MANNERS & MORALS: Americana

MANNERS & MORALS

¶ When Harry Chapin Smith, 84, died last fall and was buried in Potter's Field, most of his Brooklyn neighbors assumed that he had been what he appeared to be: a toothless, poverty-stricken derelict, who lived in a one-room hovel and sold odds & ends of junk picked up on nighttime scavenging rounds. Last week the true identity of Harry Smith came to light. The old derelict was a wealthy Harvard man, long respected by his brokers for his canny investments. Total of his estate's assets: about $400,000 in cash,...

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