Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-10-23
SATURDAY, OCTOBER q, 1920.
Aged Widows Poverty
Is Transformed to Riches
When Fortune ArriUes

On a little farm near Waverly,
Pike county, Ohio, Mrs. Mary Put
mum Richardson, a widowed woman
seventy-four years of age. who has
been living on her Civil War pension
and on money derived from the sale
of eggs, as discovered that she i
the long lost daughter Of Henry w.
Putnam, j multi mill I'm aire, who
died in San Diego in 1915 and who
had made. his home in this state for
more than twenty yers, says the Los
Angeles Times.
Moreover, Mrs. Richardson has
discovered her brother, Henry w.
Putnam, of New York city, who will
soon visit her, and nieces and grand
nieces named VILLAGE, who formerly
lived at Redondo Beach, but now live
in Ohio, not far from Mrs. Richard
sons home. The Wallace family
too, is surprised to learn of the vast
fortune left by Mr.. Putnam, who
during his testimony in law suit in
San Diego in 1910, said that he could
not estimate within S10,000,00O what
his wealth might total. His for
tune was finally estimated as being
about S5O,O0U,UU
The splitting up of the Putnam
family occurred in New Orleans in
1849. In that year Henry w. Put
nam found himself a widower with
three children, one a boy of six and
two girls, twins, four years old. Mrs
Richardson was one of the twins and
the mother of Mrs. Gilbert Wallace
formerly of Redondo, was the other
The sfx-year-old boy is now the
multi-millionaire Henry w. Putnam
of New York, man seventy-seven
years old.
When news of the discovery of
gold in California reached New Or
leans in 1S49, the young widower
joined the rush. He came west nv
way of the Panama Canal, stonnins
hrst at San Diego, and later going
TO San Francisco. With him he
brought his siX-year-o1d son, but the
two daughters he left with relatives
in New Orleans.
The aunt who took charge of the
the task. After a few months she
left the little girl at an orphanage in
New Orleans, where she remained
two years. When six years old she
was taken from the orphanage by a
Mrs. Rebecca Lewis, who adopted
her, and with whom she lived until
when she was twenty-five years old
she married Henry Coon. The Lewis
family then moved north to Ohio.
In 1890 their adopted daughter was
married to James H. Richardson and
since then has lived on the little
Richardson died there four years
ago.
Some time ago Mrs. Richardson
impelled by a desire to learn some
thing of her relatives of the Putnam
family, If any were living, placed
an advertisement in a Chicago news
paper. This advertisement finally
came to the notice of Mrs. Wallace
who wrote that her mother had been
the other one of the twin girls left
in New Orleans seventy-one years
ago.
Through the Wallace family, Mrs
Richardson has learned Of her rela'
| tionship to Henry w. Putnam, the
rich New York brother who is soor
| to visit her, and that she is the
daughter of the Henry w. Putnam
ti-millionaire, who died at Sar
Diego five years ago at ninety years
1S49, instead of joining the golt
rush, Putnam stayed - the Bay City
and made a fortune manufacturing
soda water In 1850 he went cas-
and married a Miss Hamlin, OF
| Cleveland, o.
For many years Putnam, who KEEP
| MS son Win illIll1 Jul 1OoI IL an VI
| his daughters, lived in Bennington
VT. When he left Bennington il
| 1895 to make his home in San Die
go he gave the Vermont city thu
costly waterworks there, of which h
was the sole owner. Later he bull
and endowed an expensive hosp1ta
| in Bennington.
Though Mr.. Putnam made a great
| deal Of money as one of the builders
of the elevated railroads in Brook
lyn, N. Y, most of his fortune was
amassed as a result of royalties and
sales of his inventions. For many my
years he received a royalty of $1,000
a day for the basic patent involved
in making barbed wire. His lnven
ton Of a certain kind of safety pin
and Invention Of the fire snapper;
used on pop bottles and on fruit
Jars were also enormously prof1ta