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The birth of America gave rise to a new and revolutionary idea that a man, no matter his

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social class, could determine his future, make his fortune, and build a new life.

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The opening up of the West encouraged the belief that every man controlled his own destiny.

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Millions of dollars were made on the whims of chance, whether they were gamblers or miners,

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peddlers or farmers.

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Some of those fortunes became forgotten after their owners died in obscurity, never leaving

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a will.

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Of all the stories of money won and then forgotten, one stands apart from the rest.

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In the San Francisco vaults of Wells Fargo Bank lies what is purportedly the largest

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unclaimed stock certificate in the world.

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Its worth is estimated at $3.2 million.

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Who stands to inherit this fortune?

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San Francisco marks the start of the search for the heir to the $3.2 million.

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A great number of domestic as well as overseas financial institutions have chosen to place

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their headquarters here.

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Fortunes are spent sorting the thousands of documents that detail financial exchanges

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generated here.

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It was in the process of examining some of these records and setting up new files that

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Wells Fargo Bank accidentally discovered stock certificate 390.

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The certificate epitomizes the $20 billion unclaimed in the United States today.

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Everyone watching this program might have had an aunt, uncle or perhaps a great-great-grandparent

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who left money in an account, property or stock that is forgotten.

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How would you like to inherit the $3.2 million in the Texas Pacific Land Certificate?

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In search of set out to find the rightful heir.

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We began making a checklist of the leads that we had.

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First, we knew that Texas Pacific Land Trust Company had issued the certificate in 1888.

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Second, we knew that a New York lending firm, Blake Brothers, was involved.

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Third, the name Delamar was associated with the stock.

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How or why, we weren't sure.

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The first name on the list of leads we had gathered from San Francisco Research was Texas

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Pacific Land Trust.

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We traveled to Dallas, home of that corporation, in hope of learning more about the certificate.

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The Vice President of the Trust, Jim McCall, gave us our first solid bits of information.

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The certificate of the $3.90 was one of the original certificates issued by the Trust.

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It comprised 100 shares.

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The certificate had originally been issued for shares of stock in T&P Railroad, which

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subsequently became Texas Pacific.

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The shares of stock represented parcels of land the railroad had received from the state

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of Texas in return for building a rail line from Texarkana to El Paso.

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Texas Pacific stock had split numerous times, and coupled with the Trust's association

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with Texaco Oil, every original company share became worth incredible sums.

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Certificate 3.90 had become increasingly valuable because on much of the cattle grazing

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land it represented, oil had been discovered.

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In 1954 the Trust ran ads all over the country trying to find the unknown heir.

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I have this set of files here which represents correspondence, claimants, letters.

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We have received from various people who think they may own it.

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Texas Pacific found no one who could prove ownership.

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They did have records, however, that the New York lending firm, Blake Brothers, had originally

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purchased Certificate 3.90 and four others in 1888.

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All the certificates except 3.90 were recorded as being sold to other individuals.

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Only 3.90 had been lost.

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Some theorize that the mistake occurred because business records were not carefully kept before

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1924 when the Securities and Exchange Commission demanded otherwise.

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There were other reports that possibly the certificate and any record of it were destroyed

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in a fire at Blake Brothers in the 1920s.

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The next stop obviously was New York and Blake Brothers.

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While checking business records in New York City, we discovered that the old Blake Brothers

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had liquidated all of their assets sometime in the mid-1950s and no longer existed.

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There was even an indication that Blake Brothers had begun an investigation into the whereabouts

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of Certificate 3.90.

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An attorney who represented Texas Pacific, Frederick Shea, explains.

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They began a thorough search among their records and so forth to ascertain anything they could

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about why this certificate had originally been registered in their name and what had happened

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to it.

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And it turned out eventually that they couldn't find anything on it.

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So they came to the conclusion that since no one had claimed ownership of this certificate

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which was then worth about 2 million dollars over all these years and it was registered

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in their name and there was no contrary evidence that they were entitled to it.

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In 1952, Blake Brothers instituted a lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court.

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Here recreated to prove that they and they alone owned the certificate.

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Their case was consistently hindered by incomplete or inaccurate records.

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The case reached the turning point when their star witness, Under Oath, and who had been

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with the company since the late 1890s, could not remember details of transactions involving

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the certificate or of Texas Pacific Land Trust.

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It seemed that Blake Brothers could not prove ownership either.

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Then who was the real owner of the certificate?

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That left only one more lead on our checklist.

