Hello to all my Cecil cousins. Thought you might be interested in this
letter written by my
uncle Bentley M. Cecil. I expect it concerns your ancestors as well.
Comments and
questions are welcome.
Milton Jones > skamp(a)earthlink.net
The following is a copy of a hand written letter from my uncle Bentley
M. Cecil to his
brothers Basil G. Cecil and Tobias Price Cecil. Some parts of the
original letter are hard
to read. I interpreted the words and spelling the best I could.
St. Louis , MO
June 18, 1913
Dear Brothers Tobe & Bass,
In regards to information you wanted, I will say I seen Mrs Anita
Calvert Bourgeois
whom you spoke of. She is a famous lawyer and family lineage writer. She
represents the
heirs of Lord Baltimore on the Calvert side and gave me quite a bit of
information which
runs like this. Lord Baltimore namely. Sir George Calvert, 2nd Cecilius
Calvert, 3rd
Charles Calvert, 4th Benedict Leonard Calvert, 5th Charles Calvert, 6th
and last Frederick
Calvert who died without children 1771. His wife died 1788. Now this
leaves the title
become extinct then we must go back to the widow of the 5th Lord
Baltomore, Charles
Calvert who was living at that time and died 1784 - 13 years later. She
evidently had full
control of the Baltimore estate the last 33 years of her life. Now in my
opinion this is
where we come in at. As I fail to find any connection between the Cecil
& Calverts
previous to this time, except the First Lord Baltimore was private
secretary to Robert
Cecil in 1632. This all comes from the Calvert side of the question.
After the year 1784
the Calverts seem to have lost trace of their lineage and jumped to the
Mississippi Calverts
-- whom lost their father in 1847. We might edge in here. This
information is correct and I
give it that you may see what the Calverts are doing. I also have a copy
of the will of First
Lord Baltimore. Do you know of any connection between the Cecil &
Calvert families
before the year 1751 which is the year of the 5th Lord Baltimore's
death. If so, you have a
starting point, if not, you must start with that 5th Lord Baltimore's
widow who was Mary
Jansen, dau. of Theo. Jansen. She died Sept. 22, 1784.
This lease of the Baltimore estate expires in November 1913. I have
been told by
the Calvert lawyer that the estate is undoubtedly there awaiting the
heirs after that date.
There is no use for us to send a lawyer up there merely to see if the
estate is there .
" Listen", we have to write up a correct lineage sheet of our family
history which -----
absolutely necessary, giving records, deeds, wills, etc. connecting us
with the Baltimore
estate. This is all expensive and takes time . I consider this our
mainest and first move to
make so long as we know the estate is there for us if we prove it. The
money paid to
lawyers to ride around over the country is lost until we do prove it.
The fact that we say
we are heirs, not even our oath would make us the heirs in the eyes of
the law. I am
willing to donate and solicit donations as far as my ability goes if
this matter is handled in
the right way. You can give any body the power of attorney to handle
your interest in the
matter, even me. But that isn't necessary yet. Pin your hopes to the
investigating party
who has appointed Linda Cecil, treasurer of the association . You may
send her any
money you may wish, to help the cause along or ask her any questions in
regard to
progress being made as she is official. If you have any information
however, she would be
glad to get it. Do you remember mother and Tom Cecil writing a family
history about
thirty five years ago. I do but I don't know what became of it. As I
remember I heard
cousin Tom tell Mother that he had it complete dating back 250 yrs. I
have already sent all
this information to Linda that it may help her in making out her lineage
sheet of the family.
I also have sent Holstons second edition one Methodism. I sent you some
letters &
clippings by way of Dallas, if you do not receive them please let me
know.
It is hard to say when we will realize any thing out of this. It's
possible that we
arrange it so that we could make a drawing of a certain per cent through
our lawyer as
soon as we establish our connections. We'll say $100,000 a piece but not
all of it. I have
figured --- all the heirs at two thousand members. This Gives us
$300.000 a piece after
allowing $23.000,000 fees for the lawyers. As we have so much
corresponding to do
please send this letter to Rolla Mundy, 1306 Park Ave, Dallas - Rolla
send it to Lou Cecil
in Pottsboro. Lou to Jerry - Ft. Worth. BG, be sure Tobe hears of this
letter.
Love to you, Tobe & family
Your Bro.
Bently M. Cecil