William Gillette gives instructions for his will

Yesterday, I was moving items around in the manuscript stacks and came upon an envelope that had printed in large block letters “Sealed unitl 1990.”  Well, since that was 17 years ago, I figured I should take a look.  What I found was correspondence between actor William Gillette and his lawyer at the firm Shipman and Goodwin of Hartford.  Also included were several hand written notes, one of which was rather extensive, giving particular changes he wanted to different parts of his will.  Fascinating look into his mind toward the end of his life.