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Show MRS.HILTON WINS CASE Supreme Court Reverses Decision De-cision in Park Estate Suit. MARRIAGE TO PARK VALID Court Holds That "Seating" Ceremony Cere-mony of Mormon Church Is Marriage Mar-riage Ceremony Whero Both Parties Are Eligible to Matrimony, nnd That Mrs. Hilton Is Entitled to Widow's Share of Dr. Turk's Estate, Es-tate, Valued nt Over $10,000 "ioallng" for Time and Etoinlty. In a verv elaborate opinion prepared by Justice Ha rich and concurred In by the other two Justices, which was lunded down sceterdnv, the Supreme court detlded that tho religious icro-mony icro-mony know n as sealing " practiced by tho Mormon thurth. Is In nil respects equivalent to a marriage binding the parties thereto by tten which must be regarded as sacred nnd Indlasnlublo except ex-cept b death or Judicial decicc This cxtraordlnarj ruling wns made In the now famous mso of Annie P A Hilton versus P Rovlanco which though nominally a contest over tho ownership of a few ncres of land renl-ly renl-ly Involved the question ns to whether ever legnll married to the Lite l)r John It Paik Although she claimed tn have been his wife and as such entitled en-titled to a widow's distributable share one-thlrd, of his estate her claim was denied by Judge Hall of the District lourt Thot Judgment, however Is re-vciscd re-vciscd by the Justices of the Supreme court, who soy that Mrs Hilton Is legally le-gally the widow and consequently nn heir of Dr Park bTORY or Tin: cash. The facts In the case aro briefly an follows. In 1S7! Dr Park thenlOjears of nge, whllo Journevlug from Liverpool Liver-pool to New ork on tho steamship Minnesota, hud fur a fellow passenger Annlo V Armltnge. then aged 11. and said to he a verj attractive jounr ladv. Tho two became dieply Interested In cnih other nnd their IntiYcet continued nfter they arrived In this city. In tho month of December of Hint cnr Miss Annltage. btlng nt the homo of Mrs. llinellno Free oung, was tnken violently vio-lently 111 and In tho opinion of her physicians phy-sicians and nurses wnn beond the hope of recovery She had been taught Hint In order to attain perfect happiness In the next world It was necessary that sho bo ' sealed" to tho man nf her choice In this world. She desired to be "sealed" to Dr. Park, nnd he. being fully persuaded that sho was certainly on her deathbed, consented to tho ceremony. cere-mony. Accordingly they were "sealed" by Dnnlel II, Wells, counselor to Hrlg-hnm Hrlg-hnm Young, ns evidenced by the following fol-lowing certificate, which nppcnrs In tho records of tho Supremo lourt: TIIH "SHALING" ClirtTiriCATE. "John Rocky Park, born 1 If fin, Seneca, Sen-eca, Ohio. 7th of Mny. ISM. Annie l'lora Armltnge, born Nottingham, Notting-ham, 1indnn, rebrtmry 11, ISM. The nnmr parties nnn Benini iij i,-,,,,!,-,,,. D 11. Wells In the presence of Hnie-line Hnie-line Free Young nt her residence In Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. Dec. S. 1872, the lady being on her supposed deathbed (Signed) "DANIF.L II. WKLLS " As sometimes happens, the physicians were mistaken In their surmlso that Miss Armltage was nt death's door. Sho did not die, but on the contrary. Improvement In her condition wna noticed no-ticed soon after the "sealing" occurred nnd she continued to Improve In a few das she was entirely out of danger dan-ger and In a few weeks she wns fully restored to health The situation was full of embarrassment for both her nnd Dr. Pork. lie had consented to be "sealed" to her because he wished thereby to assure her the greatest possible pos-sible happiness In tho world to come nnd not bCLauso ho desired her as hln wife. Indeed, It nppenrs from tho evidence evi-dence In tho case, that Dr Park had no wish lo enter the mnrrleil state. It also appearB that Miss Armltage waa aware of the motives which had prompted promp-ted the doctor to consent to the ceremony cere-mony which "sealed" her to him on her supposed deathbed. run church divorce. The Idea ot annulling this marriage seems to have been uppermost In the minds of both tho parties nnd henco It caused llttlo surprise when their friends learned In the following March that they had been divorced by a de-creo de-creo of tho chuich. This decreo was as follows. "Know all persons by these presents thot we the undersigned, John H. Park and Annlo hl wife, beforo her marriage mar-riage to him Annie Armltnge, do hereby here-by mutually covennnt, promise and agree to dissolve nil tho relations which hnve hitherto existed between us ns husband nnd wife and tn keep ourselves our-selves separate and apart from each other from this time forth In witness wit-ness whereof wo have hereunto set our hands nt Salt Lako City, l' T, this 19th day of March, 1873 Signed In the pnsenco of D. McKenzIo and James (Signed) "JOHN R PARK. "ANNIi: