The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-02-04
AMERICAS RICHEST WOMAN.
Hetty Green, Worth $50, 1000, 900,
Pays 81 Week for Board and Room
From the Philadelphia Record.

Hetty Green, Worth $50, 900, 900,
Pays 81 a Week for Board and Room.
From the Philadelphia Record.
| New York, Jan. 2S.-With a fortune
estimated at S60,OOO,O00 Mrs. Hetty
Green, the richest woman in America,
lives in dingy hall bedroom in a Brook
! Ign boarding house, and eats in the
| kitchen, paying 81 week for board and
| room. Although she has husband, son
and daughter, she has no home. but mi
| CRATES from boarding house to boarding
house, caring for two things-her money
and her privacy.
The eccentricities of this Cr9sus in
/ petticoats are as sands of the sea. She
! lives the life of a rowing hermit because
1t gives her an excuse to refuse to pay
taxes on her personal property. When
| ever tax collector is fortunate to locate
her she sends him away empty-handed on
the ground that she is q nonresident of
the city or county or state. She has been
so shrewd in her endeavors to conceal her
| temporary residences from the public
that at no time within ten years have
more than score of persons known where
she slept or where she ate her meals.
Here is a pen picture of the woman in
her daily garb: She Is well above the
medium hight, with large frame and
plenty Of flesh to cover the bones. Her
| hands and feet are of generous proper
tions. She is not only squars-jaw but
her whole head is singularly square. She
has high cheek-bones, a firm, straight
nose, thin lips and keen, gray eyes, set
well back under the broad forehead. Her
hair, once brown, looks as if it had tinge
of green in it. 1t is combed down
straight on each side of her forehead ag-
gressively.
There is an aggressive air in the poise of
the head and the well-squared shoulders
and erect figure. She walks with quick,
yet shutting stride Her features are not
coarse, and an expression of good nature,
sharp and shrewd, yet kindly, is on the
face that haunts many mortgage debtor
in his dreams.
WEARS sHoP-woRN CLOTHING.
She wears faded black cloth dress
| that she paid 81 for at secondhand
store in 1892. 1t is frayed around the
bottom and the skirt is rusty Over this
was S1.90 black cloth jacket, bought
two weeks ago, after she had called once
a week for three or four weeks to inquire
the price, which was originally Sc. After
shop wear had brought the figure down
to S1.90, she took the jacket.
Her bonnet is small aud black, and I'M
obstrusive enough in appearance from the
front, but the ribbon with which it was
faced cannot conceal great patch of
faded yellow at the back, which you can
overshoes over her thick button boots
Three or four buttons are gone, and the
| woman's feet look obstrusive under the
short skirt Her overshoes are loose, too,
and her shoes of coarse leather. Tightly
clutched under her left arm, this golden
princess in peasant dress carries black
cloth bag, with pickering strings, which
| is her constant C0TnOaui0p mt of doOpz
OWNS FORTUNE IN DIAMONDS.
Once in great while Mrs. Green
dresses up" She has a strange passion
for diamonds and keeps marvellous ar
ray of them locked in her strong boxes in
the Chemical Bank. Once upon time
she yielded to the beseechings of her
landlady's daughter and brought from the
bank an immense bundle. She uncovered
on the kitchen table collection Of dia-
monds and precious stones such as they
had never seen. There were diamond
brooches and necklaces and a string of
pearls, which Mrs Green admitted was
worth great many thousand dollars,
and, in addition, very handsome black
satin gown, with black lace founces on it
| foot wide.
The old lady (she is over 80) was per-
suaded to go up and put on the dress and
| diamonds, when she looked like queen
of wealth, as she is.
Even then she wanted to eat in the
kitchen, but the landlady insisted on her
sitting with the other boarders. But
Mrs Green quickly donned her old gar
ments, saying she felt like a fool in the
others.
The rich woman's life is the most hum
drum possible. She rises early, and after
breakfastidg in the kitchen walks across
the bridge to New York, unless it is
stormy, when she will spend 3 cents for
carfare. Once over the river she goes
straight to the Chemical bank, where
she has her office. She is QUE Of the largest
stockholders in that institution, and
keeps her cash there, amounting to three
| or four million. In the vaults of the bank
are Mrs. Green's strong boxes, where
are some SIS, 900 600 worth of government
| bonds, securities, mortgagessand a mapni-
! tcent collection Of diamonds. All Mrs.
! Green's letters, no matter how addressed,
go the Chemical bank. She gets hundreds
| OF begging eplstles every week, and they
invariably reach the waste basket
She takes he, luncheon at the bank to
save money and spends the day at her
! desk, looking over papers and scheming
for gain. She leaves for home about s
| o'clock, and after supper spends the even
! ing in the kitchen to save burning gas in
her room.
Mrs. Green's husband is a club bach
elor, once worth Sl,OOO,OO0, but now de-
| pendent on his wife, having lost his for
tune in speculation. Ned Green. the
son, looks after his mothers interests out
4 Of town. Miss Sylvia H. Green, 2S years
old, is tall, plain-featured young woman.
who has fortune of s., 000, 0OO in her own
right, besides being a prospective sharer,
with her brother, in her mothers vast
estate. The four members Of this queer
| family are most Of the time domiciled IN
der four roofs, thanks TO the mothers
eccentric parsimony.
| Manageable critics say that IN the
] NAV. "a Mrnngnd WIZ y ..n,, - -. -