Opinion ID: 198725
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Land Purchase

Text: In 1972, the United States purchased eight acres of land in Truro, Massachusetts (the eight acres) for inclusion in the Cape Cod National Seashore. Regrettably, the seller of the property, Elizabeth Freeman, owned only a small fraction of the land she purported to convey. Elizabeth's great grandfather, Edmund Freeman (referred to as Edmund the Elder), had owned 100 percent of the land when he died intestate in 1870. At his death, his three surviving children and the direct descendants of his fourth child each received an undivided twenty-five percent interest in the property. We shall refer to these four lines as Charles, Betsy I, Edmund II, and Richard Sr. These four twenty-five percent interests continued to descend over the next century, through more than 100 heirs, most of whom did not know that they owned an interest in the eight acres.