The so-called ”Queen of Wall Street,” Mrs. Green, has not presented a very heroic aspect in her transaction with Cisco & Co. She spends very little money on herself or anybody else. She doesn’t claim to be either elegant or hospitable, and has not distinguished herself in the line of charity. Judging from this lady as a sample, one would not particularly care to be a “Queen of Wall Street.”
But the majority of the rich women of New York are and have been of a different stamp. Many of ‘em have been at first, too, hard-workin’, shrewd women, helpin’ their husbands to make their fortunes, as well as helping ‘em afterwards to spend it. Some of them have been famous for their large-hearted charities, while others have dispensed a most elegant hospitality and have been the queens of society.
Miss Harriet Lenox, one of the very richest women in New York, has been for twenty years workin’ as hard and as steadily in the sacred cause of charity as most women toil and struggle for the baubles of society. She was the right hand of her brother in his philanthropic schemes durin’ his lifetime, and, as the sole legatee of the vast Lenox estate, she is doin’ a world of good that is known only in its results. Mrs. Cornelius Dubois was as charitable as she was rich, which is sayin’ a good deal. Mrs. D. went round personally among the poor, not in her carriage to excite envious comment, but whenever and wherever she could on foot. In conjunction with Mrs. Thomas Addis Emmet, this lady about thirty years ago started the first institution of its kind in the city or this country, I believe–an asylum for the care of infants and foundlin’s.
Mrs. Dubois was not a woman to do anythin’ by halves, and she went into this infant carin’ scheme pell mell, carin’ not for her own comfort at all. So eager was she in the good work that she at first brought the poor babies she found lyin’ loose to her own magnificent house on Gramercy Park, near Tilden’s.
Here in the midst of luxury the dirty little rats who could find shelter nowhere else received food and care. Her friends remonstrated with her; some laughed at her; but she cared not. She kept on addin’ to her “collection” of other people’s babies all the time, meanwhile interestin’ others in behalf of the good cause.
Within a year the big house, the palace on Gramercy Park, was literally full of babies. But by this time the attention of influential citizens had been directed to this new idea in philanthropy, this new wrinkle In charity, and an application to the State Legislature and the city authorities resulted in a grant from the city of a perpetual lease on a plot of ground for the purpose of erectin’ on it an asylum for infants. Certainly this sort of thing was better than keepin’ millions of securities locked up in bankers’ vaults.
And in the intervals of her carin’ for her poor babies the rich Mrs. Dubois, who, as Miss Delafield, had been quite an artist, devoted herself to sculpture and to cuttin’ cameos.
Miss Catherine Wolfe has long been as notorious for her benevolence as for her wealth, as have been Mrs. Astor and Mrs. Harper. The late Mrs. Commodore Garrison was an eminently charitable woman and devoted a large portion of her time as well as her wealth to the benefit of the less favored of her own sex, and similar instances could be multiplied indefinitely, I am glad to say.
Others of the rich women of New York have acquired a creditable renown by the elegance and taste of their social entertainments. The daughter of the noted East India merchant, John Tom, who afterwards became Mrs. Thomas Addis Emmet, gave a fete at her magnificent country seat forty years ago which made a greater stir than the Vanderbilt balls did recently, and which is still remembered by not a few who were personally present. The country seat lay on what is now Fifty-ninth street, between the old Boston post road and Third avenue. The grounds were extensive. There were splendid gardens attached. The house was spacious and solid, and the private cricket ground was the finest in the country. But the hostess was by far the finest object in the place, and deserved the title, now much more common than really deserved, of “The American Queen.”
The hospitable elegance of the Roosevelt mansion on Broadway, and “the White House,” on “Castle Comfort,” the residence of Mrs. James W. White, are still fresh in the memory of those who were favored to enjoy ‘em.
Among the memorable leaders of fashion and culture among the rich women of New York in the last generation was Mrs. Coventry Waddell. This lady was the daughter of Jonathan Southwick, a rich New York merchant, and she married a rich Englishman of good family. The Waddell house on Fifth avenue, near the Thirty-seventh street of the present, was one of the then very finest buildin’s in New York, right in the centre of the spot that later on began to be the centre of fashion–Murray Hill.
The Waddell house in its day was as fine as the Stewart mansion now. It was a Gothic villa with a tower, and altogether the house and ground occupied an entire block, and the picture gallery was the finest in the land. From the broad marble hall a spiral staircase conducted to the Waddell tower, which commanded a magnificent view of the city and suburbs. In course of time the place was dubbed “Murray Hill,” and Mrs. Waddell’s “Murray Hill” parties became as fashionable as the present “Patriarch’s balls.”
