484 HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY.

[Fielder B. Smith, late of Calvert county, being possessed
of valuable real estate in said county, departed this life in the
year 1845, leaving a widow, Lucy M. Smith, (the present
defendant,) and several children and the representatives of
other children, his heirs at law; five of them being children of
the defendant, and the other descendants of the deceased by a
former marriage. By proceedings under a commission for par-
tition, issued out of Calvert County Court, the lands of the
deceased were divided into eight parts, and assigned to the
parties entitled; a third part of each division having been as-
signed to the defendant, for her dower. One of these eight
parts was allotted to Sarah Ellen Childs, sole representative of
Sarah A. Smith, daughter of the deceased by his first mar-
riage; said Sarah Ellen, together with her husband, J. D.
Childs, being the present complainants. The widow pos-
sessed herself of the several parcels so assigned to her, and
commenced cutting from that assigned her out of the land of
the complainants, nearly all her fire-wood, and fencing for
other portions of her land; removing a large portion of fencing
from the land on which she resided, and replacing it with new
rails cut from her dower on the complainants' land. The com-
plainants filed their bill for an injunction to restrain her from
the commission of further waste on said land, charging her
with the intention to benefit her own children, to the injury of
the reversionary interests of her step-children; insisting that
she must use each parcel of land assigned her, separately, and
denying her right to cut more wood from each than was re-
quired for the use of the same. The defendant, by her answer,
denied the intention charged, and asserted her right to use all
the portions assigned her as one entire dower. She averred,
that the part assigned to her out of the share of the complain-
ants, consisted almost entirely of wood, and was assigned to
her to use in the manner charged, and was only useful to her
for that purpose. She also objected to the jurisdiction of the
court, first, because the complainants had an adequate remedy
at law, in an action on the case; and, secondly, because their
remedy, if they had any in equity, should have been sought on