Twice A Week Plain Dealer

SUIT HAS DRAGGED 122 YEARS.
Court Orders $10,356 Held for Nine Creditors Paid to State.

Boston—After dragging wearily through the courts of Massachusetts 122 years, a case that has attracted little attention, but has established a long-time record for litigation, which began in 1786, was given another chapter the other day.

This last action was taken by Judge Grant in the probate court, when he entered a final decree directing William W. Risk, public administrator in nine estates, to pay $10,356 to the state treasurer. What will be done with this money, which was deposited in the Suffolk Savings bank in 1838 for the benefit of creditors, is problematical.

The estates of which Attorney Risk has been the administrator were those of Thomas Pink, Robert Hyde, Thomas Jackson, Nathan Hyde, Saul Sandbank, James Avery, Jonathan Collins, Jr., Stephen Cross and Jonathan Dean.

These men were creditors of the estate of Ellis Gray, a Boston merchant, who died in 1786, and whose estate was in process of administration for a period covering 50 years.

In 1838, while Gray's estate was still in the probate court, deposits were made by order of the judge in the Suffolk Savings bank for the benefit of those nine creditors, who could not be found, and whose heirs were not known. In the lapse of years from 1786 to 1836 all trace of the creditors had been lost and the deposits have accumulated to $10,356.