Cassie Chadwick

Cassie Chadwick ( born October 10, 1857 in Eastwood (Ontario ), Canada, † October 10, 1907 in Columbus ( Ohio)) is the most famous name of a Canadian-born adventuress, the banks in the area of Cleveland ( Ohio) cheated by they claimed to be an illegitimate daughter of the millionaire Andrew Carnegie.

Early years

Born under the name Elizabeth Bigley, she was a daydreamer as a child and often told tall tales. The first documented bank fraud beginning Elizabeth at the age of 14 years, when they successfully attempted to open with a fake letter from an alleged uncle from England, a bank account and bad checks paid goods. She pulled at the age of 20 years to be near her sister to Cleveland and worked under the name Lydia DeVere as fortune teller. At the age of 22, she was arrested in Woodstock ( Ontario) because of a forgery, but released by reason of insanity. 1882, she married Wallace Springsteen in Cleveland (Ohio ). Her husband threw eleven days later out of the house when he learned of her past, which was known to him only by the publication of the wedding photos. It reported numerous creditors in Springsteen, who recognized his wife on the wedding photo.

Elizabeth changed her name to Marie LaRose and worked again as a fortune teller. In 1886 she married the Farmer John R. Scott and lived as his wife Lydia Scott four years on the farm. Your husband's tired, she filed with erfundenden reasons for divorce and had to pay off accordingly. After the divorce, she was active again as a fortune teller, laid back down on counterfeiters land and was sentenced in Toledo ( Ohio) to 9 ½ years in prison. Four years later, she was released on parole and returned to Cleveland. Here they took the name Cassie Hoover and opened a brothel in the west of the city. There, she met her future husband, Dr. Leroy Chadwick know.

Cassie knew that Dr. Chadwick was newly widowed and well-off. She played the role of " Mrs. Cassie Hoover ," an aristocratic widow who ran a private boarding house for ladies. When Dr. Chadwick told her thereof, that the establishment is a well-known brothel, was "Mrs. Hoover " in a swoon. After she regained consciousness, she claimed that she would never operate as a company and asked the doctor to lead them immediately out of this house, so no one suppose that it had anything to do with the operation. In 1897, she married Dr. Chadwick, who knew nothing about her past, except what his pretty new wife told him. It is not known whether he knew of her son Emil Hoover, whom she left behind in the care of the brothel ladies.

As Cassie Chadwick

In her time as wife of the well- respected Dr. Chadwick Cassie's spending exceeded that of their well-heeled neighbors in Cleveland's Euclid Avenue, a street that was widely known as " millionaire row " at the time. Instead of being welcome in the exclusive enclave of the Rockefellers, the Hannas, the Hays and the Mathers, Cassie Chadwick was regarded more as a strange woman who tried in vain to buy the goodwill of some of America's wealthiest families. When she was invited to any events, so this was done out of respect for Dr. Chadwick, the want residents of the area.

Cassie Chadwick veiled her and her son's identity in different ways. In the U.S. Census of 1900 ( District 97, Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio) she gave herself as Cassie Chadwick was born on February 3, 1862 in Pennsylvania. Her son, Emil Hoover was counted as Emil Chadwick, born in September 1886 in Canada (England). In court in Toledo ( Ohio), however, they pretended to be single and childless when she was there accused of forgery and sentenced to prison. After the Carnegie fraud Emil was referred to in the press as their son or stepson.

The Carnegie fraud

After she married in 1897 Dr. Leroy Chadwick, Cassie began her largest fraud by posing as Andrew Carnegie's daughter. During a visit to New York City, she asked a friend of her husband, a lawyer named Dillon, to accompany her to the home of Andrew Carnegie. She looked there only to his housekeeper under the pretext of wanting to submit a testimonial. When she came out, she dropped a paper. Dillon picked it up and saw that it was a change of more than 2 million dollars, provided with Carnegie's signature. She asked Dillon to secrecy and "revealed " to him then that she was Carnegie's illegitimate daughter. Carnegie was allegedly so consumed by guilt that he showered her with huge amounts of money. She further claimed that she had change over 7 million dollars in her home in Cleveland, and that they 'll inherit $ 400 million after Carnegie's death. Dillon got a locker for your document.

The news were leaked to the financial markets in northern Ohio, and banks began to offer their services. Over the next eight years she used her fictional family relationships to obtain against IOUs large loans that eventually totaled 10 to 20 million dollars. She assumed rightly that nobody would dare to ask Carnegie for an illegitimate daughter, afraid to embarrass him. In addition, the loans were made with usurious interest rates - so high that the bankers did not talk about it. Cassie pretended additional collateral in Carnegie's name and bankers assumed that Carnegie stand up for all the debts and that after Carnegie's death everything will be repaid - and that they would make a pretty profit with the interest.

Cassie began to live a lavish life of the money. She bought diamond collars, enough clothes to fill thirty cabinets, and a golden organ. It became known as " Queen of Ohio ".

In November 1904 she received a loan of $ 190,000 from HB Newton, a Boston banker. Newton was shocked when he learned of the other loans that had received Cassie and demanded his money back. Cassie could not pay and the bank went to court. At that time they had about $ 5 million debt. Now also came out that some of the securities which had received other banks were worthless. When Carnegie was asked about it, he denied that he had ever seen, and also stated that he had signed no change for more than 30 years. Chadwick fled to New York, but was soon arrested at her apartment in the Hotel Breslin and brought back to Cleveland. When she was arrested, she was wearing a money belt with more than $ 100,000. When the scandal became known, Leroy Chadwick left with his adult daughter affects the city to go on a trip to Europe. Before his departure, Chadwick filed for divorce.

The news caused a shock in the banking world of Cleveland. A bank that Citizen's National Bank of Oberlin, who had lent her 800,000 Doller, experienced a massive rush of customers and was forced into bankruptcy.

The process

Carnegie took part in the trial because he wanted to see the woman who had successfully conned banks by pretending to be his heir. In addition, members of families from the " Millionaires ' Row ", to their recognition she had tried so hard, were present. The trial was a media circus. On March 10, 1905 Cassie Chadwick was sentenced to 14 years in prison and a fine of 70.00 dollars for conspiracy to destroy the Citizen's National Bank and of conspiracy against the government, as the Citizen 's Bank was considered a state-owned bank. On January 1, 1906, she was taken to the state penitentiary in Columbus (Ohio ).

For a time, was the Chadwick house in Euclid Avenue and 82nd Street, a tourist attraction. In the early 20s, the building was torn down to the Euclid Avenue Temple (now Liberty Hill Baptist Church ) to make room.

After the Carnegie fraud

Upon their arrival in prison Cassie brought suitcases full of stuff for their cell, including rugs made ​​from animal skins and clothes, which was allowed to keep and bear. When her health was poor, she began to write down detailed instructions for her funeral. She pointed to her son even to send a part of their secret assets to Canada to buy them a grave stone for the family grave. On her 50th birthday Cassie Chadwick died in prison. She was buried at her birthplace in Eastwood (Ontario, Canada).