Connolly

On June 1, 1887, the defendant M. L. Wicks executed to Mary Connolly and Patrick Connolly his promissory note for $20,000, bearing interest at the rate of ten per cent per annum, and to become due ¿June 18, 1888; and to secure payment of the note he, on the same day, executed to them a mortgage on two hundred and eighty acres of land, which contained the following clause: “It is agreed that any forty acres of this land will be released from this mortgage on payment of the sum of four thousand dollars for each and every forty acres so released.” On September 7, 1887, Mary Connolly assigned all her interest in the said note and mortgage to Patrick Connolly. On June 22, 1889, Patrick Connolly assigned all his interest therein to John D. *868 Bicknell, the assignment being absolute in form, but intended only as collateral security for an indebtedness of the assignor. On June 15, 1891, Bicknell reassigned the note and mortgage to Patrick Connolly, and on March 7, 1892, the latter assigned the same to Eliza Connolly, the plaintiff. Shortly after the said mortgage was executed Wicks conveyed all the land covered by it to one R. P. Lotspeich, as trustee, for the purpose of making sales…