Page:United States Reports, Volume 1.djvu/289

 

HIGH COURT of ERRORS and

APPEALS of Pennʃylvania:

April Seffions, 1788,

HIS was an appeal from the Decree of the Regifter of Wills, and two Juftices of the Court  of Common Pleas of the county of Montgomery,  who admitted an inftrument bearing date the 20th of the Tenth Month, 1786, purporting to be the laft will and Teftament of one Jephtha Lewis,  the father of the Appellant, to be proved as a good Will and Teftament in writing, although it had neither been written, nor fubfcribed, by the fuppofed teftator, upon the depoftition of John Evans,  a fcriverner, that it was drawn at this requeft, and conformably to his inftructions, but never read to him after it was written. This inftrument contained a devife of real eftate, and a legacy of Ł.100. for the ufe of a fchool, in the townfhip of Gwyned, and county of Montgomery; and upon the validity of that legacy the prefent controverfy arofe.–It was proved by feveral perfons, that the deceafed, in the year 1784, had talked of leaving money to a fchool ; that about three months before his death, he afked one of the deponents to be a truftee for that purpofe ; that fome months before his death he remarked to another, what better could a man do with his money than to leave it to fuch a ufe ? that he fpoke repeatedly of John Evans' making his will ; that for fear it fhould come to the knowledge of his family, he defired it to be left with John Evans;  that being indifpofed when it was drawn, he defired John Evans to call upon him again with it ; that when John Evans  called with it again, he was too far gone to  read and attend to it ; and that the difpofition of the real eʃtate contained in the paper produced, was the fame which the deceafed had, before his death,  fired