The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-06
FOR MERRITT'S MILLIONS
The Two Suits to Test the
Trust Joined With Bow
doin College.
A DEEP SCHEME Is ALLEGED
An Outline Of the Plaintiffs
Case

The contest for the millions of the late
DR.. Merritt will begin on Wednesday next
in the United States Circuit Court in the
form of a suit brought by Bowdoin College
of Maine against the trustees OF the estate
appointed by his sister Catherine Nj. Gar
celon, when she died.
The question at issue is the competency
of Mrs. Garcelon to make the will which
bequeathed so much to the college and
created the trust under which hospital
was to be built and which cut off her i'm
mediate heirs with comparative trif1e.
The suit is brought ostensibly to quiet
title. but other and Interior motives are
charged by the defendants in the suit
brought for breaking the trust, and the
testimony which they expect to introduce
will doubtless make of this another of the
long list of celebrated cases growing out of
the great estates of California.
Dr. Samuel Merritt, who gathered the
millions together in his lifetime, was a
forty-niner who settled in Oakland, bought
land and remained bachelor.
Catherine NJ Garcelon was DR.. Merritt's
sister, and she had been living as pen
sioner upon him for long time prior to
his death in 1890. She and the doctor had
a brother Isaac, who died several years be-
fore, leaving a wife and two sons, Fred H.
and James P Merritt. Mrs. Garcelon is
dead, and these two sons of the brother
Isaac then became the natural heirs of the
DR.. Samuel Merritt millions-the only
heirs, but practically disin herited. DR..
Merritt, by will, left a trife to the
nephews, another trifle to female friend,
and the great bulk to his old sister, Mrs.
Garcelon. The nephews began proceed
ings TO contest the will.
The executors were Henry Rogers, DR..
Merutt's business manager, and Judge
Israel Lawton. They engaged Judge
Stanley OF Oakland, and he so became &C
quainted with Mrs. Garcelon. The attor-
neys in the suits for the breaking OF the
trust joined with Bowdoin College and
will address themselves to proving the al
legation that Judge Stanley concocted and
successfully carried out a scheme to secure
to himself the benefits of the Merritt
riches. This he did. they say, by securing
the confidence of old Mrs. Garcelon, in
duclng her TO make a trust of the estate,
having himself appointed as the head of
that trust and taking every and most eX-
traord1nary precaUtion against contest.
In the first place and while Mrs. GarceIon
was living he secured the signatures of
the nephews to a contract of release on
their behalf of all claims against the es-
tate with a promise couched in all the
redundant reiteration of legal document
drawn by Judge Stanley himself to stand
every test, that they would not attempt to
break the will. This was presented to
them by Judge Stanley. The defendants
say Mrs. Garcelon never signifed to any
body else that she desired them to sign
such document.
Then Mrs. Garcelon decided all her prop
erty but trihe TO Judge Stanley and his
business agent, Stephen W. harrington,
now dead. Special legacies were dis
tributed to the amount of $211, 900 in
various sums among friends-'thus prac-
tically bribing them, you see" say the
contestants, ito swear that she was of
sufficiently sound mind to make a will"
OF the balance four-tenths we're given to
Bowdoin College, in Maine, and six-tenths
to Stanley and two doctors for the purpose
OF establishing a hospital. Besides this
Stanley was allowed $4,000 as attorney for
Henry Rogers, the executor, in the
nephew's suit, and $4,000 in advance by
way Of securing his consent to serve as
trustee.
The suit which has been begun by Bow
dom College to quiet title is declared to be
part OF the original scheme of the far
sighted trustee and is designed to keep the
estate in the courts, divert the Others in
terested and give plausibility to the whole.
1t Is charged that Stanley himself induced
the COllege 10 DflDg the suit.
With this suit in the Circuit Court are
joined the suits of Harry Merritt and the
administrator, George W. Reed. brought
in Oakland.
Since the death Of Mrs. Garcelon, Fred
Merritt has signed another agreement
Withdrawing his claim in consideration of
SIS, 200 paid him by the trustees. He was
induced to sign this by friend who came
out from New York and stopped with him
some months. His name was DR.. A. III.
Brown, and he is said to have secured
5000 for his trouble. He tried to induce
James Merritt to sign similar release but
he refused.
1t was DIR. Samuel Merritt who owned
the yacht Casco, which is now famous
as the boat in which Robert Louis Steven
son first sailed into the South Seas, aud
on board of which he wrote things that
will live in literature. The yacht is still a
part of the estate.
The list OF attorneys in this case presents
the customary long list of familiar names
that figure in such. They are, for the
plaintiff, Bowdoin College: Blake, Will
liams d Harrison, John CARRIER, E. S. Pills
bury, Robert Y. Hayne, Warren Olney
Judge E. W. McKinstry. For the defend
ants these are engaged: Horace Phil
brook, Rogers & Pattison, A. A. Moore, J.
c. Martin, E. E. Nusbaumer, A. II. Cohen,
Henry Z. Campbell and G. II. Lowell.
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