(after stating the facts). The general rule is, that the burden is on the plaintiff, in the trial of actions for the possession of land, as in the old action of ejectment, to either prove a title good agаinst the whole world, or good against the defendant by estoppel.
Taylor
v.
Gooch,
*115
The plaintiff may safely rest his cаse upon showing such' facts and such evidences of tille as would establish his right to recover, if no further tеstimony were offered. This
prima facie
showing of title may be made by either of several methods. Wait & Sedgwick on Trial of Title to Land, §801;
Conwell
v.
Mann,
1. He may offer а connected chain of title, or a grant direct from the State to himself.
2. Without exhibiting any grant from the Stаte, he may show open, notorious, continuous adverse and unequivocal possession of the land in controversy, under color of title in himself and those under whom he claims, for twenty-one years before the action was brought.
Graham
v.
Houston,
3. He may show title out of the State by offering a grant to a stranger, without connecting himself with it, and then offer proof of open, notorious, continuous adverse possession, under color of title in himself, and those under whom he claims, for seven years before the action was' brought.
Blair
v.
Miller,
4. He may show, as against the State, possession, under known and visible boundaries, for thirty years, or, as against individuals, for twenty years, before the action was brought. Sections 139 and 144, Code of North Carolina.
5. He can provе title by estoppel,'as by showing that the defendant was his tenant, or derived his title through his tenant, when the aсtion was brought.
Code,
§ 147;
Conwell
v.
Mann, supra; Melvin
v.
Waddell,
6. He may connect the defendant with a common source of title, and show in himself a better title from that source.
Whissenhunt
v.
Jones,
*116 While the plaintiff in this action did not introduce a grant from the State, he offеred a chain of title connecting himself with the will of Edmund Griffin, dated April 1, 1796, and we infer, both from the record and the argument in this Court, that possession for twenty-one years, under this title, by Mary Brewer and those under whom she clаims, was shown or admitted in the Court below. But, after making this admission, the defendant demurred ore temis to the testimony, for that it hаd also been proven on the part of the plaintiff that the homestead of Mary Brewer, the dеfendant in the execution under which plaintiff bought at Sheriff’s sale, owned no other land at the time of the sale, and the land in controversy was sold as her property, without allotting her homestead,wherеfore the Sheriff’s deed was void.
If the plaintiff had offered, in connection with his other evidence tеnding .to show title, the Sheriff’s deed, with judgment, execution and proceeding by virtue of it, simply, but no testimony tending to show that a homestead had or had not been allotted to Mary Brewer, he would have made a 'prima fade сase, upon which the defendant could not have asked for judgment of non-suit.
Counsel for plaintiff contended, on the argument in this Court, that the defendant could not object to the validity of the Sheriff’s deed, unlеss he had specially set up in his answer that it was void for the reason assigned.
Both under
The Code
pleadings and the morе formal rules applicable in the trial of ejectment, it is competent, under a general dеnial or the general issue, to show that any deed offered by a party as evidence of title is vоid, for the reason that it was executed in the face of a statute prohibiting its execution, or by reason of a want of capacity in the grantor, or for fraud in the
factum,
as where- the deed was exеcuted by one, at the time, too drunk-to know what he wai doing, or by an ignorant man, who could not read, аnd to whom
*117
the deed was fraudulently misrecited.
Nichols
v.
Holmes,
In the case of
Jones
v.
Cohen,
The case of
Wilson
v.
Taylor,
In
McCracken
v.
Adler,
Let this opinion be certified, to the end that judgment may be entered accordingly.
Affirmed.