Thompson v. Beadles

JUDGE COFER

delivered the opinion op the court.

The only question we deem it necessary to consider in this case is whether a court of equity has jurisdiction of original *48proceedings to establish a will alleged to have been fraudulently destroyed or suppressed.

Prior to the Revised Statutes the rule in respect to the jurisdiction of courts of equity to establish lost wills was not uniform. In Baker v. Dobyns, 4 Dana, 220, and Allison v. Allison, 7 ib. 91, lost wills were established by decrees in chancery, and that the chancellor had jurisdiction so to decree, upon its being made to appear that…