MILLIONAIRE IN SECRET.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5142, 22 June 1927, Page 1

MILLIONAIRE IN SECRET.

A NEW YORK SURPRISE. CHEMIST’S £17,000,(100. That in the United States, where tile newspapers chronicle every action of persons of wealth, a man could acquire a fortune of £17,000,000 without the public being aware of the extent of his riches is disclosed by the d-ath of Mr Elden C. Dewitt. It has been discovered that nothing short of amazement by the newspapers that Mr Dewitt lived in New York for 20 years as the head of a drug' and medicine firm which bears his name, without once being mentioned in print. During that time he built up this huge fortune, which he left to his wife, and upon her death to 14 relatives. Only when the filing of the will disclosed that he was unusually rich diil the newspapers print his name. Then they had great difficulty in learning how he amassed his mil- ] ions. Born 72 years ago in lowa, he began as a clerk in a chemist’s shop, and ultimately became its proprietor. He started to manufacture his own remedies for common ills, and the business gradually grew until the firm had branches, in Europe. A clqse search revealed that he once received newspaper attention when, in 1895, he participated in an election campaign to reform Chicago,