34 rvsnnmn nsroarmn. _
concluding that Welch was ever a "settler" upon this land under
either the donation act or the laws of the provisional government.
True, he lived upon it, but only as the purchaser of certain parcels of
the same or an interest thereof under and from such a settler-John
M. Shively., After the passage of the donation act, in September
1860, he probably ascertained that his quitclaim from Shively was
not sufficient to pass the after-acquired estate which the latter took
` under the donation act; and therefore, as a means of compelling him
to make the same good, Welch may have threatened and probably did
set up to be a "settler" on the land under the donation act. The ef-
fect of this claim was at least to embarrass and delay Shively in the
assertion and maintenance of his right, as such settler, in the land-
oifacet Hence the so-called compromise, by which Welch abandoned
his opposition to Shively’s claim to the donation, and the latter con-
veyed to Welch and wife, with warranty, that which he had quit-
claimed to the former in 1850. But even if Welch had been the "set·
t1er" on the land, his wife had no interest in the premises until he
i had complied with the law, so as to be entitled to the grant. His
abandonment of the claim prior to that time was his own act, and for
his own benefit. She hadnothing to relinquish or abandon. Lamb
v. Starr, 1 Deady, 360; ‘ Vance v. Burbank, 101 U. S. 520. But Nancy
Welch having acquired these blocks 5 and 13, by a direct conveyance
from Shively, she "holds" them under him. In other words, she de-
rivesher title to them from him. And it is altogether immaterial
who furnished the consideration for such conveyance; Because a hus-
band for any reason——as love and affection or a sense of justice-
furnishes the means to enable his wife to acquire property, or even
I purchases the same outright, and directs the conveyance to be made
to her, she does not "hold" under him. Welch was not the owner of
the property, and she is not his grantee. They are not privies in es-
tate; there is no devolution or transmission of any interest in the
property from him to her. But she holds under the grantor in the
, conveyance through which she derives her title and right, and to which
her husband is a stranger.
lt follows that Nancy Welch’s representation or claim that the tide ’
lan_ds in question were not "hel-d" by any person under a `cleed from
her or any person under whom she "held," was true in point of both
factand law, and the commissioners did not err in preferring her as
a purchaser to the plaintiff. The plaintiff is not entitled to any re-
lief on this bill, and the same is dismissed. '