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By Root 907 0

a Wednesday. He was eighty-one years old. The examiner, A. L. Miner, determined the cause of death as chronic nephritis and heart disease. He was buried the following Saturday afternoon in the little graveyard of Immanuel Church, a stone’s throw from the Tucker House, where he joined several generations of Greens. His pallbearers included four local men and his New York doctor. Ned, still on business in Texas, did not attend his father’s funeral. Hetty was escorted by Frank Green of Boston, one of Edward’s cousins. There were many bouquets from well-wishers, but none was more striking than Hetty’s; she had splurged on a large circle of laurel and Easter lilies. Among the other tributes was a pillow from Sylvia and Ned bearing the word “Father.”

Considering how harsh, strenuous, and limited life could be in the nineteenth century, Green had lived better than most people from Bellows Falls. Town folk who died during the same part of 1902 as Edward included a seventy-one-year-old laborer who broke his spine in a fall and a seventy-five-year-old mason who keeled over from exhaustion while working; along with three children under sixteen and five babies who died at birth. And yet for all the ease and longevity he enjoyed, there was an undeniable melancholy of having lived his life in reverse, making his fortune early and then losing everything by agonizing degrees, until he barely seemed to exist.

At the time of his death, Edward had a little over $5,500 in cash. His estate consisted of a small family house and land in Mandell, Massachusetts, his father’s hometown, valued at $1,500. Other small properties included those taken by foreclosure, most likely by Hetty, in Edward’s name. There was a watch and chain and some rings, valued at $300; and, most poignantly, an oil painting of his mother, valued at $200. In the final tally, Edward Green, who had once boasted a fortune of $750,000, was worth $24,509.75.

The New York Times obituary ran under the headline:

HETTY GREEN’s HUSBAND DEAD

“Excepting for his distinction as the husband of the richest woman in the world, Edward Green was a figure of whom the public knew little,” the obituary noted. “He had been an invalid for many years and lived in retirement at the Green home in Bellows Falls, Vt. Even there people knew little and saw less of him, as all business relating to the household was transacted by his wife.”

In May, less than two months after Edward’s death, Hetty, back to business in New York, walked into the Leonard Street Station of the New York Police Department, accompanied by a clerk from Chemical National Bank, and some of the ever-present cadre of reporters who followed her movements. She announced her desire for a permit to carry a pistol. She had long owned the revolver given to her as a gift by the Californian, but now she wanted to arm herself as she walked the streets.

“I am a rich woman and some people want to kill me,” Hetty told the surprised desk sergeant, Isaac Frank.

When Sergeant Frank asked her if she believed that carrying the pistol would protect her, Hetty replied, “Certainly. And I want everyone to know I have one. Those who have any knowledge of me will not doubt my ability or courage to use it.”

She added, “I can take care of myself under ordinary circumstances, but there have been so many murders of rich people that I feel I ought to be constantly on my guard.”

Hetty then completed an application form. Sergeant Frank was skeptical of Hetty’s need to bear arms; nonetheless, Hetty Green left the Leonard Street Station on May 8 the owner of pistol permit No. 13,854. The Times, which wrote of her application the next day, pointed out that it was rare in New York for a woman to be granted a permit to carry a revolver.

A Times reporter had followed her back to Chemical Bank, where she said, simply, “Yes, I have a revolver. And I know how to use one. I have often been threatened. People know I have money, and think I can be scared out of it. But I can’t.”

As the reporter took notes, Hetty spun out some of her more bizarre claims of threats