The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 164 - The Witch of Wall Street

Episode Date: March 30, 2016

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine Hetty Green, also known as The Witch of Wall.SOURCESTOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH

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week I read a story from American History to my friend Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. Wait that was the best that I had done it in months and then you I bailed fuck when are we gonna get it right I got it right yeah finally nice of you to join me in the right party we could do a dollop about how many times you've messed up the intro the endless sabotage of this podcast by you has been noted by many people do you want to do one buck not gary gara okay someone or something is tickling people is it for fun and this is not going to come to tickly clock okay you

are queen fakie of made-up town all hell queen shit of Liesville a bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do my thing so we want to thank all of our subscribers at patreon this podcast is brought to you by our subscribers at patreon we thank you it helps a lot patreon thanks yeah that was good patreon give us give us the fucking money patreon do you want us to live on beans near a hobo fire well patreon I think some of them would just for the stories alone well look I've been there and I don't want to go back I don't think that's true I don't think you ever lived near a barrel you don't think I've

ever eaten beans near a hobo fire sir I gotta go sir do you have any idea who you're talking about to and about 1834 Henrietta Howland Robinson was born in New Bedford Massachusetts okay it was just before the Victorian age and Henrietta's really dropped off as a name it's super has for a reason because it's so it's those hated to Henry and I just think it's super long and it'll come back it's pain in the assish I think Jesus I said it and I'm very strong I stand by it I'm very strong feelings all right let's just move past the name I agree Victorian ages era peace

prosperity refined sensibilities and Victorian mentality which included sexual restraint low tolerance of crime and a strict code of conduct okay both she was named she was called heady heady that's what we're gonna call her okay heady both heady's parents were from very well established colonial families her great-grandfather had owned the country's biggest wailing fleet okay her father was all about making money and passed on some great advice to his daughter quote my father told me never to give anyone anything and not even kindness that's smart advice it's good advice from a father to a child if you

want to make money look the world's hell now get out there hey fuck everybody go get him come on kitty true to his word her father greatly increased the family's wealth heady spent much of her time living with her aunt Sylvia she lived in Vermont but was sent to boarding school when she was young she did not stay long and soon was by her father's side a new Bedford while he worked all day learning how to be a an emotionally normal person and it's exactly right learn the empathy of others and the plight of work right when you're with someone who's in a job working with people you everyone

understands you have to get along with everybody and everyone's night it's like how Hitler's son started the ASPCM talking about heady spoke I already did that after supper every night heady would read the financial pages from the New York and Boston papers so just classic teenage kids yeah what kids do heady was very attractive and when she was 20 her father tried to present her to society so that a suitable man would turn her into a wife and a baby maker so she hadn't really seen society yet no it sort of caged her getting her ready for the big prom that's how it works sure her dad

bought her a wardrobe that would be worth in the tens of thousands today but heady didn't care about such things and she sold all the clothes took the money and invested it all in the stock market wow take that Paris Hilton she moved in with a cousin in New York and didn't spend any money just living off of her relative okay so she's hoarding no she's just she's not there she's not paying okay player okay heady's mother died when she was 25 years old her father was will the entire estate of her mother none of it went to heady heady was upset about this and wanted to contest the will in court but was concerned that

if she lost she wouldn't get anything when her father died okay meanwhile her father now a single man decided to make some big changes in his life he sold all of his shares in the family whaling business and moved to New York City there he joined a new shipping business and then at the end of the Civil War he sold all his shares in that business for five million dollars okay which is a lot of fucking money he's cashing out though he's cashing out heady went with her dad to New York she was worried he would meet a woman get remarried and start another family which would cut into her inheritance so she's she's learned a lot

from her dad she has learned a lot from her dad hasn't she at the same time her aunt Sylvia was talking about having heady having the will rewritten and leaving heady out of it okay the current will left everything to heady so answer you know Aunt Sylvia was going to give almost all of it to charity and friends so heady raced back to New Bedford and made her aunt promise that she wouldn't ever change her will when Aunt Sylvia died two years lady later heady learned that she had changed her well and had he got almost nothing all for charity then her father died in the same year heady got one million from him so she's 31

years old and she's rich yeah pretty fucking rich but that's not enough for my heady no heady's gonna need more girl he needs more man still heady was a looker and smart and a dude fell for her and they became engaged okay what's not to fall for he was 45 years old whoa named yeah he's a little bit older yeah 12 years named Edward Green he was pleasant well like businessman from from Vermont Edward had made his money in the Philadelphia silk trade so she's not necessarily marrying for personality maybe it doesn't sound like it right the also the Philadelphia silk trade was awesome yo I've always said that I think

