By International News Service
Fayetteville, June 16—Enhancement in value of a little cottage of a humble old negro drayman who died here three years back and left all his possessions to a multi-millionaire has resulted in the creation of a $5,000 Christmas fund for the benefit of Cross Creek Township negroes.
W.W. Fuller, New York lawyer, is the donor of the trust, which will be known as the James McAllister Christmas Fund, bearing the old negro’s name.
The little home on a Fayetteville side street has increased in value since his death, and the millionaire, finding it worth more money than the slave-negro ever dreamed of possessing himself, converted into a trust fund to be administered by three Cumberland County citizens. The trust consists of 8 per cent preferred stock of the Bethlehem Steel Company.
“When I have been in trouble or needed help or advice,” the old negro’s will read, “I knew where to turn, and Mr. Willie never failed me. He may not need my little home . . . but he will know better what to do with it than I; and in this I want to show my appreciation of what he has done for me.”
Among McAllister’s possessions was the horse and dray which he had driven on the streets of Fayetteville for years. This was kept by the beneficiary of the will, and is now at Fuller’s winter home at Pinehurst, where a canopy has been built to preserve it. And there the two-wheeled dray will remain, compelling proof that sentiment is not dead.
From page 4 of The Concord Daily Tribune, Thursday, June 17, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1926-06-17/ed-1/seq-4/
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