Susan:

While I generally agree with your thoughtful analysis above, I would disagree as to what might be readily garnered by the date of execution of the Mecklenburg Will. I think your reasoning would be otherwise quite sound BUT FOR the additional ex ante information that the Mecklenburg Will was later REVOKED.

That is, without this revocation, the possibility of any forgery would be too remote to be taken seriously. With the revocation, forgery would have been one of the PRIMARY possible explanations.

Your suggestion that "it hardly seems possible that any forgers would be foolish enough to date a will four or five years after the man died" facially makes a LOT of sense. But this sort of presupposes a few things, including that either those involved in such forgery (presumably the FINCHER witnesses) actually had a prior acquaintance with Walter ASHMORE and contemporaneously knew of his date of death and/or that Hannah ASHMORE actually had the knowledge and memory to correctly identify her husband's year of death.

Given that Hannah ASHMORE seems to have been illiterate, she wouldn't have been readily able to read to keep track of dates. And given that in those times the husband tended most business matters reserving to the wife child bearing and child rearing, there may not have been many occasions for Hannah to be confronted with dates. She might have better remembered if she had been advised of her responsibilities contemporaneously with the probate of the original Will in January 1791.

Upon reflection, IF the Will was a forgery, a mixup with the dates would seem most likely to support a rather strong inference that Hannah was NOT a FINCHER and that the FINCHER witnesses were never even acquainted with Walter ASHMORE. It would seem to me that this would be a very hard mistake to make if the FINCHER witnesses were brothers of Hannah, as they would likely to be personally acquainted with Walter, no whether he could read or write and would have probably learned almost immediately of Walter's death, when Hannah's distressed condition as a widow with five children first became apparent.

For the Will to be a FINCHER forgery, it would rather seem to me that one might need to conclude (a) that the FINCHERs did NOT know Walter ASHMORE from Hannah's marriage and (b) that the location of Walter and Hannah would have had to be sufficiently remote from the FINCHERs for the FINCHERs to NOT be in regular contact or acquaintance with Walter prior to his death.

It is for this reason that I believe that the LOCATION of the land is probably particularly important.

It may also bear mention that the FINCHERs seemed to be located some distance AWAY from Jesse ROPER's land. As I recall, we do NOT see FINCHER witnesses to transactions in Lancaster County, SC. If Walter and Hannah were in York County proper OR even in the strip of York separated and added to Lancaster County in 1791, the FINCHERs might have had no contact with Walter ASHMORE prior to his death. In this case, they might have relied upon an erroneous date given them by Hannah.

While I do NOT view the date of the Mecklenburg Will as dispositive, neither do I view the precise location of the property to be dispositive either, but rather these are each further incremental clues about what was going on.

In my view, one of the most interesting things which can hopefully be garnered either from the Will itself or from proximate extant original court records is the original date of probate, particularly in COMPARISON to the purported date of execution.

In the ordinary course of things, a Will would be PROMPTLY presented to the court for probate. There are variety of very practical reasons to do this, including some risk that witnesses to the execution of the Will might die or move away, making proof of the Will problematic. In the modern era, many states have laws REQUIRING that Wills be promptly presented.

If the Will is dated in 1795 and also first probated in 1795, in my view this would mostly take the wind out of any argument that the Will was a forgery and support your contention that there are two Walter ASHMOREs who died in close succession in York and Mecklenburg.

Even if the Will was dated 1795 and it was presented in 1796, this would seem to me to generally support the authenticity of the Will. There might be some minor delays in the probate which could carry over for a year. But forgery of a Will so soon after the death of the purported testator would seem to me to be particularly risky.

If the Will was dated 1795 and presented for probate in 1797, this would seem to me to be very significant evidence of mischief, not so much because it would be unusual to hold a Will that long (though it would), but rather because this would also tend to imply that that the revocation happened well after the normal appeal period to challenge the order admitting the Will to probate had passed. Getting a Will revoked a month or two after it was admitted to probate would be very difficult. Getting a Will revoked one or more years later would be quite exceptional. (This would also be the case in regards to a Will probated in 1795 or 1796, though my suspicion that the reason was a bald forgery would be lessened.)

By contrast, if the Will is dated in 1795 and was first presented for probate in 1798, this would seem to me to be some additional persuasive evidence that the Will was a forgery rather than evidence that the Will was genuine.

The evidence that might persuade me of the genuineness of the Will would be a date BEFORE the date of the York Will, as might be the case if Walter ASHMORE had made a previous geneuine Will more favorable to his wife and failed to find and destroy the original Will or a date a few days or weeks after the original Will but before 11 Jan 1791, which might be genuine for similar reasons. In either of these cases, I would be inclined to believe that the Will was real, but that it might have been revoked because it was found NOT to be Walter ASHMORE's LAST Will (if dated before the 23 Nov 1790 Will) or because it had NOT BEEN TIMELY PRESENTED if it WAS the LAST Will, but not presented for probate in York, SC, during the period when the 23 Nov 1790 Will was still subject to challenge.

