In case of difference of opinion among the executors and trustees as to holding and retaining securities or investments in managing the estate, he directed that so long as there shall be five executors and trustees the decision of four should be conclusive, and when four the decision of three should be conclusive, with this further provision in the codicil of November 21, 1892:
“The better to protect and conserve the values of my properties, it is my desire, and I so direct and provide, that the shares of any railway or other incorporated companies at any time held by my executors and trustees or my said trustees, shall always be voted by them or by their proxies at all corporate meetings as a unit; and in case my said executors and trustees or my said trustees do not concur as to how such stock shall be voted, then, in view of the fact that my son George J. Gould has for years had the management of my said properties, and is familiar with them and with other like properties, I direct and provide that in such event his judgment shall control, and he is hereby authorized and empowered to vote the said shares in person or by proxy in such manner as his judgment shall dictate.”
There was the usual provision that the property of his daughters was for their sole and separate use, free from any estate or control of their husbands, and prohibiting all dispositions or changes by any of the legatees by way of anticipation or otherwise.
There was a provision that if any of his children should marry without the consent of a majority of the executors and trustees, then the share allotted to such child should be reduced one-half and the other half of such share should be transferred to such persons as under the laws of the state of New York would take the same if the testator had died intestate.
Who were the witnesses to the Gould will was not divulged by ex-Judge Dillon; nor was it known who drew the will. Judge Dillon said that he didn’t. It was thought probable that Gen. Swayne, who was formerly in partnership with the judge, was the man, but he declined to say. There were many who believed that Gould himself drew the will. A gentleman who knew Mr. Gould very well said:
“From what I know of Mr. Gould, however, I believe he drew it himself. He was naturally a very secretive man, and any important undertaking he kept to himself as much as possible. He was an able lawyer, and certainly had sufficient knowledge to have made the will.”
In spite of Mr. Gould’s great interests his executors found his affairs in very trim shape. Something less than two years ago, in conversation with Mr. Connor and Mr. Morosini, Mr. Gould remarked:
“If I should die to-night my affairs are in such shape that my executors could straighten everything out in less than forty-eight hours after my death.”
Many different estimates have been made of the amount of the fortune of Jay Gould, but nothing has ever been told by him, nor did the will reveal anything definite about it. Little difference does it make whether it was $70,000,000 or $170,000,000, so long as it was the greatest that ever one man accumulated in his lifetime.
Mr. Gould never intended that anybody should know while he was living, and he saw that his wishes were carried out in the matter. Sixty millions is the figure most frequently mentioned, but generally as a minimum, with a round hundred millions as the other limit.