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HETTY GREEN, A Woman Who Loved Money—Boyden Sparkes & Samuel Taylor Moore—Doubleday, Doran ($5).
On July 3, 1916, in a shabby brownstone house in Manhattan, Death came to 81-year-old Hetty Green, "Witch of Wall St." She was worth nearly $68,000,000. Sole heirs were Son Edward Rowland Robinson, Daughter Sylvia (Mrs. Matthew Astor Wilks). Most of her fortune she had made herself, through shrewdness, knowledge of business, fanatical, patient persistence.
Born the daughter of a New Bedford whaling family, Hetty Robinson came naturally by her talent for gain, read her Bible and did not bury her talent. To Grandfather Howland, owner of a fleet of whaling ships, the child Hetty read the financial news daily. A not unattractive girl, she cared nothing for parties, everything for expense. At her social debut she looked suspiciously at young men who danced with her, thought them fortune-hunters. "She bragged afterward that she had blown out the spermaceti candles even before the last of the guests had said goodnight. The next day she sold the unconsumed parts of the candles." When Hetty decided to marry, she chose a self-made millionaire, a shrewd investor. Edward H. Green was allowed to be the father of Hetty's two children, agent and advisor of her financial schemes; when he disobeyed her instructions, plunged rashly and failed, she separated from him, cut him off with an allowance. In 1885 he listed his property as seven dollars and a watch.
So passionately acquisitive was Hetty that she could not bear to pay taxes when she could avoid it. She escaped the New York State residence tax of $30,000 by never establishing legal residence in Manhattan. Though she had a desk in the Chemical National Bank to which she went every day, she changed her lodgings constantly: sometimes the Bowery, sometimes Harlem, sometimes Hoboken, sometimes no one knew where. She loved her son Ned, but when he hurt his knee she treated it herself rather than pay a doctor; finally took him to the Bellevue Hospital clinic. When her identity was discovered she did not bring him again. Eventually his leg was amputated. Hetty habitually dressed in very old, shabby clothes, in cold weather supplemented her underwear with cleverly fitted newspapers. She saved every envelope that came in the mail, used it as stationery.
Between 1885 and 1916 Hetty increased her fortune from $26,000,000 to $68,000,000 (some say $100,000,000). She said, explaining her method: "There is no great secret in fortune making. All you have to do is buy cheap and sell dear, act with thrift and shrewdness and be persistent."
Colonel Edward Howland Robinson Green, Hetty's son & heir, was trained by her, took over management of her fortune in 1910. His Round Hill estate is one of the show places of South Dartmouth, Mass. When he opened a public drive through it, automobilists drove too fast to please him (he himself drives an electric); he erected signs which read "Go Slow, Bump Ahead," hoped that would give them pause.
War In Heaven
CLASH OF ANGELS—Jonathan Daniels— Brewer & Warren ($2.50).