Bertha Heyman
If you stumble upon a winning formula, why not exploit it for all it’s worth? This seems to have been the motto of Bertha Heyman, the so-called Confidence Queen of 1880s America. Born in Prussia in the early 1850s, she migrated to the States in 1878, settling in New York. There she started to put her God-given talents to use.
In appearance Bertha was a striking woman, just 5 feet 4.5 inches tall and weighing 245 pounds. Some contemporary reports claim she had a pleasing face but, according to a 1923 article in the New York Times, her picture was “one of the least attractive in the police records of that day.” Her appearance earned her the rather uncharitable sobriquet of Big Bertha. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
Bertha’s initial strategy was to carry out what we now term as advance fee fraud – we came across it before with the Letters of Jerusalem. The story was fairly simple. She had married a rich man whom she was now trying to divorce. If only she could raise enough money to initiate divorce proceedings then all would be hunky dory. The mark would give Bertha the requisite money, on the promise of a share of the riches his generosity had unlocked, but, of course, he would never see Bertha or his money again. Another variant was that she owned some land but without access to her hubby’s money, she couldn’t afford to sell it. The mark would lend her the money against a share of the sale proceeds of the land.
Bertha was very selective as to her victims. She saw a successful scam as an intellectual challenge and so saw no fun in duping fools. As she told the New York Times in 1883, “the moment I discover a man’s a fool, I let him drop, but I delight in getting into the confidence and pockets of men who think they can’t be skinned. It ministers to my intellectual pride.” Some consolation, I suppose, to her victims.
But all good things must come to an end and having defrauded dupes of several thousand dollars, Bertha was arrested and sentenced to five years in chokey on Blackwell’s Island. But being incarcerated didn’t stop her. She is reported to have relieved a prison warder of his life savings!
Realising that New York was on to her, Bertha moved to California and resumed her old ways. In February 1888 she met the Chief Rabbi in San Francisco and span the old story. She was a widow, inheriting $300,000 but the money would only be available to her if her next husband was a nice Jewish man. She even offered $1,000 to the person who would found her next hubby. She was feted and eventually introduced to Abraham Gruhn, a wealthy businessman who was besotted by her, showering her with gifts and jewellery.
There was one problem, though. Bertha’s stepson, Willie, was opposed to the liaison and so to smooth the way Gruhn “lent” him $500. This was the cue for Bertha and Willie to scarper, only pausing to pawn some of the jewellery. Gruhn went to the police and when he told his story, bells started ringing and he recognised Bertha from a photograph held in police records. A warrant was out for her arrest and the duo had their collars felt in Texas.
Bizarrely, a theatre impresario called Ned Foster paid her bail and put her on the stage where she played to large audiences reciting a poem The Confidence Queen in which she painted herself as the misunderstood victim; “”so when vain grasping men/ pant for glittering gold/ and find their bonanza in me/ is it wicked to show up how/ badly they’re sold/ and the rogues that men/ can sometimes be.”
Even Foster became a victim of sorts, falling for a story that Bertha’s trunk had a false bottom in which were secreted thousands of dollars, bonds and some expensive jewellery. On the cusp of paying her $1,600 for the trunk, he had the wit to inspect it. Naturally, there was no false bottom.
Bertha spent the rest of her life running honky-tonk saloons. Willie was less fortunate. He did time for his part in the Gruhn scam.
If you enjoyed this, try Fifty Scams and Hoaxes by Martin Fone
https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/business/fifty-scams-and-hoaxes/
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