There is a vast amount of interesting information, in connection with the history and forms of antique wills, and testamentary dispositions of property, in one form or another, are of extremely ancient origin.[2] Historians and law writers have told us that the will, as we know it, is a Roman invention, but in this statement the testimony of others is accepted as establishing the fact, rather than the knowledge, or want of knowledge of the fact asserted. Indeed, writers are frequently given to accepting and repeating the statements of others, without investigating the facts upon which such statements are based, much as the court did, that decided that a given windstorm was not a cyclone, where the conclusion was based wholly upon the evidence showing that the clouds lacked the funnel shape and circling motion, while the effect of the storm, evidenced by the twisted trunks of giant trees, the houses awry and other primary evidence of the fact asserted, was wholly over-looked, in reaching the conclusion.[3] There is evidence that wills were used in Egypt centuries before they were known in Europe;[4] Solon is said to have introduced them into Greece,[5] and wills were used in Rome, long before the date of the Twelve Tables.[6] Abraham, in his lament of the want of a legitimate heir, appointed the steward and servant born in his house to take his estate, after his death and this was, virtually, the appointment of an heir by will.[7] And the Hebrew Patriarch, Jacob, before taking his departure from his sons, with the knowledge of approaching death, said unto Joseph:[8] “Behold, I die; but God shall be with you and bring you again unto the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given to thee, one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the land of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow. And Jacob called unto his sons and said, gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.” Of course this is but an oral bequest, but it has all the elements of a death-bed disposition, made under the apprehension of approaching death and it sets forth the “portion” to Joseph, after mentioning the derivation of the testator’s title, and the symbolic emblems to the other sons are distributed, with all the solemnity of a will, in fact. From these illustrations, it will be seen, that from the beginning of the history of man, as we know him, or at least in the patriarchial days of the ancient Hebrews, the custom obtained of making testamentary dispositions of property, and there is also evidence extant that this custom was not confined alone to the ancient Israelites.