Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-08-31
AFTER HOLT'S ESTATE.
Preparing For a Great Legal
 Battle Tn Washington.
THERE ARE TWO WILLS IN THE CASE

The Contestants AIlege That Judge Holt
 His Will In Their Favor, and the Latter
 Insist That He Did Not, of Course.
 WASHINGTON Aug. 31.-The services of several detectives have been called into acquisition in the effort to ferret out the mystery attending the sudden production of the will supposed to have been written in 1873 by the late Judge Advocate Gener- al Holt, which bequeathed an estate of $500, 900 Ill two equal parts to Miss Jose phine Holt Throckmorton of New York and Miss Lizzie Hynes of Kentucky.
 An important legal point, which would seem to make it almost impossible for the will of 1873 to secure probate, is that the district law specifically requires that the signatures of witnesses to a will, as we'll as the signature of the testator himself, shall be witnessed in the presence of all parties signing, and that clause attest ing to that fact shall be inserted in the body uf tho document itself. In the ab- sence of that attesting clause the executor of the will is required to go into court and prove that the witnesses did sign the will in the presence of the tcstator and of each other.
 Must Verify the Signatures.
 In the present case the Holt will con- tains the words Signed and sealed by mo in the presence of these witnesses" Judge Bolt's signature follows, with tho sigma lures of the witnesses immediately below. l There is, however, nothing on the docu- I ment to show the attcstation of tho wit ncsses to the fact that it is in reality the | judges will.
 Executor Devlin will, therefore, in or der to comply with the requirements of l the law, be compelled to produce witness eS to show that President Grant and Gen. | eral and Mrs. sherman actually witnessed | to the signature of this will of Judge Holt.
 This would seem to be an almost impos- sihlc thing to accomplish, and, as it will | be held moro especially incumbent upon | him to do this in view of tho fact that all | of tho witnesses arc dead, there would seom to bc an almost insuperablo obstacle in the law itself to tho probation of this document.
 | The various persons interested in the case are gathering in Washington in an- | ticipatiun of the legal battle which is to | determine to whom the valuable estate is l to be given.
 No action has been takon by any of the l parties interested to bring the attention of the courts to the matter The heirs at | law and their attorneys are awaiting the ! tI tlIc olllcE sue tIlitb t1ley propose to petition for tho probate of the mystcriously recovered document.
 Hated the Throckmortons. When the case comes to trial, in the | event that the subsequent will of 1886 has not been discovered by that time, the pro- bate of tho 1873 will will be fought on the ground that 1t does not represent the de- sire and views of the late Judge Advocate | General Holt at tho time of his death and has been revoked. In support of this propo- sition they will bring forward the wit nesscs who have been discovered by the press who knew of tho hatred which 1 Judge Holt entertained toward the | Throckmortons during the last years of his life.
 It is the object of the probate law in l contests between heir and legatees to en- dCavOr to decide tho case as nearly as pos Sible in accordance with the last known wishes. and preferences of tho tcstator So far as they can be asccrtained. That will
 bc done in all probability ill this case.
 Mrs, Throckmorton, the grandmother of Miss Josephine, one of the benetlciaries of the 1873 will, still insists that there was never any rupture i'll tho pleasant re- lations existing for so many years between herself and her family and Judge Holt
 prior to his death. She maintains that they remained friendly to the last. All oi the servants declare that the contrary was tho case, and that all pleasant relations oi any kind between the judge and the Throckmorton family wero abruptly ter minated in 1884 and wCrG never renewed