This day in history: Hetty Green, (aka the Witch of Wall Street) died on this day in 1916. She was a brilliant investor and probably the richest woman on earth at the time, but was extremely miserly. Her wealth by today's standard's would have been in the billions, but she was horrified at having to spend $150 for a much needed surgery. She refused to buy expensive clothes or pay for hot water, and she wore a single dress that was only replaced when it was worn out. When her son injured his leg in an accident, she took him to a free clinic for treatment and left when doctors recognized her and demanded payment. The leg didn't heal properly and had to be amputated.
Green's thriftiness was legendary. She was said never to turn on the heat or use hot water. She wore one set of undergarments that she changed only after they had been worn out; she did not wash her hands and she rode in an old carriage. She ate mostly pies that cost fifteen cents. One tale claims that Green 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.
She 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 as she did not want to pay rent for her own office. She changed residence with great frequency, moving from one small, unheated apartment to another. This was her attempt to hide from both the press and tax collectors. Hetty Green would also travel thousands of miles alone, in order to collect a debt of a few hundred dollars.
In her old age, Green developed a hernia, but refused to have an operation, preferring to use a stick to press down the swelling. Once, she advised a friend in Bellows Falls to wear her shabbiest clothes when visiting a doctor. “You will get the same treatment,” Green said, “but it will cost you less.”
One lawyer F.B. Pingree, mentioned how she would try to get free legal advice, “She was a damned nuisance. There was a long period during which she called at my office every day ostensibly to gossip, but for the real purpose of getting free advice.”
She even foreclosed on a church, though she had defenders: "...when the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago defaulted on a $12,000 loan...the pastor tried to shame her into forgiving the debt by publicly denouncing her as a ruthless capitalist, she told him to pay up or she would foreclose — and that’s exactly what she did. Other pastors came to her defense — one of them declaring, 'To expect the holder of a church mortgage to cancel it upon the grounds of Christianity, after the money has been lent in good faith, is nothing less than a hold-up.'" ~Lawrence W. Reed
For all of this sordid history, the New York Post posted an article displaying Hetty Green in a more favorable light. "History hasn’t been very kind to Hetty Green. Unlike her rivals Carnegie and Rockefeller, she didn’t set up foundations or build museums, although she did quietly give money to Barnard College and Johns Hopkins Medical School, on the condition they admit women."
Hetty hated politicians, perhaps her best feature. When they asked her railroad officials for free passes, she instructed the officials to hand them a card that read:
MONDAY: “Thou shalt not pass.” Numbers XX, 18.
TUESDAY: “Suffer not a man to pass.” Judges III, 28.
WEDNESDAY: “The wicked shall pass no more.” Naham I, 15.
THURSDAY: “This generation shall not pass.” Mark XIII, 30.
FRIDAY: “By a perpetual decree it shall not pass.” Jeremiah V, 22.
SATURDAY: “None shall pass.” Isaiah XXIV, 10.
SUNDAY: “So he paid the fare thereof and went.” Jonah I, 2.
Also on this day in financial history: The Bank for Savings in the City of New-York, the first savings bank in the United States, opened on this day in 1819, and, Dow Jones & Company published its first stock average on this day in 1884.
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