A Daughter's $750 Secret: Seattle Heiress Sues Her Father's Estate

Seattle, March 22.—Special.—Mrs. Lucy E. Sprague, only daughter of the late Gen. Sprague by his first wife, sues for a portion of her mother's estate, if she can establish her claim in the courts. Today her attorneys filed suit in the superior court to that end. It is sensational in its way and brings out some of the early history of a well-known general.

The defendants are Maj. James R. Hayden, of Seattle, and O. Sprague, the executors of the Sprague will.

The complaint sets out that the plaintiff was born March 11, 1861, at Troy, N.Y., and that her mother, who was the lawful wife of Sprague, died intestate prior to March 1862, leaving her the only child and sole heir at law. Her mother at the time of her death was seized of twenty-five acres of land in Erie county, where the family had moved in 1860. The land was the northwest quarter of lot No. 41, town 4, in Huron township. Under the laws of Ohio the land descended to the plaintiff, then an infant.

October 2, 1864, John W. Sprague, her father, was duly appointed guardian of her estate and person by the probate court, and December 13 of the same year he filed a petition to be allowed to sell the land, setting forth that it was uncultivated and that its rents and profits would not pay the taxes. The petition was granted November 18, 1865, and the property sold at auction to Joseph Miner April 12, 1866, for $750, which sale was confirmed by the court.

The plaintiff then declares that, although required by the laws of Ohio to make an accounting of receipts and disbursements of the estate at least once in two years, Gen. Sprague never made any accounting whatsoever. She alleges further that he appropriated the money to his own use, and never told her of the sale or even of the fact that her mother had left her anything. Further, he withheld from her the fact that he was her legal guardian. She never came into possession of the facts until about the 1st of December, 1894, a year after Gen. Sprague's death, when she learned of the matter accidentally. January 3, 1895, she, through her attorneys, presented to the executors her claim for $750, with interest to that date, and certified copies of all orders and petitions in the estate of her mother. January 4, 1895, the executors disallowed the claim, and so indorsed it on its back.

The prayer of the petition is that the plaintiff recover from the estate the $750, with interest at annual rests since April 25, 1865. The interest asked is 10 per cent per annum. No sum total is expressed.