The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1876-03-24

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Vast Fortune I'm the Tyrol-A Fathers
Desth-bed Repentance.
The New York Mercury prints the
following story
One year ago Jacob Heydebrand was
poor locksmith at No. 116 Hester
street. One day, while ON Fulton
ferry boat, he met an acquaintance, who
asked him II he was the Jacob Heyde-
brand whom the Austrian Consulate was
advertising for. His friend had some
difficulty in persuading him to go to the
Consulate and ascertain whether or not
he was the person wanted. At the Con-
sulate he was asked if he had been in
1850 at Rockenheim, near Frankfort-on-
the Main. He replied in the affirmative.
"Did you board there with family
named Schoen, and did you meet at their
house an Austrian officer2" Heyde-
brand replied again in the affirmative.
"What was the name of that officer ?"
cit was Count Jacob Won Heydebrand.
He was captain in the Ninth Regiment of
Austrian Hussars, he answered. swell,
then you are the man we want" So
saying the Consul handed the astonished
locksmith bundle of documents, which
he said he had better have examined by
some German lawyer, and he also in
formed him that he was instructed to pay
him the sum of $4,000. The German
lawyer to whom Heydebrand gave the
papers was greatly surprised at their con-
tents, which were to the following effect !:
Count Aloysius Won Heydebrand. a
wealthy nobleman, had died in 1872,
having confessed on his death bed that
the Austrian officer, Colonel Jacob Won
Heydebrand, who had hitherto passed
as his only son, was only an illegitimate
child. his real son and heir, who had
borne the same name, having been set
adrift in the world after his mother had
died, by his mistress, Bernhardine Hoel-
eel, who had borne him son about
the same time. That wicked woman
had possessed such power over
him that she had wrung from him the
consent to substitute her son in the place
of little Jacob, whom she had taken to
her relations in Darmstadt. The cid
count implored his illegitimate son, the
Austrian colonel, to leave nothing un-
done in order to make amends for the
great injustice that had been done TO his
legitimate heir, and to restore to him, if
he should be able to ascertain his where
abouts, his paternal estate. 1t was then
that the colonel remembered having met
at Bockenheim, twenty-five years before,
a young locksmith, whose acquaintance
he had sought because the latter had
borne the same name. So he applied Il,
the Schoen family, who were still living
at Bockenheim, and from that he obtain
ed the information that the young lock-
smith had left that place many years ago
for America. The colonel thereupon
applied to the Austrian legation in Wash
ington, and Jacob Heydebrand was ex-
tensively advertised for, until found in
New York. Among the papers was an
autograph from his illigitimate brother,
the colonel, offering to restore his pater-
nal estates to him, and expressing regrets
at the injustice that had been done to
him for so many years. Meanwhile Hey
debrand had married poor German
servant girl, who had borne to him sew
eral children. The wife was overjoyed
upon learning the unexpected change in
her husbands fortune, and she prevail
ed upon him to go with her Immediately
to Innspruck to enter upon the enjoy
ment of his new position. At Innspruck
his Ight as the sole heir of Count Hey
debrand was formally recognized, and
the poor Hester-street locksmith is now
one of the wealthiest magnates of the
Austrian Empire. His wife, the former
servantgirl, was ennobled by special
decree Of the Emperor.