FLORA PARK." WOMAN'S SECOND MARRIAGE. In October, 1S75, Mrs Park, or Miss Armltage, wns married to her present husband, William Hilton, nnd la now the mother of several children, but Dr. Park never married. Ho died In September, Sep-tember, lino, leaving nn estate valued nt about 212,000, which he bequeathed tn tho State university, He did not mention In his will the womnn tn whom he had been "sealed' nnd from whom ho wns afterwards divorced, ns ho supposed. sup-posed. Hut u few months after his death Mrs. Hilton Instituted suit against Rosa P. Roylance. to whom Dr Park had deeded somo land a short time beforo he died SUIT FOR WIDOW'S SHARE. Mrs. Hilton tot up her allegid marriage mar-riage to Dr. Turk nnd claimed thnt she waa his widow. Sho stated tint she hod not parted with her dower right In the hind deeded to defendant and she asked that the same bo adjudged lo her. She also began nnother action ngnlnst the estate, In which she asked to be adjudged the surviving widow of John It Park and as such entitled to one-thlrd of ull the legal and equitable estate of which decedent was possessed ut the time of hU death She nlso uskod nn allowance pending the llnnl settlement of the estate Roth of theso cares wero decided adversely to the claims of Mrs Hilton by Judge Hall. KEYNOTE Of DECISION The controlling Ic a which apparently apparent-ly turned the scalti. In favor of Mrs Hilton In the minds of the Justices of tho Supreme court and certalnli the keynote nf the diclslon Is that "when tho marriage status Is once created It continues until It Is nnnulled by death or the decree of a court of competent Jurisdiction " Iho opinion, which contains about 10 000 wonls, la tepletf with cllatlons fiom legal text-books, court n ports, the Scriptures, history, etc After reviewing re-viewing a long list of authorities bearing bear-ing upon the questions at Issue the court sa:s, It Is thus clear according to the" revealed re-vealed law that to ho sealed' was to be married for tlmo and eternity, and that Ihe 'sealing ceremony' Is a marriage mar-riage ceremony which la good at common com-mon law, the part teferrlng to eternity, as we have seen being regarded ns s mpl) surplusage It seems also clear , upon caraful scrutiny that neither a sealing nor a morrlage foi time where by the parties are to become, husband and wife for this world only, nor a soiling or mnrrl ige for eternity, whereto where-to tho parlies are not lo become husband hus-band and wife until after death Hint ' is in the next world, was authorised by ibis revealed law an I hence nny and ail such unauthorized nnrrlnges would be a violation of the revelation nnd would subject the contracting parties to the penalty provided for disobedience disobedi-ence for the cxpiess revealed covenant Is that sealing or marulng shall be (both Htul not one or either) for time and eternltv " The innrrlago cero mom Is the same for ull cases, 11 Is valid as lo all where tho rattles nre lej.ill) eligible tn matrimony After quoting liberally from the writing writ-ing of llrlghnm Young and other church leaders as to the effect ot the ceremony cere-mony known ns 'sealing." the court SEALING IS MARRIAGE. "In the light of these authorities can there be nny doubt thnt In Mor. mon parlnm e 'sealed' means the sumo thing as the won! 'married'? Or that a 'senllng ceremony' In with tho I Jitter Dsv Saints a 'marring icremonjr " Those questions the court nnswers Willi an emphatic affirmative, and the opinion concludes as follows "Ai a result of oui Investigation the conclusion Hint the 'sealing ceremony" performed In this case established the marriage status nnd created the relations re-lations of husband and wife Is Irrc slstlble Nor Is there anything to show that the marriage contract wns ever dissolved previous tn the death of the husband John R Park We nre of the opinion thnt the finding nnd holding of tho lower court that the plaintiff and Dr Pnik weio never tnvrrled, and that sho la entitled tn no Part of decedent's estnte aro ho innnlfcstli erroneous I thnt thev t nnnot be upheld, nnd the cane i must thereto be leitiandcd with costs and with Instructions to the court below be-low to set aplde Its findings nnd decree 1 nnd enter new findings and a new decree de-cree In accordance herewith" CIlliRCH CANNOT DIVORCE On the question of the divorce grnnted bv the church the court sajs ' That divorce counsel for the defend ant admit to be null nnd void, because while the church could solemnlae a innrrlngw It had no power to dissolve It Such wns tho o-ilnlon of thin court In Norton va Tuftn, 15 Utah 470, and In mnnv other inses" Nathaniel V Jones, who wns Mrs. Hilton's chief attorney, received many congratulations jestordnv, It having been tho general opinion of members of the bar that Judge Hall's decision would be sustained by tho Supremo court |