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| A guard at the grave at Laurel Hill Cemetery before exhumation |
Another way to describe what happened is “The Super Bowl of Greed.”
The reclusive, childless, penny-pinching widow left no will but her estate was worth about $7 million when she kicked the bucket. This was a huge pot of cash. One newspaper said she was the third wealthiest woman in America.
Over the next 20 years 26,000 people – in practically every state and 50 foreign countries – claimed kinship to the dearly departed and therefore an heir to the fortune.
Even Hitler’s Germany sent a representative to Philadelphia to make a claim. And the state of Pennsylvania was hoping no heirs existed so it would get the entire estate.
Before it all ended, her estate had increased to about $20 million.
It sparked a murder suicide in Germany, Garrett’s body was exhumed and fraudsters went to prison.
Henrietta, whose parents came from Germany, had married a very wealthy older gentleman. Walter Garrett owned America’s largest snuff company. The couple settled into a large brownstone house on 9th Street near Spruce.
In 1895 Walter died leaving everything to Henrietta. Although she had a few servants, she hated to spend an extra penny, but apparently listened to a good financial advisor.
When hundreds then thousands of people started claiming to be kinfolk, the court appointed a “special master” to investigate the claims. After 20 years that report may have set a world record for sheer size.
In 1951 the court-appointed master produced 390 thick volumes - millions of pages of testimony and a 900-page summary.
The investigation uncovered three first cousins – all three now dead, but their heirs got part of the $20-million pot. The lion’s share of the money went for court fees, expenditures and taxes.
Even after the settlement. the judge in the case had to hear a few new claims. The most ridiculous came from a West Virginia woman who said a young Henrietta showed up at the family remote cabin with a newborn baby girl. She gave away that baby and she was Henrietta’s daughter!
There were rumors that Henrietta did have a will that an angry servant hid in her casket when she was buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery. The court allowed her disinterment in 1937. There was no will in the casket.
And then there was the murder-suicide. The tale varies a bit, but a man who traveled from Germany to Philly to make a family claim and returned empty-handed got into an argument with his mother (or aunt) over travel expenses. He shot and killed his mother then turned the weapon on himself.
There were even cases of those who forged documents showing kinship to Henrietta, going to prison for forgery and fraud.
The entire mess was the result of greed and a women too cheap to buy new clothes or wire her house for electricity or pay a lawyer to write a will.