ROMANCE OF A WILL

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3014, 27 February 1917, Page 7

ROMANCE OF A WILL

DISCOVERY IN STRANGE HIDINGPLACE.

Details of the discovery of a will in a strange hiding-place were made known at Penrith recently. On August 10 there died at the Patterdale Hotel, Ullswater, an old gentleman named Dr. Peter Qum Keeean. Hβ had lived in the dale lor a good many years, but little was known about him except that his father had been a member of .the' firm of Keegan, Graham, and Co., wine merchants. Beljfast. •■ Dr. Keeganwas an LL.D. of Dublin' University, and was keenly interested in geology, botany, and arboriculture, on which he wrote numerous •papers for the technical journals. Some time before his , death he met Mr. Eonaid Ellwood, traveller for a Penrith drapery firm, and'a friendship Bprang up, based on their botanical studies. Dr. Kcegan gave him a book on the subject, but Mr. Ellwood had no occasion to refer to it until a few days ago. Hβ then found that two of the pages were fastened together, and outside one of them was an instruction in Dr. KeeKan's writing that the pages were not to be opened until after his death. Accordingly,) Mr. Ellwood opened the naees and found between them the old gentleman's will. The document left lesaciee to two Patterdale ladies, and to his two sisters, and tie residue to Mr. Ellwood. It has beon pronounced by solicitors to be quite in order, except that nothing can be found _as to tho identity of the two witnesses, but as the will was made last June, while Dr. Keegan was temporarily staying in Penrith, he is assumed to have met them accidentally in the town. Humour places the doctor's possessions at ,£30,000, but at present application has- only been made for probate on his English estate, amounting to .£2IOO. Ho owned considerable property in Armach and Belfast.