Stemming from Roman law and refined through the ‘law of estates’ in Europe, the Last Will and Testament has, for centuries, been a source of vaunted legacies and intergenerational anxiety.
Alfred Nobel used his to endow the Nobel Prize. Leona Helmsley used hers to snub two grandchildren and bequeath $12 million to Trouble, her dog. Napoleon Bonaparte’s parting wish was that his head be shaved and the hair divided up amongst his friends.
Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, Howard Hughes, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rocky Marciano, Steve McNair, Tupac Shakur, Kurt Cobain, Buddy Holly, Lenny Bruce, Billie Holiday, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Cass Elliot, Sonny Bono, Tiny Tim, Karl Marx, and Pablo Picasso died without valid Wills. According to Consumer Reports, 66% of Americans could do the same.
Charles Vance Millar
Charles Vance Millar was a successful Canadian lawyer and financier who lived from 1853 to 1926. He was well known for his practical jokes—the most famous of them was his Will, which contained several mischievous bequests.
For example, three men who were known enemies were granted joint lifetime tenancy in Millar’s vacation home in Jamaica. Seven teetotalling Toronto Methodist ministers were granted $700,000 worth of O’Keefe Brewery stock, provided that they joined the management team and collected dividends. Three anti-horse-racing advocates received $25,000 worth of Ontario Jockey Club stock.
But the pièce de résistance was a clause that required the balance of Millar’s estate to be converted to cash 10 years after his death and given to the woman who gave birth to the most children in that time. The resulting contest became known as The Great Stork Derby, and the prize was shared by four Toronto women who each had nine children.
Peter Thellusson
When Peter Thellusson, an English merchant, died in 1797, his Will forbade his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren from accessing his £600,000 estate. Instead, his assets were to be accumulated for the benefit of his great-great-grandchildren. It was estimated that this would eventually result in a staggering inheritance of more than £14,000,000.
The bequest was challenged in court and held valid. However, to prevent such a disposition of property in the future, the Accumulations Act 1800 (also known as the Thellusson Act) was passed, which mandated generally speedier intergenerational wealth transfers. In addition to influencing common law, it is believed that Thellusson’s Will was fictionalized by Charles Dickens in his epic novel Bleak House.
James Kidd
American copper miner and prospector James Kidd vanished in 1949. A decade-and-a-half later, his unclaimed safe deposit box revealed assets totaling $174,065.69 and a Will that read, in part:
I have no heirs and have not been married in my life… Sell all my property… and have this balance money to go in a research or some scientific proof of a soul of the human body which leaves at death I think in time their can be a Photograph of soul leaving the human at death, James Kidd.
The result? More than 130 scientists—legitimate and otherwise—rushed to file claims against the Kidd estate in what the press dubbed ‘the Ghost Trial of the Century.’ Although no claimant managed to supply a photo of the human soul, an Arizona judge reviewed some 800,000 words of testimony and awarded the estate to the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.
Our view
Writing a Will is one of those things that’s easy to put off—until it’s too late. But with the availability of inexpensive online services and even free templates out there, getting it done may be cheaper and easier than you think. Someday, your beneficiaries might thank you. //
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