The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-10-01
MISSOURI CLAIMS
 4 MONTE CRISTO Fate Denied Colonel Blees's Prayer by Five Years HE CAME INTO A FORTUNE Happened Ten Years Ago After Many issitudes-Wanted Fifteen
 Years to Enjoy His Wealth.
 Died Recently.
HE CAME INTO A FORTUNE

Macon. Mo-Macon's Monte Cristo died just as he said one year ago that he would die. In talking with a friend who had been reminding him that his cease less energy might throw him on a sick
 bed, he remarked a trihe sadly:
 When my time comes it will find me in the harness. My life will go out like the crack of a pistol. How do l know? Well, there are some things a man knows that he can't explain"
 For ten blooming years Col. F. w. Blees
 was the center around which all things in
 these parts revolved. He was the town If he thought a street ought to be paved the city officers would get together and order it paved. They knew it was money in the towns pocket to do whatever the German suggested
 He had a hand in nearly every enter-
 prise of consequence in the city. The larg- est military academy in the west was es-
 abolished here and personally managed by him.
 Not long after the war with Spain the government sent an officer of the regular army here to see if all the great things
 told of the colonefs big military academy were true. This officer was so impressed
 with the colonel and his school that he ' the largest guns taken from one of the 1 Spanish battleships smashed at Santiago. The military academy conservatories and athletic grounds, comprising some SOU | acres, used up about $400, 900 of the colo ners inheritance from his German par 1 ents, but that was a mere bagatelle in l comparison with his other Investments. | He bought the main hotel the opera house, built a carriage factory at a cost
 of $25O'OO0, put up bank and number I of office buildings, erected a large and 1 comfortable German manor home in the
 residence district, erected stable that
 the country people are always mistalxing
 for a church, invested $20O 900 in a shears I factory and operated an extensive farm
 near the city.
 1 Was at First Easy Victim.
 It was natural that a man with so l much ready cash and with such a will l ingness to use it should become the victim
 of the impecunious. People with all sorts
 of propositions besieged him. At first he 1 yielded to their importunities, but later became known as hard proposition for | grafters.
 l Then there were lawsuits. some without
 a, shadow of merit The litigants relied upon the colonefs good nature to settle l rather than to appear stubborn. In some l instances he did settle. In all of them he tried to effect an amcable adjustment. The final action brought against the 1 colonel, and the one which was greatly l disturbing him at the time of his death | from heart disease was instituted by rel
 atives in the German Empire. It was for
 S1S09O0, legacy alleged to have been left l to Marie Auler. a niece of Maria Blees, ] Colonel Blees' mother.
 United States marshal waited in Ma
 con all of last Saturday to serve the pa | pers upon Colonel Blees. who then was
 lying dead in his room at the Southern
 hotel in St. Louis. The complainant and
 her husband, pr. Julius Auler, alleged
 that Colonel Blees surreptitiously and l without the knowledge of the complain
 ants took the legacy from the safe and 1 invested it in property in Macon l The matter had been worrying Colonel
 Blees considerably of lateI In all of his