Attorney, businessman, and part-time author, Williston Fish created the sentimental "Last Will of Charles Lounsbury" in 1897. As Fish recalled later: "The name, Charles Lounsbury . . . is a name in my family of three generations ago – back in York State where the real owner of it was a big, strong, all-around good kind of a man . . . [s]o I took the name of Charles Lounsbury to add strength and goodwill to my story. "The imaginary Lounsbury was variously identified as a wealthy client of Fish, an anonymous millionaire, a Chicago attorney housed in the Cook County Asylum, a hobo, and a destitute millionaire in a Chicago jail cell. In most versions, the will was found in the pocket of a tattered overcoat after the death of the owner.
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