University's Chances for Recluse's Fortune Vanish as Heirs Are Found

Any hopes that the University might get the $500,000 left in an old safe deposit box by the late Harry Chapin Smith '01, were dashed yesterday when the Brooklyn Eagle turned up four possible heirs, all cousins of the eccentric recluse. No will has yet been found.

Smith, who died October 24 and was buried November 5 in Potter's Field, lived in squalor for nearly 30 years in a three-story frame house near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. When the house was opened Tuesday police found tons of junk and newspapers which he collected in his nightly rummaging through garbage cans.

Only this week when the safe deposit box which he rented 28 years ago was opened did his considerable fortune, $500,000 in stocks and loans accounts, come to light.

Smith had few connections with the College since his graduation half a century ago. He attended only two class reunions, one in 1941 and the other last year. "More wealthy" classmates paid his way to the 50th reunion.

While an undergraduate here, he became a close friend and confidant of philosopher William James, who helped him through what classmates termed "a terrific struggle" to get through school.

One of his close friends at college was William T. Reid, Jr. '01, former football and baseball star and one-time football coach. Last year Smith requested that when he died Reid should scatter his ashes into "a river flowing into the sea" while reading Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar."