38 Facts About Hetty Green

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

Two days after her death on July 3,1916, The New York Times paid tribute to Green and corrected many common misconceptions, writing:.

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.

When Hetty Green's life is evaluated in its entirety and in the context of the time period, it is clear that media criticism grossly misrepresented her true character.

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.

At the age of 10, Hetty Green entered Eliza Wing's boarding school in Sandwich.

Hetty Green's father became the head of the Isaac Howland whaling firm upon Gideon's death, and Hetty Green 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 personal 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 Hetty 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 Hetty 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 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 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 and Edward Green departed the US for London soon after their wedding on July 11,1867.

Hetty Green quarreled with Edward's mother until her death 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.

The Gilded Age was an era known for its excesses, and Hetty Green was among the few investors who chose not to partake.

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

Hetty Green once explained her thrift by recounting an explanation offered by her father after he rejected an expensive cigar that was offered to him.

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 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.

Hetty Green willed his estate to his sister Sylvia, who in 1948 donated his Round Hill, Massachusetts, estate to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which used the property for experiments.