The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1885-01-28
SOME QUEER WILL CASES.
HOW RELATIVES QUARREL AND
FIGHT OVER ESTATES.

no" F HaHAF5 ovEs a 2gAHaa. AHn
A Widows LOVe-A Will for n Mil
O Dollars Written OH q SCRAP
Of Papcr-Bogus Widows.
Contested will cases are increasing in
this city and the custom of making wills
is more common to-day than it was &
! dozen years ago. 1t is not an unusual
occurrence now for q will involving only
$500 to be contested by some relative
who has been left out in the cold, and
only the other day Register of Wills Rex
examined scores of witnesses in o case
where the estate bequcathed was valued
at less than $500.
Undue influence or insanity are the
general reasons assigned for trying tc
break a will. Old people who have
lived apart from their relatives just prior
to their death generally leave money tc
those they have lived with and who have
been kind to them in their last days.
The relative who has been ignored in the
will invariably introduces this fact at the
examination before the register and ar
CUES that it is q species of undue in
fuencc.
There are many instances on record
where relatives who have been cut oil
with a penny declare that the t~estatol
was insane because he was in the habit
of talking to himself on the street in his
old age. Another commonly alleged evil
dcnce of insanity is that the deceased
would sit for hours without speaking
while in the company of his family.
Within half a dozen years several odd
will contests have found their way into
the courts. Some cases are still pending
after years of litigation and a number
took months to dispose of, involving the
expenditure of thousands of dollars tol
court costs and counsel fees. Ono of the
most famous cases ever tried in the COM
mon pleas court in this city was the
Whitaker will contest, where two wills
were produced, and which resulted in
two men, named Dickcrson and Vanars-
dalen, being sent to the Eastern pcniten-
tiarv each for ten years for conspiracy to
commit q forgery. Vanarsdalen died in
prison three or four weeks ago, and
Dickerson still wears %convict,s clothes.
The case occupied Judge Allison's court
for nearly four months, and cost more
than $25, 900 to try.
The contest over the will of William
Drinkhouse, which has recently been car
ricd to the supreme court, occupied the
common pleas court a long time. The
contest was brought by his son, Samuel
r. Drinkhouse, on the ground that his
father was laboring under q deluslon
when he made his will, bcqueathing to
all his children an equal life interest in
| his estate, which at their death is to re.
vert to their children. The children of
the son Samuel were excepted, his
father declaring that he did not believe
the children were his sons. This gave
the son only a life interest, which when
he dies, according to the provisions of
the will, is to be equally divided among
William Drinkhouse's other grand
children.
DR.. William King, a son of the late
Judge William King, of the Common
Pleas court, was o surgeon in the United
States navy and while stationed at Nor
folk met a handsome widow, who fell
desperately in love with him. Some time
later DR.. King shot and killed a man who
insulted him in Charleston. He was ar
rested and indicted for murder. The
widow with her two little children fol-
lowed him to Charleston. lie had no
means to speak of at the time, and with
her money she obtained for him the best
legal talent in the city. During his trial
she was always at his side and comforted
him while he was in prison. He was &C
Quilted of the charge of murder on the
ground of self-dcfense. Then out of
gratitude he married her. When the late
Judge King died he left his son some
cighty-odd thousand dollars. The late
Judge Parsons. of the Common Pleas
court, held the money in trust for the
naval surgeon, who lived suugly on the
interest. At his death he'left his entire
estate to his widow. who fought for him
when he was on trial in Charleston. His
two sisters contested the will in Court /.
He made two wills; the first left a part
of the property to his sisters, the last will
bequeathed everything to the widow.
The sisters claimed that the last will was
a forgery. The counsel on both sides
agreed that the jury should render q YER
dict in favor of the widow, and a quiet
arrangement was afterward made by
which the sisters were given q fair slice
of the dead surgeons fortune.
81 have a great many contests before
me-" said Register Rex, "where there
are two women who both insist that they
are the widow of the t~estator. l have
three such cases before me now. Not
long ago l had a case where there were
two widows, one of whom was an adj
ventures. She even went 50 far as to
produce q marriage certificate. She
bought it on Arch street and filed it out
herself, as was aftcrward shown by the
counsel for the legitimate widow. The
certificate was dated in 1869. He proved
that the style of certificate was not got
ten up until five years later.
''ltelatives who try to break wills al
ways speak very a~ffectionately of the
dead who have sighted them. n ls
done with the design of impressing me
that they always had a deep love for the
deceased person. have decided over
one hundred cases. The Mary Ann Mar
shall contest, begun in 1880, is still
pending. In the George Lewis contest
| have been taking testimony every week
since June, 1883. Men often put odd
reasons in their wills for cutting rela-
tivcs off, and some wills are only a few
lines long. James l.. ~Claghorn's will
only covered a sheet Of foolscap. Viii
liam L. Schaeffer, the late cashier of the
Girard bank, left a million of dollars on
a little ragged scrap of paper only four
or five inches long. A will contest affords
an excellent opportunity for hearing
family spleen. Ihave a case now pend
ing where a son and daughter sit on n
side of me and two daughters sit on the
opposite side, and they glare at each
othe. like wild beasts. Several times 1
have seen mothers and sons meet here as
contestants, and they would not even
]ooL, of ooch othnr - Liyu1eIDhin Trims.