In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Chapter Four q q q Leading on to Fortune Henry Invests to Buy the Bard There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. . . . . . . we must take the current when it serves Or lose our ventures. Julius Caesar, 4.3.249–55 Henry Folger created the wealth to buy Shakespeare in four major ways: a five-decade salary from Standard Oil; investments in the company and its affiliates that generated substantial dividends; careful money management; and a major investment in Magnolia Petroleum Company, which generated very large dividends and a huge profit when it was sold. He began his career in 1879 in a precarious financial situation he was determined to overcome. His father had gone bankrupt. Henry was clerking during the day and attending law school at night. And he was in debt. The Folgers lived frugally. They hosted no business dinners, and Folger studiously avoided business luncheons, leaving other Standard Oil brass to enjoy the executive dining room at 26 Broadway. Word of such thrifty habits crossed the Atlantic. A noted British musicologist, Edmund Horace Fellowes, told the press, “Every day he [Folger] goes to his palatial offices on Broadway with a bun and some sandwiches in his pocket for lunch.”1 The New Rochelle Standard Star reported that “on winter evenings the noted bibliophile would creep down the front steps with a pan of water suspended before him, sniffing the air and hoping for a freeze. In that case they [the Folgers] could spin the sign for the iceman around to ‘0’ and save fifteen or twenty cents.” No ice blocks to deposit with big iron tongs in the Folger icebox on the following day, as the horse-drawn delivery wagon made the rounds in Brooklyn.2 66 Collecting Shakespeare The Folgers limited family get-togethers at their home to twice a year, Thanksgiving and New Year’s. As many as two dozen places were set around a long festive table. For other family events, they sent sincere apologies. Henry was, however, generous toward his family in other ways. After he had erased some debt, he started paying his father’s rent on a Brooklyn flat, a filial gesture he continued until his father died. Folger regularly gave cash presents to all his brothers (Stephen, Edward, and William) and to his sister Mary. When Mary’s husband died, Henry covered many expenses for her children, including college tuition and medical services. The Folgers dined at home, employing one maid for housework and one for cooking. When needed, they hired a horse and carriage until 1914; then they rented a motor car. Soon after his father’s death in 1914, Henry moved his driver, named Smith, into the Quincy Street house where Henry Sr. had lived. Emily’s indulgence was taking the waters at Hot Springs, Virginia, as suggested by her doctor. Henry’s diversion was the golf links. He had no butlers, race horses, or private railway car. Folger did punch a hole in his reputation at home and abroad as a “goodhearted miser,” however, when he purchased in 1921 an elegant, sporty six-cylinder, sevenpassenger Pierce-Arrow vestibule sedan. For most of their married life, the Folgers rented modest lodgings in Brooklyn. Their rent in 1895 for 212 Lefferts Place was $62.50 a month. Starting in 1910 their rent climbed to $270.84 for the more spacious 24 Brevoort Place brownstone. They even rented their furniture, in 1929 paying $500 for the rental of a complete set. In the late 1890s, they rented for the summer a small cottage in Glen Cove, Long Island, near the 700 acres where Pratt family members built their lavish secondary residences. First renting on Dosoris Lane, then on Duck Pond, and finally at 11 St. Andrew’s Lane across from the Nassau Country Club and near the railway station , the Folgers paid $1,000 for the summer season in the early years, and in later years no more than $1,250. Finally, in August 1929, after his retirement, Henry was inspired to buy the first home the Folgers owned, the two-acre St. Andrew’s Lane property. This purchase was providential, for when Henry died a year later Emily did not have to deal with this major issue by herself. In 1910, before he was elected president of the newly disaffiliated Standard Oil Company of New...

Share