Hetty_ The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon - Charles Slack [112]
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE HAT WAS “HETTY” GREEN
According to popular legend, Hetty’s beloved dog, Dewey, is buried in the Hartsdale Canine Cemetery in Westchester County, New York. Founded in 1896, it claims to be the nation’s oldest pet cemetery, and its roster of departed dogs includes many owned by entertainers, politicians, and other celebrities. Given Hetty’s love for Dewey, she might well have splurged on a fine resting place for the animal. Unfortunately, the cemetery’s roster of permanent guests includes none named “Dewey.” Even with Hetty’s penchant for secrecy, it is hard to imagine her burying the animal under a pseudonym. And so Dewey’s final resting place, like many other Hetty legends, remains an intriguing mystery.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: I’LL OUTLIVE ALL OF THEM!
Walter Marshall, Colonel Ned Green’s personal secretary in Terrell, came with Ned to New York in 1911. It’s safe to say that Marshall liked his New York job less well than the Texas one—a major reason being his rather contentious relationship with Hetty. Marshall’s unpublished memoirs include a chapter detailing his trips with Hetty to her locked vault containing her prized possessions. Barbara Fortin Bedell, who at this writing is preparing Marshall’s memoirs for publication, shared with me a chapter describing Marshall’s trips with Hetty to the locked vault.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: HIGH TIMES AT ROUND HILL
It is difficult to spend much time around Colonel Ned Green and not be impressed with his insatiable curiosity, his scale of living, his humor, and, in his own way, his large heart. Condensing his later years into a single chapter was a difficult task. The Noel Hill collection, referenced in my acknowledgments, yielded many interesting details, including correspondence between Ned and Sylvia, a list of items at Round Hill and cars kept on the property, contracts, financial records, and photographs.
Arthur Lewis’s 1963 book, The Day They Shook the Plum Tree, and John M. Bullard’s The Greens As I Knew Them (1964) also provided interesting and quite different perspectives on the Colonel. Bullard was a New Bedford attorney who worked with Ned and was interviewed by Lewis. Bullard’s privately published book counters the fairly cynical and dismissive portrait of Ned offered in Plum Tree. I also consulted Bullard’s papers and notes for the book, which are on file at the Harvard Law School Library.
A note on the name “Round Hill”: Over the centuries, the property has been referred to as both “Round Hill” and “Round Hills” to such an extent that either choice can be considered correct. Ned used the singular on virtually everything relating to the property, and for consistency I have done the same throughout the book.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: SCATTERED TO THE WIND
The descriptions of Sylvia’s friendship with Helen Guild both as children in Bellows Falls and as elderly women in Greenwich came from a lengthy interview Guild gave to Boston Globe reporter Frances Burns shortly after Sylvia’s death (“She Loved Toys Because She Hadn’t Had Them as Child,” March 4, 1951). The description of her friendship with Mary Nims Bolles came from letters between the two from the Rockingham Free Public Library in Bellows Falls, and from Mary’s memoirs. The distribution of Sylvia’s estate was widely covered in newspapers nationwide.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
Allen, Everett S. Children of the Light: The Rise and Fall of New Bedford Whaling and the Death of the Arctic Fleet. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973.
Ambrose, Stephen E. Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869. New York: Touchstone Books, 2001.
Anonymous, History of the Chemical National Bank 1823–1913, privately printed, New York, 1913.
Ashley, Clifford W. The Yankee Whaler. New York: Dover