32 _ FEDERAL nmroarmn.
thepartnership creditors; and that presents whatyas .I-have stated, is
the only question in this case,——whether the mill property was partner-
ship or individual property. It is not pretended that there was any ex-
. press contract between the partners by which this mill property was to
become partnership property, nor can it be claimed that the mere fact
that property is used by a partnership makes it partnership property.
It is also true that from the first inception of the business, in 1864, and
“ during the continuance of the three several partnerships, the title to the
mill property stood in the individual names of the partners, and in exact
proportion to their respective interests in the partnership. The conten-
· tion of complainants is that there was an implied agreement between the
_ partners that this mill property should be considered as partnership prop-
erty, and that the course of business during the years of these several
partnerships was such that creditors and others having dealings with the
partnership had a right to assume that this mill property was partner-
ship property, and extend credit to the partnership on the faith thereof.
On thc. part of the defendants it is insisted that the mill property was
individual property, as shown by the deeds, the legal title of the undi-
_ vided interests being confessedly in the several partners; that there was
neither an express nor implied agreement that it should be considered
partnership property; that the title stood of record, and all parties were
charged with notice of its exact position; and that defendant Butler, hav-
~ ing advanced themoney for the purchase by Adelbert Ames of the one-
half interest conveyed to him in 1876, (that conveyance being made un-
der a promise to execute a mortgage as security therefor,—a promise
A known to the other partners at the time of the purchase.-and a prom-
isc made at a time when there were no debts against the partnership, and
therefore nothing to prevent one partner from incumbering his individual
interest,) has a right in equity to insist that such interest shall be sub-
j_ected to the payment of his individual debt in preference to any subse-
quently accruing partnership claims. It may be premised also, at the
outset, that it is not easy to reconcile the various decisions rendered on
the question whether property, the title to which stands in the names
of individual partners, is to be considered in equity as partnership or in-
dividual property. I shall not attempt any review of -the various cases
cited by counsel. Some of them consider only the question, what rights
will exist as to real estate standing in the name of individual partners,
which in fact belongs to the partnership. Others discuss the question
whether a parol agreement is sufficient to convert individual ;real estate
into partnership property. Of course these cases throw no light upon
the question before us; while others, which discuss the question as to
what is necessary to show that real estate standing in the name of indi-
vidual partners is to be treated as partnership property, resttheir con-
clusiontupon single or more facts npt existing in this case. and which by
those courts were deemed decisive of the question., These also furnish
V little help in the case at bar. There is truth in the observations of Judge
FLANDRAU in the case of Arnold v. Wainwright, 6. Minn. 358, (Gil. 241 ,)
asfvllowsr V     A . - - i;' -