Case Name: * Reuben Nason, Guardian of Apphia T. Nason, Appellant from a Decree of the Court of Probate, versus Stephen Thatcher and Others, Executors
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1811-05
Citations: 6 Tyng 398
Docket Number: 
Parties: * Reuben Nason, Guardian of Apphia T. Nason, Appellant from a Decree of the Court of Probate, versus Stephen Thatcher and Others, Executors.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 7
Pages: 333–334

Head Matter:
* Reuben Nason, Guardian of Apphia T. Nason, Appellant from a Decree of the Court of Probate, versus Stephen Thatcher and Others, Executors.
Where a corporation, created for pious and charitable uses, were made the residuary legatees in a will, its members were received as witnesses, on the question of the sanity of the testator, which was at issue between the executors and the heir at law.
This was an appeal from a decree of the court below, proving, approving, and allowing the last will and testament of Peter Thatcher, Esq., late of Gorham, in this county, counsellor at law. The appeal was claimed in behalf of the heir at law.
The sanity of the testator being the question, an issue was formed and tried by a jury. The executors offered two members of the Maine Missionary society to be sworn as witnesses. They were objected to on the part of the appellant, because the testator had, by the instrument in question, after sundry legacies, devised the residue of his estate to the said society, “ for the purpose of increasing the funds of that benevolent, useful, and pious institution.”
The counsel for the executors insisted that the members of the society were mere trustees to convey the testator’s bounty to the objects of the institution ; and to consider them personally interested in the residue thus devised to them, was to impute the most corrupt intentions to them.
Mellen for the appellant.
Emery and Whitman for the appellees.

Opinion:
By the Court.
If this society were a party to the suit, its members could not be admitted as witnesses. But as they are mere trustees, and we cannot presume that they will abuse the trust reposed in them by the testator, their interest is too minute to admit of the supposition that it will influence them in their testimony. Let them be sworn.
A verdict being rendered in favor of the sanity of the testator, the decree of the court below was affirmed, and the cause remitted for further proceedings.