As previously discussed, the sorts of issues that would support a rejection of a Will would include duress, undue influence, fraud and forgery. The first three of these would probably only support a REJECTION of the Will if TIMELY RAISED. The latter would probably support a REVOCATION of the Will. But a revocation might also be explained by discovery that the court of another state had entered a final order probating another DIFFERENT Will, which order wasn't timely challenged.

In short, the evidence which would seem to support a TWO Walter ASHMORE theory would be that evidence which would tend to inspire CONFIDENCE in the Mecklenburg Will. Confidence might be had ONLY by the timely filing of the Mecklenburg Will shortly after its execution. This is NOT to say that a DELAY in filing would itself be evidence of mischief. It wouldn't. In the natural course of things, people regularly make Wills NOT in contemplation of death which are probated years later.

What suggests some sort of mischief is the REVOCATION which is just a HUGE clue that cannot be easily explained away. Forgery is one explanation. Another VALID explanation is the discoveryof the PRIOR probate in York of the 23 Nov 1790 Will.

As previously explained, the TIMING of the revocation in comparison to the date of probate is also VERY IMPORTANT. The other CLUE as to a possible court motivation for revocation is the appearance of THREE FINCHER witnesses. This immediately creates the suggestion of the possibility of UNDUE INFLUENCE, even if there was NO FORGERY, especially if Hannah is directly related to one or more of these FINCHERs as a sister or daughter. If there was another OUTSIDE witness UNRELATED to Hannah and the FINCHERs, this might overcome some suspicions of undue influence. But if everyone who was near Walter when he died was related to Hannah, Walter might have been persuaded to make a disposition of property which was unusual or unfair.

Whether or not Hannah ASHMORE had children is also VERY IMPORTANT. Another way of looking at the problem is to think about the sort of fact patterns that might support a conclusion that the disposition was UNFAIR.

If Hannah ASHMORE was only very recently married to a very young Walter ASHMORE, I suppose that Walter's siblings or other heirs at law might have a plausible claim that making Hannah the SOLE legatee was UNFAIR and COUPLED with the appearance of three witnesses RELATED TO HANNAH, this might explain a TIMELY revocation.

But if Hannah ASHMORE had one or more infant children by Walter, making Hannah the SOLE legatee wouldn't be a particularly unusual or unfair disposition. That is, Walter might have reasonably trusted Hannah to care for their children and getting such a Will overturned would seem to me to be quite difficult. (Of course, such a disposition by Walter inherently risks that Hannah might remarry and that her subsequent husband would have control over the estate and disipate the estate or convert the estate to the benefit of his own children, etc.) If Hannah had children who were already adults or very near adulthood, leaving everything to Hannah would seem somewhat less fair and more UNLIKELY absent some undue influence.

Finally, I would note that the TIMING of the probate is also of some importance in understanding the dynamics as it bears on possible motivations regarding Hannah's remarriage.

While Hannah remained UNMARRIED, if Hannah sold sheep or hogs or even a horse to fund the children's upbringing or education, this would hardly be overly contentious, even IF the livestock sold had been the subject of a specific bequest (most troublesome in respect of the IDENTIFIED horses and mares rather than the undifferentiated sheep). WHEN Hannah remarried, CONTROL over the assets would tend to be seized by her new husband, Jesse ROPER, Jr., and any disposition of the assets of the Walter ASHMORE estate, even if characterized as Hannah's acts might be viewed with suspicion. This would be especially true if Jesse was seen as butchering Walter's sheep while grazing his own, etc.

Thus, the CHALLENGE to the Will seems most likely to have emerged WHEN Hannah remarried rather than while she remained a widow. Given what we think know about Jesse ROPER, Jr.'s age, it seems UNLIKELY that Jesse ROPER, Jr., married Hannah much before 1798. For this additional reason, the EARLIER probate of the Mecklenburg Will would seem to be some evidence that the Will is genuine. But the LATE production of the Will is some indication of mischief.

Of course, IF there was a second Walter ASHMORE, perhaps the son of Walter ASHMORE (d bef 11 Jan 1791), then he might have made a Will in 1795 and died in 1798. This might seem to be possible if the younger Walter was the older boy (despite being listed after WIlliam in Walter's 23 Nov 1790 Will) OR if Walter was age 15 in 1790 and married by age 20.

The trouble with all of this is we are asked to make TOO MANY ASSUMPTIONS about which there is NO SUPPORTING EVIDENCE and for which there seems to be some rather persuasive CONTRARY evidence, as with the appearance of another Walter ASHMORE in Greenville.

By contrast, the single assumption that Cleranah ASHMORE and Hannah ASHMORE are one and the same rather quickly harmonizes most of the other data. Any conclusion that the Mecklenburg Will involved some sort of mischief is fully supported by the FACT that this Will was revoked.