Letters and Ephemeral material related to Hetty Green and her Howland family members in Hilo and Honolulu, Hawaii Territory, 1890-1923

No Binding. Very Good. 4 letters, 21 pp., plus 5 stock certificates, and 2 stock purchase receipts, dated 13 December 1890 to 9 February 1923. Hetty Green (1834-1916) and the Howland Family Born Henrietta Howland Robinson in 1834, she later married Edward Henry Green in 1867 and became known as Hetty Green. Her father was Edward Mott Robinson and her mother Abby Howland. Her family became wealthy in the whaling industry and the China Trade. Her mother died in 1860, her father died, five years later, in 1865. Hetty inherited about $5 million from the death of her parents and launched her career as a thrifty business woman and investor, eventually amassing a fortune of over $100 million by the time she died in 1916. She was the richest woman in America. Her estate was left mainly to her two children Edward Howland Robinson ""Ned"" Green and Harriet ""Sylvia"" Ann Howland Green Wilks. Hetty Green became notorious for her wealth and thriftiness and became known as the ""Witch of Wall Street."" Of the four letters in this collection, three were written by cousins of Hetty Green, the other by a presumed friend. Two of these were written by Benjamin ""Franklin"" Howland (1877-?) and the other by Franklin's brother John ""Hastings"" Howland (1870-?). Franklin and Hastings were the sons of Reuben R. Howland (1839-1884), second cousin to Hetty Green. Franklin and Hastings were both heirs to the famous will of Sylvia Ann Howland (1806-1865) Hetty Green's aunt. Sylvia Ann Howland died in 1865, leaving roughly half her fortune of some 2 million dollars (over $30 million in today's money) to various legatees, with the residue to be held in trust for the benefit of Robinson (Hetty Green), Howland's niece. The remaining principal was to be distributed to various beneficiaries on Robinson's death, which at the time of Hetty's death amounted to over four hundred people, Franklin and Hastings included. It was her Aunt Sylvia's will that Hetty went to court over in a famous case Robinson v. Mandell. Hetty produced an earlier will, which left her aunt's whole estate outright to her. To this will was attached a second and separate page, putatively seeking to invalidate any subsequent wills. Sylvia Ann Howland's executor, Thomas Mandell, rejected Robinson's claim, insisting that the second page was a forgery, and Hetty sued. The case became famous for the forensic use of mathematics by Benjamin Peirce, a Harvard professor, as an expert witness, which showed the mathematical likelihood of the handwriting of this other ""will"" when compared to various known samples of Sylvia Ann Howland's handwriting was astronomical, and thus this other will was a forgery. This evidence was able to be kept out of the decision of the court and the case was settled and Hetty received the original interest on the estate during her lifetime as well as several hundred thousand dollars. Hastings and Benjamin Franklin Howland Reuben R. Howland (1839-1884), was born in New Bedford, he was connected with the office of John Hastings, oil merchant. He married Martha Yeomans Brightman (1843-1881). Together the couple had several children, including: Major John Hastings Howland; Benjamin Franklin Howland; Katherine Howland Walker; and Anna Howland Bartlett. Reuben R. Howland and Hetty Green were second cousins; their grandfathers (Gideon Howland, Jr. and Pardon Howland) were brothers, the sons of Gideon Howland and Sarah Hicks. Reuben Howland's oldest son was Major John Hastings Howland, who was born 21 August 1870 in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was a civil engineer. From 1887 to 1891 he was an assistant in the New Bedford Water Works department and subsequently went to Honolulu where he was connected with the installation of a new water works system. Later he was a member of the committee on fire prevention of the National Board of Fire Underwriters, making his home at Upper Montclair, New Jersey. He volunteered for services in World War One and held the rank of Major in the engineering