Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/211

 204 FEDERAL REPORTER. �the year 1876 by $10,000, raised at the savings bank în this oity ; that their assets beyond the lands in Ipwa were of very little market value, although there is evidence that certain Btocks which subsequently became worthless were not so con- sidered at that time. They did a business as wool merchants, Bometimes amounting to as much as $350,000 a year, but this seems to have been done entirely upon capital advanced by eastern parties. By far the greater portion of their valu- able assets consîsted of the lands in question. They had ceased paying their paper as it became due, and made no response to repeated demands of their creditors for money. In some cases they had even ceased to pay the interest upon their notes. They had also ceased paying premiums upon life insurance policies in which they had invested very heav- ily; indeed, for two or three years prior to that, their annual premiums had amounted to more than $3,000. In short, they were insolvent. �There was, however, a consideration for these conveyances. On August 21, 1865, the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company issued a policy upon the 10-year life plan, on the life of Simeon Folsom, in favor of Eliza Folsom, his daughter, for $10,000, the premium to be paid in ten annual pay- ments, but with the proviso that if, after two years, the as- sured should elect to pay no further premiums it was to be an insurance "pro rata. Nine annual premiums were paid as they became due. The policy lapsed in 1874, the last pre- mium having been paid in August, 1873, without any notice being given to the company of any election to pay no further. This policy was assigned by Eliza Folsom, on the seventh of February, 1875, to the wife of Frank Folsom, and is admit- ted to be the only consideration for the conveyances by Frank and his wife of the Council Bluffs property. This policy was not taken out by Eliza Folsom, was never in her possession, nor did she have anything to do with the pay- ment of the premiums. She had heard of it from her father, and this was ail she knew about it. The value of the policy on the eighteenth day of February, 1875, reckoned upon the basis that it had not been forfeited, was $3,739,11. The ����