THE RICH UNCLE & THE GREAT BLIZZARD

New York City, Winter 1888

We're looking out our window at one of the worst blizzards in New York City history. It may well rival the legendary Blizzard of 1888, which happened at the very moment Harry Houdini's family joined him and his father in New York City.

We've always wondered why anyone would pull up stakes and travel into the teeth of 60-mile an hour winds and 30-foot snowdrifts.

Our long, rich and varied life has taught us that when people do things that seem ultra-strange and really make no sense at all, it's always for the same reason: money.

Back in Houdini's day, a "rich uncle in America" was the fantasy of many a poor immigrant. Our research has now discovered that Harry actually had a rich American uncle, and he got really rich exactly then, in the winter of 1888.

We're talking about his mother's brother-in-law Simon Newman of Brooklyn. We've written about Uncle Newman's labor union activities, and about his yeast company, which had a long-running battle with arch-rival Fleischmann's. What we did not know until now is that Uncle Newman was quite wealthy - certainly a multi-millionaire in today's terms. We're hypothesizing that Uncle Newman offered a helping hand to his wife's sister's family, struggling hard in Milwaukee.

It turns out that the yeast and vinegar companies owned by Uncle Newman only supplied bakeries as a sideline. The real action was in whiskey. In addition to his ownership of Atlantic Yeast and Empire Vinegar, Uncle Newman was president of Old Colony Distillers, a liquor company that was profitable precisely because it also made its own yeast. 

We got a deep look into his business affairs in court documents in which Harry's uncle is described as a "wild animal."

In future posts, we'll see how he outsmarted his partners and managed to stay one step ahead of the detectives who finally hunted them down.




RELATED:

WAS HOUDINI A SOCIALIST?

THE BLIZZARD OF '88

HOUDINI'S FORGOTTEN YEARS