Chap. 61.—An ACT to give Effect to a Compromise of the Litigation
in Respect to the Construction and Effect of the Will of Samuel Mil-
ler, deceased, and to Establish the Manual Labor School provided for
in the Twenty-fifth Clause of said Will.

Approved February 24, 1874.

Whereas a suit is pending in the supreme court of appeals
of this state, upon appeals from a decree of the circuit court
of the city of Richmond, pronounced on the fifteenth day of
April, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, in one of which ap-
peals the county of Albemarle and the board of education
are appellants, and in the other Nicholas M. Page, executor
of Samuel Miller, deceased, is appellant, and in both of which
Robert W. Davidson, James M Davidson, John Davidson,
Samuel Miller Davidson, and Bennett Marion Davidson and
others, are appellees; upon which appeals it is understood
that many doubtful questions arise touching the construction
of said will, and the effect and operation of the twenty-fifth
clause thereof; and whereas, the parties interested have ad-
justed a compromise upon terms satisfactory to all the adult
parties, which has been ratified and approved by the circuit
court of the city of Richmond, whereby all further litigation
between the parties may be ended, and the delays and ex-
pense attending the same avoided, and the charitable inten-
tions of the testator carried into speedy operation; and
whereas, Nicholas M. Page, the executor of the said will,
has, in pursuance of the said terms of compromise, petitioned
the general assembly to grant a charter to the said Manual
Labor School, in such form as shall remove the legal obstacles
which exist to its establishment, and piace it upon a sure and
permanent footing, in which petition the said Robert W. David-
son, James M. Davidson and John Davidson, adults, and thesaid
Samuel Miller Davidson and Bennett Marion Davidson, infants,
by Henry E. Smith, their lawful ‘guardian, and Edward S.
Brown, their guardian ad litem, and the county of Albemarle,
and the board of education, by their counsel, unite upon the
terms and conditions in said agreement of compromise speci-
fied, a copy of which accompanies the said petition. Now,
therefore, in order to carry out substantially the intention
of the said testator to remove the legal difficulties, decided
by the said decree of the circuit court of the city of Rich-
mond to exist, to the establishment of the said charity, to
place the said charity upon a sure and permanent basis, and
to give complete effect to the said compromise, and bar all
present and future claims of the said Davidsons, or any of
them, or of any person, claiming by, through or under them,
or either of them, however such future claim may arise,
whether capable now or hereafter of being asserted by suit or
otherwise; therefore,

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That 3
in order to give complete legal capacity to the Miller Manual }
Labor School, in the county of Albemarle, the same be and
is hereby created a corporation, under the following charter,
to-wit:

Clause I. The numbers of the board of education and their £
successors in office, the second auditor and his successors 5
in office, and the judge of the county court of Albemarle
county and his successors in office, shall constitute and be a
corporation by the name of The Miller Manual School’ of
Albemarle, and shall have perpetual succession, and a com- G
mon seal, which it may alter or renew at pleasure, and may
sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded, contract and be
contracted with, purchase, take by grant, devise or bequest,
and hold estates, real and personal, for the uses and purposes
of the said Manual Labor School.

Clause II. It shall not be necessary for the persons desig- G
nated in clause one to accept this charter, but they shall be &
deemed virtute officii to have accepted the same, nor shall it >
be necessaay for them to hold any meeting for organization, —
but if they deem it proper to hold any meeting the governor
shall preside, and the second auditor shall act as secretary.
Such meetings shall be held, if at all, at such times and
places as shall be designated by the governor, as president.

Clause ITI. In such case any of the public offices, the in-L
cumbents of which are constituted corporators of the said 6
Manual Labor School, shall hereafter be abolished or changed, &
the general assembly will designate what person or persons al
shall be constituted corporators in lieu of such. And it shall, *
at all times, be competent for the general assembly, at its
discretion, to change the organization of the said corporation
and the agencies by which the said charity shall be adminis- ,
tered, more effectually to carry out the objects and purposes t
of said testator for the establishment and perpetual support
of the school in the said twenty-fifth clause of said will men-
tioned, from which objects ang purposes the Miller fund shall
not be diverted.

