A REACH BEYOND THE GRAVE By Jess Wilson (A reprint from THE SUGAR POND AND FRITTER TREE, available from Clay County Historical Society, Post Office Box 394, Manchester, Ky 40962. Price $25.00, add $5.00 for mailing, also available from author at 794 Possum Trot Road. Kentucky residents add $1.50 Sales Taxes.) A person making a will attempts to direct the actions of those who live on. This is known in law as an attempt "to reach beyond the grave" and, in some instances, the hand that attempts to reach too far beyond the grave' has been slapped by the courts and the will set aside. A will in my family that was an attempt to "reach too far beyond the grave" was thwarted by President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. My great, great, great grandfather William Pigg's will was produced in Clay County, Kentucky Court, Monday, August 2, 1824. He left to each of his 12 children at least one slave. The slave was to be the property of not only that child but any heirs of that child. Not only that, if the slave was a woman, her increase (her children) were to be the property of his grandchildren and the slave's grandchildren were to be slaves to his great grandchildren, ad infinitum. At least that is how I read the following item from his will: Fiftly: I give and bequeath to my daughter, Elizabeth ( Pigg) Payne, a negro woman named Gin for her and her increase to be entailed to the heirs of Elizabeth Payne and her rising generation. " Before twoscore years had passed, Elizabeth's "rising generation" and a lot of other people's "rising generations" were to fight along and bloody war. Whatever the cause of the Civil War, it put a stop to 'the Peculiar Institution" that sponsored the idea that one person had a right to own, bargain, sell or bequeath not only the body of another but could entail "her increase" as well. Sorry, Cramps, but that's the way the ball bounced.