Davis v. Pryor

58 S.W. 660, 3 Indian Terr. 396, 1900 Indian Terr. LEXIS 23
CourtCourt Of Appeals Of Indian Territory
DecidedOctober 6, 1900
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 58 S.W. 660 (Davis v. Pryor) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court Of Appeals Of Indian Territory primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Davis v. Pryor, 58 S.W. 660, 3 Indian Terr. 396, 1900 Indian Terr. LEXIS 23 (Conn. 1900).

Opinion

Townsend, J.

[400]*400Common law marriage. Evidence of [399]*399The appellant has filed 21 assignments of error, but confines has argument upon them to five separate propositions. The first proposition is that the first and second assignments of error be considered together. They are as follows: “(1) The court erred in refusing dwfondant’s motion to direct the jury to return a verdict fOiTfaefendant at the close of plaintiff’s testimony, because the plaintiff had wholly failed to make out a case against the defendant, which was duly excepted to at the time. (2) The court erred in overruling defendant’s motion to direct a verdict for defendant at the close of all of the testimony, because, under the testimony, the plaintiff was not entitled to recover.” The argument of counsel upon this proposition is thus stated: “One of the material allegations in plaintiff’s [400]*400complaint is that the defendant was at the time of the alleged contract of marriage a single man, and capable of making such a contract. The evidence is overwhelming, and the court so instructed the jury, that the defendant was a married man at that time.” As these assignments of error raise the question of the sufficiency of the testimony to sustain the plaintiff’s allegation, and the court refused to direct a verdict, but allowed the same to be considered by the jury, who returned a verdict for the plaintiff, which the court, after full argument, refused to set aside, we think it proper to give the following extracts from the testimony of the witnesses upon the point thus assigned as error by appellant’s counsel.

The plaintiff testified upon that point as follows: “Q. At what age did you come to the Indian Territory? A. Six years old. Q. Who did you come with? A. My father and mother. * * * Q. State where you have been living from the time your father moved to the Indian Territory until you came to Muskogee. A. Near Bryertown, Cherokee Nation. Q. How far from where the defendant, Sam T. Davis, lived? A.' Six or seven miles. Q. How long have you known Sam Davis? A. Four or five years. * * * Q. When did your mother die? A. When I were nine years old. * * * Q. How and where did you live then after her death until you were fourteen years old? A. I still lived with my father. Q. State whether or not your father remarriéjj|Land, if so, how old you were when he married again. Aoi\ He married in about eighteen months after mother died. Q. How old were you at that time? A. I was eleven years old, I think. Q. How did you and your stepmother get along? A. Got along very well for a while, until my stepmother was married about two years, and then we did not got along from that time on. Q. Then what did you do? A. I left home, and went to Mrs. Star’s. * * * Q. What was your age when you went to Mrs. Star’s? A. Fourteen. Q. How long did you stay with her? A. I stay[401]*401ed there nine or ten months. Q. Then what did you do? A. I went to work for Sam Dulaney. Q. How long did you work there? A. About a year. Q. Where did you go to from there? A. I went to Mr. Thompson’s. Q. What Thompson? A. Jack Thompson. Q. How long did you stay there? A. About two or three weeks. Q. Where did you go from there? A. Sam Davis’. Q. How long did you stay at Sam’s? A. About three months. Q. Where did you go from there? A. Went hack to Sam Dulaney’s. Q. How long did you stay there? A. I stayed there about a week, and from there I went to Mrs. Robins’, and stayed there about eighteen months. Q. Then where did you go to? A. Went back to Sam Davis’. Q. How long did you stay there then? A. I stayed there three months. Q. Then where did you go to? A. Back to Mrs. Robins’. Q. Then where? A. Frank Yore’s. Q. Where from there? A. Back to Mrs. Robins. Q. How long did you stay at Mrs. Robins’ altogether, — about how long? A. I stayed there 18 or 20 months. Q. How long did you stay at Vore’s? A. Five or six weeks. Q. Then where did you go to from Mrs. Robins’? A. Mrs Ingram, now. Mrs..Star, then. Q. How long did you stay there then? A. Until I went away with this defendant. Q. What was the treatment of the defendant during the first three months you stayed at his house? A. As nice and polite as could be with me. Q. What was his treatment when you returned next time? A. When ’Cinda was there nice and polite as could be, but when she was gone he was around talking to me. He would say, ‘Let’s leave here, and get married, and not come back here. ’ I told him that he has got a wife. He said, T have not.’ I said, ‘Then why are you living with ’Cinda for then?’ He said, ‘She is just my housekeeper, not my wife; she don’t love me and don’t treat me good, and I am going away from here, and not going to live with her.’ Q. Were these protestations often or only occasional? A. Yes sir; they were often. [402]*402Q, And you say at the end of three months you left there. Why did you leave? A. I told him I would leave him if he did not quit bothering me and talking to me about going away and getting married. He insisted on my staying. I told him, ‘No;’ I told him I would not stay if he did not quit insisting. I said, T don’t want to marry a man that has a wife.’ Q. What did he then say? A. That he was not married to ’Cinda, and did not want to marry her, and would not. Q. Did you ask anybody to find out whether he was married or not? A. I asked Mrs. Ingram. Q. What did she say? (Defendant objects to the question. Objection sustained by the court.) Q. After you left Sam Davis the second time, when did you next see him? A Saw him in about a week afterwards. Q. Whereabouts? A. At Webber’s Falls. Q. Where were you staying then? A. At Mrs. Robins’. Q. Talk to you any then? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did he talk to yo.u about then? A. He still talked to me about going away and getting married. Q. When did you next see him? A. I don’t know; I think about two weeks. Q. Where at? A. At Frank Vore’s. Q. At Frank Vore’s? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did he have to say to you then? A. Didn’t have anything to say me then. Q. When did you next see him? A. I saw him at Mr. Vore’s again. Q. Say anything to you at that time? A. Yes, sir. Q. What was it? A. He still wanted me to go away and get married to him. Q. What did you tell him? A. That I would not go; that I did not want to go with him; that he was a married man, and that I would not go with him. Q. What did he say about being a married man? A. That he was not; that he never was married to that woman, and never would marry her. * * * Q. I will ask you whether or not from the time you left his house until the time you seen him at Star Villa, if you got any communications from him. A. Yes, sir. Q. How many? A. Two. * * * . Q. What was in the second one? A. Wanted to know if I would not go and [403]*403work for him again, or if I was not ready to go away and get married. I took the letter and burned it up. I never told any one that I got a letter from him. * * * Q. What year did you go away with him? A. It was in 1896 that I went away with him. Q. Was that the time you seen him, then, down here? A. 1896; yes, sir. Q. What did he say to you then? A. He asked me if I wasn’t ready to go away with him and marry him. I said, ‘No, Mr. Davis, I am not ready, and I don’t want to go with you; you have got a wife, and I don’t want to take any woman’s husband from her.’ Q. What did he say? ' A. That she is not his wife; that she is just keeping house for him. ‘All I wanted was to make my fortune, and I have made my fortune. ’ * * * Q. When did you next see him? A. I saw him about two weeks afterwards, I guess. Q. What arrangement, if any, was made at that time? A. There was no arrangement made at all.

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Bluebook (online)
58 S.W. 660, 3 Indian Terr. 396, 1900 Indian Terr. LEXIS 23, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/davis-v-pryor-ctappindterr-1900.