The Witch of Finance

4/28/2025

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
October 10, 1857, a baby girl was born to a farming family in Ontario, Canada. Her name was Elizabeth Lydia "Betsy" Bigley. She was the fifth of what would be eight siblings. In childhood, she lost hearing in one ear and she spoke with a lisp. Because of this she was a quiet child, and like all silent introverts considered peculiar by those around her.

In March 1879, Betsy was arrested in Woodstock, Ontario, for attempting to negotiate forged promissory notes. She supplemented the notes with a calling card that read "Miss Bigley, Heiress to $15,000."

Betsy would drift into hypnotic spells, which she would awaken from disoriented. Wherever she went in those moments of introspection, one can only guess at.

When she was 22 years old, she pulled her first fraud job on a local bank in Woodstock. After a few months, authorities arrested her. Due to her age and on grounds of insanity, they released her with an admonishment not to do it again. She didn't heed the warning.

The nature of Betsy's first scheme involved forging a letter notifying that an uncle had left her a small sum of money as an inheritance. The notification seemed authentic enough that a local banker issued checks to her in advance so that she could spend the money, which he believed would be deposited into their vaults very soon. The checks were real, but the funds never materialized.

Betsy lay low for a while. It wasn't spent in pondering the error of her ways, instead she thought of ways to her perfect her scam. She then headed to Cleveland to spend some time with her newly wedded sister Alice, who had moved to Ohio. She promised her sister her stay was brief, until she could land a job.

One of Betsy's forged checks using her alias of Cassie Chadwick c.1904

Her sister had no idea that Betsy had no plans to slave away at a factory or shop. Instead she took inventory of any items of value in her sister's house, ranging from cutlery, furniture to paintings. With an estimate in hand, she went to a local bank, and used them as collateral for a loan. Needless to say, when her brother-in-law Mr. York found out about the whole mess, he promptly kicked her out.

Betsy liked Ohio so much, she moved to another neighborhood in Cleveland. Her new address was 149 Garden Street. Using the funds she got from her sister's furniture, she rented a house from a Mrs. Brown. She told her landlady she was a widow. Using the pseudonym of Madame Lydia DeVere she set up shop as a clairvoyant.

In November 1882, Betsy married Dr. Wallace S. Springsteen (1839-1897) and became Mrs. Lydia Springsteen. He had just arrived from practicing medicine in California. Betsy told him she was an heiress to a "large Irish estate", and moved to his home at 3 Garden Street. A local paper published photographs of the nuptials, and soon Dr. Springsteen had a slew of creditors, including his wife's sister, knocking at his door demanding payment for debts incurred for "wedding gifts" she had purchased. Once he verified it was all true, he kicked her out. She filed for divorce in 1883 claiming he drove her away from their home in December 1882. She also wanted to regain her maiden name of Lydia Bigley.

In March, 1883 he published a notice in the newspapers that read: "Notice — I hereby forbid any person from trusting or harboring my wife, as I will pay no bills of her contracting after this date."

The twelve day marriage cost him quite a sum as he was forced to pay his wife's debt, since his own credit was on the line. He told the press that he thought she came from a rich, aristocratic New York family.

After her divorce from Springsteen, Betsy Bigley returned to Woodstock, Canada and lived with her mother on the family farm. She took up the odd custom of writing letters to friends to say that Elizabeth Springsteen was dead. Many people believed that she was dead. Three years later she came to Cleveland and lived under the name of Mrs. Scott.

Forged acknowledgement from Andrew Carnegie made by Betsy Bigley using the alias of Cassie Chadwick

Betsy's modus operandi was new life, new name. So she then invented herself as Madame Marie Rosa (or LaRose). She scammed merchants and landlords at various boarding houses.

Like all grifters, she left town and headed to Pennsylvania. Short of cash, in Erie she told the locals she was the niece of General William Tecumseh Sherman. One of her tricks was to make her gums bleed. Betsy claimed she was hemorrhaging and quite ill. The townspeople took a collection and loaned her money so she could return to Cleveland. When they followed up for payment, she forged her own death notice telling them that Marie had passed away two weeks before.

Betsy Bigley went back to the fake psychic business, and set herself up as Madame Marie LaRose. She met her second husband, John R. Scott a farmer who she convinced to sign a prenuptial agreement. Farm life didn't suit Mrs. Scott, and after four years she confessed to adultery, and directed her lawyer to file for divorce.

