I remember reading about this lady when I was a kid. This morning, I saw a write-up about her at Neatorama. So now seems like a good time to cut and paste some stuff about her.
Hetty Green, nicknamed "The Witch of Wall Street" (November 21, 1834 – July 3, 1916), was an American businesswoman, remarkable for her frugality during the Gilded Age, as well as for being the first American woman to make a substantial impact on Wall Street.
She was born Henrietta Howland Robinson in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the daughter of Edward Mott Robinson and Abby Howland. Her family were Quakers who owned a large whaling fleet and also profited from the China trade. At the age of two, she was living with her grandfather, Gideon Howland. Because of his influence and that of her father, and possibly because her mother was constantly ill, she took to her father's side and was reading financial papers to him by the age of six. When she was 13, Hetty became the family bookkeeper.
When her father died in 1864, she inherited $7.5 million in liquid assets, against the objections of most of her family, and invested in Civil War war bonds.
As Edward pursued investments as a sort of "gentleman banker", Hetty began parlaying her inheritances into her own astonishing fortune. She formulated an investment strategy to which she stuck throughout her life: conservative investments, substantial cash reserves to back up any movement, and an exceedingly cool head amidst turmoil. During her time in London, most of her investment efforts focused on greenbacks, the notes printed by the U.S. government immediately after the Civil War. When more timid investors were wary of notes put forth by the still-recovering government, Hetty bought at full bore, claiming to have made US$1.25 million from her bond investments in one year alone. Her earnings on that front were to fund her great subsequent rail-bond purchases.
When the Green family returned to the United States, they went to Edward's hometown in Bellows Falls, Vermont. Already something of an eccentric, she began to quarrel, not only with her husband and in-laws, but also with the domestic servants and neighborhood shopkeepers. After the 1885 collapse of the financial house John J. Cisco & Son, in which Hetty was the largest investor, investigation revealed that Edward had not only been the firm's greatest debtor, but that management of the firm had surreptitiously used Hetty's wealth as the basis for their loans to Edward. Hetty, emphasizing that their finances were separate, withdrew her securities and deposited them in Chemical Bank. Edward moved out of their home.
There are many tales (of various degrees of accuracy) about Hetty Green's stinginess. She never turned on the heat nor used hot water. She wore one old black dress and undergarments that she changed only after they had been worn out[citation needed]. She did not wash her hands and rode an old carriage. She ate mostly pies that cost fifteen cents. One tale claims that she spent half a night searching her carriage for a lost stamp worth two cents. Another asserts that she instructed her laundress to wash only the dirtiest parts of her dresses (the hems) to save money on soap.
Green conducted much of her business at the offices of the Seaboard National Bank in New York, surrounded by trunks and suitcases full of her papers; she did not want to pay rent for an office. Later unfounded rumours claimed that she ate only oatmeal, heated on the office radiator. Possibly because of the stiff competition of the mostly male business environment and partly because of her usually dour dress sense (due mainly to frugality, but perhaps ascribable in part to her Quaker upbringing), she was given the nickname the "Witch of Wall Street". She was a successful businesswoman who dealt mainly in real estate, invested in railroads, and lent money. The City of New York came to Hetty in need of loans to keep the city afloat on several occasions, most particularly during the Panic of 1907; she wrote a check for $1.1 million and took her payment in short-term revenue bonds. Keenly detail-oriented, she would travel thousands of miles – alone, in an era when few women would dare travel unescorted – to collect a debt of a few hundred dollars.
Her frugality extended to family life. Her son Ned broke his leg as a child, and Hetty tried to have him admitted in a free clinic for the poor. According to Green's biographer Charles Slack, the oft-repeated story that when she was recognized, she stormed away vowing to treat the wounds herself is only half true. He relates that having been found out (and perhaps also after procrastinating about seeking treatment for the boy in the first place), Green paid her bill and thereafter brought him to other doctors (while also trying home remedies). Similarly, Slack relates that it is not true that the leg had to be amputated because of gangrene. Rather, it was amputated after years of unsuccessful treatment. In any case, Ned ended up with a cork prosthesis.
When he moved away from his mother to manage the family's properties in Chicago and, later, Texas, Ned became an ardent philatelist and assembled one of the finest private stamp collections ever. In middle age, he returned to New York; his mother would pass her final months with him. Ned ultimately married his long-time "housekeeper" {a former prostitute he met in Texas}, Mabel, of whom Hetty wholeheartedly disapproved.
In her old age, she began to suffer from a bad hernia, but refused to have an operation because it cost $150. She suffered many strokes and had to rely on a wheelchair. She also became afraid that she would be kidnapped and made detours to evade the would-be pursuers. She began to suspect that her aunt and father had been poisoned.
Hetty Green died at age 81 in New York City. According to her longstanding "World's Greatest Miser" entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, she died of apoplexy when she argued with a maid about the virtues of skimmed milk. Estimates of her net worth ranged from $100 million to $200 million (or $1.9 – $3.8 billion in 2006 dollars).
Hetty Green, nicknamed "The Witch of Wall Street" (November 21, 1834 – July 3, 1916), was an American businesswoman, remarkable for her frugality during the Gilded Age, as well as for being the first American woman to make a substantial impact on Wall Street.
