The court availed itself of this permission at once and several wills were proved at this term of court. The procedure in one case will serve as an illustration. Rebecca Eghberts, widow of Barent Eghberts, deceased, produced the will of her husband dated October 20, 1674. The two witnesses swore that they were present and saw the testator sign the will. The court then granted "administration" according to the will and directed that it be recorded. In other estates, where the decedents died intestate, administration in the proper sense was granted.

Under the power conferred upon William Penn in the charter of Pennsylvania, to appoint judges, magistrates and other officers, it was provided in the laws agreed upon in England that there should be a register for births, marriages, burials, wills and letters of administration distinct from the office for enrolling deeds.1 This provision was incorporated in the "Great Law" or body of laws passed at Upland, December 7, 1682,2 and Christopher Taylor was appointed Register General for the province and territories. The register general kept his office at Philadelphia and commissioned deputies to act in the respective counties. Taylor, according to Proud, was a well educated Yorkshireman, an eminent Quaker preacher and the author of several tracts in defense of their principles. He was also a member of the first provincial council, but did not live long to enjoy his honors, dying in the early part of 1686. His own will is No. 26 on the register.

3

The first will on record is that of Thomas Fream, proved, apparently, October 10, 1682. Wills and administrations were kept in separate volumes, as is still the

1 Charter and Laws of Pennsylvania, 101.

2 Charter and Laws of Pennsylvania, 119. Proud's History of Pennsylvania, Vol. I, 236.

practice. The first entries are brief and informal and it probably took some time to settle the forms and practice of the office. The following entry will serve as an example:

“Philadelphia in the Province of Pennsylvania 2 mo 1683.

"Wheras Mary Mason Relict of the deceased, John Mason did the day of the date thereof appear before me, Christopher Taylor, Register Gen1l of the said Province, &c. desiring to take out Letters of Administration upon the estate of the said John Mason and having given in and attested an Inventory of the said estate with sufficient security to pay his debts and dispose of the remainder according to law I do by virtue of my Commission from William Penn, Proprietary and Govern of the said Province and Territories grant Letters of Administration to the said Mary Mason for the ends and purposes aforesaid. Under my hand and the seal of my office.

"Christopher Taylor,

"Regist. Genll (SEAL)"

William Clark, the deputy register for Kent and Sussex counties, had served as a justice in the court at the Whorekills under the previous government and became chief justice of the provincial court in 1703. One of his entries is as follows:

"Whereas William Darnall of the County of Kent, Marchant, did the day of the date hereof appeare before me, William Clark, deputy Register of the Countys of Sussex and Kent in the territories of the Provience of Pensilvania; and desireth as princable Creditor to take out Letters of Administracon upon the estate of Andrew Stocker, deceased, And haveing Given me Good and sufficient securiety to bring in unto me a true inventory of the estate that the said Andrew Stocker dyd possessed of within one moneth after the date hereof soe fer as the same shall com to his knowlidge And also to pay his debts soe fer as the Estate will extend and dispose of the Remayner According to Law, I doe therefor by the authority of William Penn, Proprietary and Govern" of the Provience of Pensilvania and the Territories thereunto belonging & by commicon from Christopher Taylor, Register General of the provience of Pen

silvania and the Counties of Sussex and Kent Grant Letters of Administracon to the said William Darnall for the ends and purposes A for said. Given under my hand and seale of my office the 18th day of mo In the year of our Lord according to the English account 1683.

"William Clark."1

In the same volume are recorded inventories of estates as well as records of births, deaths and marriages. The following is curious:

"These are to give notice unto all persons whatsoever that there is a Marriage shortly intended to be solmonized Betwene Abraham Westron, widdower, and Mary Smith, widdow, if any person have anything justly to object wherefor the said parties should not be Joyned together in marriage Let them Give in there Exceptions unto me to the end that the same may be prevented or elce forever after to be silant in that case. dated at Lewis the 5 day of the 1683. William Clark."

mo

During its existence the office of register general was held by men of importance, including Governors Blackwell, Markham, Evans and Gookin, who probably kept it themselves on account of the fees, while among the deputy registers were Patrick Robinson and David Lloyd whose activities in political and legal affairs have been referred to before.

The duties of the register general and his deputies were not defined by legislation until the passage of the Act of January 12, 1705,2 an elaborate measure relating to the probate of written and nuncupative wills. This act in its last section provided for the appointment of the register general by the governor and required him

1 Sussex County Records, MSS. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. For similar entries, see Turner's Sussex County Records, 133.

2 II Statutes at Large, 194; II Colonial Records, 238, January 12, 1705.

to keep an office at Philadelphia and appoint deputies for the other counties, as had been the practice. All of these officers were required to give bonds for the faithful performance of their duties, which were to be recorded in the orphans' court and to be for the use of parties aggrieved.

Failure to keep these positions filled seems to have caused dissatisfaction, for an act was passed June 7, 1712, which, after reciting that "no register has been commissioned and deputies constituted in each county as the act (of 1705) directs," goes on to enact that in case of the removal of the register general by death, or otherwise, another fit person should be commissioned within three weeks; that if the governor failed to act, the agents of the proprietor should appoint, and if they too failed, the judges of the common pleas of Philadelphia should make the appointment. Governor Gookin thought that two months' time was little enough to appoint the officer, and that the office should be kept at Philadelphia for the whole province, for the greater security of the public. The distance, he said, was no objection, for it was well known that people in England traveled much farther on such occasions. Nevertheless he finally agreed to the bill which became a law and was approved by the queen in council February 20, 1713-4.3

In this statute it was also enacted

“That where objections are made or caveats entered against the proving of any will or granting letters of administration, and where there is or shall be occasion to take the final accounts of executors or administrators, or make distribution of decedents' estates, the register-general and his deputies, respectively, shall, in every such case, call to their assistance two or

1 II Statutes at Large, 421.

2 II Colonial Records, 576, May 27, 1712. II Statutes at Large, 541.

more of the justices of the said court of common pleas for the county where they are concerned, who are hereby empowered and required to give their assistance accordingly to decide the said caveats and matters in controversy, settle the said accounts, make distributions, and do all such other judicial acts as do or shall belong or ought of right to be done by any person or persons having power by law to take probate of wills and grant administration."

This is the origin of the register's court, as to which more will be said hereafter. It will be noticed that the act seems to contemplate the taking of accounts of executors and administrators before this court, but this jurisdiction, if ever exercised, must have been very limited, for the orphans' court already had jurisdiction of such accounts in cases of intestacy2 and where the interests of minors were involved, a jurisdiction defined and amplified by an act passed in the following year.3 When, more than one hundred years later, the act of 1712 was invoked as authority for an attachment issued by the register's court to compel an administrator to account, the supreme court in discharging the prisoner on a writ of habeas corpus said, per Tilghman, C. J.:—

"This law has never been expressly repealed, and so far as concerns caveats, it has been always in force. But the final settlement of the accounts of executors and administrators, and making distribution of the estates of intestates, having been expressly given to the Orphans' Court by the Act of 27 March, 1713, the jurisdiction of the Register's Court, on these subjects, has been supposed to be taken away by implication, and for a long course of time the practice has been to settle final accounts in the Orphans' Court and not in the Register's Court. *** We are of opinion, that at the time of the adoption of this constitution, the Act of 1712, so far as concerned the final settlement of accounts of executors and

1 II Statutes at Large, 423, § 3.

2 Act of January 12, 1705, II Statutes at Large, 199. 3 Act of March 27, 1713, III Statutes at Large, 14.