On November 29, 1934, the Detroit Trust Co. announced that the remaining collection of historical materials in the possession of the late William Clements, worth $400,000, was donated to the university. Clements’ home and its contents were left to his children, and his son-in-law, Harry S. Finkenstaedt, along with the Detroit Trust Co., were requested to be appointed as executors. A Detroit Free Press article suggested that Clements had left the valuable materials to his family because his fortune had all but vanished by the time he died. In his later years, he contributed $800,000 to a bank reorganization plan in Bay City out of a ‘moral obligation’ to protect depositors from loss, but the university claimed the materials Clements was asking $400,000 for already belonged to them, as outlined in a contract he signed 12 years before his death.
Months after the Clements will dispute was settled, William Clements’ daughter Elizabeth publicly denied that he had obligated himself to leave everything to the university. She also denied the existence of the Oxford Letters collection that Charles Hemans claimed was purchased by Clements with university money. President of the university Alexander Ruthven also said he knew of no such collection. Clements’ daughter pointed out the effect of the Depression on her father’s modest fortune, and that “justice to his family prevented his giving these manuscript collections outright to the University.”