Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1894 — A Photograph Title. [ARTICLE]

A Photograph Title.

Photography played an important part in a suit at Cincinnati. The suit is one of local standing, involving the title of 1,500 acres of valuable farm land. It is basod on a deed made nearly seventy-five years ago by tho owners oi the land, and turns on tho point whether the deed had live signatures or only four. In order to test this question it was decided to have the deed photographed, and the cleric of the court was ordered t:> give the matter his personal supervision. For that purpo e it was taken to Washington and submitted to an expert photographer of that city. The original deed, discolored and yellow with age, showed traces of four signatures and a srace where there might have been a fifth, but no trace of it. Tho photographing was done in the presence of tho clerk of the court, who refused to let tho deed go out of hii sight. The negative revealed truces of the missing signature, and when it was enlarged ten times the entire name became as plain as when first written. The court pronounced the evidence conclusive, and the le ult will be tho reversal of a former deciti in and a change in tho ownership of the land.—lndianapolis Journal.