July 25, 1912 - Big Rapids Pioneer Newspaper  - Mecosta County, MI.

Copyright © 2004 by Jan Cortez. This copy contributed for use in 
the USGenWeb Archives.  

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The Big Rapids Pioneer
July 25, 1912 
Big Rapids, Michigan 

 


WILL CASE DRAWS MUCH INTEREST
Young Suicide Left Fine Farm to Girl
MOTHER SAYS HE WAS INSANE
Case Being Argued Before Probate Judge by Attorneys
Many Witnesses Will Be Heard

From Tuesday's Daily
Its not often that a case in probate court in Mecosta county attracts as much 
attention as the will case now before Judge Jones.

The case is that of Mrs. Peter Johnson, of Chippewa Lake, trying to break the will of 
her son, Peter, who left the family farm, willed to him by his father only a year 
before, to a girl friend, Maude, daughter of Supervisor Andrew A. Hill. The young lady is now Mr. Earl Cook. She is about 20 years old, and was married about the time the will was made.

The mother is represented in court by Broomfield & Worcester and the beneficiary of the will by A. B. Cogger. Nearly two scores of witnesses have been called. The case has attracted so much attention that it is necessary to hold the sessions in the circuit court chamber.

Peter Johnson, it will be remembered, was the young man who committed suicide May 28 last, by the chloroform route. Three days before this deed was done he made out his will by which he left Mrs. Cook the family homestead, valued at between $2500 and $3000 and one horse. The rest of the property was to be used to pay funeral expenses and to purchase a monument to be erected in his memory.

Mr. Hill, father of the beneficiary, states that Johnson was never his daughter's beau, and gives as the reason why the property was willed to his daughter that the young man took this manner of getting "even" with his mother and other relatives, who according to the neighbors and according to the young man's fancy was not treated right by them.

Although the farm would go to Mrs. Cook, Mrs. Johnson, the mother, has the use of it during the rest of her life.

Her attorneys are trying to show that the boy was insane at the time he made the will and at the time he committed suicide. This was the belief of John Hodges, the first witness, who supported his belief on the statement that Johnson a few days before gave him an unsigned check in payment of a telephone bill and also that he acted abnormally and stated to him that he was crazy.

One of the reasons, alleged why he committed suicide, is that he feared arrest following exoosures of alleged criminal relations.