Hannah Elias was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 1820 Addison St., one of nine children. Her father Charles Elias was a "negro with Indian blood in him" who ran a large, well-regarded catering operation, her mother Mary Elias was "almost white", and they sent her to public school. In 1884, to attend her sister Hattie's wedding in style, she borrowed a ball gown without permission from her employer, leading to a sentence at Moyamensing Prison and her banishment from home.
On her own
Supporting herself as a sex worker at a "resort" owned by Emelyn Truitt in Manhattan's Tenderloin neighborhood, she met wealthy glass-factory owner John R. Platt, forty-five years her senior. She left the brothel when her twin brother David and suitor Frank P. Satterfield asked her to live with the latter in a boardinghouse in east Philadelphia. She became pregnant and gave birth at the Blockley Almshouse in December 1885, giving the child up for adoption.
Affair with John R. Platt
After reuniting with Platt, he gave her large sums of money, "volunteerd to start her in the boarding-house business", at 128 W 53rd Street, where as propietress she rented a room to Cornellus Williams. She then moved into a mansion at 236 Central Park West, passing as Sicilian or Cuban. Williams later fatally shot city planner Andrew H. Green in front of Green's Park Avenue home, confusing him with Platt.
Blackmail case
When Platt, prodded by his family, accused her of blackmailing him out of $685,385, the affair merited The World'slead story on 1 June 1904, describing her as his "ebony enslaver". Asked about allegations that she had been blackmailed as well, she responded "I have read in the newspapers that I have been, and I am frank to say that there must be some truth in a story which is given so much in detail." The novelty of a Black woman with the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars, living in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in New York caused the Seeing New Yorkelectric bus tours to make Elias's house a stop. Platt initially refused to swear a criminal complaint, but relented, allowing police serving a criminal warrant to break down her door, where they were escorted to Elias by her Japanese butler, Kato. At the time she said, "I have no fear. I have done no wrong, and every one of the poor people I have helped is praying for me in the time of my affliction." She was arraigned in Tombs Court on 10 June 1904. Held on $30,000 bail, meetings at the house of R. C. Cooper at 318 W. 58th St. and 149 W. 43rd St. raised money for her release. When Platt was "asked directly about Hannah Elias he aimed blows at the reporter with his umbrella and shouted: 'Don't talk to me about Hannnah Elias.'" The story spread, leading to detailed court coverage in the Baltimore Sun as she took the stand and described how her money was kept in "15 savings banks" as well as "houses and lands worth $150,000, furniture and plate, worth $100,000, and jewels valued at as much more." After losing his initial court case, the court of appeals eventually ruled against Platt, allowing her to keep his gifts.
Later life
In 1906 Elias evicted white tenants from several apartment buildings on West 135th street with a note reading, "in the future none but respectable colored families were to occupy the flats". She continued in this vein, rumored a 1912 article titled "Negroes Crowding Whites" as the purchaser of a $250,000 apartment building at 546-552 Lenox Ave. By 1915 she was living in a penthouse in one of her "numerous properties" at 501 W. 113th St. She joined forces with noted Harlem developer John Nail but later left for Europe with her butler, Kato, never to return.