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The name Delamar.

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New York's public library houses one of the best genealogical sections in the world.

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Only any name can be traced here.

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Delamar was an unusual name so we were hopeful of finding at least some information.

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Searcher Barbara Wager found something.

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There was a Delamar, a Captain Joseph Raphael Delamar, a prominent and wealthy New York citizen

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at the turn of the century who had emigrated from Holland.

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In the New York Times, we learned that upon his death in 1918, he had bequeathed great

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sums to medical schools, nieces and nephews, and to his only child, Alice.

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In that year, Alice Delamar was still in her late teens, which meant that she could still

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be alive today to claim her fortune.

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In the process of researching the Delamar name, we came across what might be another

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branch in the genealogical tree.

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A Delamar family was living today in Atlanta.

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We had two choices.

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Since we had no record of Delamar's daughter, we decided to follow up our lead in Georgia.

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We have been able to trace our descendants back to around 1692.

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Mr. and Mrs. Dean Delamar had compiled a family genealogy trying to discover if they could

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prove any relationship to Joseph Raphael Delamar.

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In 1685, Louis XIV issued an edict expelling the Delamar family along with other Huguenots

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or non-Catholic Frenchmen from France.

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In the process of fleeing to Holland or England, thousands of Huguenots were slaughtered.

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On the premise that the Huguenots either went through London or England and Holland,

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in that Joseph Raphael was in Holland, it would, I would think, would be a good connection

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that the Delamar's in America before Joseph were related to those in Holland.

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So I don't think there's any question that we can tie in to Joseph Raphael.

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To date, this link has not been confirmed.

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Then, an intriguing fact.

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Mr. Delamar recalled discovering a silver boom town in Idaho which bore the family name,

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Delamar.

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He wondered if there was a connection.

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We knew Captain Delamar had various mining interests.

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Did the captain have owned the town?

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We headed west toward the Idaho-Oregon-Colorado borders where the tiny town of Delamar was

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located.

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We arrived in Delamar to find it a ghost town.

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The old silver mineshaft was in ruins.

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The main street was only a shadow of what it had been.

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Most of the buildings which had been hastily constructed had fallen into complete disrepair.

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Their inhabitants, including Delamar, had died or moved elsewhere.

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Nothing in the decaying ghost town gave us any further knowledge concerning the whereabouts

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of the captain or his daughter.

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The traditional records, marriage certificates, land deeds, wills on public file were not

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helpful.

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We wanted to try one more possibility before leaving Idaho.

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Silver City, a sister town to Delamar, was in the process of being restored.

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It was possible that someone there would have more knowledge of Captain Delamar.

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Vivian Gotch is the curator of the Auehi County Museum.

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She recalled a story that Delamar left Idaho as the result of a broken romance.

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He did not marry until he left here.

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He married in New York.

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As I understand it, he did have a love in Silver City and this might have been part of

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the reason why he left the area and never came back.

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But Captain Delamar, as far as I know, just had the one daughter.

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Our only choice was to return to New York where Delamar had perhaps married and where

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his daughter had probably been born.

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One slim lead took us to Long Island.

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A newspaper article mentioned that in Glen Cold, Captain Delamar had built an estate called

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Pembroke for his daughter.

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We went to Robert Coles, the local Glen Cold historian, and asked him about his knowledge

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of the Delamar family or of Pembroke.

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The beginning of the latter half of the 19th century, many people of wealth moved out here

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from New York and established homes, not homes similar to the early settlers.

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They were very simple, but they established mansions.

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And then a little after that, the yachting craze came in.

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Mr. Coles remembered a Delamar family had once lived in the area, but did not know if any

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members still remained.

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Was it possible that Delamar, a former sea captain, built his mansion facing the sea?

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I know that there were wealthy estates here.

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It was a mistake that was known as Pembroke.

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Mr. Coles agreed to guide in search of cameras to an area where many old Glencove estates

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had been built.

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Although our society is referenced and cross-referenced in computerized records, we found no note

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of Alice Delamar.

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The only lead we had was Mr. Coles, who knew the area.

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We had to rely on his memory to break the mystery of the missing heir.

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We did find an area that had once been called Pembroke.

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It was ironic that although we were searching for a person, we were reduced to looking for

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a landmark.

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When we arrived at the location, we found it overgrown, thick with weeds, poison ivy,

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and twisting reedy vines.

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Oh, my.

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Deep within the overgrown area, we spotted remnants of a structure.

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It was, according to Mr. Coles' best estimates, Pembroke.