Mrs. Waddell dispensed her wealth with elegant taste and did not merely spend money. She spent it judiciously, benefitin’ trade, and maintained a high tone of social decorum. Nor did she make money the test of admission into her circle. At one of her entertainments a professor of music, who lived in lodgings on Greenwich avenue, was introduced as an equal to Sir William Boyd, an English exquisite, and to the Dutch admiral, commandin’ the frigate Prince of Orange, then in New York harbor. The fair and rich American was no respecter of persons. She only required that the person had character. That was the passport to “Murray Hill” then.
She was a very witty woman, too, and held her own with Thackeray when that “sarcastic cuss,” as Artemis Ward would have styled him, was her guest. She also played a capital practical joke in the way of revengin’ her country on an English dude of the time. This Englishman hated America as much as Mrs. Waddell loved it, and was all the time talkin’ against it. Mrs. Waddell was very much vexed, but she got even at last.
She invited this Englishman to her house on Sunday, July 2, sayin’ not a word about her proposed celebration on the “glorious Fourth.” But when the great day came and the evenin’ followed, Mrs. Waddell proposed, as if by accidental suggestion, that they should have some fireworks. And when the rockets were already nothin’ would please the lady but that this Englishman, who hated “this blawsted, beastly country, you know” should fire off the rockets himself, with his own hands. In vain the Britisher protested. The lady insisted, begged him as a special favor, professed to have no faith in anybody firin’ off the rockets but himself. There was no help for it, and so, in the presence of over 500 people, who were all in the joke, the English hater of America was compelled to celebrate nolens volens the great anniversary of the land he abominated. It was a revenge worthy of an American lady.
Among other noted leaders of fashion and social centres among the rich women of New York was Mrs. William Schermerhorn (Miss Continet), whose grand masked ball some seventeen years ago was in all respects the finest ever given in the city, surpassing the Belmont and other balls in real style and taste. It was a bal costume de rigeur, as it is styled, the highest and hardest kind of a masquerade, because everybody has to have a costume and every costume has to be historically correct in every detail. Mrs. Schermerhorn gave three receptions each Winter, each of the best, and certainly deserved credit for the money she spent and the trouble she took.
Miss Livingston, afterwards Mrs John C. Stevens, was another leader in society in New York in her day, and deserved her leadership. She lived in grand style in old College place and gave splendid masked balls, while her husband owned the yacht America. Her balls, like her husband’s yacht, were said to be always ahead. Mrs. Mason Jones, who married the first cashier of the old Chemical Bank, was still another society lady, spendin’ money with a liberal hand and keepin’ New York society active. Her father was at one time the rival of A. T. Stewart. The lady had an elegant residence, with pillars in front, on Broadway, and has now, for she is livin’ still, a splendid palace on Fifth avenue. Thirty years ago the lady was known as “the Duchess of Broadway.” She has, in her way, done a great deal for New York, as did, in their earlier time, the rich and beautiful Depau girls–after whom Depau row in Bleecker street was named. These ladies were the social attraction of their day and made and unmade men and streets. They made up their minds to live awhile on White street, and that fact made White street the fashion. Then they did the same for Bleecker street. In this way they kept trade lively and gave real estate a value.
Among the rich women of New York still livin’, whose lives have been creditable to ‘emselves and their sex, are Mrs. ex-Governor Morgan and Mrs. Robert L. Stuart. This latter lady has received three fortunes, one after the other, and controls ‘em all.
Lastly, among the rich women who aided their husbands to become rich, and who can therefore, at least to a certain extent, be styled “self-made women,” as the phrase goes, were the original Mrs. Astor–Mrs. John Jacob Astor–who, as already told in these reminiscences. was her husband’s best judge of furs; the original Mrs. Vanderbilt–Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Sr.–who made at one time more money than her husband, keepin’ tavern in New Jersey; Mrs. A. T. Stewart, who used to furbish up the old stuff that her hubby used to buy second hand; and Mrs. Paran Stevens, to whose counsel the great hotel man was greatly indebted.
Surely, this is a good showin’ for the rich women of New York.
[Editor’s notes: “Harriet Lenox” refers to Henrietta Anderson Lenox. Not only was she one of the richest and most generous women in New York, she (like her brother James, whom she outlived) was reclusive. No images of her are known to exist. Neither brother or sister attended social events, other than church. James and Henrietta’s Lenox Library collection became the foundation of the mail library collection of the New York Public Library, which is located near where the Lenox Library once stood.
Hetty Green had a widely-publicized dispute with the banking firm, Cisco & Son. Most of her assets were with that bank, and stories spread that the firm was failing. She tried to withdraw her entire account–upon which the bank depended–and was denied. Before she could compel them, the firm went bankrupt and was put into receivership. She eventually was able to get her money, after paying off an outstanding $44,000 loan. She was not known for socializing or charitable work.]
