20 Wend. 230 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1838
If James Kennedy took as an alien under the act of 1808, 3 R. S. 344, lst ed., in connection with the act of March 26, 1802, id. p. 343, § 1, and the act of 1808 has continued unrepealed, in respect to these plaintiffs it is not denied that they are entitled to recover.
It is contended that the contract of purchase raised an equitable estate descendible, in 1810, (before the naturalization,) to which the subsequent deed of 1824 related. That is denied ; but if the doctrine of relation might have availed, it is contended that the plaintiffs continuing aliens, they were not entitled to inherit without complying with the requisites of the statute of 1825. Stat. Sess. of 1825, p. 427, re-enacted, 1 R. S. 720, lst ed.
By the act of March 6, 1802, 3 R. S. 1st ed., 343, § 1, in connection with the continuing and enlarging act of April 8, 1808, id. 344,5, aliens were enabled to purchase lands, and hold and transmit such lands to their alien heirs, provided they had respectively become inhabitants of this state previous to or at the close of the legislative session of the latter year. These acts continued in force until the act of April 21, 1825, and the corresponding provisions of theRevised Statutes, Stat. Sess. of 1825, p. 427,1 R. S. 720, lst ed., which provided that no alien who had become or should thereafter become an inhabitant, should take or hold real estate unless he should first make a deposition, as required by
The difficulty is, in short, not that James Kennedy, was incapable of taking and transmitting by descent, but that the plaintiffs were incapable of inheriting at the time of his death, by reason of having omitted to comply with the conditions imposed by the act of 1825.
A new trial must therefore be granted j the costs to abide the •event."