In re Petition for the Probate of a Paper Propounded as the Last Will & Testament of Wilmerding

Fowler, S.

There being some difficulty in the proof of this will in the ordinary or common form before the clerk, I directed the proofs to be retaken before me. The will is a holograph. Holographic testaments are doubtless favored in probate law. In the civil law even the signature of the testator to a holograph was dispensed with. C. 6, 23, 21, pr. Under our old law, prior to the last century, if it were certain that a testament was written or subscribed by the testator, the testimony of witnesses was unnecessary. Swinb. 639; Gilb. Rep. 260. But since our present Statute of Wills, while the…