriah acquired a settlement in Orleans. [ * 399 ] * If upon these facts the Court should be of opinion that the legal settlement of the pauper was in Harwich, judgment for a sum agreed was to be rendered for the plaintiffs upon the default of the defendants; otherwise the plaintiffs were to become nonsuit.
[By the section of the statute above referred to, it is provided that the remonstrants against the incorporation of Brewster, conforming to certain requisitions prescribed, “ shall have liberty to remain, with their families and estates, to the town of Harwich.
A. Cushman, for the plaintiffs,
relied on the above provision of the statute, as establishing the pauper’s settlement derivatively from his father, in Harwich; and, to show that he gained no new settlement with his father in Orleans, cited the case of Springfield vs. Wilbraham .
Reed, for the defendants,
agreed that no settlement had been acquired by the pauper in Orleans. But he contended, upon the authority of the case of Dillingham, Ex’r, vs. Burgis & Al. , that the privilege granted by the act of incorporation to the remonstrants, was personal to them, and had no operation upon their children after they were of age. It would operate a great hardship upon the defendants, if this provision shall be construed to fix the estates of the remonstrants to Brewster, and at the same time to leave their descendants chargeable to Harwich.
Swt 1802, c. 76.
4 Mass. Rep. 493.
16 Mass. Rep. 58.

Opinion:
Parker, C. J.,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The pauper's father had his settlement in Harwich, before the act to incorporate Brewster. His wife and children had their settlement also under him, in Harwich.
By that act, neither the habitancy nor the settlement of the father, nor of any of his family, was changed ; for by the second section they were to remain, while they constituted his family, as if no division of the town had taken place.
When he removed to Orleans, he carried with him his right to a settlement in Harwich, which continued until he gained [ * 400 ] a new settlement in Orleans. The settlement of * his family likewise continued. When Malachi, the pauper came of age, he was capable of gaining a settlement for himself, and no longer depended upon his father for his settlement. But as he never gained any, he retained the .settlement derived from his father in Harwich.
It has been argued that the provision, in the section referred to, established a personal privilege in the remonstrants, at whose instance the provision was introduced, and in their families; so that when one of the remonstrants should die, his children coming of age would be inhabitants of Brewster.
This is true; but as the act did not operate upon the children, any more than upon the father, at the time it was passed ; and although, as they came of age, they would be inhabitants of Brewster if they continued to reside within the limits of that town, they would not have settlements there, by virtue of the incorporation. The pauper, however, did not remain there; but went, while under age, with his father to Orleans; so that he never had either habitancy or settlement in Brewster.
Defendants defaulted.