Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 106, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1910 — RICH WOMAN DIES LIKE PAUPER [ARTICLE]

RICH WOMAN DIES LIKE PAUPER

Kliiubrth llnjn’ Death «n New Jersey Knrni IlfTemll SIOO,OOO. Professing abject poverty before the world and living less 1 expensively than her poorest neighbors. Mies Elizabeth' Hays, aged 86, died suddenly last night

4n the midst of_a fortune iq gold and currency, estimated-at more than SIOO,000, which for fifty years she had been secreting about her old farmhouse. Miss Hays’ financial status was discovered to-day when the heirs and her executor, Counsellor Reginald Branch, made a brief Bearch of the house prior to a complete examination promised to-morrow morning, says a Burlington (N. J.) Correspondent of the New York World. Bed and table linen yielded $lO and S2O bank notes by* the scores. Bed springs, old coffee pots, several old purses ants" other receptacles were found to contain hundreds of dollars. An old family Bible was almost completely leaved with S2O gold notes, some of them bearing dates of issue shortly after the civil war. The book stood on a parlor Stable. In a cupboard among ods and ends of every description was a little pasteboard box. The investigators were about to -toss it aside, when a jingle of coin drew their attention and they raised tho lid to discover the box filled with gold coins, mostly eagles and double eagles, amounting to nearly SBOO. Old salt bags and leather wallet&Jilled with gold were picked up from an odd as-* sortment of trash. In different receptacles nearly a thousand old coins of copper, nickel, silver, gold and alloys, and minted in a dozen different countries in the last two centuries, were discovered. They were $n no order and were mixed in with the modern money of all denominations. Rolls of bank notes, all of big denomination, were stuffed between the mattresses and mixed in with them were quantities of civil war “shinplasters.” It is said the searchers could not pick up a book without finding money between the Leaves. Linen dropped to the floor, disclosing $lO notes between the folds. Many of the old bank notes bearing early dates yere almost crumpled to dust when found and it will take an expert to decipher their value. To-night the late home of Miss Hays, a fifteen-room farm house, in a sad condition for lack of repairs, is watched by armed guards to prevent any attempt to seek the hidden wealth it still contains.