Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/457

 IN EE WOOD. 4e< �In 1855, from W- S. McGovie, $550; in 1857,.from a par- tition suit of her mother's property, |29Q; and in 1857,, from W. S. McGovic, executer of Leroy McGpyic, $550; in 1863, $300 from W. S. McGovic; and in 1864, from the executors pf W. S, McGovic, $495. Eliza Wood also.testifies clearly that these sums were received by her frona these several sources. And I may remark that the parties offered to intro- duoe in evidence four letters req^ived by the parties inclosing the drafts, but these were, I think, improperly excluded by the register. There çan, I think, be no dispute as to the wife having received, as her own money, these several sums, and this fact is established by evidence outside of any communi- cation or act between them. One thousand three hundred and ninety dollars of this was received by her prior to the pas- sage of the act of 1861,* and $795 of it after the passage of that act. Prior to the passage of that act, by the common law the money received by the wife became the property of the husband, unless a different character was imparted to it by the title by which it was received. But if the gift of this money was accompanied by an unequivocal declaration that it was to and for her own separate use, it would not vost in the husband, but would remajn the separate property of the wife. Quigly v. Graham, 18 Ohio St. 42 ; Kesner v. Trigg, 98 U. S. 54. �The evidence of the wife and husband is clear and explicit that $1,000 of this money was used in building the house and furnishing it. And the wife testifies clearly that when the money was remitted to her by her brother and put into the house, it was with the directions that it was to be for her a, home; and the husband testifies clearly that that sum was put in the house as her money, and that it was not received by him as his own money but as the money of the wife, so that the donors — ra regard to the $1,000, by their direction as to the investment and use for which this money was to be held — stamped upon it the character of the separate property «f the wife, and the husband never asserted to it any'title by virtue of his marital rights, but treated it as her separato ����
 * Act of April 3, 1861, 68 Ohio Lawg, 64.— Bkp;