Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1906 — The Circuit Court, [ARTICLE]

The Circuit Court,

A case with rather unusdal features, was tried Thursday. W. S. DeArmond, of Tefft, was the plains tiff, and the Bank of Wheatfield was the defendant. It seems that some time ago a man named Pfeil left the vicinity of Wheatfield and went west to look for a new location leaving his wife to close up his affairs and to follow him later. He left quite a number of debts and it was agreed that all these would be gathered together and that J. P. Hammond cashier of the Bank of Wheatfield, should clerk a public sale made by Mrs. Pfeil and from the cash paid in at the sale he should pay these claims against the Pheils. One of these debts to be thus paid was $lO3 to DeArmond, the plaintiff in this suit. He saw Cashier Hammond before the date of the sale and the latter offered to pay DeArmond's claim then, but DeArmond said for Mr. Hammond to give him credit in the bank for the amount. This Mr. Hammond forgot to do and he also forgot to present Mr. DeArmonds claim at the sale and therefore Mrs. Pheil moved away leaving the DeArmond claim unsettled. At the trial the fact* as here stated were not disputed, but Mr. Hammond for the bank made the point in defense that the cash payments at the Pheil salp did not amount to enough to pay all the claims he did have without including the DeArmond claim, and that Mrs. Pheil paid sl6 to wards them out of her own funds, above what the sale brought in. The jury however brought in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, giving him judgment for the full amount of the claim. The bank will accept their finding as final and pay the judgment without appeal, Ex-Judge Truman F. Palmer came over from Monticello, on Monday torenoon, and will be here nearly all the week trying cases Judge Hanley is disqualified in, from having been the attorney for one party or the other, or for other reasons. Among these is that ancient contention of Isch vs Tribby which has been on the docket from time immemorial, been tried several times and to the higher courts once or twice. Other old stand-byes J he will try this week are Warner vs. Collins, and Lewis vs. Wells.

A case from'Newtou county occupied the attention of the court for the last three days of last week. It was Elijah Grantham vs. Jacob Conrad. Grantham rented Conrad a farm of 360 acres in northern Newton over three years ago, on a basis of grain and work for rent. Grantham now brought suit for possession of the farm, claiming that he had got neither grain nor work from his tenant. and that even money advanced for 'seed had not been repaid. Conrad on his part put up a story of hard luck, to the effect that two very wet seasons had knocked out his grain crops, and that he had lost nine horses by disease since he had occupied the farm. On the side of the plaintiff, however, it was shown that there is a great deal of good pasture and hay land on the farm and that Conrad had turned this to good account by raising large numbers of cattle which he had made good money on. The jury found in favor of the plaintifl Grantham, and awarded him the possession of the farm and also 150 damages, his demand being for S2OO. The main point, however, was the possession of the farm.