Samuel J. Tilden

Tilden, a wealthy lawyer and the Democratic presidential candidate who narrowly lost in 1876, left most of his fortune to establish a free library in New York. Relatives contested the will and won, so the Tilden Trust received only around two million dollars of the intended sum. That was still enough to bring the Astor and Lenox libraries together as the New York Public Library in 1895, a reminder that a bequest is not a completed gift until the courts finish.