Woolsey v. Williams

HAYNES, C.

Appeal from an order of distribution. James Williams died testate at the city and county of San Francisco, March 1, 1897, and his will was admitted to probate March 15, 1897, and letters testamentary were granted to appellant. Said will was made at San Francisco February 28, 1897, in which, after some special bequests, the testator’s brothers, George Williams and William Frederick Williams, were made residuary) legatees.

The final account of the executor having been filed and settled, Clifford Oswin Williams and Frederick Percy Williams, a minor, by his guardian Arvilla S. Williams, filed their petition for final distribution on January 31, 1898, alleging that George Williams, one of said residuary legatees, died before said testator, unmarried, and without any lineal descendants, and that the other residuary legatee, William Frederick Williams, also died before the testator, leaving surviving him his widow, said Arvilla S. Williams, and said petitioners, Clifford Oswin and Frederick Percy, but no other lineal descendants; that the testator was never married, and at the time of his death left no kin except said petitioners.

The executor answered said petition and put in issue all its material allegations.

The questions of fact to be determined were whether William Frederick Williams, the husband of Arvilla, and the father of the petitioners Clifford Oswin Williams and Frederick .Percy Williams, was the brother of the testator and one of the residuary legatees named in the will, and whether George Williams, the other residuary legatee, was dead.

The will recited that the testator, J ames Williams, was born in "Norwich, Chenango county, Yew York, that his father’s

[554]

name was James Williams and that his mother’s name was Harriet Luddington.

Arvilla S. Williams testified that she was married to William Frederick Williams at New Haven in 1875, and produced the certificate thereof, in which her husband was named “William F. Williams,” and also produced the record of the baptism of her sons in which the father’s name was stated as William F. Williams. She further testified that she learned from her husband that he was born in Norwich, Chenango county, New York, that his father’s name was James Williams, that his mother’s name was Harriet Luddington, and that he had four brothers and twin sisters.