The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-12-09
How Mrs. Chadwick Won Money
from Her Victims.
Has Been Doing Confidence
Business for Many Years.
SPENT LIKE A QUEEN.
Bought an Entire Toy Store on
One Christmas Occasion.
Lived Luxuriously and Dressed
I'm ExtraVagant Fashion.

Sensation has followed sensation in
the Chadwick case. Mrs. Cassie l..
Chadwick the wonderful woman
wizard of finance, has been the chief
sufferer in the series of catastrophes
which eliminated in her arrest and
Incarceration in the Tombs-
The woman, who has, by some mys-
FERROUS power, more than mere charm
of personality, it is asserted, induced
President Beckwith of the defunct
Oberlin (Ohio) bank to make loans to
her aggregating $342. 900, and who has
had the audacity, it is alleged, to Sc
cure portion of this money on notes
bearing the name of Andrew Carnegie,
which are declared to be forgeries, has
not the physique of a person from
whom such tremendous transactions
might be expected.
She is not a beautiful woman. She
is Al years old. She is not even re-
garded as attractive. Her principal
stock in trade in her gigantic opera
tons seems to have been supreme
audacity.
Securing one $4,000 note, it is
claimed she offered it as security and
got $4,000 on it. In that way her
moneys grew, and she, by methods
which would astound even a 'frenzied
financier," has piled loan on loan, her
heap of gold growing ever larger.
LIVES LUXURIOUS LIFE.
What has become of this money?
Much of it has been spent in luxurious
living, diamonds. furs, art treasures
have all been in the list of this wo-
mans extravaganza. Costly furnish
ing and almost priceless relics have
been purchased with a lavish hand.
1t was this desire for splendor that
has urged her on in her extraordinary
career as financier.
on farm near a small Canadian
village-Woodstock. Ont.-there was
born in 1857 little girl. who proved
20 be a most precociOuS youngSter.
Elizabeth Bigley was her name. She
was one of a family of eight children,
one of six sisters. Today her mother
sun lives in the old homestead with
one of her daughters, firm in the be-
lief that her little girl is innocent
Just how the chiId's early days were
spent there is no record, but she first
sprang into local fame by displaying
one of the eccentricities that have
marked her following years, and which
form thread in the strand that links
her to Mime. Devere, a convicted forger
and ex-convict. with whom she is al
legged to be identified.
Elizabeth Bigley appeared in local
barber shop November 81. 1873, and ask
ed to have her hair cut off short
HAS HAD CUT SHORT.
The astonished barber complied with
her request, and then had another
shock when she asked him for a false
mustache. Next she tried to raise mon
for the barber. and he called the police.
The matter was ended by her father
taking her home and giving her a sharp
scolding.
Mrs. Chadwick's first propensities in
the financial line revealed themselves n
short time after the barber shop cpl
sode- She invented the fashion of car
ryiEg a card bearing the words, Miss
Bigley, heiress to $4,000" Backed by
this, she made extensive purchases in
Woodstock, to the amazement of the
rural population. She bought $3.50 worth |
of dry goods on a note Endorsed by a
wealthy farmer near Brantford. She
purchased an organ from E. G. Thomas, |
giving her note in part payment. When
it came due she did not meet it. but
gave another note, signed by a man
now dead-Reuben Kfpp.
This note was a forgery. Mrs. Cassie |
l. Chadwick, formerly Elizabeth Big
LEI, is accused Of forgery. The note
landed her in Jail. She was tried for
the offense that spring. The jury ac
quilted her. Insanity was the oStensi- |
BILE grounds, but old timers recall the
talk after the trial of hypnotism of the
ADOPTS A NEW NAME.
Shortly after this trial Elizabeth Big
ley disappeared. She was not heard
ten years afterward. Then she sud
denly came back to the town of her
nativity, evidently prosperous and call
ing herself Mrs. Hoover.
ance she took up her residence in Cleve- |
land at the home of her sister, Mrs. AL
ice NJ York. Where she had been has
never been explained.
1t was only the next year-1SS2-l
that she took another plunge into the
stormy seas of finance. She became
involved in difficulty with money
lenders. She mortgaged her sisters
furniture to secure funds. and when
these matters were untangIed her
brother-in-law forced her to leave the
house.
She then took up her residence at
149 Garden place. There she met DR.. !
Wallace S. Springsteen, whom she
married two years later. Within twelve
vOrce, learning of her trouble in
Cleveland and at Woodstock. 1t was
granted on the ground of infidelity.
DIES" TO RAISE MONEY.
The erstwhile Mrs. Springsteen did
not remain in Buffalo long. She re-
turned to Cleveland and took up her
residence with a woman known as
Mrs. Hoover. at 123 Euclid avenue.
Mrs. Hoover kept a boarding house
and Elizabeth BigIey was there known
as Nine. Rosa, and also as Mrs. Scott. |
In 1884 she appeared in Erie, Pa,
where she was oStenSibly taken sud
denly i'll with a hemorrhage. A relief
fund was raised for her until she, as
the wealthy Cleveland woman she
claimed to be. could return it, Her
benefactors were later told she was
dead"
Again she returned to Cleveland. |