100 years ago in The Record

Wednesday, Nov. 13, 1918

The Emma Willard School and RPI could get more than $2,000,000 combined from the estate of the late Margaret Olivia Sage, depending on how her will is interpreted, The Record reports. The widow of financier Russell Sage and the founder of Russell Sage College died on November 4. Her will is filed for probate today in New York County surrogate’s court. Signed on October 25, 1908, it bequeaths the Willard School, from which the former Olivia Slocum graduated in 1847, $1,500,000, while RPI is bequeathed $750,000. “I did not expect that the institute would receive any legacy from Mrs. Sage,” says RPI president Palmer C. Ricketts, “She was wonderfully good to us while she was alive….I thought we had received all that she intended to give us.” Sage’s estate is “conservatively estimated” at $50,000,000 – equivalent in buying power to approximately $774,000,000 in 2018 money. Representatives of RPI and Emma Willard aren’t sure that they’ll get the full amounts bequeathed. That’s because gifts she made to the two institutions between the signing of her will and her death may be counted against the bequests. Since 1908, Sage had given RPI $130,000 toward the construction of a dining hall and the endowment of two fellowships. Emma Willard’s case is more complicated. Because the school and Russell Sage College, which didn’t yet exist when the will was drafted, are operated under the same charter and are recognized as a joint entity by the state education department, the $1,000,000 Sage had given the college may be counted against the bequest to Emma Willard. Due to that uncertainty, Emma Willard president Paul Cook and Sage president Eliza Kellas say little to reporters beyond expressing gratitude to Mrs. Sage.

Confidence Game Talk in Courtroom

Some “old-time characterizations of crookedness … almost forgotten in court language here” are used by lawyers during the trail in county court today of accused swindler John Boc.

Boc, a New York City man, was arrested in Albany last August after allegedly tricking Troy barber Pasquale Cioffi out of $900, his life savings. Cioffi testifies today that Boc told him that he needed the money “to carry out a scheme promising quick and rich returns.” Promising to put up security, Boc gave him a tin box that supposedly contained $3,000 in securities, but actually held “a couple of handkerchiefs and some paper.”

The defendant denies ever meeting Cioffi, but several witnesses testify to seeing the men together in Troy on August 19. Defense attorney Philip Cirillo argues that Boc did nothing wrong, while Cioffi lost his money “in a deal in which he took a chance.”