The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1890-02-27
Wills Of Millionaires.


wills made by wealthy people in New
York city have been left uncontested.
There are, however, two shining exam
pies where the requests of the dead mil
iionaires have been carried out. One
was the case of William H. Vanderbilt
and the other that of Miss Catherine l..
| Wolfe. Vanderbilt had the experience
which he had gathered years before in
the great fight which was made over his
own fathers will, and which brought
the Vanderbilt family and it's early his
tory so conspicuously into public notice.
M ISIS Wolfe was happy in the fact that
the wealth already enjoyed by her legal
heirs made the alienation of her mil
lions Il matter of comparatively small
moment. She. however, like Mr.. Van
derbilt, spared no pains to make the
terms of her testamentary instrument so
brass bound and iron-clad that contest
before the surrogate would prove unre-
munerafive.
When Surrogate Rollins retired from
office the statement of the business done
nearly 400 wills had been the subjects of
contest before him, many of which had
entailed long and expensive litigation,
and had in some instances almost beg
CARED the estate. One of the great and
controlling causes which tend toward
the contesting of wills is the provision
in the laws of this State which assures to
the lawyers in the case large fees and
allowances and pay them out of the prop
erty whether they win or lose.
SAMUEL j. TILDEN'S GREAT BEQUEST.
1t is a fact that very few persons of
large wealth succeed in disposing of their
property by will in a manner that meets
the requirements of the laws, or that
will stand the keen scrutiny of the legal
advisers of dissatisfied relatives 1t is
! true that most of the contests made,
especially by the heirs of wealthy men
and women, are based upon the f1imsiest
/ pretexts, and solely with the hope that
| grabbing for the whole or the greater
I part they may secure for themselves
/ few thousands by compromise. That the
causes for contest are usually of a char
acter which units them for close judicial
consideration is made evident from the
fact that of the 400 contests begun before
! Surrogate Rollins scarcely 80 were sus-
/ tanned.
! Enterprising lawyers laugh at men and
women who sit down and, in words de-
void of legal technicalities. write their
own wills in their own way. Yet the
records show that this sort of will is the
very hardest to break. The lawyers
themselves are not infalibe in will
making-not even the greatest of them.
In his long and successful career as a
business lawyer, Samuel J. Tilden drew
the wills of score of clients. and it is
| not on record that any of them ever was
upset. When he was to make his own
he called to his assistance counselor no
less eminent than himself-Mr. James
| G.. Carter, Together they prepared the
document, which, besides other provi-
sians.-~Was Ito provide $4,000,000 abso-
lutely for the endowment of great free
library. Well, the. case will in all prob
ability furnish the most conspicuous ex-
ample of failure to carry out ones inten
tions.
OTHER FAMOUS RECENT CONTESTS.
When James Stokes died a few years
ago he left an estate estimated to be
worth at least $10,000,00O He was
scarcely in his grave when the fight over
the property began, and it went on with
wearisome details for months By and
by there was an adjournment, and the
matter was substantially settled out of
go ID million among them after the battle
was ended.
Jesse Hoyt had gathered big fortune
before he himself was gathered to his
fathers. He died worth about $4,000
900, and the monument that was to mark
his resting place was unbuilt for years,
as the heirs were too busy contesting the
provisions of his will, and trying, each
of them. to get bigger share of the
money than the dead man had decided
they should have.
Louis Hammersley's 3.5O0,O00 and the
way IN which he left it by will was an
other fruitful source for litigation The
legal twists and tumbles that character
ize the case made it one of the most in
teresting on record, and the end is not
yet. Every now and then his widow, at
present the Duchess of Marlborough, APP
plies to the courts for more money out
of the estate, and though she sometimes
receives what she asks, she is OCCASION
ally refused.
There was Mrs Sarah Burr, who, when
she departed from earthly realms, was
obliged to leave all of her $5000,000 be-
hind her. She doubtless thought she
had fixed everything in her will so that
no contest could arise, yet the grass was
not green on her grave before a crowd
of her friends and relatives were fighting
over her property. In this case, as in
nearly all the others, the testimony de-
veloped stories about the inner family
life of the dead that the world would
never have heard and never have laughed
over but for the fight over the millions
N. Y NeaCs.