I had been with the Smythe, Hauser, Engels & Tauchen law firm for nearly two years. During my Law School studies, I took every Contracts and contract related course offered by the university. I enjoyed that field of law and my grades showed it. The Smythe firm hired me and I specialized in Trusts and Estate Planning. I drafted Trusts Agreements and used my imagination in meeting the objectives and instructions of my clients. Frankly, I recall being pleased with my work.
When one is a young attorney in a large and prestigious Philadelphia Law Office, it can be dangerous to use one’s imagination. The rules for advancement in such law firms are: sit down, keep your mouth shut, be pleasant to the men above you in the chain of command and don’t become a threat to them by using your imagination. I was, therefore, somewhat concerned when called into the office of Mr. Robertson Smythe, the firm’s senior partner.
Mr. Smythe asked me if I had plans for luncheon. I managed to say “Well, ah” before he told me to cancel them. I was sure I was about to be fired, told to clean out my desk and be gone within the hour. Instead Mr. Smythe handed me about ten inches of files, told me to study them and be back in his office at 11:45 for lunch. That visit to Mr. Smythe’s office was the watershed moment of my career. The files he gave me represented the work Mr. Smythe did for William Henry Peabody.
The Peabody family had been in the New World since Jamestown was founded. They looked upon the Mayflower people as Johnny-Come-Latelys. During the following four hundred years, the Peabody fortunes grew - at first from tobacco, then cotton and, for the past one hundred and fifty years, through banking and international commercial en-deavors. The family reputation and its services as diplomats and philanthropists had a paralleled growth.
At our luncheon, Mr. Smythe told me he reviewed every trust document I had drafted during my first two years in the firm. He “found them interesting”. Then he told me about Major Nathaniel Peabody, the only son of William Henry Peabody.
Nathaniel Peabody was born in Bogotá, Colombia, the son of the U S Embassy’s First Secretary and the daughter of a Peruvian landowner who enjoyed a name and a reputation equal to that of the Peabody family. Every family has its black sheep. Nathaniel Peabody assumed that responsibility and was spectacularly successful in performing the duties of the office.
His special abilities in the Black Sheep Department were early recognized and he was sent to a succession of military academies in the United States in an effort to correct the lad’s profligate and rebellious nature – “straighten him out” was the phrase the elder Peabody used.
Nathaniel looked upon the military academies’ attempts to “straighten him out” as challenges and he behaved accordingly. After a single year of experience with him, each school admitted defeat and asked the elder Peabody to transfer him to another institution. One school Commandant recommended Nathaniel be transferred to a particular institution that required arrest, trial and a finding of “Guilty” as qualifications for admission.
During his school vacations and whenever he elected to shun attendance at the military academies, Nathaniel visited his uncle, Calhoun Peabody. Uncle Calhoun lived in Georgia and had already disgraced the family by entering a trade. He had become a realtor during the Depression of the 1930’s.
Due to widespread foreclosures, many Georgia farms had been abandoned and were owned by banks and insurance companies. Of course, the new owners wanted to sell the properties, but there were few buyers and, then unoccupied, the farm buildings slowly deteriorated.
To keep that deterioration (and the allied probability of depredation) to a minimum, the land was always “posted” by the new owners. The local sheriffs, thankful for insurance company and banker contributions to their re-election efforts, were more than happy to patrol the properties and drive off all trespassers – be they hobos seeking shelter in falling down farm houses or reasonably respectable characters like Calhoun Peabody.
Calhoun freely admitted he had disappointed Great Aunt Aurora by entering a trade. There was a valid reason for his decision to become what Great Aunt Aurora called “a common dealer in real estate”. As a realtor, Uncle Calhoun was able to convince the banks and insurance companies to allow him unlimited access to their foreclosed properties in order to show them to prospective buyers.
Calhoun Peabody was wily. He had an ulterior motive. He was a dedicated, confirmed, and inveterate quail hunter. Those abandoned farms held great coveys of quail and Uncle Calhoun often walked the fields - accompanied not by a prospective buyer, but by an English Setter named George III and a twenty gauge shotgun loaded with 7 1/2 chill shot.
When he first visited Uncle Calhoun, Nathaniel Peabody was a rebellious and irresponsible young man, completely disinterested in his family’s social position, unable to manage his finances and without any direction to his life.
Under Uncle Calhoun’s tutelage, Nathaniel remained a rebellious and irresponsible young man, completely dis-interested in his family’s social position and unable to manage his finances, but he developed a purpose - an unwavering interest that gave direction to his life. It was Uncle Calhoun who taught him about the joys of shotgun hunting in general and of quail hunting in particular. Like his uncle Calhoun, Nathaniel Peabody became a dedicated, confirmed, deceptive, cunning, tricky and inveterate bird hunter.
When the War started, Nathaniel joined the U S Army and, due to his fluency in the Spanish language (and, possibly through family reputation), he served as military attaché to a number of American Embassies scattered around the world. He retired only a few months before our senior partner, Mr. Robertson Smythe, invited me to lunch and gave me the assignment of preparing the William Henry Peabody Spendthrift Trust. Of course, the beneficiary of that Spendthrift Trust was Major Nathaniel Peabody.
Mr. Smythe instructed me to write the document in the strictest of terms with no possibility of any kind of alienation or prepayment of monthly remittances and, above all, a trust document so clearly written that it could not be challenged in court. I did so. Then the elder Peabody died.
My first meeting with Major Nathaniel Peabody, USA (ret.) was, I’m sure, a disappointment to him. He expected to receive a lump sum distribution from his father’s substantial estate. As I recall it, the first time he entered my office he immediately inquired if a partial distribution (as he put it - “a mere pittance of say twenty-five or fifty thousand dollars”) might be made before the final settlement of the estate. I told him he would receive no lump sum disbursement either before or after the final settlement of his father’s estate and that he was the beneficiary of a Spendthrift Trust with quite definite terms.
When the Major recovered from the shock, he asked if a prepayment of a few month remittances might be made. Of course, I refused. I told him no prepayment of any kind could be made. I further advised him that the terms of the Trust document specifically directed the Trustee to give him a check on the first day of each month – and not a single second sooner.
Over the course of the next month, I received communications from two other Philadelphia law firms, each inquiring about the terms of the Peabody Spendthrift Trust. I sent them copies of the document and never officially heard from them again. Informally, both complimented me on the tight structure and clear wording of the document. However, I must admit I made one serious error in draftsmanship.
Peabody came to my office and made one more plea for a partial lump sum settlement. I denied his request. Then he asked for an early delivery of his next scheduled remittance. Again, I denied his request. I told him the terms of the Spendthrift Trust had to be strictly applied, without variation whatsoever. The Major repeated those words - “strictly applied, without variation whatsoever”. He then pointedly mentioned the Trust provision that required the Trustee to deliver a monthly check to the Trust beneficiary.
Without another word, he turned and left my office.
I was thunderstruck. I sat for a moment in shocked silence. I picked up the Spendthrift Trust document, read it very carefully and immediately went to Mr. Robertson Smythe’s office suite. I was concerned, but Mr. Smythe only smiled.
“You drafted the Trust Agreement,” he said. “You are the Trustee. You have to live with its terms.