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Oh, my.

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Apparently, the mansion had been destroyed by fire.

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Virtually, nothing was left.

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No personal effects, no papers had survived either the fire or the scavengers who surely

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followed.

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Never expected to find.

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There was not the tiniest scrap of evidence as to what had happened to the Delamar's and

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where they might have gone.

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All we knew for sure was that Alice Delamar, the daughter of Joseph Raphael Delamar, once

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existed.

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Toward the end of World War I, she devoted a certain amount of her time to Red Cross

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service.

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Then, seemingly, she had disappeared from sight.

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Some say she moved to Paris for a brief period.

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No one was sure.

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Where had Alice gone?

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Was she still alive?

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If so, was it possible that she didn't know about the certificate in San Francisco?

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Would Alice Delamar ever claim what was rightfully hers?

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The affairs of New York High Society at the turn of the century were well documented.

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Life consisted of a series of lavish parties at elaborate Park Avenue residences.

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The boredom was broken only by predictable trips to Europe.

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We reasoned that since Alice Delamar had received $10 million upon her father's death, her

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actions might also have been documented in publications devoted to the life of the wealthy.

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In one of the shadowy corners of the New York Public Library's main reading room, we began

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tracking Alice Delamar in the New York Social Registry.

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We learned that Alice had spent some time at this Madison Avenue apartment belonging

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to her father and which was located next to the Henry Morgan residence.

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Later, she ascends herself at this Posh Park Avenue apartment house.

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And other times, she chose to live in West Palm Beach.

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One of the last listings brought us to Weston, Connecticut.

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It had been a month's hard work.

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We found her estate and then came the greatest disappointment of all.

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In her declining years, Alice Delamar decided to protect her privacy by retreating inside

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this plant-shrouded estate.

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She refused to be interviewed on camera and we respected her wishes.

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She did, however, provide us with some intriguing information about her father, Captain Delamar.

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A man named Decker approached him sometime between 1888 and 1904, possibly in Colorado.

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He asked for a $500 loan.

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Delamar, it is reported, was a tough, canny businessman who had come to the New World

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and literally made a fortune in various financial dealings and mining interests.

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Delamar demanded collateral and Decker offered stock certificate 390, which Delamar accepted.

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Apparently, Decker never repaid the loan and by default, Delamar became its owner.

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Through some financial connection of Delamar's, the certificate found its way to Wells Fargo Bank

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where it lay undiscovered for nearly 80 years.

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There is one ironic twist to our story.

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Some probate attorneys believe that if Decker's heirs could be found and if they repaid the $500 loan plus interest,

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they may be able to claim the certificate.

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If so, who was Decker and who might his heirs be?

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In 90 years, the certificate must have passed through many hands.

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In places stretching from New York to Colorado to possibly Idaho,

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that it was discovered is perhaps the biggest surprise of all.

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Since the stock certificate was sold in New York, it is perhaps a safe assumption that Decker purchased it there,

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but never bothered to file the proper certificate of transfer indicating Blake Brothers no longer owned 390.

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Meanwhile, the opening up of the lands west of the Mississippi had begun a whole new age in American culture.

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It was a time in a young country's history when a man, any man, if he was smart and lucky enough, could make his fortune.

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Gold had been discovered in 1848.

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The migration west became a violent surging river of men intent upon making their fortunes.

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Decker could have been like any one of these men, perhaps young, green,

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but ready to take a chance on striking it big.

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Perhaps it was in Colorado or Delamar, Idaho itself, where Decker parlayed his Texas Pacific Land Trust certificate 390

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for a $500 loan that was to be his stake.

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Was it? We don't know.

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We are sure that in San Francisco lies $3.2 million unclaimed dollars.

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Any one of the 59 Deckers of New York or the 160 Deckers of Idaho or Colorado might be able to claim the fortune of a lifetime.

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Should it be proven that Delamar is the legal owner of the certificate, there still remains some question as to who will receive the money.

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He had proven that Decker was a very good man, but he was not a good man.

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He had not received the money.

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He had provided in his will that if Alice dies childless, her money plus any other money associated with his estate be given to three medical schools for dietary research.

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Alice never married and never had any children.

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It is entirely possible that her money plus that of certificate 390 will eventually be used to benefit everyone.

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Coming up next in search of continues with an investigation into the highly charged issues of American MIAs,

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then 20th century with Mike Wallace chronicles the triumph of Apollo 11 and the tragedy of the Challenger.