Hetty_ The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon - Charles Slack [26]
As she launched her “second page” scheme, Hetty attacked on another front: She set about trying to win support among Sylvia’s beneficiaries. She tried to convince Electa that Sylvia had slighted both of them. “We are not capable of taking care of our money,” she said. “Yours is in trust, and so is mine.” In fact, Electa had received $5,000 in cash outright.
The next day, Hetty tried another approach. “We were at Sylvia Ann’s homestead, and Miss Robinson asked me into the parlor,” Electa recalled. “She talked about the will, said her aunt had not given me as much as she ought to, and said if I would come over on her side she would give me as much as or more.” Electa turned down the offer.
Hetty traveled frequently between New York and New Bedford that summer, with Edward by her side much of the time. One day in July, Pardon Gray, Sylvia’s former driver, saw a horse and buggy roll up to his door, bearing Hetty and the large stranger from New York. “Isn’t it strange that Dr. Gordon hasn’t come to see you since your aunt’s death?” Edward asked Hetty, in a voice loud enough for Pardon to hear.
Hetty said, “Maybe it is conscience keeps him away.”
Then the pair turned their attention directly to Pardon Gray, pointing out that his $10,000 bequest was all in trust.
“Wouldn’t you rather have the money outright?” Hetty asked.
Green added, “You will have to go to Dr. Gordon, hat in hand, and ask him for your dividend. If it is not agreeable to him, he will tell you to call again some other time.”
Hetty later testified that she had, indeed, visited Pardon Gray, but only for advice in buying a horse.
Frustrated with her lack of progress in swaying townspeople to her side, Hetty one month later boarded a train for the short ride from New Bedford to Taunton to see Edmund H. Bennett, judge of the Probate Court for Bristol County and the man who would decide whether to admit the will. Hetty had already written Bennett a letter earlier in the summer, complaining about “improper influences” brought to bear upon Aunt Sylvia, and asking him to investigate the levels of laudanum prescribed to her around the times she signed the will and the codicil. The letter invited the judge to visit her the next time he was in New Bedford. She included her name and address. Bennett ignored the letter, so Hetty decided to pay the judge a surprise visit.
She launched an attack on the cabal of men behind Aunt Sylvia’s new will, focusing particular wrath on Dr. Gordon. Then she said, “I can get somebody to serve as trustee who won’t charge any commissions. You can have the commissions for yourself.”
The judge stared at her for a long moment.
“Do I understand correctly what you just said?” Hetty repeated the offer.
Bennett looked at her coldly. “Young lady, I must decide the case upon the law and the evidence. I do not want to hear any more from you.”
Fortunate that the even-tempered judge hadn’t tossed her in jail for attempted bribery, Hetty left the office to catch the noonday train back to New Bedford. Unbowed, she had one more errand to take care of before boarding the train. When Judge Bennett arrived home for lunch, he found an envelope containing money as a gift for his child. The judge returned the money to Hetty by the next mail. A month later he approved Sylvia’s last will.
Hetty appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court, then withdrew the appeal, deciding instead to sue the trustees, filing in the United States Circuit Court in December of 1865. Hetty’s suit charged that she, as the only direct heir to the Howland fortune, was by law and nature entitled to the estate. She claimed that Dr. Gordon and others manipulated a drugged, enfeebled, and vulnerable woman into crafting a fraudulent will. When in her right mind, Sylvia had always wanted