Heirloom

Chattels which, contrary to the nature of chattels, descend to the heir along with the inheritance, and do not pass to the executor. This word seems to be compounded of heir, and loom, that Is, a frame, viz. to weave In. Some derive the word loom from the Saxon loma, or geloma, which signifies utensils or vessels generally. However, this may be, ’ the word loom, by time, is drawn to a more general signification than it bore at the first, comprehending all implements of household, as tables, presses, cupboards, bedsteads, wainscots, and which, by the custom of some countries, having belonged to a house, are never inventoried after the decease of the owner as chattels, but accrue to the heir with the house itself. Mlnshew; 2 Poll. & Maitl. 361. Charters, deeds, and other evidences of the title of the land, together with the box or chest in which they are contained, the keys of a house, and fish in a fish-pond, are heirlooms. Co. Lltt. 3o, 185 b; 7 Co. 17 b, Cro. Ellz. 372; Brooke, Abr. Charters, pi. 13; 2 Bla. Com. 427; 14 Viner, Abr. 291. Diamonds bequeathed to one “as head of the family” and directed “to be deemed heirlooms in the family” are held in trust for the legatee and his succc.ssors; 23 W. R. 592; chattels bequeathed upon trust to permit the.same to go and be enjoyed by the person possessed of the title, in the nature of heirlooms, vest absolutely in the first taker; 23 Ch. D. 158; and to the testator’s nephew to go to and be held as heirlooms by him and his eldest son on his decease, is held to create an executory trust with a life interest in the first taker; L. R. 6 Eq. 540. An election, by one who takes heirlooms under a deed of trust, to take under a will did not operate as a forfeiture of the heirlooms as the interest In them was unassignable; 31 Ch. D. 406. Thei’e appear to be no cases of strict heirlooms in this country; but see Haven v. Haven, 181 Mass. 573, 04 N. E. 410.

heir-lome.

In English law. A personal chattel which goes by special custom to the heir, with the inheritance, as articles of household furniture, or, according to Coke, fish in a pond, deer in a park, and doves in a dove-housa

A chattel, heir with the inheritance fishes in the pond, the