one of my favorite silk trades well yeah all the silk trades yeah it's up there Philadelphia and then Des Moines Des Moines is great they married in 1867 but heady made sure they signed prenuptials first and she made prenuptials back then yeah yeah that's crazy yes no everyone's always been awful that's insane she even made him renounce all rights to her money before the wedding wow so I did they sign a prenuptial but she was like you get say it they've out loud they've each written financial vows I promise not to take any of your money okay so they kept their fortune separate right okay but still she was

pissed about being cut out of Aunt Sylvia's will and she challenged it in court she wanted it all we call to the stand at Sylvie put your hand on the Bible this is not gonna be Sylvie Sylvie can we ask you a question about the will and your intent does anyone speak dead Sylvie Sylvie what are you trying to say Sylvie okay I think we might need to take at least a recess the court rejected heady's challenge so she sued she just doesn't take no in in court this time she revealed an earlier will that made her case okay but that will turn out to be a forgery even if it wasn't what is that

I mean it's just like it's she used to think differently than she did at the end that's right it doesn't make it a lot to change your mind yeah no you're right you are she used to think differently and this is fake so yes the case was widely publicized all over the country and heady's ugly public reputation began then the shit hit the fan over the will forgery her cousins tried to have her indicted for it so the Greens bailed and went to London to avoid prosecution they're coming together there he gave birth to a son Edward Howland Robinson Green who would be nicknamed Ned Ned for whatever

reason also no it has to be a prayer how do you get net out of that howland Robinson green Ned is Ned short for Edward Ned short for all those names three years later she had a daughter Heady Sylvia and Howland Robinson Green Ruth for short the Greens live very well that while they were in London but only spent his money smart then in 1875 when they believe the statute of limitations had run out on the will forging charges they returned to bellow falls in Vermont Heady started to get dirty dirty Heady actually dirty filthy she had dirty hands and fingernails and hardly ever cleaned her

clothes heady's taken a turn did you not expect this what that she would become of a pig woman no did not see this coming heady just grew up grew to love slop don't know what to tell you she would keep wearing the wait and she hardly ever cleaned her clothes she would keep wearing them even after they started to fall apart and even with all her wealth her kids went to school in rags second hand clothing and worse in the winter she lined her son's jacket and shoes with paper aren't you supposed to burn it from work I mean here you go just cuz it's really cold today I only have millions of dollars yeah I'm gonna

put the newspaper in you at this point her income was in the mid-six figures okay which was huge for the time yeah but still I mean a lot of that's going to paper for the suits that's right but she still fought with everyone over money she kind of sounds annoying she began to fight with her husband and in laws as well as her servants and neighborhood shopkeepers so everyone she haggled for everything she bought or for services performed God the shop keepers of New Bedford hated her because her filthy hands would touch their goods and ruin them she's like pick up the why is it you watching your hand

she's a fucking monster I don't know cuz she just wants to be dirty well water costs money your clothes I mean okay when her son Ned was nine he injured himself while sledding little paper will fix that cut Haiti did not want him to take him to a regular doctor because it would cost so much money of course not so she took him to a free clinic for the poor perfect her biography said she was then recognized and forced to pay oh my god no I'm not her nope look at me my clothes are falling off but the leg was not well taken care of she tried other doctors and home remedies but the leg did not heal well this meant Ned grew up

with a limp which got worse over time until finally the leg became gangrenous when he was a teenager and had to be cut off fuck heady Ned used a cork prosthesis for the rest of his cork yeah maybe I guess they made him out of cork back then man it's a little bouncy right it's a little all of it is a little strange cork it just feel yeah it feels bouncy yeah as far as swimming is better than just like wood I would think better than wood yeah just like a stable than well the wood would be heavy I feel like I could kick a cork leg in half okay so he's not he's probably not

doing kickboxing and stuff he's probably just walking around no I'm gonna do it I'm a guy who hates him so you're just gonna walk up and kick a guy with one leg hey Ned how's that oh boom right through it you sound like the worst person in this story let's dollop about me my hypothetical mean this time heady was fucking rolling in the cash she would hop on a train to New York City and play the stocks the men of Wall Street cannot believe what they were seeing as this filthy rag-covered woman took large positions on the other unregulated stock market no woman had ever operated on the stock market before

