THE LADY WITH HYPNOTIC EYES

INTRODUCTION

I posted the long series on John Law because of its parallel to the United States finances today – spending beyond our budget, constant deficits. We are on the same path that John Law took France in 1715. We are moving slower, but eventually those debts will be paid by more taxes, less spending, or inflation. Our course is not irreversible, and this is not a “gloom and doom” forecast, just a cautionary note.

The Mississippi Bubble story reminds us that it is in our nature to want something for nothing, and the world is full of talented people who expertly use that weakness to enrich themselves. We will examine some of these more contemporary con artists in coming posts.

But today, we start with my all-time favorite, a lady who was decades ahead of her time in women’s liberation. She showed that she could ply her profession as well as any man who ever lived. In her life and “career” she had many names, but she is best known by her last one – Cassie Chadwick. She is a lady whose “Chutzpah” I admire. But I would not want to get too close to her, for reasons you will see.

CASSIE CHADWICK

Cassie was born in 1857 in Canada. Her real name was Elizabeth Bigley. While still in her teens she displayed what would become a finely honed talent for separating people from their money. 

At 16, she ran away from home and attempted to get a $250 promissory note from a prosperous farmer. At 21 she was arrested for attempting to borrow money on a stolen pocket watch. But young Betsy would soon move on to more sophisticated cons.

Within the year, financed by money she stole from her mother, she presented herself as Elizabeth Cunard of the wealthy shipping family. Using a forged letter of introduction and a bogus check, she got $10,000 ($300,000 – 2023) in goods on credit and fled Toronto.

In March 1879, now 22, Betsy was arrested for attempting to sell forged promissory notes. She used a calling card that read "Miss Bigley, Heiress to $15,000." Her lawyers employed an insanity defense. The jury found her not guilty. But her family had had enough of young Betsy, and they sent her to live with her married sister in Cleveland, Ohio.

Now, a seasoned con-artist, Betsy soon rented a house. Claiming to be widowed, she assumed the name Madame Lydia DeVere and set up shop as a clairvoyant with funds from a bank loan secured by her sister’s furniture. In 1882, she married Dr. Wallace Springsteen, becoming Mrs. Lydia Springsteen. The marriage lasted 11 days. When her wedding picture appeared in the newspaper, sister Alice and others showed up to demand that the doctor, pay his wife’s debts. He threw “Lydia” out of the house and divorced her, but he had to settle her debts.

For the next 7 years, Betsy renewed her role of clairvoyant, now Madame Marie LaRose. In 1889 she married John Scott, a farmer. She convinced him to sign a prenuptial agreement. After four years of farm life, “Marie” directed her lawyer to file for divorce.

Returning to Cleveland in 1893, she assumed the name Mrs. Cassie Hoover and opened a brothel where she met her next husband, Dr. Leroy Chadwick, a wealthy widower. She played a genteel widow who ran a respectable boarding house. When Chadwick responded that the place was a well-known brothel, "Mrs. Hoover" fainted. Once revived, she begged the doctor to immediately take her from the building, lest anyone think she was complicit in such a business. They married in 1897. Now, as Cassie Chadwick, she was ready for a major leagues con.

Cassie hatched a bold plan to establish herself as birthday, in prison. Learn more about Cassie Chadwick. Andrew Carnegie’s daughter. She went to New York City, and in a hotel lobby, she “chanced” to meet one of her husband's friends, a lawyer named Dillon. She asked him if he would like to meet Andrew Carnegie.  Who wouldn’t?

So, they took a carriage up 5^th Avenue to the Carnegie mansion. She asked Dillon to wait in the carriage while she checked to see if Carnegie would meet with them. She entered the mansion, and talked only with Carnegie's housekeeper, pretending to check credentials on someone she wanted to hire. When Chadwick came back to the carriage, she was visibly upset “because Carnegie refused to see them.” As they returned to the hotel, she dropped a paper in the carriage. Dillon took it up and noticed it was a promissory note for $2 million with Carnegie's signature. Dillon promised to keep Cassie's secret, and she "revealed" that she she was Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate child. Supposedly, Carnegie was so wracked with guilt that he showered money on her - $7 million in promissory notes tucked away in her Cleveland home. And she was to inherit $400 million upon Carnegie's death.

Just as she knew he would, Dillon told the story in Cleveland.  Eventually it leaked to the financial markets and banks began to offer their services to Chadwick. For the next eight years, she obtained loans of about $2 million ($72 million - 2023). She correctly assumed that no one would ask Carnegie about an illegitimate daughter for fear of embarrassing him.  For years no one mentioned the matter to the religious Carnegie. 

Chadwick forged securities in Carnegie's name for further proof. Bankers assumed that they would be fully repaid once Carnegie died. Banks in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and New York City loaned this “simple, naïve” woman big money at outrageous interest rates. The poor souls were trying to bilk “the most notorious woman of her time.”

Chadwick carried out a lavish lifestyle. She bought diamond necklaces, enough clothes to fill 30 closets, and a gold organ. She spent generously on her friends. She became known as "the Queen of Ohio," claiming to donate to the poor and to the suffrage movement.

In November 1904, a Massachusetts banker made Cassie a $190,000 loan. He was shocked when he learned of her other debts and called his loan. Chadwick could not pay, and the bank sued. She had debts over $1 million. Securities held for her in various banks were worthless. Andrew Carnegie denied ever knowing her and said he had not signed a promissory note in more than 30 years. Chadwick fled but was arrested at her New York hotel apartment and taken back to Cleveland. At her arrest she was wearing a money belt containing over $100,000 ($3.5 million – 2023). Dr. Chadwick filed for divorce, and with his adult daughter, hastily left Cleveland for a European tour.

The news sent shock waves through the Ohio banking community. Citizen's National Bank had loaned her $800,000. It suffered a massive run that forced it into bankruptcy.

When her house of cards fell apart, Cassie was unrepentant. She said: “Public clamor has made me a sacrifice. Here I am, an innocent woman hounded into jail, while a score of businessmen in Cleveland would leave town tomorrow if I told all I knew. Yes, I borrowed money, but what of it.” And the men (mostly men, of course) who Cassie defrauded blamed her hypnotic eyes.[i]

Andrew Carnegie attended Chadwick's trial to see the woman who had conned the nation's bankers. The trial was a media circus. A Cleveland court sentenced her to 14 years in prison for conspiracy to bankrupt the Citizen's National Bank. In January 1906, Cassie entered the Ohio State Penitentiary. Due to her celebrity status, the warden allowed her to bring trunks of clothing, photographs, and furniture.

In 1907, Cassie died on her 50th birthday, in prison. Learn more about Cassie Chadwick [LINK].

[i] “It takes 20 years to turn a boy into a man, and only 20 minutes for a beautiful woman to turn that man into a fool.”   Robert Frost (Paraphrased)