Odd Will Case in Samoa
p. 10 · Read in the full issue
From Our Own Correspondent.
APIA, June 26.
THE good old “beach-combing” day and some features characteristic of those days gone past, were recalled recently during the hearing of the Coe will case in the High Court of Apia, befor Chief Judge Luxford.
Jonas M. Coe, an American citizen, after a long residence in Samoa, died in 1897 He was legally married not less than five times to various Samoan women, and had thirteen children from three of these marriages. He left some valuable property in Vaiala and Matautu (suburbs of Apia) besides numerous small pieces of land further inland. In his will he left the former to, as he expressed it, “all my family” and the latter to “my family’ and the Court was now asked to interpret those terms.
The judgment, apportioning the land and the proceeds of land sales amongst the applicants, apparently satisfied the latter.