and certainly not a filthy dirty ones she sounds like the weird park lady from Home Alone 2 she made very conservative investments had substantial cash reserves to back up any movement and she had a very cool head during turmoil she bought railroad stock and kept making money okay in 1885 the financial house John's Jay Cisco and son collapsed Heady Green was the largest investor and it was revealed unbeknownst to her that her husband Edward had been the firm's greatest debtor oh boy she's putting all her money in and her husband was taking it all out oh boy oh heady it turns out

the firm had used her wealth as the reason they gave Edward his loans so he he's like yeah prenup exactly upset by this turn of events heady withdrew her securities and deposited them in another bank Edward had lost almost all of his fortune but heady would not help on them all and she would not pitch in to pace to pay for the household needs gosh Edward moved out she then took her two kids and moved to New York City by now she was less into stocks and a lot more into buying mortgages she seemed to really enjoy buying mortgages on churches and foreclosing when they couldn't make the payments wow she said

really just a sweetheart America sweetheart it's not much different than what goes on now she's Trump she's way ahead of her time she's a little Trumpy she was also now lending money to bankers and brokerage houses and she didn't like paying taxes hey welcome aboard which rent the tax collectors were always after in her mind there was no reason to give the government any of the money she had made I'm listening classic I'm still here aren't I heady she put her dog's name on the front of her apartment so tax collectors would not realize she was living I told you it's this is where Mr. Sparks lives Sparky

Sparky it's Sparky green it's where Sparky green lives she rented rooms in Hoboken, New Jersey across the river from New York City which protected her from New York tax collectors for years she lived with her kids in flats on the other side of the river the flats had no cold water which I didn't realize that was an option but she wasn't washing herself so well no cold water no sorry no hot water oh okay I was like what yeah so she's not bathing's no yes that's fine she also did not turn on the heat or rented places without heat okay it's just cool and well to be fair you I mean you've already got paper in your shirt

that's true so you'll be fine her rent was never more than $22 a month so she's okay conservative financially what do you want come on but she went still had to work every day on Wall Street she ate mostly pies that cost 15 cents each all right so what is happening to this woman she's only eating pies yeah it's like the dream of a seven-year-old no I think like me pies like it like a oh she's eating like shepherds the smell is no bathing on a diet of meat pies oh god the gas the lot of lot of traveling it sounds like too mmm the New York press started following her wherever she went and they gave her the nickname the Witch

of Wall Street God because of her look and her horrific smell you know the New York Post has done it again in oh wait so she did most of her business at the offices of the Seaboard National Bank surrounded by trucks and suitcases packed with papers she didn't want to rent her own office because she didn't want to pay for it so what's her deal she just she just want I mean she just is she just wants as much money as possible she doesn't want to spend anything something reminds me a little bit of my mother like who is it really does like the spending part yeah like my mother would never turn on the heat as a

kid and one time my mother walking down the street found a bag with a fresh head of lettuce in it and and took it home and I made her throw it out yeah I can't she also found a spoon on the ground once on the streets and took it home and washed it no absolutely not so I'm just saying she's she sounds thrifty Eddie Reynolds Eddie Reynolds in the 1880s she became a hassled name across the country as Hedy became a synonymous for miser really okay sure in the summertime she smelled so that's fun when you're getting like you're like what are they saying Hedy why oh nothing Hedy shut the fuck up shut the fuck up in

the summertime she smelled so bad the people working in the same bank office where she rented her desk or didn't rent but had we do everything they could to stay as far away from her as possible her long black dresses were decades out of style and they weren't even black anymore they had turned a shade of green and were ragged from wear and filth her fingernails were covered in crusty dirt she had a hernia but didn't want to pay for a day of enough I'm turned on knock it off she's got it all and a hernia sweet bastard she had a hernia but didn't want to pay for a doctor so she just walked around in pain for 20 years I'm

sure she was really cool about it though the cost of the surgery was just a $150 and even though she was horrified by the cost she finally went ahead and had it done after 20 years then she stiffed the doctor what shit she's probably got a hernia from carrying all that filth around but Hedy liked the fame that came from the press it's not but doesn't she understand it's like tanning mom thing it's like Octo mom fame quote my life is written for me down in Wall Street by people who do not care to know one iota about the real Hedy Green I am an earnest therefore they picture me as heartless I go my own

way I take no partner risk nobody else's fortune therefore I am madam Ishmael set against every man well she she has a point but it's also why do you have to smell like shit right there's no reason you have to walk around with dirty nobody's not saying you're like aloof and a loner you are those things oh this isn't misogyny this is no you stink grossing you stink no bad your hands are brown from filth nobody knows that when a dress gets so dirty it turns green it's a bad thing I mean that's who knew she was also known to be the richest woman in America and that's probably the reason so many called her a witch yeah

