A man who worked as a janitor has left behind an estate valued at around $8m (£5.2).
Ronald Read, from Brattleboro in Vermont, gave no hint of the size of his fortune before his death in June 2014, aged 92.
The former gas station employee and janitor held his coat together with safety pins and had a long-time habit of foraging for firewood.
However, he regularly read the Wall Street Journal and had a knack for picking stocks – a talent that became public after his death when he bequeathed $6m to his local library and hospital.
His investments “grew substantially” over the years, said his attorney Laurie Rowell.
“He was unbelievably frugal,” Ms Rowell said.
When Mr Read visited her office, “sometimes he parked so far away so he wouldn’t have to pay the meter”.
He left $4.8m to the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and $1.2m to the town’s Brooks Memorial Library – the largest bequests each institution has ever received.
Mr Read also made a number of smaller bequests and his total fortune amounted to roughly $8m, local reports said.
Mr Read was born in the small town of Dummerston in 1921.
After military service during World War II, he returned to Brattleboro and worked at a service station for 25 years and then 17 years as a janitor at the local outlet of department store chain JC Penney.