Clause IV. The corporation created by clause I shall hold ¢
the legal title to all property dedicated by the will of Samuel #
Miller, and by the compromise aforesaid, to the said Manual
Labor School, and all other property hereafter acquired by
it, for the use and benefit of said school. The board of edu- ¥
cation shall discharge, in respect to the said fund, all the °
duties devolved, and exercise all the; howers .conterred -
said twenty-fifth clause of said will upon the board.of the
literary fund. The second auditor shall discharge all the x
duties devolved by said clause upcn him, and,iy hereby, ay-
thorized to receive the compensatioa. thereby provided,- The
eounty court of Albemarle county is authorized and required, :

}
sitting in term, by orders entered upon a record book to be
kept by the clerk of said court specially tor that purpose, to
discharge all the duties devolved, and exercise the powers
conferred by said twenty-fifth clause upon the county court
of said county. Such record book shall be provided from
the fund, and the clerk of said court shall receive for keeping
the same, the same fees allowed by law for orders in the order
books of said court, to be paid out of the fund as other claims
are provided to be paid. And the district school trustees of
the respective school districts of said county shall select and
designate, subject to approval by the county court, as pro-
vided for in said twenty-fifth clause of said will, as pupils of
said school, those described in the said clause, and required
by the testator to be so selected.

Clause V. The funds, stocks, securities and investmets be-
longing to the “ Miller fund,” shall be kept and preserved by
the board of education in the same manner with those be-
longing to the literary fund of the commonwealth, but shall be
kept scrupulously separate from all other funds, and besacredly
and forever devoted to the uses and purposes of the said
Manual Labor School; and the accounting officers of the
commonwealth in whose custody the same, or any part
thereof may be, and the sureties in their official bonds, shall
be liable for the safe preservation thereof, in like manner as
for the property of the literary fund.

2. The board of education is hereby authorized and re-
quired, in pursuance of the said agreement of compromise,
by deed duly executed, to release to the said Robert W. Da-
vidson, James M. Davidson, John Davidson, Samuel Miller
Davidson, and Bennett Marion Davidson, respectively the
reversions to the estate of Samuel Miller, limited upon the
respective bequests and devises to them in the eighth, ninth,
‘tenth, eleventh and twelfth clauses of said will; and author-
‘ity is hereby given to Henry E. Smith, the guardian of Sam-
uel Miller Davidson and Bennett Marion Davidson, (or to his
successor as such guardian) for them and in their behalf, to
execute and deliver a proper deed, surrendering, releasing,
transferring, granting, and conveying to the Manual Labor
School, created by section one of this act, for the uses and
purposes prescribed by the testator in the said twenty-fifth
clause of his will, all right, titre, interest and claim, present
and prospective, beyond what they shall receive under the
said compromise, to the residuum of the said estate of Sam-
uel Miller, deceased; and authority is given to Robert W.
Davidson, James M. Davidson and Jobo Davidson, by such
deed, to release, surrender, transfer, grant and convey to said
Manual Labor School, for the uses and purposes prescribed
by she .testatar in the sajd twenty-fifth clause of his will, all
their'like respactive rights, title, interest and claim, present
and’ prospettive, béyond what they shall receive under said
, bontpromash | ‘and such deed, when so executed and delivered,
-bhall’ hayé: the: effect epnclusively to bar all future rights,

title, interest or claim, however the same may anise, by or
on behalf of the said Davidsons, or any or either of them, or
any person claiming by, through or under them, or either of
them, to any part of, or interest in the fund which, under the
said compromise, shall pass to the said Manual Labor School.
The executor of Samuel Miller shall cause the deed, or deeds,
executed in pursuance of this section, to be recorded in the
clerks’ offices of the counties of Albemarle and Rockbridge,
and of the chancery court of the city of Richmond.

3. Nothing in this act contained shall be construed in any
manner to affect the rights of the heir, or heirs at law, of
Samuel Miller, deceased, if any such rights there be.

4. In the event the said compromise shall fail, from any
cause whatever, then all the parties to the said appeals, in
the preamble of this act mentioned, shall be immediately re-
mitted to all their legal and equitable rights, and shall stand,
in relation thereto, precisely as if no plan of compromise
had been proposed or adopted, or any application for the
ratification thereof made to the circuit court of Richmond,
or any decree made thereon, and as if no petition had been

ented to the general assembly for any act upon the sub-
ject, and as if no action had been had thereon, or any aet
done in pursuance thereof; but each and all of the said par-
ties shall stand in all respects to each other, to the subject of
litigation and to the questions involved, as if no plan of set-
tlement and compromise had been set on foot or anything
done in reference thereto.

5. This act shall be in force from its passage.