1897-99: New York
"War of Wealth" headed back to New York. Nellie, and Ben, had to withdraw from the Company. Nellie was moved to a facility for the better class of the seriously ill: "The Home for Incurables." In the New York Charities Directory, for 1901, the administrators advertised the facility this way:
The Home for Incurables was organized in the year 1866, and the Managers have aimed to make it what its name implies - a "Home" for that large class of sufferers whose diseases are pronounced incurable, and who, by nature of their disease, are denied admission to ordinary hospitals, while the persons themselves, though in many instances quite poor, are, in refinement, education, and social position, and above all, religious character, so far removed from the pauper class that no Christian mind can for a moment bear the thought of dismissing them to the public charities.
Billy Birch, also living in the city, died just weeks before Nellie. The lights on Broadway did not go dark, nor did the world come to an end. To demonstrate this last fact, Cotton gave himself a birthday present and invited his friends to see her.