When her father died in 1864, she inherited $7.5 million in liquid assets, against the objections of most of her family, and invested in Civil War war bonds.
When she heard that her aunt Sylvia had willed most of her $2 million to charity, she challenged the will's validity in court by producing an earlier will which allegedly left the entire estate to Hetty, and included a clause invalidating any subsequent wills. The case, Robinson v. Mandell, which is notable as an early example of the forensic use of mathematics, was ultimately decided against Hetty after the court ruled that the clause invalidating future wills, and Sylvia's signature to it, were forgeries.
At the age of 33, she married Edward Henry Green, a member of a wealthy Vermont family. She made him renounce all rights to her money before the wedding on July 11, 1867. The married couple moved to Edward's home in Manhattan, but when her cousins tried to have her indicted for forgery based on the Robinson v. Mandell decision, they moved to London and they lived in the Langham Hotel. Her two children, Edward Howland Robinson "Ned" Green and Hetty Sylvia Ann Howland Green, were born there, Ned on August 23, 1868 and Sylvia on January 7, 1871.
As Edward pursued investments as a sort of "gentleman banker", Hetty began parlaying her inheritances into her own astonishing fortune. She formulated an investment strategy to which she stuck throughout her life: conservative investments, substantial cash reserves to back up any movement, and an exceedingly cool head amidst turmoil. During her time in London, most of her investment efforts focused on greenbacks, the notes printed by the U.S. government immediately after the Civil War. When more timid investors were wary of notes put forth by the still-recovering government, Hetty bought at full bore, claiming to have made US$1.25 million from her bond investments in one year alone. Her earnings on that front were to fund her great subsequent rail-bond purchases.When the Green family returned to the United States, they went to Edward's hometown in Bellows Falls, Vermont. Already something of an eccentric, she began to quarrel, not only with her husband and in-laws, but also with the domestic servants and neighborhood shopkeepers. After the 1885 collapse of the financial house John J. Cisco & Son, in which Hetty was the largest investor, investigation revealed that Edward had not only been the firm's greatest debtor, but that management of the firm had surreptitiously used Hetty's wealth as the basis for their loans to Edward. Hetty, emphasizing that their finances were separate, withdrew her securities and deposited them in Chemical Bank. Edward moved out of their home.
There are many tales (of various degrees of accuracy) about Hetty Green's stinginess. She never turned on the heat nor used hot water. She wore one old black dress and undergarments that she changed only after they had been worn out[citation needed]. She did not wash her hands and rode an old carriage. She ate mostly pies that cost fifteen cents. One tale claims that she spent half a night searching her carriage for a lost stamp worth two cents. Another asserts that she instructed her laundress to wash only the dirtiest parts of her dresses (the hems) to save money on soap.
Green conducted much of her business at the offices of the Seaboard National Bank in New York, surrounded by trunks and suitcases full of her papers; she did not want to pay rent for an office. Later unfounded rumours claimed that she ate only oatmeal, heated on the office radiator. Possibly because of the stiff competition of the mostly male business environment and partly because of her usually dour dress sense (due mainly to frugality, but perhaps ascribable in part to her Quaker upbringing), she was given the nickname the "Witch of Wall Street". She was a successful businesswoman who dealt mainly in real estate, invested in railroads, and lent money. The City of New York came to Hetty in need of loans to keep the city afloat on several occasions, most particularly during the Panic of 1907; she wrote a check for $1.1 million and took her payment in short-term revenue bonds. Keenly detail-oriented, she would travel thousands of miles – alone, in an era when few women would dare travel unescorted – to collect a debt of a few hundred dollars.
Her frugality extended to family life. Her son Ned broke his leg as a child, and Hetty tried to have him admitted in a free clinic for the poor. According to Green's biographer Charles Slack, the oft-repeated story that when she was recognized, she stormed away vowing to treat the wounds herself is only half true. He relates that having been found out (and perhaps also after procrastinating about seeking treatment for the boy in the first place), Green paid her bill and thereafter brought him to other doctors (while also trying home remedies). Similarly, Slack relates that it is not true that the leg had to be amputated because of gangrene. Rather, it was amputated after years of unsuccessful treatment. In any case, Ned ended up with a cork prosthesis.
When he moved away from his mother to manage the family's properties in Chicago and, later, Texas, Ned became an ardent philatelist and assembled one of the finest private stamp collections ever. In middle age, he returned to New York; his mother would pass her final months with him. Ned ultimately married his long-time "housekeeper" {a former prostitute he met in Texas}, Mabel, of whom Hetty wholeheartedly disapproved.
In her old age, she began to suffer from a bad hernia, but refused to have an operation because it cost $150. She suffered many strokes and had to rely on a wheelchair. She also became afraid that she would be kidnapped and made detours to evade the would-be pursuers. She began to suspect that her aunt and father had been poisoned.
Hetty Green died at age 81 in New York City. According to her longstanding "World's Greatest Miser" entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, she died of apoplexy when she argued with a maid about the virtues of skimmed milk. Estimates of her net worth ranged from $100 million to $200 million (or $1.9 – $3.8 billion in 2006 dollars).
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