recorded in the Recorder’s office in and for the said County of all of which will more fully and at large appear, reference being had to the said deed a copy whereof duly certified from the proper recording office of deeds of the said County of is hereto annexed marked “No 2” exhibit” and made a part of this defendant’s answer to the said bill,
This defendant further answering says:—
That at the time of the making of the said last deed the said Joseph Smith was acting as the Trustee of a Religious Society having its principal location at in the County of in the said State of , called and known as “the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints” which said Society was afterwards duly incorporated as well under that name by the election of the said Joseph Smith the Trustee of said Church a certificate whereof was afterwards duly filed and recorded in the Recorder’s Office in the County of and State of according to the law of the said as this defendant is informed and believes, and that by reason of the said conveyance if held to be valid as a conveyance at law operated to vest the title of said premises in the said Joseph Smith as Trustee for the benefit, and use of the said association or religious society, and not for his own benefit, nor subject to the debts of the said Joseph Smith, whether due to the complainants or any other persons, and that if as this defendant believes to be the fact, that the said deed was wholly and absolutely void, the title of said premises still remained vested in the said the same as if the said deed had never been made, and subject to her control and disposition after the decease of her said husband, free from all claims of his heirs at law or the said church or of the creditors of the said Joseph Smith and that this defendant knows nothing of his own knowledge of the consideration paid by the said Church for the said conveyance except that he is informed and believes and therefore denies that the said Joseph Smith ever paid any part, or ever undertook or assumed to pay any part of the consideration thereof.
This defendant further answering says:—
That after the death of the said Joseph Smith deceased in June A. D. 1844 as hereinbefore stated, the said Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints elected new Trustees in place of and as the successors of the said Joseph Smith deceased and that on the fifth day of June A. D. 1845 and being as this affiant is informed and believes and therefore alledges to be the fact the said Trustees of the said Church and successors of the said Joseph Smith decd. in the said office of trustees of said Church and in whom by operation of the law of the State of was vested whatever title passed to said Joseph Smith as trustee of said Church, in the premises described in the said last mentioned deed, by virtue of said [p. 631]