'Massa, there an't bin no brandy in this house for twenty years,' was the reply of an old, gray-headed domestic.
A servant was dispatched to the nearest grocery; but it proved to be too late. The dying man perceived his condition, and requested that his lawyer should be sent for. In an hour that gentleman arrived. He was just in time.
'Roselins,' he said, addressing one of the most eminent of the lawyers of the New-Orleans bar, as he held his hand, 'You see I am going; you see I am not afraid to die. Take care of the estate; 'tis not mine,'tis God's and the poor's.' And thus, without a struggle, the soul of John McDonogh passed to its Maker.
His death was truly a desolate one. No devoted relatives or friends gathered around his couch to cheer his last moments with those tender tokens of love and sorrow which so sweeten the otherwise bitter cup of death. No soft hand of woman smoothed his pillow or relieved the agony of pain and suffering by the timely opiate or emollient. No weeping little ones were there to cheer his heart with the assurance that on their dear pledges of affection his name and virtues will live after him. His lawyer, physician, and his servants were the only witnesses to the mortal agony of one who could have commanded troops of devoted friends, and who possessed the qualities which might have adorned the domestic and social circle.
So departed this life the rich and eccentric possessor of acres sufficient to have made a duchy or a kingdom, and of money adequate to the maintenance of the dignity and power of such a position.
But if his death and funeral were attended by so few witnesses, an occasion quickly followed which was honored by the presence of a large, eager, curious crowd. It was when his will was probated and read in court. Intense was the curiosity of the public to know what disposition the eccentric old man had made of his enormous property. This feeling was soon gratified. The will was produced. It was a curious document, written on stout foolscap by the testator himself, in a remarkably neat, clear hand, with the lines as close as type, and his autograph signed to every page. Being an holographic will, under the law of Louisiana it required no witness. Ever since 1838, this will had lain among certain old papers of the deceased; and yet, during all this time, it had been 'the thought by day and dream by night' of the devoted old millionaire. In its preparation, he had consulted the most eminent lawyers and studied the most approved law-books bearing on his grand scheme. Truly, a curious, bold, and gigantic scheme it was. But let us to the will. In a slow, solemn and impressive tone, the judge proceeded to read to an eager and interested multitude this remarkable testament.
After setting forth, in the usual form, his nativity, his present residence, his belief in God and in the uncertainty of life, and that he has no heirs living in the ascending or descending line, and directing an inventory of his property to be taken immediately after his death, he proceeds to bequeath to the children of his sister, a widow lady in Baltimore, a ten-acre lot in Baltimore, the usufruct to remain in the widow, with six thousand dollars in cash. He then emancipates his old servants, ten in number, whom he designates. The rest of his slaves he provides shall be sent to Liberia. Certain of them are to be sent after serving those who shall succeed to his estate for fifteen years. The slaves to be sent to Liberia are to be supplied with plows, hoes, spades, axes, clothing, garden-seeds, etc.; also with letters of recommendation to the colonists, and with a copy for each of the volume of the Holy Gospel of the Old and New Testament, as the most precious of all the gifts we have it in our power to give or they to receive. The will then proceeds to provide:
'And for the more general diffusion of knowledge and consequent well-being of mankind, convinced as I am that I can make no disposition of those worldly goods which the Most High has been pleased so bountifully to place under my stewardship, that will be so pleasing to him as that by means of which the poor will be instructed in wisdom and led into the path of virtue and holiness.'
He gives all the residue of his estate to the corporations of New-Orleans and Baltimore, in equal proportions of one half to each, for the several intents and purposes set forth, and especially for the establishment of Free Schools for all classes and castes of color, wherein they shall all be instructed in the knowledge of the Lord and in reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, etc., provided that the Bible shall be used as one of the class-books, and singing taught as an art.
And now comes the ingenious scheme which had engaged the constant thought and study of the testator for forty years, by which the grand passion of his soul for accumulation might survive the dissolution of his mortal frame and still direct and control the acquisitions of his life. Of his real estate, no part is ever to be sold; but it is all to be let out on leases, never to exceed twenty-five years, to be improved by the tenants or lessees. At the expiration of those leases, the property is to revert, free of cost, to his estate, to be thereafter rented out by the month or year. All his personal property is to be sold and converted into real estate, the aggregate of which is styled his general estate, which is 'to constitute' a permanent fund on interest, as it were, namely, a real estate, affording rents, no part of which fund (of the principal) shall ever be touched, divided, sold, or alienated, but shall forever remain together as one 'estate.'