She then married a businessman named C.L. Hoover, who was said to be much older than her. With him she had a son named Emil, born September, 1886, who she shipped off to Canada to be raised by her family. In 1888, Hoover died and left his widow an estate worth $50,000. However for Betsy it had never really been about the money, but about the scam.

Emil Hoover who also went by the name Emil Hoover Chadwick c.1908

Betsy moved back to Toledo and set up a clairvoyant shop as Madame Lydia DeVere. A client named Joseph Lamb, a respectable citizen and cashier at United States Express Company paid her $10,000 so she would act as his financial adviser.

She prepared a promissory note for several thousand dollars and forged the signature of Richard Young, the Iron King of Youngstown, Ohio. She asked Lamb to cash it at his Toledo bank. Due to his excellent reputation it was cashed without incident. The bank caught on after several others totaling $40,000 were honored.

In March 1890, she went to trial for six indictments of forgery in a Toledo court. Joseph Lamb, named as her accomplice was also arrested. The charges stemmed from "uttering and publishing" forged notes. Lamb was perceived as her victim and acquitted of all charges. She was sentenced to nine and half years in the state penitentiary.

In 1936 upon her death, Betsy Bigley a.k.a. Cassie Chadwick was known as an ex-convict, ex-clairvoyant, ex-masseuse and queen of swindler

According to Betsy, there was no reason why being in jail should stop your clairvoyant abilities, which is what she told the warden. She predicted he would lose $5,000 in a business deal, and then die of cancer. Both things happened.

She then started a letter writing campaign to Governor William McKinley (later president of the USA) claiming she was remorseful and would change her ways. It worked, and after serving three and half years they paroled her.

In 1893, using the identity of Mrs. Cassie Hoover she opened a brothel in Cleveland's west side. Her son Emil lived with her at the whorehouse. She met a recently widowed doctor named Leroy Chadwick. Not only was he wealthy, he descended from one of Cleveland's most respected families. She claimed she was a widow trying to make ends meet by running a respectable boarding house. Like all "respectable" women she promptly fainted when he pointed out the obvious, which was that the establishment was a well-known brothel. She begged him to take her away so that none would think she was involved in running it, and therefore ruin her reputation.

For some strange reason they married twice in 1897, once in February and then in August. Chadwick's first wife Martha, had died in 1894.

In the 1900 census, the household was made up by Dr. Leroy Chadwick, his 15-year-old daughter Mary, Cassie, and her son Emil, then 14 years old.

The family lived in a mansion on Euclid Avenue, which was the Millionaire's Row of Cleveland. The wealthy and well-connected families who were her neighbors, only invited Mrs. Chadwick to their parties because of her husband.

Betsy Bigley aka Cassie Chadwick mugshots

During a visit to New York Cassie asked her husband's acquaintance, a lawyer named Mr. Dillon to take her to Carnegie's address. She gained admittance to the house while he waited in the carriage. She told the housekeeper she was there checking on credentials for a new employee, which claimed she had worked for the Carnegies. The housekeeper denied knowing this person, but the visit served its purpose which was to convince Dillon that she was allowed entrance into the millionaire's mansion.

While in Dillon's presence she dropped a paper, which he recognized as a $2 million promissory note signed by Carnegie. She made him promise to keep her secret. She explained that Carnegie was so overcome with guilt that he showered his illegitimate daughter with money. She told the wide-eyed attorney that she held $7 million in promissory notes, and stood to inherit $400 million upon her father's death. He was so convinced by her story that he arranged for a safe deposit box to store the document.

Cassie Chadwick's mansion on Euclid Ave, also known as Millionaire's Row in Cleveland

Mrs. Chadwick knew perfectly well that Dillon would not keep the secret, and soon the information leaked to the financial markets in Ohio. The results were that banks fell over themselves offering their services.

The Carnegie name was so powerful that for the next eight years she obtained loans totaling $2 million (over $50 million in today's currency). She banked on the fact that none would question Carnegie about an obviously embarrassing subject. The bankers also painted themselves into a corner by granting the loans with usurious interests, which they did not want to admit they had offered.

Cassie Chadwick bought diamond necklaces, a gold organ and clothes she never wore. She became known as the Queen of Ohio and the Queen of Diamonds. She claimed she gave money to the poor and the suffrage movement, but this might have just been a small lie among the whoppers she told. She was able to stave off her creditors by paying off older loans, with proceeds from a new loan.

