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Removed to Des Moines

The practice of law in Van Buren county did not prove very remunerative. The district court met only twice a year. The business of the term sometimes occupied only two or three days, seldom beyond one week, and never beyond two weeks.

During the time I had continued to reside in Van Buren county one of the most important cases in which I was retained was a contest over the legality of a will in which the deceased had made a bequest of a small tract of land to the Methodist Episcopal church, organized out on what was called "Utica Prairie." The will provided that the land should be sold by the trustees of the church and a fund created out of which should be paid so much a year to the missionary cause and so much to the support of the minister. The remainder should be expended by the trustees in erecting a house of worship. The trustees of the church had not been incorporated, and the heirs sought to set aside the will on the ground that there was no legal capacity in the trustees to receive the bequest, and on the further ground of the uncertainty of the beneficiaries under the will. I was retained in the case in behalf of the trustees, and had them immediately adopt articles of incorporation and file the same as provided by the statutes of the state. I filed an answer in the case, setting forth with particularity the character of the Methodist Episcopal church's organization, with proper averments as to the certainty of the continued existence of the beneficiaries under the will. The case was tried upon demurrer to this answer, and upon appeal to the supreme court of Iowa the will was sustained. The opinion of the court is fully reported in the case of Johnson et al. vs. Mayne et al., Trustees, 4th Iowa, 180.