Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1906 — GASOLINE ENGINE CASE DECIDED. [ARTICLE]

GASOLINE ENGINE CASE DECIDED.

Squire Irwin had a pretty knotty case for a small one, Saturday, in the gasoline engine trade between A. B. Claspell and Edwin Stahl, the main facts of which have been related. Claspell had the engine, claiming that the trade had been fully consummated, and Stahl was trying to secure it by action in replevin, denying that the trade had been fully made. The evidence was very contradictory, but while that of the two principals might be considered a stand off, Claspell seemed to have more corroborating evidence, Claspell said they had made the trade and that Stahl helped take up and move Claspell’s engine from his shop, and that while bqth were lifting on it Stahl said it was so light that he would just put it in his buggy and take it oome. Stahl denied he had fully made the trade or that he helped move the Claspell engine. Wm. Blankenbaker said he saw Stahl lifting on theengine with a crowbar and knocking blocks from under it, and helping otherwise. Charley Hemphill said Stahl told him he had made the trade “to his sorrow.” Lute Hemphill, in whose shop the Stahl engine was said Stahl came in the forenoon and told him he had traded with Claspell, but came again in the afternoon and told him not to let Claspell take the engine.

At the final conversation between the two men, Stahl demanded a written contract that each would assist the other in making the en gine run, and this Claspell refused saying that they had already made a verbal agreement to that effect and that a written contract would be no better. There was als) some evidence as to a chattie mortgage held by DeArmond, of Tefft, on Claspell’s outfit, and which included the engine he was trading to Stahl, but Claspell produced a postal card at the trial from DeArmond telling him he had no objections to the trade provided he could hold the new engine in place of the old. The decision of the court was that such a contract to trade had been made as to pass the ownership of the engines and he therefore decided that Claspell should keep the Stahl engine. Mr. Stahl says he will appeal to the circuit court and his attorney holds that the fact that Mr. Claspell did not reveal the fact that his engine was mortgaged gives his client good grounds for expecting to win in the end. The property traded was considered worth only S6O or $65, and all that and a good deal more will probably be eaten up in court and lawyer fees before the matter ends.