Omaha daily bee., 1896-08-08
CASH VALUE OF KIND ACTS
Generosity of Strangers Brings Substantial
Rewards,
SAMPLE INSTANCES IN CALIFORNIA
Dying Men who Have Left Large
Estates 10 Those Who Had Bc-
fricndcd Thcm-pbiiip's Ex-
traordinnry Luck.

mere are several instances OF men ana
women in California who have become heirs
to fortunes Of upward of half million of
dollars by the merest chance writes
correspondent of the New York Sun. One
or two cases are known in the state where
men and women have received bequests
of very valuable property by persons whom
they barely knew. Take the case OF John
Briswalter, who died in Los Angeles in the
summer of 1881, leaving an estate of over
S250,O to two persons who happened to
be attentive to him in his last and only
illness. Briswalter came from some little
town in Ontario. Canada. He came to
California in the COS made money in
the San Gabriel mines, and went extensively
into sheep herding.
Briswalter was an ignorant man and
wonderfully Industrious. He worked day
and night with his band of sheep, saved
every cent. and bought more sheep and
land. When he was 45 he was worth
$4,000, and when he was 60 he had II 600
sheep, real estate in Los Angeles, and
large ranch near the ciis. ae grew more
miserly in his old age, and for weeks at
time lived on the meanest fare of common
sheep herder, whilo his annual income
ranged from $4,000 to $1,000.
One day Briswalter came into Los Angeles
to deposit money in the bank While in
town he was taken i'll suddenly. He was
SO filthy that none of the large hotels or
boarding houses wanted him brought there,
and he declared he would not pay big
price for board and room anywhere.
resident of Los Angeles, Louis Mesmer, was
told that Briswalter was seriously sick
down in the rear of a saloon. He knew
Briswalter, and went down to see the man.
He took pity him and ordered that
the miser be taken to his (Mesmer's) house.
| Brswalter never recovered. week later
the physician told the sick man that he had
a day at most to live.
But how can / die groaned the old
sheep herder, 81 can't leave all my land and
shee9."
For several hours Brswalter tried to
think as best he could how to dispose of
| his property. He had almost forgotten the
| very names OF his brothers and sisters,
| and had not the least idea whether they
were alive. He sent for stephen NJ. White
| then young lawyer in Los Angeles and
| now United States senator from California
and ordered his will Immediately drawn
| up. He gave $4,000 to the Roman Catholic
| church of Los Angeles, and left the residue
| of his estate to Louis Mesmcr and his lit
| tie daughter, who were kind to him at the
last. The father and daughter thus in
| herited land and other securities that,
since the phenomenal rise in the value of
real estate in Los Angeles have brought
| upward of $340, 900. Brswalter's brother,
who lost no time in coming to southern
| California when he heard of the wealth
| his long unknown brother had died pos
sossed of, tried for several years to break
| the will. but failed.
The beautiful Santa Margarita ranch in
the Ojai valley, valued at about $4,000,
went to its late owner by the will of a dying
| friend. Hiram Westcott came to California,
poor and hopeful some years before the civil
war, from Norwalk, Conn. He had the
money-making instinct He was purchasing
agent for several years for the Huntington
| Stanford & Crocker company while 1t
4 was building the Central Pacific railroad
| and he grew wheat when the road was fin
| ished. He was married, but had so many
| Quarrels with his wife that he YVES glad to
let her get divorce and go away with
| 900 of his money. He never wrote let
| ters and it was his boast when he was q
ranchman that he never went to the post
office. He had to pay the men on his ranch
| large wages, because he swore at them
SO much and was always abusive Twice he
| was Jailed for assaulting men in a fit OF
| anger
about 81 years old, and in the iron safe in
his room was found WILL carefully writ
ten giving all his property to a young
merchant, ]. D. Patterson, and his wife
who lived in an adjoining county. For
| some time Patterson could not think why
such extraordinary bounty at the hands OF
| Westcott, whom he had barely known and
his wife had never seen. But a workman
| on the Santa Margarta ranch explained it.
A year or two previous to his death West
colt was arrested for knocking down a man
| with whom he had a of words. Patter-
son one OF the jurymen in the case
and while the jury was in deliberation the
rich ranchman happened to hear through the
open window of the jury room Patterson
say that he believed Westcott was perse-
| cuted because he was an infdel, and that
| therefore, he Patterson) would sit there q
week before he would give verdict against
him. Westcott went to his ranch home
that very night and made will by which
| he bequeathed all he had to Patterson.
The manner of bequeathing the rich es-
tate of Jacob Schaub, Yavhpai county, Ari
| zona, has been talked over in camps OF
miners and prospectors for twenty years
Schaub was a native of Alsace- Lorraine and
camc to America in 1851 a poor emgrant
with only one acquaintance in the country
In time he drifted west, and as a teamstel
he Joined a party of people starting out
from Missouri to drive across the plains
For eleven years. or until 1870. he led the
| rowing life Of a gold d-mning prospector in
California and the southwest territories
never hearing either directly or indirectly
any word from his old home in Germany
and knowing nothing about the world eX-
ccpt that which was talked about the min
| ing camps. Schaub was one OF the two
prospectors who found the Eagle gold and
| silver mine in northern Arizona forty-two
| miles from Prescott. He was poorer and
more ragged when he and his partner found
the Eagle mine than he had ever been be-
fore.
Schaub and his partner had no trouble in
getting capital interested in such promis-
ing mine, and a third partner, who put S27 :
600 in the property and gave his experience
as practical miner, was taken into the
firm. In 1878 Schaub was reckoned worth
$3.50 O00 and a year later he had an offer for
his share In the Eagle of $3.50 900. Along
in the fall of 1874 Schaub was taken with a
low feyer-known all over the Pacific coast
as mountain feyer-a peculiar form OF
miasmic poisoning. He was i'll several
weeks and doctor was called from Prescott
to attend the patient schaub became
| alarmingly i'll and one day he was told that
his death was very near. He was asked II
he had any provision TO make of his rich
mining interests and for several hours he
tried to think of some one at his old home
to make rich by a bequest. Then the
memory of the cruel manner in which he
had been driven away from his boyhood
home by his parents so as TO make room
for other and younger children and the lack
of interest in him and his welfare by all al
the old home in Germany since he had gone
forth from it, affected him.
Bring something TO write on" moaned
the feyerish and dying man. Get the first
thing you can"
The sick man lay in rude bed in his
! mountain cabin. Notwithstanding he had
grown from poverty to riches in the few