Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1898 — WILL IN A GRAVE. [ARTICLE]

WILL IN A GRAVE.

It Was Found After Thirty Years In a Buried Family Bible. After lying in a man’s coffin for more than 30 years a w-ill has been exhumed at Leavenworth, Ind,, and its terms are likely to increase a trotiblesome litigation among the heirs of the man who had the document buried with him, says a local exchange. Jacob Kissinger was the man. The will was found by accident, because, when Kissinger died, although the will w-as believed to have been made, nobody could find it. So the heirs went to law, and have been at it for three decades. A few Aays ago a dispute arose which could be cleared up by the family Bible. So the old grave was opened and the Book taken out. It was in a good state of preservation, and when opened, to the surprise of everyone, disclosed the old man’s will. By the terms of the document found in the grave, the property of Kissingen was divided equally among five children, one of them a resident of Germany and born of Kissingen’s first wife. And this is where the new trouble begins. None of the four American heirs ever heard of the father’s first marriage, and not one of them guessed that he had a brother in Europe. The German heir, of course, has been in ignorance, too, of the existence of his American brothers, and the property and money bequeathed to him. If he presses his claim now it is said that the four brothers who live here will have quite a hole made in their purees when they pay him what is his by his father’s will.