Abner L. Knowlton v. Town of Sanbornton

Abner L. Knowlton v. Town of Sanbornton.

The fact that a town had paid a uniform bounty t-o sundry persons who had enlisted in the field into the military service of the United States, and were counted on the town quota, is evidence on which a jury might infer a promise by the town to pay the same sum to another person enlisting at the same time and under the same circumstances.

Where the vote of a town authorized its selectmen to take measures to fill the town quota of thirty men and to pay bounties for that purpose, the authority of the selectmen is exhausted when such quota is filled, and their contract for further enlistments will not bind the town.

Assumpsit to recover a town bounty. A legal town meeting was duly called and held in the town of Sanbornton on the tenth d;y of December, 1863. In the warrant calling said meeting were the following articles: "2d. To see what amount of monej^ the town will vote to pay to each volunteer who may enlist and be mustered into the service of the United States, under the last call of the President, toward making this town’s quota (not exceeding thirty men,) in addition to the national and State bounties, or to see if the town will vote to authorize the selectmen to advance the said bounties to the volunteers, taking an assignment of the bounties for the benefit of the town, and paying such further sum as may be necessary to procure volunteers to fill our quota, not exceeding three hundred dollars beside the bounties to each, or to fake any other action in relation thereto.”

"3d. To see what sum of money shall be raised, and how it shall be raised, to carry out the intention of the foregoing article.”

At said meeting, upon the recommendation of a committee, the town voted:

"That the selectmen be ordered to take immediate measures to fill our quota, by offering such bounties as they consider necessary to raise the volunteers, and authorizing them to advance the bounties, and paying such further sum as may be necessary to each, not exceeding three hundred dollars beside the State and national bounties, and that the selectmen be authorized to borrow, on the credit of the town, a sum not exceeding eighteen thousand dollars for said purpose.”

The selectmen made no public proclamation as to the bounty the town would pay, neither did they authorize any one to make contracts for the enlistment of men; but they put in thirty men, making a contract with each man as to the amount of bounty he was to receive; the bounty paid was from two to three hundred dollars each, beside advancing the State and national bounties. They expended in this way seventeen thousand dollars. The last one of the thirty men was mustered Feb. 11, 1864. These men were enlisted under the call for troops of Oct. 17, 1863.

Beside the thirty men already mentioned, sixteen men enlisted in the field between Dec. 19, 1863, and Jan. 13, 1864, to whom the town paid two hundred and seventy-five dollars each. These sixteen men were paid their town bounties at various times, as they called for t-he same, and all were paid subsequent to March 14, 1864. These sixteen men include all the veterans whose enlistment and credit have come to the knowledge of the selectmen, except this plaintiff, and possibly one or two others. Most of these were with their regiments in the field, and some of them were serving with the plaintiff, in South Carolina, at the time they enlisted. They were assigned to the quota of the town, according to the law then in force.

The plaintiff was a resident of Sanbornton, and was with his regiment, at Morris Island, South Carolina, on the first day of January, 1864, and on that day re-enlisted, with others, as a veteran soldier, and was duly assigned to the town of Sanbornton, and was counted in the number of men with which the town was credited at the Adjutant-General’s office of New Hampshire and at the War Department at Washington. The time of the return of the muster-roll, showing the plaintiff’s enlistment, to the Adjutant-General’s office, does not appear further than that it was some time prior to March 20, 1864. The plaintiff had knowledge, but not derived directly from the selectmen, of the action of the town in relation to soldiers’ bounties. The deficiency of the town of Sanbornton, under the two calls of Oct. 17, 1863, and Feb. 1, 1864, was seven men, not including veterans re-enlisted in the field, and the quota of the town under the call of March 14, 1864, was twenty men, making twenty-seven men due from the town at that date.

The selectmen had no'knowledge of the enlistment and credit of the plaintiff until some time subsequent to April 1, 1864, when they were putting in men under the call of March 14, 1864. At that time the’ plaintiff claimed of the town a bounty, when one of the selectmen, in company with the plaintiff, went to the office of the Adjutant-General, in Concord, and was there informed that the plaintiff had been credited to the quota of another town, and not to the town of Sanbornton; hut the records now show that, in fact, the plaintiff’s enlistment had then been credited to said Sanbornton.

On the final adjustment of quotas, at the close of the war, it was found that Sanbornton had put in about ten men more than their united quotas on all the calls. There was never any promise, by said town, of a payment of bounty to the plaintiff, other than may be inferred from the foregoing facts.

Upon these facts, it is agreed that such a judgment be rendered, or the case discharged, as the court may order. And it is further agreed that, upon the hearing, either party may refer to any proclamation or public record.

Barnard & Sanborn, for plaintiff.

O. O. Rogers and Eastman, Page & Albín, for defendant.