The Saint Paul globe., 1897-10-22
SHE'S "AWFULLY" RICH.
Fourteen-Year-OId Girl Gets $25,-
OOO,OOO.


NEW YORK, Oct. 2o.-The World
says: Imblay Clarke went from Gran
bury, N. j., to California; from the
cranberry bogs to the gold fields.
He had been a prosperous farmer;
he became a millionaire. He ed and
left $25, ,0OO, 900 or thereabouts-for
where a fortune is told in so many fig
ures no one can tell how great it is,
nor until the man who owns it dies
how small it is. But Imblay Clarke
left about $25,O00,000 and a school girl
will get the greater part OF It,
Miss Grace Clarke, of New Bruns-
wick. N. j., a few days ago was only
a school girl She is a pretty girl,
fourteen years old. She attends the
Livingston Avenue High school in her
native city, which boasts not of many
millionaires. Miss Grace, it is stated,
is popular. That her teachers and her
fellow-pupils all love her is undoubted-
ly true now.
Miss Grace has been doing sums in
arithmetic algebra. Now she will have
to calculate the amount of interest on
her great fortune. The lucky young
woman has been bounding California,
telling her instructors that Lima Is the
capital of Peru, learning that kanga-
roos are the most interesting wild ami
mails of Australia Eligible young
men have regarded her as charming
maiden in short skirts. Now each one
is asking himself, Can 1 win her for
my Wife?"
For a great part of old Imblay
Clarke's fortune has descended to this
school girl, who often wondered how
much a million is, when the result OF a
problem she had solved in school look
ed like this: $1000,000.
Miss Grace lives at 62 John street
with her mother. who has remarked
anG is now Mrs. Emerson Cornell. The
facts that follow, remarkable as they
are, are furnished by Mrs. Cornell, who
is not imaginative:
Imblay Clarke was a brother of
Grace Clarke's grandfather; was her
paternal grand-uncle. Out in Cranbury
are a few old men who remember I'M
blay Clarke and who have been lately
recalling him as they sit in their homes
or by the stoves in the taverns. Ihey
say Imblay Clarke was prosperous at
Cranbury. and recall that they SAID
he was foolish when he left his farm
for California.
But the gold fever seized 1mblay
Clarke in 1S49 and to California ne
went. For several years his relatives
at Cranbury heard nothing from him.
Then they got a letter in his hand writ
ing. 1t was similar to the letters that
come from Klondike now. Clarke De
scribed the country, then so little
known. and the mines and the hard
ships he was suffering. But he added
that he was prospering, was growing
rich rapidly.
Silence, then, for many more years.
About 1860 Clarke's kinsmen concluded
he was dead 1t is not related whether
they were filed with grief. They wrote
to the postmaster of San Francisco
politely but urgently asking informa-
ton of one Imblay Clarke, describing
him and all that The obliging post
master promptly answered that I'M
blay Clarke was certainly alive for he
was paying taxes on more than s4oo,cO5
worth of property in San Francisco.
Soon after 1860 Irnblay Clarke learn
ed there was gold to be dug, money
to be made, in Peru. So, like other
Americans. he went there. Again to
Jersey came one OF those long-separat-
ed letters. In it the old farmer, again
a prospector, cheerfully wrote that his
fortune was constantly increasing and
that he had not married-joyful news.
More years passed. Nothing was
heard from this rolling stone that
gathered not moss but gold. Nor
could his relatives get any information
about him. Finally in 1870 they learn
ed indirectly that he had gone from
Peru to Australia and was said he was
at the mines near Darling, Murray
river.
It is known now that Imblay Clarke