Case Name: Harrison against Strother
Court: South Carolina Court of Common Pleas
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1793
Citations: 1 Bay 332
Docket Number: 
Parties: Harrison against Strother.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 1
Pages: 332–334

Head Matter:
Harrison against Strother.
Under the act"tiües0for recorded inthe the "hr.dTlfe But as to ne-groes and o-tiier personal píSaser &e his5biii of Tale the "ítatelL¡0t' ceases.
TROVER for a negro called Jack. On the lOih of Flay, Í 786, one Kemp Strother' mortgaged five negroes to Jc°^m Vanderhorst, since deceased, one of whom was the' ne8r0 ‘ln Question; and which mortgage was on the 11th of the ensuing September, duly recorded in the secretary’s „ ^ office, m Charleston. On the 7th October, 1786, Kemp Strother sold the negro Jack to the plaintiff Harrison, who recorded his bill of sale in the office of the clerk of the county Fairfield, on the 18th of June, 1791. The defendant, William Strother, claimed under the mortgage from Kemp Strother to Vanderhorst. So that the only question was, who- should be preferred ?
Hunt, for the plaintiff,
contended, that as the parties resided in the county of Fairfield; as the contract was made between the plaintiff and Kemp Strother, in that county ; and as the plaintiff’s bill of sale was first on record, in the clerk’s office there, he was entitled to a preference under the 45th and 47th clauses of the county court act; notwithstanding the mortgage to Vdnderhorst was recorded several years before in the secretary’s office in Charleston. That the records of the counties were the proper places to search for incumbrances on property, since the establishment of county courts. That all mortgages and deeds from the inhabitants of the county, ought to be recorded in the county; aad unless this construction was given to those clauses in the act, no person would ever be safe in a purchase of this species of property, until he searched the clerk’s office of every county and District m the state*
To this, on the part of the defendant, it was replied, that those clauses in the county court act, giving a preference to deeds first on record there, related only to lands and other real estates. They were in their nature, permanent property, which could not be removed out of the limits of the county. It was therefore proper in the legislature to require that all mortgages and deeds for lands, should be re* corded in the county where they lie, in order to quiet the inhabitants of the counties in the possession of their lands, and make it easy for them to inquire and know whether there were any, and what incumbrances on them. But as to negroes and personal chattels, they were in their nature transitory, and therefore the policy of the law was not to require any local registry of the transfer of them. The act is silent as to personal estate ; and deeds and contracts for chattels, must and ought to depend upon the convenience of the purchasers, for whose safety and advantage they ■were made, A registry of them in any part' of the state most convenient to the purchaser, is sufficient. And such deed or transfer for negroes or other personal estate, first on re* cord in any part of the state, ought to have a preference.

Opinion:
Waties, J«
was decidedly of opinion, that the clauses of the county court act, quoted by the plaintiffs counsel, re* lated only to lands lying within the different counties ; and that they could not, by any construction whatever, be extended to negroes or other personal property, which in their nature were transitory. The best rule therefore in every case of a purchase ol this kind of property, would be to leave it to the conven; ency of the purchaser, to record his deed where it suited him best; and every such deed first on record, in any part of the state, ought to have a legal preference.
Bat, J.
coincided,