Introduction to Gray v. Allen

 

In September 1841, JS entered into an agreement to help redeem property that had been seized and sold as part of a debt case. In 1841, James Gray sued Allen in the , Illinois, circuit court over unpaid debts. Gray had apparently loaned Allen $1,000 in March 1837, for which Allen signed a promising to repay the money plus interest to Gray by March 1841. According to the conditions of the bond, failure to repay carried a $2,000 penalty. Allen used this money to purchase two parcels of land comprising approximately 120 acres in Hancock County. Although he paid off half the bond by summer 1838, he made no further payments to Gray thereafter. In March 1841, when the bond became due, Gray initiated a suit to recover the $2,000 penalty. When the case came to trial on 10 May 1841, the court clerk assessed Gray’s damages at $687.66 and granted an allowing him to recover these from Allen. In June 1841, Sheriff seized the two parcels of property Allen had purchased in Hancock County.

About a month after the lands were seized, met with JS, apparently in an attempt to persuade him to purchase the properties at auction to prevent Gray from taking possession of them. Shortly after their interview, Allen wrote a letter to JS that again urged him to help redeem the property. However, these early attempts to persuade JS to intervene were evidently unsuccessful, and on 2 August 1841, Gray purchased the land parcels at auction for $500. Nevertheless, Allen continued seeking means to regain the properties. law gave defendants twelve months to redeem property that had been seized and sold at auction to satisfy a legal judgment. In order to redeem the property, the defendant had to pay the purchaser the sum of money they had bid on the property as well as ten percent interest if the purchaser was the plaintiff. This property could be redeemed by the defendant, their heirs, executors, administrators, or grantees. On 17 September 1841, Allen signed a bond with JS promising to transfer the property to JS if JS paid the money to redeem the seized and auctioned property, as well as a agreeing to pay $100 to JS in exchange for forty acres of the property.

Although JS agreed to redeem ’s property in September 1841, he did not pay for the property for another year. On 22 July 1842, , one of JS’s regular financial agents, paid the county $548.62 to redeem the property. The sheriff noted JS’s payment on the certificate of sale, documenting that the property had been redeemed. To fully satisfy the judgment against Allen, Clayton further paid Gray $237 three days later and a receipt of the payment was forwarded to the circuit court. After the two parcels of land were redeemed, JS obtained rights to the larger eighty-acre parcel, while Allen retained the smaller forty-acre one, as per their earlier agreement.

 

This calendar lists all known documents created by or for the court, whether extant or not. It does not include versions of documents created for other purposes, though those versions may be listed in footnotes. In certain cases, especially in cases concerning unpaid debts, the originating document (promissory note, invoice, etc.) is listed here. Note that documents in the calendar are grouped with their originating court. Where a version of a document was subsequently filed with another court, that version is listed under both courts.