Document #3

Macomb, April 29^th 1875

Mrs. Margaret Gaff

Denver, Colorado

Dear Madame,

            I have received authority from your brother Robert Marshall McCracken to prosecute and collect if possible those foreign claims to which your family is heir by your mother.  He has given me a power of attorney and entered into an agreement as to how the claims shall be prosecuted.  The power of attorney gives me the authority to do the business and the agreement states upon what terms the business is to be conducted.

            I desire to have these terms from all of the living heirs to this estate.  Also to know all and every point which any of the heirs know concerning this matter.  I enclose a copy of the power of attorney which Robert signed with his wife and delivered to me, and also a copy of the agreement which was in like manner signed and delivered to me.

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You will please sign these papers and have your husband to sign them if you have one, and return them to me.  Have the power of attorney acknowledged by a Notary Public.  If either your or your husband sign by mark, have a witness to the mark.  You will please return these papers as soon as you can after you have them completed, as I wish to push the matter into English courts as soon as possible.

            You will tell me all that you know concerning this matter and have someone to write down every word which you can recollect, and send it to me with the other papers.  I will now ask you some questions which you will answer as correctly as you can:-

            Where and when were you born, and what were the names of your parents and what was the name of your mother before she was married to your father, and from what country did they come when they came to America?

            To what church did your father belong, and to what church did your mother belong when she married your father?  Relate all that you can concerning this point.  In what part of Ireland did your father live and in what part did your mother live before she married your father?  What were the names of your grandfather and grandmother on your mother’s side?  By whom were your father and mother married?  Robert says by an Associate Reform minister by the name of Queen.  When were they married and when did they come to this country?  Had they any children before they came to this country?  Where were you living and how old were you when your mother heard that her parents were dead and that she, your mother, was heir to a large estate?

            Where did you understand this estate to be, in England or Ireland, and in what part?  And of what nature was it?  Did your grandfather and grandmother move from England to Ireland?  And where did they die?  What was your understanding to the worth of the estate?

            You had an uncle Michael Marshall.  Where did he die and what did he do with his property, and what did you understand to be the value of it?  Robert said that he thought you could give me a

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number of facts on this particular claim, as you had had a letter concerning this estate.  If you have that letter you will please send it to me.  What was the business of your uncle and where was his residence?  When did your uncle die and where?

            This will be all that I will ask you this time.  When you answer these questions, you will please have someone who can write pretty well, write them down on paper just as you relate the facts, and should anything come to mind hereafter that you have not told me you will put it on paper and send it to me.  I desire to obtain all the facts I can concerning this matter for it will be a very difficult task at best to get anything out of these claims, they are of such long standing.  But if there is anything in them and it can be reached I will reach it, and if everything is true that I hear concerning the value of them, we will all be amply paid for our trouble.

            Can you give me the post office address of Martha Harbison and Arthur McCracken?

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In the power of attorney and agreement you will have to fill in the names and the dates in their proper places.  I leave the places blank for that purpose.  It would be well that you think not too hard on this subject all at once as your age probably would not admit of it, and possibly might be two fatiguing for you.  Robert and family were all well when I saw them.

            Let me hear from this matter as soon as is convenient.

Respectfully yours,

A.W. Falkenthal

Macomb, McDonough County, Illinois

P.S.

I have written to your sister at Cambridge, Ohio, but have not had time to hear from her yet.

Transcribed by Andy Miller August 2004