REPORTS

OF

CASES ARGUED AND DETERMINED

IN

THE SUPREME COURT

OF THE

STATE OF MICHIGAN.

VOLUME I.

HARVARD LAW LIBRARY

BY RANDOLPH MANNING.

PONTIAC, MICH.:

PHELPS & STEVENS, PRINTERS,-JACKSONIAN OFFICE.

1852.

:

MAY v. RUMNEY ET AL.

Under the Ordinance of 1787, a widow is entitled to dower, as at common law, in all the lands of which her husband was seized during coverture.

Actions for the recovery of dower are not within the statute of limitations of 5th Nov. 1829, Laws 1833, p. 408.

The right to dower is unlike any other right to land known to the law, and its peculiar nature is such as to exempt it from the operation of all general statutes of limitations, however broad and comprehensive, in which it is not named, or by unavoidable implication included.

CASE reserved from Wayne circuit court. Ejectment for dower. Plea not guilty. On the trial the jury found a special verdict, stating that James May and Margaret May, the plaintiff, were married on the 30th September, 1797; and that James May, on the 20th March, 1807, was seized in fee of the land in question, and that on the 17th June of the following year he conveyed the premises to Daniel Mc Niel, by a good and sufficient conveyance, in which the plaintiff did not join. That James May died in January, 1829, leaving the plainVOL. III.

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