[373] 1 Munford, 223.
[374] See vol. ii, footnote to 209, of this work.
[375] The adjustment was made because of the memorial of about two hundred settlers or squatters (mostly Germans) on the wild lands who petitioned the Legislature to establish title in them. David Hunter was not one of these petitioners. Marshall agreed to execute deeds "extinguishing" the Fairfax title "so soon as the conveyance shall be transmitted to me from Mr. Fairfax." (Marshall to the Speaker of the House of Delegates, Va., Nov. 24, 1796. See vol. ii, footnote to 209, of this work.) The Fairfax deed to the Marshalls was not executed until ten years after this compromise. (Land Causes, 1833, 40, Records in Office of Clerk of Circuit Court, Fauquier Co., Va.)
[376] Two years later, on October 5, 1808, the Marshall brothers effected a partition of the estate between themselves on the one part and their brother-in-law on the other part, the latter receiving about forty thousand acres. (Deed Book 36, 302, Records in Office of Clerk of Circuit Court, Frederick Co., Va.)
[377] On August 30, 1797, Denny Martin Fairfax conveyed to James M. Marshall all the Fairfax lands in Virginia "save and except ... the manor of Leeds." (See Marshall vs. Conrad, 5 Call, 364.) Thereafter James M. Marshall lived in Winchester for several years and made many conveyances of land in Shenandoah and Berkeley Counties. For instance, Nov. 12, 1798, to Charles Lee, Deed Book 3, 634, Records in Office of Clerk of Circuit Court, Frederick County, Va.; Jan. 9, 1799, to Henry Richards, ib. 549; Feb. 4, 1799, to Joseph Baker, Deed Book 25, ib. 561; March 30, 1799, to Richard Miller, Deed Book 3, ib. 602, etc.
All of these deeds by James M. Marshall and Hester, his wife, recite that these tracts and lots are parts of the lands conveyed to James M. Marshall by Denny Martin Fairfax on August 30, 1797. John Marshall does not join in any of these deeds. Apparently, therefore, he had no personal interest in the tract claimed by Hunter.
In a letter to his brother Marshall speaks of the Shenandoah lands as belonging to James M. Marshall: "With respect to the rents due Denny Fairfax before the conveyance to you I should suppose a recovery could only be defeated by the circumstance that they passed to you by the deed conveying the land." (Marshall to his brother, Feb. 13, 1806, MS.)
At the time when the Fairfax heir, Philip Martin, executed a deed to the Marshall brothers and Rawleigh Colston, conveying to them the Manor of Leeds, the lands involved in the Hunter case had been owned by James M. Marshall exclusively for nearly ten years.
After the partition with Colston, October 5, 1808, John and James M. Marshall, on September 5, 1809, made a partial division between themselves of Leeds Manor, and Goony Run Manor in Shenandoah County, the latter going to James M. Marshall.
These records apparently establish the facts that the "compromise" of 1796 was not intended to include the land claimed by Hunter; that James M. Marshall personally owned most of the lands about Winchester; and that John Marshall had no personal interest whatever in the land in controversy in the litigation under review.