“In witness of which I have set my hand & seal this thirty first day of August in the year one thousand eight hundred & forty six.
“R. E. Lee.”
“SCHEDULE OF PROPERTY
| “100 Shares of the Stock of the Bank of Virginia Richmond | $10,000.00 |
| 39 Shares of the Stock of the Valley of Virginia Winchester | 3,900.00 |
| $6,100. of Jas. R. & Kanawha Compy Bonds | 6,100.00 |
| $2,000. Virginia 6 per ct State Bonds | 2,000.00 |
| $2,000. Phil: Wil: & Baltimore R. R. 6 per ct loan | 2,000.00 |
| $2,000. Bonds of Kentucky 6 pr cts | 2,000.00 |
| 6 per cts Bonds of the State of Ohio | 5,000.00 |
| Bond of John Lloyd & wife | 3,000.00 |
| Bonds of Workner & Rice & of Louis Engel, St. Louis, Mo: | 4,500.00 |
| 1 Share of Nat: theatre, Washington City | 250.00 |
| $38,750.00 |
Nancy & her children at the White House New Kent all of whom I wish liberated, so soon as it can be done to their advantage & that of others. An undivided third part of the tract of land in Floyd Va. devised to me by my mother, of which I am negotiating a sale with M. N. Burwell for $2,500. My share of property in Hardy Va belonging to the estate of my father. My share of a claim of the property leased to the Government by my father at Harpers Ferry & believed to belong to his estate. My share or ⅓ of 200 acres of land in Fairfax Co: Va:
“R. E. Lee.”
Will of James Lick
James Lick was born at Fredericksburg, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, on August 25, 1796. He began life as an organ and piano maker, first at Hanover, Pennsylvania, and afterwards at Baltimore, Maryland. In 1820, he started business on his own account in Philadelphia, and shortly afterward emigrated to Buenos Ayres, where for ten years he successfully prosecuted his trade; subsequently, he moved to Valparaiso and later to California, where he arrived with a moderate fortune in 1847. He spent his remaining days in California, dying there October 1, 1876, leaving an estate valued at about $4,000,000. He is said to have been of an unlovable, eccentric, solitary and avaricious character. Had it not been for his last will and testament, he would have died “unwept, unhonored, and unsung.” This one act of his life was a contradiction of the whole. By a trust deed, which was to be fully effective at his death, after bequeathing a number of small legacies to friends and relatives, and reserving for his own use $25,000 per year during his life, he provided for the expenditure of $700,000 for the construction and equipment of an astronomical observatory for the University of California; $25,000 was bequeathed to the San Francisco Protestant Asylum; $10,000 to the California Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: he also set aside an amount equal to $20,000 for monuments to be erected to the memory of his father, mother, grandfather and sister; $100,000 for the founding of the Old Ladies’ Home of San Francisco; $150,000 for the erection and maintenance of free public baths in San Francisco; $60,000 for the erection of a bronze monument in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, “to the memory of Francis Scott Key, author of the song, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner;’” $100,000 for a group of bronze statuary representing in three periods the history of California; $540,000 for the founding and erection of a California School of Mechanical Arts: the residue of his estate, he directed should be equally divided between the California Academy of Sciences and the Society of California Pioneers.
The observatory constitutes the astronomical department of the University of California, and was the most cherished of all Mr. Lick’s schemes of public benefaction; it is claimed that he had nursed the idea for many years before he began to put it into practical shape; he directed that the telescope should be superior and more powerful than any yet made, and it was such at the time of its erection; it is now the second largest refracting telescope in the world, being surpassed only by that of the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, located at Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The situation on Mount Hamilton is particularly advantageous, giving, as it does, an unobstructed view for a radius of one hundred miles, and an opportunity for observation during the greater part of the year,—clear nights occurring regularly for six or seven months out of the year. In its construction, the wishes and hopes of the testator were fully carried out, for, up to that time, no such instrument had ever been cast or attempted.