Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/17

 BOOTHWORTH V. 1DAM3. . 8 �or to set aside a will for fraud or imposition, or to set aside the probate thereof on the ground of mistake, fraud, or forgery. And in one of the cases it was said, that whatever the cause of the establishment of the doctrine that a bill in equity will not lie to set aside a will or its probate, "there is ample reason for its maintenance in this country, from the fuil jurisdiction overthe subject of wiUs vested in the probate courts, and the/revisory power over their adjudications in the appellate courts." The cases in which the question in its different phases has arisen or been discused, are Armstrong V. Lear Adm'r, etc., 12 Wheat. 169; Tarver y. Tarver, 9 Pet. 174; Gaines v. Chew, 2 How. 619; Fouvergne et al.v. New Orleans et al. 18 How. 470; Gaines v. New Orleans, 6 Wall, 642, 703; Case of Broderick's Will, 21 Wall. 503; and Gaines v. Fuentes et al. 92 U. S. 10. With the exception of the case last cited, ail of these were cases originally brought in the federal courts, thus presenting the question of original jurisdiction of those courts to entertain bills of the nature before indicated. But that is hardly the question here pre- sented. For, even if the present bill could not have been filed as an original proceeding in this court, the question is whether this was not, when pending in the state court, a suit in equity in which there was a controversy between oitizens of different states, and whether, after removal of the same under and pursuant to the removal act of 1875, this court was not then invested with jurisdiction of the cause. �As appears from several of the cases cited, the deniai of general equity jurisdiction to entertain causes involving the probate of wills is made to rest largely upon the fact that such jurisdiction is exclusively vested in the probate courts, and in some of the cases, as in that of Broderick's Will,tth.iB point is enforced by reference to state statutes which lodge suoh jurisdiction in the probate courts. It was, however, a peculiar- ity of the law of Wisconsin, when this action was commence d, that by statute jurisdiction to establish a lost will was' vested in the circuit courts of the state, and, by implication; the probate courts, in that particular clàss of cases, had not juris- diction. The statute provided that "wheùever any will of real or personal estate shall be lost, or destroyed by accident ����