53 Md. 466 | Md. | 1880
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in this case arises upon the construction of the last will of Ursula Wilcoxen, which was executed on the nineteenth day of August, 1876, and was admitted to probate on the nineteenth day of September of the same year. By the first item of the will five hundred dollars are bequeathed to the Vestry of Prince George’s Parish, Montgomery County, to be invested by said Yestry in some valuable security, and the annual interest thereon to be devoted to the support of the rector or minister, for the time being, in charge of Christ Church at Rockville in said Parish. By the second clause of the will two hundred dollars are bequeathed to Margaret A. Beall, one of the appellees, and by the third and fourth clauses pecuniary legacies, amounting to three hundred dollars are bequeathed to other parties. The fifth and sixth clauses contain devises of real estate, about which there is no question raised in this case; the seventh contains a devise of one-half of an unimproved lot in the town of Rockville; and the eighth is in the following words: “Item. I give, devise and bequeath to Annie L. England, wife of John
We think it clear from the whole will that the testatrix intended that the pecuniary legacies to the appellees, and the other legatees named in the will should he paid. She must he presumed to have known that they could he paid only from her personal estate, inasmuch as the whole of her real estate was specifically devised by her will. It is not to he supposed that she would make these gifts of money by the first clauses of her will, and then destroy them by making specific devises of her real estate by the subsequent clauses, and by a specific bequest of all her personal property and effects to Mrs. England by the eighth clause. She is presumed to have known the amount and character of her property, and the objects of her bounty, and to have made her will accordingly; and it would he a violent presumption to suppose that by the eighth clause of her will she intended to destroy and annul the gifts she had made by its preceding clauses. But if the bequest to Annie L. England he construed to he a general legacy, the intention of the testatrix will he gratified, and each of the objects of her bounty will he benefited. The language of the eighth clause after enumerating certain real estate and certain articles of personal property, then includes all the rest and residue of her estate, real, personal and mixed, and we think very clearly indicates the bequest thereby made, to he a general residuary legacy.
The fact that realty and personalty are devised and bequeathed in the same clause of a will, does not for that
In the case of Robinson vs. Addison, 2 Beaven, 520, a-testator bequeathed five and a half shares of Leeds and Liverpool Canal stock to one legatee, five shares to another and five shares to a third, and it appeared that he held fifteen and a half of said shares both at the time of making his will and at the time of his death, and yet Lord Lanúdale, Master of the Rolls, held these to be general and not specific legacies, saying that “ there is no descrip
Eor does the enumeration of some particular articles in a residuary clause of a will, constitute the articles so enumerated specific legacies. In support of this proposition we need refer only to the cases of Fielding vs. Preston, 1 De Gex & Jones, 438; Pickup vs. Atkins, 4 Hare, 624; Taylor vs. Taylor, 6 Simons, 246, and Mills vs. Mills, 7 Simons, 501.
Annie L. England being then entitled to the personal estate, bequeathed by the eighth clause of the will, only as residuary legatee, she takes it subject to the payment of all the debts of the testatrix, and after the payment of the pecuniary legacies bequeathed by the will.
But it was contended that the bequest to the Vestry of Prince George’s Parish, was in violation of the 38th Article of the Bill of Rights, unless sanctioned by an Act of the Legislature, and that, as the final account of the executor had been passed, by which the settlement of the estate was closed before that sanction had been obtained,
Decree affirmed in part, and reversed in part mid cause remanded.