Transcript of Proceedings, , Sangamon Co., IL, ca. 17 July 1852, U.S. v. Joseph Smith III et al. (United States Circuit Court for the District of IL 1852); U.S. District Court for the District of Illinois, Complete Records, 1837–1856, vol. 4, pp. 486–697; handwriting of ; Records of District Courts of the United States, Record Group 21, National Archives at Chicago, Chicago.
the claimant thereof is claimed to be entitled to payment before the said judgement of the complainant in said bill of complaint mentioned is paid, out of the estate of the said deceased.
Respondant further says that after his appointment as such administrator and at the April term of the Circuit Court in the State of in the year A. D. 1849 he filed his petition pursuant to the laws of the said for authority to sell so much of the real estate of which the said Jo. Smith died seized as should be sufficient to pay his debts, which had been proven up and allowed as aforesaid against said estate in the probate Court of said , and by the said petition applied for authority to sell all the real estate in said complainants’ said bill of complaint described of which the said deceased is charged in said bill of complaint to have died seized. That said petition is still pending undetermined in said Court.
That he presented said petition in the due course of administration of said estate under the laws of the said State of and in the presentation and prosecution thereof has been necessarily compelled and subjected to the payment of large sums of money in employing counsel, paying costs of Court, Clerks, Sheriffs and Printers’ fees, amounting to about the sum of one hundred dollars,
Which said expenses are as respondant is informed and believes entitled to payment out of the estate of the said Jo. Smith deceased in preference to any debt of the said deceased,
And respondant further says and insists that as such administrator D. B. N. he is entitled, and it is his duty, to proved and in the due course of administration subject and sell the said real estate of which the said Joseph Smith deceased died seized and to apply the proceeds thereof in payment of the debts of the said deceased proven up and allowed in the probate Court aforesaid, according to law, and that so far as those lands of which the said Jo. Smith deceased died seized, as in said complainants’ bill mentioned, are concerned, the said complainant is not in equity entitled to the relief in the said bill prayed, but should receive payment out of the proceeds of the sales of said lands in the due course of administration and if entitled to preference over other creditors, should set up their claim therefor in the Court making distribution of the proceeds of the sales of said lands, when sales thereof should be made by such administrator.
That he is not informed and cannot state whether there are clouds about the titles of any of said lands which would prevent a sale thereof for their real value, that if any there are they have accrued since the death of the said Jo. Smith deceased. and could not effect the title thereto which would be derived through the proceeding herein before mentioned as taken by respondant for the sale thereof.
That respondant admits that the said deceased left [p. 625]