In re Misamore

— This is an appeal from an order settling and allowing the final account of an administrator. The contestants and appellants are the children and heirs at law of the decedent.

The principal matter at issue is the responsibility of the administrator for rents, issues, and profits derived from the possession and occupation of a certain tract of land—a possessory claim — left by his decedent.

The contestants claim that the administrator should be charged “with this land, and with the reasonable value of the rents, issues, and profits thereof; and during the periods, when he has farmed it himself, and made a profit in excess of the reasonable value of the rents, issues, and profits, then with the profit made by him out of the land.”

In opposition to this, the administrator claimed and endeavored to show that the decedent had no title to the land; that it was a mere possessory or “squatter’s claim”; that he only took possession to take off the growing crop of the year 1866, — that in which his decedent died; that he surrendered the land, finder title paramount, to other parties, and that he afterwards bought it from the true owners, and never held possession, except adversely to…