According to Sylvia Howland's will, half of her $2 million estate (equivalent to $39,809,000 in 2023) would go to various charities and entities, the rest would be in a trust for Hetty Robinson.
[1]: 68, 81–88, 102 The case was ultimately decided against Robinson after the court ruled that the clause invalidating future wills and Sylvia's signature to it were forgeries.
Sylvia Ann Howland died in 1865, leaving roughly half her fortune of some 2 million dollars (equivalent to $39,809,000 in 2023) to various legatees, with the residue to be held in trust for the benefit of Robinson, Howland's niece.
In the ensuing case of Robinson v. Mandell, Charles Sanders Peirce testified that he had made pairwise comparisons of 42 examples of Howland's signature, overlaying them and counting the number of downstrokes that overlapped.
Benjamin Peirce, Charles' father, showed that the number of overlapping downstrokes between two signatures also closely followed the binomial distribution, the expected distribution if each downstroke was an independent event.
It is utterly repugnant to sound reason to attribute this coincidence to any cause but design.The court ruled that Robinson's testimony in support of Howland's signature was inadmissible as she was a party to the will, thus having a conflict of interest.