The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age

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A Letter from the Author ------------------------ As famous as Hetty Green was for her miserly ways, her son was known for his high-spirited living. While Hetty watched her pennies, Ned Green splurged on lavish homes, luxurious yachts, jewels, and presents galore for his friends. From his boyhood, his her nourished him with a gentleman’s grace, while his mother nurtured him with business training. Larger than life, at six foot four and 250 pounds, and lame from childhood accidents, Ned combined his her’s affability with his mother’s shrewd investing abilities. Considerate and congenial, he was liked by almost everyone who knew him. As a young man he painted houses in Chicago, learning what was involved in managing the suburban homes and downtown office blocks his mother owned. Sent to work as a section man for the Connecticut River Railroad, he shambled along the tracks, learning every aspect of the enterprise. When Hetty sent him to Texas to buy a bankrupt branch of a railroad, he turned it into the most successful short line road in the state. But while his mother’s philosophy was to accumulate her money so she could pass it on to the next generation, Ned’s theory was to enjoy it as much as he could while he was alive. Yet he always kept an eye out for a good investment, increasing his fortune and his spending power along the way. In 1893, shortly after Ned arrived in Texas, he sent his mother a childlike note begging for money to attend the Chicago World’s Fair. He had obtained free passes for the railroad, but he needed two hundred dollars for his hotel and daily expenses. The resulting visit proved to be worthwhile. Ned stopped by the United States pavilion where postage stamps were on display. Soon after he started acquiring commemorative issues and developed a collection so rare it was considered second in the world only to that of the King of England. Ned’s unique sheet of “Jennies” are still sought after today. The stamps marked the inauguration of airmail service between Washington, New York and Philadelphia. But the picture was printed upside down. The mistaken image sent the one-seater airplane into a nose dive, but the value of the airmail stamps soared. Ned paid $20,000 for the sheet of one hundred stamps. Now they are worth tens of millions of dollars. In addition to being a philatelist, Ned was a numismatist. His rare coins included a set of five nickels minted in 1913. That year all nickels were supposed to have an Indian Head, but in a mistake, the Bureau of Engraving created a few coins engraved with a Liberty Head. In 2007 one of those coins sold at auction for five million dollars. Ned owned a fleet of cars including a Pierce Arrow and three electric/ hybrids. His boats included the whaling vessel Charles W. Morgan, once owned by his grandher and now owned by the Mystic Seaport, and the yacht United States, which he refitted at a cost of one million dollars. His vaults held piles of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires. He built lavish homes around the country and, on the grounds of Round Hills where his Quaker ancestors gathered at a spare wooden farmhouse, he built a huge stone mansion with an eight hundred foot wharf. There, he developed a cutting edge radio station that served as a research laboratory for aviation, meteorology, electricity and communication, and was used by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the U.S. Navy. Obeying a promise he made to his mother not to marry until he was in his forties, Ned wed the love of his life after his mother died. Although he and his wife were fond of children and generous to those they knew, the couple produced no heirs themselves. His fortune was later dispersed to several hundred family members and dozens of individuals and institutions.