The Queen of Ohio's reign came to end in November 1904. Herbert B. Newton, a Massachusetts banker learned of her other loans after granting her one for $190,000. They had met at Euclid Avenue Baptist Church. Fearing he would not be repaid, and not wanting to wait for Carnegie's death he called the loan in. She didn't pay, so the bank sued. She had debts totaling $1 million, and it became evident that her securities were worthless.

This was not the first time Cassie had used a powerful family's name to open bank doors for her. She she still lived in Canada, she had gone to Toronto and presented herself as Elizabeth Cunard, a member of the wealthy shipping family. She used a forged letter of introduction, a false check and acquired $10,000 in goods on credit. She was found out, and she left for Ontario.

Pictured: Cassie Chadwick's poodle, the Euclid Ave mansion, Emil Hoover and two of Cassie maids c.1904

Carnegie when asked denied ever meeting her, and that he had not signed a promissory note in over thirty years.

Mrs. Chadwick fled to New York where she was arrested. She was wearing a money belt with $100,000. Dr. Chadwick and his adult daughter thought it was an opportune time to take an extended trip to Europe. He stopped at his lawyer's office though and filed for divorce.

Citizen's National Bank of Oberlin was forced into bankruptcy since they had loaned her $800,000.

On January 1, 1905 Dr. Chadwick was arrested as soon as the ship he was traveling on docked. He was charged by the State of Ohio for aiding and abetting his wife. Two years later impoverished and without recourse, he clerked in his brother's furniture store in Jacksonville, Florida. He had not gone to see his estranged wife in several months. His plans were to practice medicine once he was licensed to do so in the state.

On January 12, 1906 a heavily-veiled Cassie Chadwick was delivered to the Ohio State Penitentiary to serve her ten year sentence. She had already purchased rugs to be placed in the cell by the time she arrived.

In June her Parisian gowns and furniture were sold for over $4000. The purchaser planned to sell them as souvenirs. This was one of several auctions held to in order to recover money for the creditors, who proved they had a valid debt to be satisfied.

In September, Mary Bigley, Cassie's mother passed away. She lived in Pennsylvania, and only her daughter's notoriety caused a note to be made of her death. Daniel Bigley, her father, had passed away in 1879.

In September 1907, eighteen months after she started to serve her sentence she suffered from a stroke that left her blind. She was already being treated for a nervous condition by the prison physicians. It just so happened her son young Emil was visiting her in prison.

On October 10, 1907, which was her 50th birthday, she fell into a coma. With only prison personnel by her side she died. She had wasted away, and lost thirty pounds since being jailed. Her son who lived in Cleveland had been summoned, but arrived fifteen minutes after her death. Cassie was buried in her hometown of Eastwood, Ontario.

Cartoons depicting that Cassie Chadwick had hoodwinked many bankers made the papers c.1904

Within a month of her death, the charges pending against her husband were dismissed. In August 1908, he filed for bankruptcy to discharge debts in excess of $600,000.

Allegedly Betsy Chadwick wrote letters to Emil before her death; one of which asked him to get money from her hiding place to buy a tombstone for the family plot in Ontario. None of her family came for her body, except for Emil, however without the money she told him about she would have been buried in a pauper's grave in Evergreen Cemetery. After her death her son changed his name to Emil H. Chadwick.

Emil's luck with the women was not the best, since in 1908, his wife was involved in a historic train crash where five Pullmans went off a 25-foot trestle over Copper Mine Creek about 30 miles outside of Atlanta, taking 200 passengers with them. The train was bound for Florida.

Dr. Chadwick died in 1924, while living in Jacksonville, Florida. He was 71 years old. His daughter Mary moved to Jacksonville with him, where she met her husband and had a child. She died in 1960. What became of Emil Hoover Chadwick is unknown; he disappeared from mention in the newspapers and public records after the scandal of his mother's crime and conviction.

For a time, the Chadwick Mansion on Euclid Avenue and East 82nd Street became a tourist destination. In the early 1920s, it was torn down for the construction of the Euclid Avenue Temple (now Liberty Hill Baptist Church).

The question begs to be asked: did Elizabeth Bigley a.k.a Cassie Chadwick give all the money back? Was there a stash of loot she left somewhere, for the only person who stayed with her until the end? Perhaps Emil Hoover did have good reason to disappear.