At sixteen, Betsy ran away from home, but was apprehended by police after attempting to obtain a $250 promissory note from a prosperous farmer.

Within the year, in Toronto, Betsy attempted to present herself as Elizabeth Cunard of the wealthy shipping family using a forged letter of introduction and a bogus check.

[9] After a brief stay with her sister and brother-in-law, Chadwick rented the lower floor of a house at 149 Garden Street, Cleveland from a Mrs. Brown.

Claiming to be widowed, Chadwick assumed the name Madame Lydia DeVere[10] and set up shop as a clairvoyant with funds from a bank loan on her sister and brother-in-law's furniture.

The article led Chadwick's sister, Alice York, and various tradespeople to the home of Springsteen to demand payment for debts his wife had accumulated.

After four years of farm life, Chadwick went to a lawyer in Youngstown and left a sworn statement confessing adultery.

[8] Upon returning to Cleveland in 1893, Chadwick assumed the name Mrs. Cassie Hoover and opened a brothel on the city's west side.

Knowing of the doctor's recent loss, Chadwick played the part of a genteel widow who ran a respectable boarding house for women.

During her time as the wife of the highly respected Dr. Chadwick, it is unclear whether he knew that she had given birth to a son, Emil Hoover.

However, in the 1900 United States census (District 97, Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Ohio), she identified herself as Cassie Chadwick, born 3 February 1862 in Pennsylvania.

[3] Chadwick's spending habits exceeded those of her richer neighbours along Cleveland's Euclid Avenue, then known as "Millionaires' Row".

Instead of being welcomed into the exclusive enclave of the Rockefellers, the Hannas, the Hays and the Mathers, Chadwick was thought of as a curious woman who tried in vain to buy the favors of some of the wealthiest families in the nation.

Following her marriage in 1897, Chadwick began her largest, most successful con game: that of establishing herself as Andrew Carnegie's daughter.

During a visit to New York City, she asked one of her husband's acquaintances, a lawyer named Dillon, to take her to Carnegie's home.

The information leaked to the financial markets in northern Ohio, and banks began to offer their services to Chadwick.

Leroy Chadwick and his adult daughter hastily left Cleveland for a European tour when the scandal broke.

[16] Andrew Carnegie attended Chadwick's trial, wishing to see the woman who had successfully conned the nation's bankers into believing that she was his heir.

She instructed her son Emil to send a portion of her hidden funds to Canada for the purchase of a tombstone for the family plot.

[22] ILLEGITIMATE, a feature script based on Cassie Chadwick—who was the greatest female con-artist ever—placed as semi-finalist in the Writer's Lab 2021.

[23] Chadwick was the subject of the Canadian TV movie Love and Larceny (1985), where the role of Betsy Bigley was played by Jennifer Dale.

[24] Wendy Crewson portrays Chadwick in "The Murdoch Sting" (January 27, 2014), episode 13 of season 7 of the Canadian television period drama Murdoch Mysteries[25] In Season 2 of the HBO TV Series The Gilded Age, the character of Maud Beaton is loosely based on Cassie Chadwick.