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3X- 00C?7
Legitimacy Investigation In £15.000.000 ESTATE
As Mrs. Gaines’s legitimacy dppended upon the validity of Clark's marriage, the strain of the whole case turned upon the evidence of toe Despau.
To test her veracity the evidence of some 35 or *t0 vitnesses were taken, who had known her while residing in New Orleans. Biloxi, Havana, Florida and Spanish America. But the answers were in her favor, and in the interpreation given of the bewildering facts of this case by the last decision of the Supreme Court, her statements were taken as correct; and an estate now valued at $15*000,000 was adjudicated to her niece, Mrs. Gaines; adjudicated 50 years after the making of the will, 30 after the commencement of the suit, after 6 appeals to the Supreme Court, and when the original suit had been divided into 500 separate actions against subsequent possessors of Clark's estate.
yrs. Desnau received ^15.000
Madame Despau, though living for more than1a century, and though three-fourths of that period in the troubles of her sister, did not after all live to see the termination of the suit, and save for $15,000 worth of the contested estate yielded by Kr. Slidell during the recent war, none of the contested property has yet been recovered by its life-long claimant.
y. James Stevens notes
See N.O. Daily Crescent of Tuesday, February 6, 1866 p If c *+ "The Environs of New Orleans" gives detailed description of Daniel Clark, his business and inheritance troubles.
"Handsboro Democrat" of late February 1866 states "there is a woman living at Biloxi 101* years old" probably referring to M'me Sophia Despau.