[Rarebooks] FS: 1885 Odd Massachusetts Law Story

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, Ephemera & Photographs]

"The History of a Title - A Conveyancer's Romance"

By Uriel H. Crocker, Esq. Published in Boston by The Massachusetts Title 
Insurance Company in 1885.

An entertaining story of how poorly-researched titles bring bad things- 
the story begins when a valuable plot of land in downtown Boston was 
conveyed to Thomas Ingalls on his father's death. Many years later two 
cousins exploited a loophole in the inheritance law to take the title to 
the property away from Mr. Ingalls, but shortly after taking possession 
they were sued by a third person on the claim that an 18th century 
mistake gave that person title to the land -and he won. That man was in 
turn sued by a smart young lawyer who had found an earlier 18th century 
mistake which meant the parcel actually belonged to several far-away 
relations of a fourth man, and he, working for the relations, gained 
possession for them and then bought the parcel from them. Then the Great 
Fire of 1872 hit, and the young lawyer proceeded to spend a great sum 
rebuilding the buildings on the site. Meanwhile Mr. Ingalls, encouraged 
to look as far back as the beginning of land law in the Commonwealth, 
found that the land was originally owned by a Mr. Engles (very close to 
Ingalls), and had been sold on the condition that structures should 
never be built on a portion of it which had just been built upon by the 
young lawyer. By another legal quirk that meant that title reverted to 
descendants of Mr. Engles, and when Mr. Ingalls proposed to prove that 
he was in fact a descendant, the eager young lawyer threw up his hands 
and sold the land back to Mr. Ingalls for just enough to recoup his 
building investment.

Whew.

Softcover. 4.5"x5". Light soil. $35

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