A COLLECTION OF FORMS OF CONVEYANCING, CONTRACTS, AND LEGAL PROCEEDINGS. FOR THE USE OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION, BUSINESS MEN, AND PUBLIC WITH COPIOUS INSTRUCTIONS, EXPLANATIONS, AND AUTHORITIES. BY BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT AND AUSTIN ABBOTT NINTH EDITION. NEW YORK: BAKER, VOORHIS & CO., LAW PUBLISHERS, 66 NASSAU STREET. 1881. Ente according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, BY BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT AND AUSTIN ABBOTT, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. X-5023 THE object of this work is to present to the Legal Profession, Conveyancers, Judicial and other Public Officers, and Business Men, a well-selected and ample collection of forms of Agreement, Conveyances, Legal proceedings and ins.ruments other than those peculiar to actions and criminal prosecutions. It is the third volume of a series of form-books, of which the Forms of Practice and Pleading in Civil Actions compose the first two volumes. For the materials of this work, we are, of course, to a degree indebted to the labors of others who have edited somewhat similar collections; but we have preferred to rely as far as possible upon actual precedents, such as the resources afforded in the course of a considerable practice, and in the course of reporting judicial decisions for a number of years, have enabled us to gather for the purpose. Such precedents which have been prepared for actual use, and which in many cases have been put to the tests of actual litigation, we have regarded as most valuable for the purpose of a work like this. On those subjects within the scope of the work, which are 139028 regulated in detail by the statutes of the several States, we have in many instances presented the principles adopted in the State of New York as the most generic exponent of American Law. But we have spared no pains to gather and present the laws of all the States, upon those subjects in reference to which the practitioner in any State is liable to be called on to draft papers or determine their sufficiency, according to the laws of other States than his own. BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT. NEW YORK, April. 1866. CONTENTS. 2 2 I. OATHS AND AFFIRMATIONS, ADMINISTERED ORALLY TO WIT- NESSES IN TAKING ACKNOWLEDGMENT OR PROOF. Oath of a subscribing witness, taken upon the Evangelists.. The same, taken by uplifting the hand...... Affirmation of subscribing witness.. Oath of a witness to identity of party or subscribing witness, The same, taken by uplifting the hand. Affirmation of witness to identity of party or subscribing By husband and wife, of a joint deed of the wife's land.... By the same, of a joint deed of the husband's land.......... Proof by handwriting of grantor and subscribing witnesses.. Acknowledgment by one or more grantors known to the officer 18 25 |