From the Rude Awakening
The Witch of Wall Street
by Joel Bowman

There is a specter haunting Wall Street…

You step down from your coach, top hat and cane in hand, ready for another day at the office. Smoke billows from the drains of downtown Manhattan, obscuring the figures crowding the rancid effluvium at the Wall/Broad intersection. The ground is damp underfoot and the putrid smells are carried through the streets on a bitter, winter wind.

Nearing your office, you notice the faint outline of figure through the fog. You squint and attempt to focus as the figure shuffles in your direction. The hunchbacked apparition becomes clearer. Attired in signature Quaker garb and baring down on your position is the most feared of all Wall Street’s ghouls.

The hitherto of all existing bond traders is the history of class struggles…the struggle between the “haves” and the “have mores,” and at the time of her death, there was no woman alive that had more than Howland “Hetty” Robinson Green.

After the death of her father, himself a wealthy whaling and real estate entrepreneur who passed in 1865, Hetty found herself in possession of $5 million. With an ingrained sense of thrift bequeathed from her Quaker relatives and a keen eye for the markets, Hetty set about becoming the richest woman in the United States.

Days after the final blood was shed on the battlefields of the Civil War, Hetty loaded up on government bonds, an investment tactic denounced by popular financiers of the time. As the nation began to rebuild during the Reconstruction Era the values of Hetty’s previously unwanted bonds skyrocketed, adding several millions to her swelling stockpile of wealth.

Although Hetty mostly invested in stocks and bonds it was her acumen in the lending arena that furnished most of her wealth’s breakneck growth. A shrewd and often vengeful business woman, Hetty was uncompromising in her dealings with cities, states and high net worth individuals alike. When Hetty suspected one particular associate of wronging her she announced, “The next time I see him in front of a church I'll paste him in the face with the heel of a satin-lined slipper!"

One of her many dealings were with the investor Henry Barling. After apparently mistreating her, Hetty publicly begged the Lord to chastise him. She boasted, “I prayed that the wickedness of that executor [Barling] might be made manifest to New York, and after that prayer that executor was found stone dead in his bed!”

Although the superstitious may wish to romanticize that the Witch of Wall Street’s realm of influence extended beyond earthly jurisdictions, it seems more likely that the poor chap simply died of weak nerves. One of Hetty’s critics noted of the incident, “Prayed Barling into his grave, nonsense! That woman literally worried him to death.”

Perhaps the only thing to eclipse the enormous financial wielding of Hetty Green was the plethora of eccentricities she possessed, not least of which was an inordinate capacity for thrift. Her appalling attire consisted of a black dress acned with holes and the cheapest gloves and boots she could find. To save a few cents she even instructed a scrubwoman to wash only the portion of her garment that dragged along the muddy streets, hence justifying her fractional payment.

Her excessive prudence was well known and she was no more charitable to those in her social circles or even her own children.

Despite being worth more than $50 million at the time, Hetty refused to pay for treatment of an injury her son, Edward, had sustained to his leg. Seeing physicians as little more than quacks and hucksters, she is said to have laughed at the small fee her son’s doctor requested before taking him home to treat him herself. Despite Edward receiving an array of cost-effective homeopathy courtesy of his penny-pinching mother, his leg grew gangrenous and was eventually amputated.

At the time of her death, July 3, 1918, Hetty had amassed a fortune estimated to be in the vicinity of $US100 Million. Her coffers were brimming with prime real estate in Chicago, a vault stuffed with stock and bond certificates and deeds to several skyscrapers. Even though Hetty Green owned many railroads across the nation, it was not until her funeral carriage that she rode in style. Her body was carried in a Pullman car adorned with white carnations from New York to its final resting place in the family plot in Massachusetts.

Although the body of Wall Street’s Witch rests further north, a caution must still be issued for any Manhattanites who will be enjoying Halloween parties downtown over the next few nights. If a ghoul should appear at your celebrations in haggard Quaker apparel, it is sure to be only one of two attendees: The Witch of Wall Street…or your junior editor – pre-costume, of course.

Happy Halloween,

jOEL