Hello List, I came across a court case over the settlement of the estate of my great-great-great-grandfather Thomas McElrath on a trip to Marshall County last December. I was able to obtain copies of the documents (some 566 pages) and have transcribed some of the more interesting ones. Thank you to the Marshall County Gen & Hist Society folks for doing all that copying! The documents I have transcribed are 3 judgments, 1 auditor report, and 11 depositions. The depositions are for William James McElrath, Joseph McElrath (2), Caleb Wrather (2), Mary P. and Charles H. Smith, T.F. Swift, Z.B. Magness, Charles Anderson, James Sifford and Dr. W.D. Wyatt, and Simon Lamb. The depositions were taken at various times from 1895 to 1898. These documents have been combined into one file and uploaded to: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ky/marshall/court/mcelrath.txt (thanks Carl Greenfield) The court case was brought by my great-great-grandfather William James McElrath (along with the widow Mary Ann McElrath and administrator W.A. Swift) against Caleb H. Wrather (brother-in-law of W.J.McE) and C.H. Smith (another brother-in-law) and others. At issue was a set of deeds that Thomas had made in April 1892 shortly after his recovery from a serious illness. Thomas had deeded "the Home Place" to Martha Wrather and Mary Smith (Thomas' daughters) and had deeded another tract of land, "the Short Place", to William. Neither William McElrath nor Mary Smith were present when the deeds were drawn up and executed (they lived in Arkansas and Missouri respectively), only the Wrathers. In the end, it was alleged that: a) Thomas was in no mental or physical condition to make an intelligent distribution of his estate, b) undue influence (plying him with whiskey) was applied, c) and that Thomas had previously indicated that William and Mary would get the Home Place and that the Wrathers would get the Short Place. The judge ruled for the plaintiffs, set aside the deeds made by Thomas, provided dower for the widow, and ordered a portion of the land sold and the proceeds to pay court costs with the remainder divided so as to make the children of Thomas equal with each other. Most of the testimony is answering the same questions, but there are some interesting tidbits here and there. You get a little picture of what Thomas McElrath was like, some of his personality, as well as some of the others. There are a couple of "Perry Mason moments" like where the defendants' lawyer questions W.J. McE -- isn't it true that you came back to kill Gabe Jones - and W.J. replying that he had business with Jones and while they were talking a "difficulty" arose and shots were fired. Regards David A. McElrath sdjjjnmc@bellsouth.net