although the same man came running to Hedy for help when they needed money hey Hedy she kept anywhere from 20 to 40 million dollars in cash always ready to be given out as loans where well in the bank or whatever oh but she had it like on the ready like a suitcase but yeah she brave you wanted cash you go grab it for you and that would be that's about a half a billion in today's money so she's just rolling with half a billion in account and she smells like a horse's ass and she smells like somebody put a baby diaper inside of a baby diaper inside of a van oh this is inception of yeah this is toddler I've got shit this

is diaper inception type exception the city of New York had to ask her for loans on several occasions to stay solvent I mean she smells in 1907 there was a panic the bank panic and she wrote a one million dollar check to save the banks she made sure her kids lived the same thrifty lifestyle I'm sure they were happy though she spent money when she wanted her daughter Sylvia to find a man okay Sylvia lived with Hedy until she was in her mid 30s so nothing weird not weird but nothing weird if your mom smells it is weird your mom like the whole it is about the whole apartment stunk it is weird you move out yeah in

your mid 30s or you move on your 20s yes and especially in this time too your mid 30s is not your mid 30s now she's over now she's done at that point right yeah like mid 30s now she's like let's find you a husband here let mama fix you up nice let me just put a little shit on your eyes there you go that looks nice all right I'm just gonna rub some of this sewage right on your neck there now rub your wrist together with some of that poo there you go mmm I'm so proud so you're gonna make some man very stinky something she booked several rooms at the Plaza Hotel to throw Sylvia a dinner eventually Sylvia did find a

husband Matthew Oster Wilkes who was 25 years older well okay so he's she's 35 and he's gonna die in about a year and a half so he's 60 perfect but Hedy was okay with it and paid for an actual wedding in Morristown, New Jersey now when Ned was old enough he was sent to Fordham University to get a law degree when he had gotten that she sent him to Chicago to manage her real estate in Illinois she paid him a very low amount so Ned had to live in cheap apartments but when he finally proved his worth in Chicago Hedy sent her to Texas to watch over the Texas Midland Railroad which she had purchased Ned

turned the railroad around after her children moved out Hedy kept moving from apartment to apartment trying to avoid establishing a permanent residence at what age do you say Uncle Ned meanwhile really spread his wings in Texas there he was more independent and had more control over the money which he had no problem spending Ned was living the good life good for Ned he became active in Texas politics and was made quote a Colonel of the staff of a Democratic governor of Texas sounds like a easy position to tell people he would be called the Colonel for the rest of his life hey listen you're working on the

railroad you're making some scratch you're spending it and you're called the Colonel for the rest of your life right yeah and you were raised in a shit box by a crazy witch lady right yeah you're doing fine and he brought a lady with him that he had met in Chicago Mabel Harlow she was a prostitute who he'd lost his virginity to look you they they say that love is in crazy places Dave and you don't know I mean yep it's is it strange is that your question is it sure it's a little strange it is it's a little strange that I was wondering you go to a whore to lose your V and then you become that guy I was like oh boy I

don't know I really think she likes me really like I think she really does like you let me put it in her oh boy felt so gooey we don't think we felt gooey in there I think I love her I think I'm gonna marry her oh god can you imagine proposing to a like he probably went back there she was like do you mind if you just do it in the butt because I actually get he's like that my love my love my love my love I love you let me stop you right there my love hold up hold up on the butt there'll be no need for any insertion for today I am here on the matter of love so he brought her to Texas and live

with her in hotel suites they went into business together she brought in the girls and Ned brought in the customers oh wow so he just if it's all about making money it is all he to them it doesn't matter how you make the money no right is he bathing I don't know but I think he is yeah it feels like we'd know if he wasn't yeah and that doesn't feel like a genetic thing no it doesn't it's clearly some sort of it feels earned it's very earned Hedy didn't worry as much that Ned was with a prostitute as much as she did that Mabel might try to marry Ned to get her hands on the family's money

hearts in the right place again so Hedy made Ned promise that he would not marry Mabel okay but Mabel wasn't going anywhere she was with Ned for the rest of his life Hedy was no longer concerned because of the promise Ned had made while this was all going on he became smarter and smarter about the family's business he became quite skilled at protecting their assets so Hedy realized this and brought Ned back to New York so he could oversee the finances and she let him continue his extravagant lifestyle okay Ned lived in fancy hotels for a while then bought at two townhouses on Central Park Avenue he lived

