Case Name: ALLEN v. RHODEBAUGH'S ADMINISTRATOR
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1833-06
Citations: 1 Ohio Ch. 322
Docket Number: 
Parties: ALLEN v. RHODEBAUGH’S ADMINISTRATOR.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases at law and in chancery Ohio
Volume: 1
Pages: 322–323

Head Matter:
ALLEN v. RHODEBAUGH’S ADMINISTRATOR.
Appeal bond — its execution and approval — filing—balanced testimony — slave coming from another state — chanty.
Where an appeal bond is executed within the first thirty days after the rising of the court, and security approved of, it perfects the appeal, although the clerk omit to endorse on it, filed. The filing is not essential to the validity of the bond.
Where testimony as to the time of executing a bond is balanced, the court will be governed by its date.
A slave who removes into Ohio from Pennsylvania with a man with whom he works for some time, and is there assisted to build a house on his employer’s ground, and suffered to occupy it from charity, acquires thereby no rght to the land.
In Chancery. Motion to dismiss the appeal, because the bond was not executed within thirty days after the rising of the Court of Common Pleas, at which the decree was rendered.
The deputy clerk stated that the bond was executed at its date, which was within the thirty days, but was left without filing, in order that some other thing might be done, although he could not say what was to be done; but whatever it was, it was not completed until after the? expiration of the thirty days, when it was endorsed, filed. Stoddard, attorney for the appellant, stated, that the bond was executed, and the whole completed, before the thirty days had expired, and given to the clerk; but, owing to some omission of his, was not endorsed as filed.

Opinion:
By the Court.
The question is, when was this bond executed and approved by the clerk ? The execution includes the delivery. The sufficiency of the security in the bond was approved by the clerk, and so, unquestioned; and the delivery to the clerk within the thirty days, and his acceptance of it, completed the appeal. The endorsement by the clerk on the bond, of the time it was filed, is not requisite to the validity of the bond. It is convenient, as a remembrancer to the clerk, of the time; but if never endorsed filed, if the bond was duly executed, handed to the clerk, and the security approved of before the thirty days expired, it is good, and perfects the appeal. The testimony on the point is equally balanced, and the witnesses are of equal credit. On that account, we regard the date of the bond as the time of its execution, and hold the appeal good.
By the bill, it appeai-s the complainant is a negro, and was born a slave in the state of Pennsylvania, came to Ohio with the intestate, under an agreement that he would workfor him for three years for his freedom. He continued to work for the intestate until 1814, when he married, being then sixty years old. On his marriage, the intestate put him in possession of lot 5, in Dayton, and agreed he should occupy it during his life, as pay for his labor. That the complainant built a house on the lot, and lived there, until the intestate's death. The lot has descended to the widow, and she has ordered the complainant off from the premises. He prays an execution of the contract, and to be quieted in his possession. The answers deny the contract. The proof is, that the complainant was a slave in Pennsylvania, came out with the intestate and worked for him a short time, was well treated and supplied as one of the family, and when he married, was put upon the lot, and assisted to build the house, and left in the occupancy of it as a matter of char-i ity, and he had occupied it in that way sixteen or eighteen years, without any agreement whatever.
Bill dismissed.