Sarah Howe (fraudster)

{{Infobox person

| name = Sarah Howe

| image =

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{circa|1826}}

| birth_place =

| death_date = {{Death date|1892|01|26|1826}}
(aged 65–66; uncertain)

| death_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

| resting_place = Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, Boston

| occupation = Fraudster, fortune teller

| years_active =

| spouse = {{marriage|Florimund L. Howe|1852}}
(and possibly two earlier marriages)

| children =

| known_for = Ponzi schemes, including Ladies' Deposit Company of Boston

}}

Sarah Emily Howe ({{circa|1826}} – January 26, 1892) was an American fraudster who operated several Ponzi schemes—although her schemes predated namesake Charles Ponzi by several decades—in the 1870s and 1880s. Her most well-known deception was the Ladies' Deposit Company of Boston. Howe was arrested in 1880 and imprisoned for three years for fraud. Upon her release, she repeated similar frauds until she was arrested again in 1888.

Early life

The details of Howe's early life are uncertain. Newspaper accounts gave inconsistent reports of her age, suggesting she may have been born as early as 1820 or as late as 1827. The Boston Herald claimed she was born in Providence, Rhode Island.{{harvnb|Robb|2017|loc=loc 1955}} A reported early marriage to a man named James Solomon may have been annulled due to miscegenation, followed by a marriage to a second man who subsequently died.{{harvnb|Clapp|1881|p=130}} Many of these details came from sources hostile to Howe and are difficult to confirm.{{harvnb|Robb|2017|loc=loc 1960}}

In 1852, she married Florimund L. Howe in Manchester, New Hampshire. After the American Civil War, the couple moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where she worked as a fortune teller and in various other occupations, some of them criminal. She spent several weeks in jail in 1875 after taking out multiple loans secured with the same collateral, but her conviction was overturned on appeal.{{harvnb|Clapp|1881|pp=130–131}}{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-female-financiering/159449477/ |title=Female Financiering |newspaper=The Boston Globe |page=4 |date=September 28, 1880 |accessdate=November 20, 2024 |via=newspapers.com}}

Ladies' Deposit

File:Ladies' Deposit Company arraigned.jpg

Howe opened the Ladies' Deposit Company sometime before April 1879{{efn|Historian George Robb gives 1878 as the year the bank was established.{{harvnb|Robb|2017|loc=loc 1894}} A contemporary account by journalist Henry A. Clapp states that the earliest documented deposit was made April 1, 1879, and the earlier history of the bank is uncertain due to a lack of reliable sources.{{harvnb|Clapp|1881|p=122}}}} as a savings bank that accepted deposits only from unmarried women. She told depositors that the bank worked with a Quaker charity that wanted to help women of modest means. She promised a very high interest rate on the deposits, initially described as two percent per week, which was later adjusted to eight percent per month. In fact there was no such charity and Howe relied on new deposits to pay the interest on older ones.{{harvnb|Robb|2017|loc=loc 1892-1907}} Howe did not advertise the bank, but was able to attract $500,000 ({{Inflation|US|500000|1879|fmt=eq}}) in deposits from about 1200 women in cities as far away as Chicago and Washington by relying on referrals from her depositors.{{harvnb|Robb|2017|loc=loc 1929-1940}}

In September 1880, the Boston Daily Advertiser began publishing articles attacking the Ladies' Deposit as a swindle, which led to a run on the bank by its depositors. By October the scheme had collapsed and Howe was charged with multiple counts of fraud.{{harvnb|Clapp|1881|pp=126–127}} She was convicted and served three years in prison.

Later life

After her release in 1884, Howe set up another fraudulent bank, the Women's Bank. The new bank operated on the same principles as the Ladies' Deposit, but promised a slightly lower interest rate of seven percent per month. She accepted an estimated $50,000 in deposits before the new fraud was exposed in April 1887. Howe fled Boston before she could be indicted.{{harvnb|Robb|2017|loc=loc 1980-1988}}

Howe attempted similar schemes in other cities, including one in Chicago under the name Ladies Provident Aid. She returned to Boston where she was arrested in December 1888, but she was released in March 1889 because victims were unwilling to participate in her prosecution. She returned to fortune telling until her death in Boston on January 26, 1892.{{harvnb|Robb|2017|loc=loc 1988-1992}}{{cite news |title=The 'Woman's Banker' Dead |work=The Boston Weekly Globe |date=January 26, 1892 |page=3 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18813835/the_boston_weekly_globe/ |via=Newspapers.com}} She was buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, with the burial fee of $5 {{USDCY|5|1892}} paid by a stranger.{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-mrs-howe-buried/159447893/ |title=Mrs. Howe Buried |newspaper=The Boston Globe |page=8 |date=January 29, 1892 |accessdate=November 20, 2024 |via=newspapers.com}}

Notes

References

=Works cited=

{{cite news |first=Henry A. |last=Clapp |title=Sympathetic Banking |work=The Atlantic Monthly |date=July 1881 |pages=121–136}}
{{cite book |title=Ladies of the Ticker: Women and Wall Street from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression |first=George |last=Robb |location=Urbana |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2017 |edition=Kindle}}