She was born in New Bedford, Mass. in 1834, to a well-to-do Quaker family. She lived with her grandfather from the age of two, due to her mother's ill health, and was at her father's side much of the time. By the age of 6, she was reading him the financial papers, and at 13, became the family bookkeeper.
She inherited $7.5 million in 1864 when her father died, and when she married a few years later, was the first woman to draw up her own prenup.
Granted, she was a very a difficult woman, with few friends and notoriously frugal. She was horribly maligned in the press, largely due to the fact that she was a highly successful woman on Wall Street, in the late 1800's. The media called her the "Witch of Wall Street" and spun wild stories about her miserliness ... that she wore one black dress until it turned green, washed only the hem to save soap, never used the heat or hot water, and owned one pair of underwear until they wore out. Okay, now how on earth would anyone know that?
It was a man's world, especially on Wall Street, but at the end of her life, her liquid assets were valued at $200 million. That's about $4 Billion in 2011 dollars.
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