there with Mabel and gave himself the nickname or and then continue to call himself the nickname the Colonel as he should when you have a winner you got yeah Hedy continued to work until she was in her mid 70s she suffered a lot of strokes and ended up in a wheelchair she also became paranoid I heard that she actually didn't want a wheelchair though she just wanted a unicycle they would taper to that well she did yeah she just got two wheels cheaper in a bucket yeah she got two wheels in a bucket and a mop and she just scooted around town she also became paranoid thinking she would be kidnapped which is the rage at the

time okay but not old ladies yeah I'm gonna say the kidnappers after like day two will be like please get in the bag get in the goddamn bath oh fuck don't you touch me with those fingers she was always making detours to avoid kidnappers okay when she was 77 she came down with pneumonia the witch is near death the headline screamed but she wasn't dead yet she made a comeback but after the illness she moved into Ned's townhouse he made her pay rent for the time she was there well it's payback time right yeah he just sit there and tap his cork leg yeah where's my rent money and then she'd be like oh let me go get it and

then she's gone yeah god damn it did she jump but she was very very clearly weakened from the battle with pneumonia heady died on July 3rd 1916 at the age of 81 in Ned's townhouse the Guinness Book of World Records said she died of apoplexy after arguing with a maid over the virtues of skim milk well look I mean that obviously that's an important argument to get to the bottom of I don't know if that's true but that's what the Guinness Book of World Records skim is the best you don't like skim milk what are you out of your mind yeah skim is the best milk her estate was worth 200 million dollars then yeah

what to compare when JP Morgan died three years earlier his estate was worth 80 million holy shit in today's dollars heady green would have been worth 4.4 billion do you realize in today's world she would probably be running for president yes and doing pretty well if you'll be like I loved her she was great now I'm not showering no more you can grow plants in her hands well these radishes are coming up lovely she had spent almost nothing her entire life not on herself not on her children after she died Ned was finally able to marry Mabel though he did not make her sign a pre-nup although he did make her sign a

pre-up that would give her 1500 a month if they separated which is a lot of money yeah and Ned was not his mom he liked to spend Ned bought huge estates in Florida New York and Massachusetts and he took care of a small group of private secretaries who are all teenage girls no they were you're not moving on yet private secretaries private secretaries very private come on they're each given a hundred thousand dollar trust fund and sent to school at Wellesley but they would come and spend their weekends with Ned and Mabel and their men's men's and in Massachusetts taking notes it's kind of fuck harem it is a

fuck it's a fuck harem okay Heddy's daughter so you just got to call it private secretaries that's right okay Heddy's daughter Sylvia Green lived in New York her husband died in 1926 and she moved into an apartment on Fifth Avenue she used the upper floors to store all of her extra furniture Jesus Sylvia was a recluse neither Sylvia or the Colonel were affected much by the Great Depression they still followed Heddy's conservative approach and it worked wonders the Colonel finally died in 1937 and Sylvia inherited almost all of his estate okay she lived the life of a solitary weirdo until she died in 1951

her estate at that point was worth an estimated 200 million Sylvia just gave it away it was given to schools and hospitals and charities exactly what her mother would have never wanted and they're all buried in shoeboxes in Arlington and they're all buried in shoeboxes in Arlington so they're just so she was just the cheapest filthiest woman of all time so that's the first female financial wizard in American history well she sounds good it sounds it sounds if you're like a man in that day and age and you're like against women doing well or having money you're like see what happens that's perfect they

stop showering and fucking yeah that's right that's exactly right I told you that's what happened to women who care about money they turned into dirt carers in there they smell like mold look she's a walking plot of farm nice green dress you stinky witch fucking monster well look it sounds like you know it's like they say with with money comes stink do they say that they did maybe I'm thinking of something else I would love to see some Wall Street female Wall Street stock broker would just filthy dirty hands oh just walking in like what she was she walks in that's like like plumes of smoke are coming off of her

like dirt dress yeah it's like pig pan from peanuts totally totally yeah they're like wow she actually has stink marks she's got like three flies that she's like I tell these flies everything these are my flies these flies are my financial advisors like they're my fly national advisors I got it yeah they're the fly national advisors Dave think about it because if you put a L in finance it's fly national alright we and that's what those flies were doing to her yeah we I think this could go on longer you're ready to be done but I feel like if people are listening they're probably like yeah let's