Appeal from the Chancery Court of Lafayette County.

Hon. B. T. Kimbrough, Chancellor.

On the 9th of February, 1870, Susan L. Atkinson bought a tract of land and paid for it with money borrowed of Jacob Thompson. On the same day Susan L. Atkinson and her husband, R. E. Atkinson, executed a deed of trust on this land to secure their promissory note to Thompson for the money borrowed of him, the 9th of February, 1871, being the date fixed for the maturity of the note. The deed of trust was duly recorded on the 18th of February, 1870. Several payments were made by Mrs. Atkinson during the years 1870,1871, and 1872 on her note to Thompson, but there was still a balance due when, on the 11th of May, 1872, Thompson, for a valuable consideration, assigned and transferred the note and deed of trust to Lee R. Shryock.

R. E. Atkinson died and Susan L. Atkinson married J. M. Phipps, but after the death of Atkinson and before her marriage to Phipps she, on the 13th of February, 1874, conveyed to the latter the land above referred to.

On the 8th of February, 1877, Susan L. Phipps and her husband, J. M. Phipps, in a written instrument signed by them, acknowledged the debt due by the note assigned by Thompson to Shryock, and promised to pay the same to the latter.

On the 24th of February, 1881, J. M. Phipps,'for a valuable consideration, sold and conveyed to J. C. McClellan a part of the above-mentioned land ; and on the 30th of April, 1881, for a like consideration, Phipps sold and conveyed to J. M. Plant the remainder of such land.

Mrs. Phipps having failed to pay off her note held by Shryock, he, on the 3d of October, 1882, filed the bill in this cause against her, her husband, J. M. Phipps, J. M. Plant, and J. C. McClellan, for the purpose of having the land covered by the deed of trust executed by Mrs. Phipps and her former husband sold to pay the balance due on the note held by the complainant.

The defendants severally answered the bill. Plant and McClellan respectively claimed to be innocent purchasers, and based their defense on the ground that they had no actual knowledge of the complainant’s claim’ upon the land, and that the “ records of the proper office where said deed in trust is recorded show that said trust-deed was barred by the statute of limitations long before respondent purchased said land, and the record of said trust-deed does not disclose any new promise of the grantors or any of them to prevent the bar of the statute of limitations as to said trust-deed and the note therein mentioned.” • The proof showed that Mrs» Phipps and her vendees had been in quiet possession of the land up to the commencement of the suit.

The court rendered a decree granting the relief prayed for by the complainant, and the defendants, Plant and McClellan, appealed.

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