The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-10-07
EBER D. WARD AND HIS WILL.

About the year of the commencement of
the war of 1919, there was born in an OBJ
scure corner of the town of Poultney, in
this county, man child. The fact of his
birth, the residence of the family and even
its name had, in the passage of years, been
lost sight of, if not entirely forgotten,
until it was suddenly revived, in January
last, by the sudden death of that child, a
man grown, in the city of Detroit, Michi-
gan. His early life was succession of
struggles with poverty and difficulties, bat
he was a yankee boy" anticipated Horace
Greeleys advice by ''going west" sur
mounted every obstacle, acquired wealth
ord influence, and, whom Lie dled, was
known as the "Dctroit millionaire
That child and man was Eber d. Ward
who dropped dead OF apopleXyin the streets
of Detroit, in January last, at the age of
sixty-three years. His estate, at his death,
inventoried at five million Of dollars and
was incumbered with debts to the amount
of million of dollars. That estate he
disposed, or attempted to dispose, of by
will, but the validity thereof is questioned
on the alleged ground of the testators in
sanity. The ground of this claim we pro-
pose to consider not only as matter of
general interest, but as more particularly
SO to portion of our readers as, il rumor
is correct, the will contains bequest TO
one of the towns in this county for the
purpose of establishing public library
and if such bequest was made, its validi-
ty of course depends upon that of the win.
There survived him five adult children
by a wife now deceased, but from whom
he was divorced, two of whom are lunatics,
a young widow, to whom he was married
several years since, and two young chill
dren. To his widow and her children, he
bequeathed property of the value of two
millions of dollars in pine lands, lumber
mills, etc., and about the same amount to
the children by his first marriage to be held
in trust for them, they receiving certain
stated allowances at certain stated times
but without any control over the principal.
This disposition of his property certainly
shows no evidence of insanity. When it
is remembered that two of the children,
thus provided for through trustees, are al
ready confirmed lunatcs, and when it is
stated that insanity is hereditary in the
Ward family, the will and its conditions
looks much more like the sensible act of O
sane careful business man endeavoring to
provide for his children threatened with
insanity, than the crazy freak of mad
man. }f
But it is objected and will doubtless be
proved, that Ward made his will under the
belief that it was dictated by spirits, and
that the draft of it, or something substan-
TALLY like the original draft, was made by
protested mediums acting, or pretending tc
act, by the dictation of spirits, the medi.
ums being in so called trance state. This
belief in spirrualism is the gst of the mat
ter, for it is on evidence of Wards belief
therein that it is relied to prove his insani
ty. Indeed, except the bare fact that in
sanity is hereditary in the family, the
whole claim is based upon this belief, anc
the hereditary insanity is introduced solely
for the purpose of giving additional colol
to the claim that this spiritual belief was
the particular form of his delusion.
The only witness so far introduced L
prove the spirit source of the will is Mar
garet Fox, one of the originators of thu
Rochester knockings," and who, as early
as 1859, was holding spiritual seances in
Philadelphia. She produced In court Ger
tain papers, purporting to be communica.
tions from spirits and to have been written
by her as a medium, containing the sub
stance of the will as finally made, and
which she claimed was the work of deceased
relatives of Wards widow. The docu.
ments were so written as to require the use
of looking-glass to read them, and were
made remarkable by the purported inter-
ruptions of the spirit of his first wife pro.
testing against the terms of the will That
such instructions should be received as gen.
uine, and will made in accordance there
with, looks good deal like insanity on the
part of the testator, and when the fact OF