35 Facts About Hetty Green

Henrietta "Hetty" Howland Robinson Green was an American businesswoman and financier known as "the richest woman in America" during the Gilded Age.

Hetty Green had a younger brother who died as an infant.

At the age of two, Hetty Green was sent to live with her grandfather, Gideon Howland, and her Aunt Sylvia.

Hetty Green would read the stock quotations and commerce reports for her grandfather and picked up some of his business methods.

Hetty Green's father became the head of the Isaac Howland whaling firm upon Gideon's death, and she began to emulate her father's business practices.

Hetty Green accompanied her father to the countinghouses, storerooms, commodities traders, and stockbrokers.

Hetty Green cared little for her appearance, preferring to dress in old clothes, and she disregarded the daily primping practiced by young women.

When Hetty Green turned 20 years old, her Aunt Sylvia pressured her to find a spouse.

Reluctantly, Hetty Green moved to New York to live with a cousin of her mother's, Henry Grinnell.

Hetty Green's relatives were exasperated when she returned several months early to New Bedford with no wedding prospects.

Hetty Green's father was the only person unable to contain his delight when he learned that Green had spent only $200 out of her $1,200 budget, investing the remainder in high-quality bonds.

Hetty Green's exit was well-timed, as the use of petroleum virtually eliminated the demand for whale oil within a few years.

Hetty Green spent the next six years shuttling between New York City and New Bedford.

Hetty Green's father encouraged their marriage but with the clear stipulation that Edward Green would not inherit Hetty's money.

Hetty Green was especially angered by Sylvia's will, and she initiated a drawn-out court case disputing its legitimacy.

Hetty Green settled the case for a smaller percentage of the estate, which was placed in trust.

Hetty Green quarreled with Edward's mother until she died in 1875.

That same year, Hetty Green covered Edward's losses associated with the London and San Francisco Bank, of which he was one of the directors.

Hetty Green set up an office in the Chemical Bank but continued to live in boarding houses, flats, or hotels.

Unlike most Wall Street financiers, Hetty Green predicted the panic long before its arrival.

Hetty Green was the only woman invited to the critical meeting with J Pierpont Morgan and the leading banking executives at the height of the crisis.

Hetty 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 her own office.

Hetty Green was a successful businesswoman who dealt mainly in real estate, invested in railroads and mines and lent money while acquiring numerous mortgages.

Fisher argues that despite her eccentricities, Hetty Green was in many ways a better investor than most of her early Wall Street contemporaries.

Hetty Green was known for wearing a single black dress that she would not replace until it was thoroughly worn out.

However, there is substantial evidence that Hetty Green put great expense and effort to treat her son.

Hetty Green's thrift reflected her Quaker upbringing, which featured an emphasis on plain clothing among other characteristics.

Hetty Green disapproved of all of her daughter's suitors, suspecting that they were after her fortune.

When her grown children left home, Hetty Green moved repeatedly among small apartments in Brooklyn Heights and after 1898, in Hoboken, New Jersey, mainly to avoid New York's property tax, though she did loan money to the city at reasonable rates.

Hetty Green eventually moved her office to the National Park Bank, when she thought she had been poisoned at the Chemical Bank, a fear she had most of her life.

On July 3,1916, Hetty Green died at age 81 at her son's New York City home.

Hetty Green's habits were the legacy of New England ancestors who had the best of reasons for knowing "the value of money," for never wasting it, and for risking it only when their shrewd minds saw an approach to certainty of profit.

Hetty Green was buried at the Immanuel Cemetery at the Immanuel Episcopal Church in Bellows Falls, Vermont, next to her husband.

Hetty Green had converted late in life to his Episcopalian faith so that she could be interred with him.

King of the Hill S8S8 "Rich Hank, Poor Hank" Connie mentions Hetty Green by saying that extremely wealthy people who are cheap, often have a mental illness.