Wilder v. Whittemore

Upon ■ mortgage deed, conditioned that the mortgagor shall maintain and support tira mortgagee during life, the mortgagee has a right to the support wherever he shall choose to reside, so that needless expense be not created to the mortgagor or his assigns. If the latter fails of performance, the mortgagee has a right to the possession of the mortgaged premises. But in an action for such possession, on the prayer of the tenant, judgment will be entered, conditioned for the payment of the arrears within two months. — Stat. 1785, c. 22.

This was a writ of entry, in which the said Sarah counted upon a mortgage in fee of the demanded premises, lying in the town of Dana, made on the 11th of July, 1804, by one Aaron Haven to her husband, Manasseh Wilder, whom she had survived, and to herself, as joint-tenants, and upon a disseisin by the said Whittemore. The plea in bar set forth, on oyer granted, the deed under which the demandant claims; the condition of which was, that if the said Aaron Haven, tne mortgagor, should maintain and support the demandant, and her said husband, during their respective lives, the deed should be void. The plea then alleges an assignment by Haven of the equity of redemption, and several other assignments, until it came to one Israel Houghton; and it avers that the said Haven, and the several assignees of the right of redemption, had supported the said Manasseh and Sarah until the assignment to Houghton ; and that he, the said Houghton, had always, to the day of the purchase of the writ in this case, offered to support the said Sarah, since the decease of her said husband, at his, the said Houghton’s house in Petersham; but that she had refused to accept the same. * To this plea the demandant demurred generally, and the tenant joined in demurrer.