Individual Details

Death

On Thursday last, Mr. Cornelius Paulding, aged 82 years, an old and respectable inhabitant of this city. His friends and acquaintances, are respectfully invited to attend his funeral, this afternoon at half past 3 o'clock, from 142 Duane street.

Mortuary Notice

Irish American Weekly (New York, NY), Saturday, April 5, 1851, Page 4

Referring to the last of these wealthy men, Mr. Paulding, who died on Sunday last, we are happy to state, that in the disposition of his large property, he was not unmindful of the claims of consanguinity, nor altogether of those of charity. He bequeathed the bulk of his property to his relations who are numerous and exceedingly destitute. His other legacies are in favor of the Baptist Church to which he restored the property which once belonged to them at the corner of St. Charis and Hevia streets, valued at $30,000.
This will be a handsome legacy to a most worthy and excellent congregation, whose worldly means are not equal to their christian piety or liberality. He leaves also $5,000 to the Public Schools of the Second Municipality, and $3,000 to the Male Orphan Asylum, at Lafayfette. His will is a private nuncupative one, and is made by a an experienced notary, so that there could be no doubt of its validity.

A few years ago, Mr. Paulding was brought to the brink of the grave by an injury which his hand received in coming in contact with the tooth of a negro whom he was chastising. Some half dozen doctors took him in hand, and by their severe practice nearly killed him, until Dr. Stone was called in, when an immediate change was adopted in the treatment, and he speedily recovered.

Previously however, he was told that he was about to die, and that it was necessary to make his will. He did so bequeathing his large estate to the Baptist Foreign Bible Society, with a small legacy to his relations. He lived long enough to become more sensible to the claims of nature and family, and destroying this will, he made the one to which we have just referred, a will which will send joy and gladness into several families that have been oppressed with poverty and want, but which, amid all their hardship and destitution, have shared more of life's pleasures and enjoyments than the stern old miser ever found amid all his glittering heaps.

The above paragraph is taken from the New Orleans Weekly Delta of the 17th March. I deny the charge made against Mr. Paulding. Having been on a visit with him for nearly twelve months; during which time Mr. Paulding's house was most hospitably open to relatives and others. I can say that instead of niggardliness and miserly treatment, nothing could be more generous than Mr. Paulding's domestic arrangements.

It was likewise a home for many a poor Baptist minister, or those professing christianity.

Having been to church in company with him on a Sabbath, and a collection having been made for the poor of a church in Belfast, in 1847, he gave as his subscription, in my presence, no less a sum than $100.
As to his relatives; they are mostly all living in New York, and with one or two exceptions, are in what might be termed independent circumstances and many of them beyond that. There is no relative of Mr. Paulding's, to my knowledge, as Delta has it, "exceedingly destitute."

Being, by marriage, the nephew of Mr. Paulding, I make this statement as a matter of justice to deceased and the relaties he has left behind.

WILLIAM L. COLE