Lewis Snapp, Sr. - Land Lawsuit

The following newspaper article appeared in The Courier-Journal on 30 Apr 1895 regarding a lawsuit brought concerning a tract of Jefferson County land once owned by Lewis Snapp, Sr. We share it here due to its connection to a number of Bullitt County folks.

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In the case of Orrin Call and his wife, Harmanday, against W. T. Morrow, administrator of Wesley Phelps; T. E. Hays, J. A. Hays, S. W. Ash and Edward W. McKinney, Judge Fleld yesterday overruled the motion to strike out an amended petition, overruled the demurrers of T. E. and J. A. Hays to the plaintiff's petition. The demurrers of McKinney and Morrow were sustained, there being no cause of action shown against them. The plaintiffs are represented by Judge Robert J. Elliott, Morrow by Fairleigh & Straus, McKinney by ex-Postmaster John Barret, and T. E. and J. A. Hays by George Weissinger Smith.

While the case is neither unusual or of any importance save to those involved in the litigation, it is a very interesting one. The bone of contention is probably less than thirty acres of land, some thirteen miles from Louisville on the Bardstown pike, and the rents and profits arising therefrom since about 1879. The land in question formerly belonged to Lewis Snapp. Sr.

Lewis Snapp, Sr., died in the county on March 20, 1856, leaving all his land to his four sons, share and share alike. One of these sons was Lewis Snapp, Jr., who had married and lost his wife, and then again married in October, 1851, taking for his second wife Miss Harmanday Burrows, a ward of Judge Elllott, counsel in the case. In the following year, 1852, Lewis Snapp, Jr. and his wife left Kentucky, and going South located at Carrollton, La. They were here when, in 1856, Lewis Snapp Sr. died. Lewis Snapp, Jr. had no children by his first marriage, but as the result of the second, there were four, Lewis A., Lusk H., Julia and Nannie.

Lewis Snapp, Jr., died in April, 1861, and one of his children having died in 1858, his property descended to his wife and the remaining three. The family remained in Carrollton, and in July, 1863, Mrs. Snapp became the wife of Orrin Call. In the meantime, the Jefferson County property of Lewis Snapp, Jr., had become involved in litigation and had passed into other hands, and it was not until less than a year ago that Mrs. Call instituted suit to recover it. When Lewis Snapp, Jr., died in 1861, he left his property to his wife and three children. When Nannie Snapp died in 1861, a month after her father's death, her interest in the Kentucky land descended to her brother, Lusk H. Snapp. When Lewis A. Snapp died in 1868, one month after his mother's second marriage, his interest descended to Lusk H. Snapp. And when the latter died in 1879, his interest passed to his mother, Mrs. Call. The fifteen years' adverse possession of the Jefferson County land, which would have barred any action to recover, had nearly elapsed before the suit was filed.

It seems that in 1870 part of the land was sold under judgments of the Bullitt Circuit Court in cases of James H. Johnson against Louisa Snapp, widow of Lewis Snapp, Sr., and others, to which the heirs of Lewis Snapp, Jr., were not made parties. The land was bought by Wesley Phelps, who in 1882 conveyed part of it to G. W. Ash, and in 1883 transferred the remainder to T. E. and J. A. Hays, who now occupy and claim it. Mr. Phelps, who lived in Bullitt County, died in 1891. W. T. Morrow becoming his administrator. All of these are defendants to the suit. The plaintiffs also claim that by the death of W. F. Snapp, a brother of Lewis Snapp, Jr., the latter's heirs acquired an interest in his interest.

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