POOR MAN’S WINDFALL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2195, 28 October 1920, Page 1

POOR MAN’S WINDFALL.

LEFT ,C10,U00,0(H) BY EMPLOYER

A ROMAXTIC STORY

Atiliar T. Walker, a poor man. Pas suddenly found himself raised lo multi-millionaire rank. Ho was business secretary lo the late Hduard F. Scar!as, of New York, who, Pv his will, how lilt'd for probate, hcquca I hcd his fori lino of £10,000,000 to his former employee.

Komantie siluations have followed Searles' fortune from its creation. The money was originally made by the late Mark Hopkins, the builder of the Union Pacific* Kailway, and one of the American pioneers in Trans-continental railway construction.

When Hopkins died he left his fortune, estimated at £6,000,000, to his widow. She decoded to reconstruct her residence at Great Barington (Massachusettts), and ordered a firm of architects to send an artist for consultation. The architects sent Searles, the son of a poor New England mill hand, who had given his hoy an art education, Mrs Hopkins was then aged 61, and Searles was 40. She proposed marriage to him almost on sight. He took a year to- consider, and then proposed marriage to her. After a three years’ engagement the two were married. Mrs Searles several years later died, leaving her entire estate to Searles, The will was contested by Timothy Nolan, son of an Irish gardener, who had been adopted by Mrs Searles when she was Mrs Hopkins, a short time before her first husband’s death. Nolan claimed that his adopted mother made a will leaving everything to him. The late Ambassador Choate represented Searles, who won the ease, but Searles later gave Nolan £600,000.

After this Searles lived in retirement, giving most of his time to music, art, and books. He was a shrewd business man, and increased the £6,000,000 of the original fortune to £10,000,000, Walker, the new inheritor of the money, is entirely unknown to the business world, He lives so modestly in Brooklyn that he has no

telephone installed ip his residence, lie declines to be interviewed, and his friends are as modest as he is.

Henries’ only other bequests amount to £1,000,000 to several distant relatives and personal employees. It is reported that relatives may contest the will.