J. Pierpont Morgan Last Will

Download this free copy of the Last Will and Testament of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896).

• Nobel was born in 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. His family was descended from Olof Rudbeck, the best-known technical genius of Sweden's 17th century era as a great power in northern Europe.
• Nobel invented dynamite in 1866.
• In 1895, Nobel signed his last will providing for the establishment of the Nobel Prize. He died in San Remo, Italy on December 10, 1896.

Download a free copy of the Last Will and Testament of David Packard (1912-1996).

• Packard, an American electrical engineer and entrepreneur, was a co-founder of the computer giant, Hewlett-Packard.
• The majority of his holdings were donated to the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, which provides grants to nonprofit organizations.

Download this free copy of the Last Will and Testament of heiress Doris Duke.

• Doris Duke (1912-1993) was an American heiress, horticulturalist, art collector and philanthropist.
• When Doris was just 12 years old, her father died and left her a fortune estimated at about $100 million. At the age of 14, she took her mother to court and successfully prevented her from selling the family's 2,700 acre estate.
• When Duke came of age, she used her wealth to pursue a variety of interests, including extensive world travel and the arts. During World War II, she worked in a canteen for sailors in Egypt, taking a salary of one dollar a year. She apparently spoke nine languages.
• In 1945, Duke began a short-lived career as a foreign correspondent for the International News Service, reporting from different cities across the war-ravaged Europe. After the war, she moved to Paris and wrote for the magazine Harper's Bazaar.
• While living in Hawaii, Duke became the first woman to take up competition surfing. A lover of animals, in particular her dogs and pet camels, in her later years Duke became a wildlife refuge supporter, an environmental conservationist, and a patron of historic preservation.

Biographical material taken from Wikipedia.com.

Download this free copy of the Will of New York billionaire Harry Helmsley (1909-1997).

• Helmsley was one of the most successful real estate magnates in America.
• In his will, Harry Helmsley leaves an estate estimated at $1.7 billion. A few of his vast holdings included the Empire State Building, and posh hotels in New York.
• Helmsley died of pneumonia in 1997 at a hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was survived by his wife Leona, who was known as the 'Queen of Mean'.

This is a copy of the Last Will and Testament of James Smithson, who founded the Smithsonian Institution (1765-1826).

• James Smithson was a chemist and mineralogist in the late 1700s.
• He made numerous excursions throughout Europe to collect mineral and ore samples.
• He was made a member of the Royal Society of London in 1787 only a year after he graduated from college.
• His concise one-page Will set up a fund which established the Smithsonian Institution.

Download this free copy of the Last Will and Testament of Leona Helmsley (1920-2007).

• Leona, often called the 'Queen of Mean', knew the meaning of upward mobility. She was the daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants who married well - several times. She also worked her way up to the level of vice-president in a New York real estate brokerage firm.
• In 1968 she met multi-millionaire entrepreneur Harry Helmsley and in 1970 she joined one of his brokerages. In 1972 Harry divorced his wife and married Leona, and she set about running his expanding hotel empire.
• Leona faced legal problems throughout her professional life, ultimately being convicted of income tax evasion in 1989 for which she served 18 months in prison. She was quoted as having said, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."
• In her Will, she left a $12 million trust fund to her Maltese dog. This was later reduced by the Courts to $2 million.