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THE GREEN BAG

THE SEYMOUR WILL CASE BY A. D. YOUNG "TTVANNIE MINERVA SEYMOUR," a X? woman of great notoriety, though less enviable than that which surrounds the name of Myra Clark Gaines, died at the city of New Orleans, January 6, 1896. Singularly enough, the bulk of an estate of more than fifty thousand dollars left by that woman accrued from lawyers' fees earned and taxed in suits prosecuted against the city of New Orleans by Myra Clark Gaines. More remarkable still, that a strug gle of almost unpredecented vigor and persistence should have been maintained for possession of this estate by the great state of Louisiana, through all her courts, against humble citizens — man and woman — of other commonwealths, claiming it as sole heirs — brother and sister of the de cedent, — a struggle drawing in its train a succession of revelations strange as they were perplexing and confusing. The woman whose history is most dramat ically portrayed in the litigation over her succession buried her last husband in 1892. By the provisions of his will she became possessed of the greater portion of the property she finally left; left, somewhat, to the fickleness of chance. Directly after her death, it seeming probable that she had left no will, application was made by the public administrator for control of her estate. Before this was granted a man claiming to be the brother of the decedent, living in California, who had read notice of her death published in California papers the morning after it occurred, made claim in the court of probate of New Orleans to the estate, on behalf of himself and a sister residing in West Virginia. This claim was based on the assertion that the claimants were the brother and sister of the decedent, and her sole heirs. The state of Louisiana, through her

attorney-general, intervened at this stage, claiming as irregular heir of the decedent, alleging that she was born in London, Eng land, and had died without heirs. Thence forward the efforts of the attorney-general and public administrator were united and energetically mutual. Pressed as was this contest through the appropriate courts of Louisiana, made pro portionately conspicuous by the aggressive tactics of resourceful and astute lawyers, aided by detective ubiquity and cleverness presenting shades both dark and fair, de pravity and pathos, in the bright noonday glare, as it were, of a long life, a career multi farious as it was notorious, all finally massed and directed to the one controlling question : the personal family identity of Fannie Minerva Seymour. But she was born on the ninth day of Janu ary, 1826, as all were agreed. Whether her eyes were first saluted by the light dimmed by a London fog, or bathed in the crisp, clear atmosphere of Paddy's Run, in Lau rence County, Ohio, was the question to be determined. During fifty of these variously employed years, she had declared orally and in writing, under various circumstances at different times and places, that her name was Fannie Minerva Seymour, that she was born in London, England, and that she had no relatives. In every phase of this contested succes sion, the vital point upon which all hinged was simply whether that old, blind, miserly opium-eater, nearing threescore and ten, who died wealthy, but really from starva tion, at the Crescent City, was actually the sister of the brother and sister claimants; or whether that suspicious, decrepit old woman, whose identity as widow of the lawyer hus band whom she survived, was so well es