Rockhill v. Nelson

The plaintiff in this case is the widow, having been the third wife, of William Bockhill, who died seized in fee simple of the land in dispute. He had by the plaintiff one child, which died, in infancy, a short time before his death. The defendants are the children of the deceased husband by a former wife. The widow claims one-third of the land of which her husband died seized, in fee. The defendants insist that she is entitled to a life estate only.

The rights of the parties depend upon the construction to be given to our law of descent.

By the seventeenth section of that law, the surviving…