The Will Case
The McGraw-Fiske Will case is the most infamous controversy in Cornell University’s history. The first two presidents of Cornell, the first university librarian, and several members of the board of trustees all found themselves embroiled in the case. The story itself was quite sensational; it involved a dying heiress, an impecunious professor, a hasty wedding, a mansion, and a campus in need of a library building.
Cornell benefactor John McGraw died in 1877, leaving his considerable fortune to his daughter Jennie. When Willard Fiske married her in Berlin three years later, he was by all accounts a professor in debt. Jennie McGraw Fiske died in September 1881, only 14 months after their marriage. Her entire estate was valued at the time at $2,202,593, $300,000 of which had been set aside for Fiske. Because New York State law prevented primary heirs from losing more than half of their estate, Fiske decided to contest the will, much to Cornell’s loss. The case dragged on for seven years, and was settled by the U. S. Supreme Court in Fiske’s favor on the grounds that Cornell University could not legally accept the value of the bequest. The legal wrangling proved to be tremendously divisive to the Cornell community, producing friction and distrust between former friends and colleagues, principally between Fiske, Douglass Boardman (executor of the estate) and Henry W. Sage, a former business partner of John McGraw and an important university benefactor. Distancing himself from the controversy surrounding the settlement of the estate, Fiske left Ithaca permanently in July 1883, and returned only once before his death.
Ironically, Cornell actually gained from the McGraw-Fiske will case. Henry Sage endowed the university with $600,000 to construct the new library building that he had hoped the McGraw legacy would have funded. Fiske willed to the Cornell University Library the proceeds from the sale of his villa in Italy, his considerable literary collections, and the remainder of Jennie’s legacy, upon his death on September 16, 1904.
Wedding
Wedding Certificate for Jennie McGraw and Daniel Willard Fiske, July 14, 1880. American Legation, Berlin, Germany.
The wedding ceremony in Berlin for Jennie McGraw and Willard Fiske was attended by both Judge Boardman and Andrew Dickson White.
Fiske to his Mother
Letter from Daniel Willard Fiske to his Mother, Caroline Willard Fiske, 7 July 1880.
Although Fiske enjoyed a close relationship with his mother Caroline Willard Fiske throughout his life, he did not advise her of his intention to marry Jennie McGraw until one week before the ceremony.
Selected transcription:
The news which I have to communicate to you will not, I fancy, seem so surprising to you as it will to a good many other people. . . . I am to be married next week to Miss Jennie McGraw, whose high qualities, whose kindness of heart and whose loveable disposition you already know something about and will more fully appreciate when you come to know her better. I have loved her for a long while, without ever dreaming that that she could be brought to love me.
Fiske to Boardman
Letter from Daniel Willard Fiske to Douglass Boardman, May 29, 1890.
Selected transcription:
Not very long after the loss of my dear wife I began to be cognizant of a change in my relationship with yourself, with Mr. Sage, and - less noticeably perhaps - with Mr. White. The new and inexplicable coolness towards me was possibly first evident in our discussions concerning the disposition of Jennie’s house, where more and more a latent hostility to every suggested arrangement became sensibly apparent - until, in the end, I deemed it better to relinquish my too sentimental attachment to a structure over the plans and possibilities of which I had spent many a pleasant Nile evening. . . . A few days before I sailed from America to take up my residence in Italy I all at once learned, from two very different sources, about the doubts in regard to Jennie’s will. The intelligence instantly threw a deluge of the brightest light upon motives and actions which, up to that moment, had continued to be incomprehensible. I saw all the obscure and unpleasant incidents of the previous months . . . as unworthy of those who participated in it as it was underserved by its object. . . . my loyalty to the University was still so strong that . . . I executed an assignment restoring to the institution, in case of my death, any sum which might be given by the courts.
Boardman to Fiske
Letter from Douglass Boardman to Daniel Willard Fiske, June, 1890.
Selected transcription:
On the 14th July 1880 you married Miss McGraw, knowing, as we all did, that she was far gone in consumption and could not live a great while. The reasons which induced her to marry at that time I do not know. She had told me she should not marry until her health was restored. . . . Before your marriage . . . you executed an instrument of which the following is a copy “Legation of the U.S. of America Berlin July 13 1880. In consideration of the agreement of Jennie McGraw of Ithaca NY to marry me and of other considerations, I do contract and agree, that she shall have, possess, control and dispose of her property after her said marriage, in the same manner, and to as perfect and complete extent as if she had remained single & unmarried. . .” If she had remained unmarried you could not have disturbed her gift to Cornell Un’y. The McGraws were satisfied with her disposition of her property until you began proceedings. But for your act, in all human probability CU would have held and enjoyed this magnificent request for the building up and maintaining a great library. Was that in good faith to your dead wife? But your purpose you say, was to return the amt to Cornell after you had got it. What you wanted was to punish Mr. Sage and me because we did not concur in your views of the proper administration of the Estate in my hands and of the fund in the hands of the Trustees of Cornell.
The Mansion is Sold
Supreme Court Judgment
“The good she tried to do shall stand as if it ’twere done. GOD finishes the work by noble souls begun. In Loving Memory of JENNIE MCGRAW FISKE whose purpose to found a great library for Cornell University has been defeated. This house is built and endowed by her friend Henry W. Sage. 1891”