Woodward v. . Blue
Supreme Court of North Carolina
Civil action for recovery of land, tried before Memmon, J., at Fall Term, 1890, of Burke Superior Court. • The plaintiffs Mourning Crisp claimed, as widow, and Emily Woodward, as daughter, of one Underzine Pelot. Mourning Crisp testified that her mother was a white woman and her father a slave; that, fifteen or sixteen years before the war, she married Underzine Pelot, a slave of one Green-lea. The rest of the evidence appears sufficiently in the opinion.
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Civil action for recovery of land, tried before Memmon, J., at Fall Term, 1890, of Burke Superior Court. • The plaintiffs Mourning Crisp claimed, as widow, and Emily Woodward, as daughter, of one Underzine Pelot. Mourning Crisp testified that her mother was a white woman and her father a slave; that, fifteen or sixteen years before the war, she married Underzine Pelot, a slave of one Green-lea. The rest of the evidence appears sufficiently in the opinion. The defendants denied the marriage, and also the legitimacy of the plaintiff Emily, now married to Woodward Blue, and claimed the land as…
1Opinion of the Court
Clark, J.:
The maxim, “pater est quern nuplise demonstrant,” was formerly so strictly construed that from the time of the Year Books down to the last century a child born of a married woman was conclusively presumed legitimate, unless the husband was shown to be impotent'or not “infra quatior maria.” The ancient rule, with the homely illustration given by Judge Rickhill in Flettsham and Julian (Year Book 7, Henry IY, 9, 13), is familiar to us by the great dramatist having placed it in the mouth of King John (Act 1, scene 1); Van Aernam v. Van Aernam., Barb. Ch. Rep., 375. But the rule was much…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- State v. . WillifordSupreme Court of North Carolina · 1884
- Woodard v. . BlueSupreme Court of North Carolina · 1889
3Cited by15 opinions
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- Ray Ex Rel. Gudger v. RaySupreme Court of North Carolina · 1941
- Wilson v. WilsonCourt of Appeals of Kentucky · 1917
- In Re Rowe's EstateOregon Supreme Court · 1943
- Erwin v. . BaileySupreme Court of North Carolina · 1898
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