Green, Hetty Howland Robinson, 1835-1916

Hetty Green; Born Henrietta Howland Robinson November 21, 1834, New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.; Died July 3, 1916 (aged 81), New York City, U.S.; nicknamed the Witch of Wall Street, was an American businesswoman and financier known as "the richest woman in America" during the Gilded Age. She was known for her wealth and was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the "greatest miser"; After her death, The New York Times stated that "It was the fact that Mrs. Green was a woman that made her career the subject of endless curiosity, comment and astonishment."; Henrietta ("Hetty") Howland Robinson was born in 1834 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the daughter of Edward Mott Robinson and Abby Howland, the richest whaling family in the city. Her family members were Quakers who owned a large whaling fleet and also profited from the China trade; At the age of two, Hetty was sent to live with her grandfather, Gideon Howland, and her Aunt Sylvia. Hetty would read the stock quotations and commerce reports for her grandfather and picked up some of his business methods. At the age of 10, Hetty entered Eliza Wing's Boarding School in Sandwich, Massachusetts. Hetty's father became the head of the Isaac Howland whaling firm upon Gideon's death, and Hetty began to emulate her father's business practices. Hetty learned to read ledgers and trade commodities. At the age of 15, Hetty enrolled for two summer sessions at the Friends Academy. Hetty also attended Anna Cabot Lowell's Finishing school, and appeared as a New Bedford debutante in 1854, before moving to New York to live with a cousin of her mother's, Henry Grinnell. Yet, it was not long before Hetty returned to New Bedford, alternating between her father's house and her aunt's house. There, as Janet Wallach states, "...by pursuing her father's interests she not only won his praise, she shared his pleasure in making money."; Edward Robinson died on June 14, 1865, leaving Hetty approximately $6 million (equivalent to $98,204,000 in 2018), which included $919,000 in cash, a warehouse in San Francisco, with the remainder in a trust fund from which she received the income. Yet she had no control over the principal; Hetty's aunt Sylvia Ann Howland also died in 1865, soon after her father. In September 1863, Sylvia Howland had willed half of her $2 million estate (equivalent to $32,735,000 in 2018) to charities and entities in the town of New Bedford; the rest would be in a trust for Hetty, but once again without her control of the principal. By December, Hetty challenged the will's validity in court by producing an earlier will, made in January 1862, that left the entire estate to Hetty, and included a clause invalidating any subsequent wills. The will was challenged in court and the case, Robinson v. Mandell, which is notable as an early example of the forensic use of mathematics, was ultimately decided against Robinson after the court ruled that the clause invalidating future wills, and Sylvia's signature to it, were forgeries. After five years of legal battles, Hetty was awarded a settlement of $600,000 (equivalent to $11,888,000 in 2018); Edward Henry Green of Vermont learned the business trade in Boston before working in the Far East for the next 20 years. By the age of 44, he was a partner in the Russell Styrgis & Company, and a millionaire. Yet, Hetty's father stipulated in his will that Green would not inherit Hetty's money, which was to be "free from the debts, control or interference of any such husband." On July 11, 1867, at the age of 33, Hetty married Edward Henry Green, a member of a wealthy Vermont family. She made him renounce all rights to her money before the wedding. The couple moved to his home in Manhattan. When her cousins tried to have her indicted for forgery based on the Robinson v. Mandell decision, the couple moved overseas to London, where they lived in the Langham Hotel. Their two children, Edward Howland Robinson Green (called Ned) and Harriet Sylvia Ann Howland Green Wilks (called Sylvia), were born in London: Ned on August 23, 1868, and Sylvia on January 7, 1871. They separated in 1885, but remained married, and spent more time together in their later lives; Hetty followed a contrarian investing strategy; Hetty invested the interest from her father's trust fund, once again investing as her father had done, in Civil War bonds, which paid a high yield in gold, augmented by railroad stocks. Her annual profits during her first year in London, amounted to $1.25 million, while the most she ever earned in a day was $200,000; After the 1885 collapse of the financial house John J. Cisco & Son, of which Edward was a partner, it was disclosed Edward had $700,000 in debt. Hetty Green's $500,000 represented one-quarter of the banks's assets. The bank refused to allow Hetty's transfer of her $26 million in stocks, bonds, mortgages, and deeds to the Chemical National Bank, until Edward's debt was paid. In the end, Hetty made the transfer and paid off her husband's debt, but never forgave Edward; Green's thriftiness was legendary; Green's daughter Sylvia lived with her mother until her thirties. Hetty Green disapproved of all of her daughter's suitors, suspecting that they were after her fortune. Sylvia finally married Matthew Astor Wilks on February 23, 1909, after a two-year courtship. A minor heir to the Astor fortune, Wilks entered the marriage with $2 million of his own, enough to assure Green that he was not a gold digger. Nonetheless, she compelled him to sign a prenuptial agreement waiving his right to inherit Sylvia's fortune; Upon her death, Hetty was known as the "Wizard of Finance" and the "Richest Woman in America."; She was buried in Bellows Falls, Vermont, next to her husband. She had converted late in life to his Episcopalian faith so that she could be interred with him;