The 1845 Jacob A. Conover House - 735 Washington Street

 

photograph by the author

Grocer Charles Crane's store and residence were located at 734 and 736 Washington Street in 1844 when Richard Halliday's estate was sold at auction.  Crane and David Ramsey, a carman, purchased the plots at 733 through 739 Washington Street, across the street from Crane's home, and erected four nearly identical homes.  Completed in 1845, the three-story and basement houses were faced in brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Their handsome entrances featured pilasters on either side of the paneled doors, transoms and narrow sidelights.  Delicate dentils ran along the fascia boards below the wooden cornices.

No. 735 Washington Street seems to have been initially operated as a boarding house.  In 1845, the families of Daniel Blauvelt, a carman; John Patterson, a "boatman;" butcher Joseph Pratt; and newlyweds William and Ann Aliza Kirk Goodheart lived here.  Sadly, Ann Goodheart contracted what the New York Herald described as a "short and severe illness" that year.  She died at the age of 19 on November 8.

Around 1852, Jacob A. Conover moved his family into 735 Washington Street.  He and his wife had a son, Gustavus A. Conover, who was five years old that year.  Conover operated Jacob A. Conover & Co. at 130 Horatio Street, a lucrative woodshop that created architectural elements like stairways.  The family was affluent enough to afford a farm in New Jersey.  Conover sold it in 1854, his advertisement describing:

A Farm for Sale--Containing 100 acres of Land, 15 or 20 of which is woodland, the residue in a high state of cultivation, with dwelling and tenant houses, new barn and other out buildings, all in good repair, beautifully situated, one mile from the ocean (where there is good sea bathing) and about seven miles south of Long Branch, N.J.

In 1855, Conover was granted a patent for a wood-splitting machine.  He vigorously defended his patent, going to court repeatedly as late as 1870 to fight infringements.

Conover's intricate invention.  from Transactions of the American Institute of the City of New York, 1855 (copyright expired)

In 1864, the Conover family moved to West 20th Street and 735 Washington Street once again became a boarding house.  On March 16, 1865, The New York Times headlined an article, "The Draft Begun."  It said, "Among doubts, hesitation, delay and uncertainty about orders, the draft in the City of New-York was begun yesterday."   Among the names pulled that day was H. Collins of 735 Washington Street.  Two days later, the name of another boarder, D. O. Hawk, was called.

The proprietor permitted one boarder to use the parlor piano for teaching.  An advertisement in the New York Herald on October 15, 1865 read:

Attention!--Accompaniments, scales and pieces taught by my system quicker than by any method heretofore adopted.  Satisfaction guaranteed.  Address of call on Professor, 735 Washington street.

It was most likely the same resident who, three years later, advertised, "Music read at sight; copyright secured.  A Theoretical and perfect system of notation.  Send for circular.  Taught only at Phonographic Musical Institute, 735 Washington street."

Living here in 1881 was the Jacob Phillips family.  When Mrs. Phillips's 10-year-old son stole $1.50 from her bag (more than $45 in 2024), she did not blame the boy, but a local storekeeper named Weeks.  On November 16, 1881, the New York Evening Post reported that she marched into the Charles Street Police station and complained that Weeks, "displayed in his show window cheap revolvers, tinsel jewelry, and toys which he promised as prizes."  Youngsters could win the items by buying chewing gum.  Inside the paper wrappings were small cards on which was written the prize that the purchaser won.

Mrs. Phillips charged, "children were thus induced to engage in games of chance, and in many instances stole the money with which they played."  Her rage was rewarded when Weeks was arrested and held for trial.

Beginning in the 1890s, A. T. Cronk and his family leased 735 Washington Street from Sarah A. Morgan.  The Cronks had two sons, Edwin and Frank.  In 1897, the family took in a boarder, longshoreman Henry Heinrich.  According to The New York Times, he paid $10 a month for the room.  Despite his first name, he was known as Waterfront Dan.

Ten years later, Heinrich was still boarding with the Cronks.  The longshoremen's union went on strike in 1907.  As with many labor conflicts at the time, the strike was violent, involving a riot and attacks on strike breakers.  Being out of work made Hendricks "very despondent," according to The New York Times.  He fell behind in his rent and, although "Mrs. A. T. Kronk [sic] did not press for the rent, the man brooded over his position."

On June 4, Mrs. Cronk entered Heinrich's room.  The New York Times reported, "He was found unconscious lying, fully dressed, in bed with the end of a rubber tube, which was attached to an open gas jet, in his mouth."  Luckily, he was found in time and he recovered at St. Vincent's Hospital.

But, nearly a year later, Heinrich still was without a job.  The problem was no longer a strike, but, most likely, his age.  At 72, he "was said to be the oldest long shoreman in Greenwich Village," said The Sun.  His serious depression about his situation continued.   On May 26, 1908, The Sun reported, "Two young longshoremen yesterday got him a job on a White Star pier.  When they went to inform him about it, they found him dead."  Heinrich had hanged himself with a clothesline attached "to a hinge of his door."

The Cronks' next boarder was John Hurley.  He was hailed as a hero in newspapers on February 28, 1909.  Edwin Cronk had been ill for several day.  That night, Hurley suggested a walk and the two wandered down to a Hudson River pier.  After sitting on the pier for awhile, according to The Sun, Cronk said, "I guess, John, I'll have to go back to my room.  I'm not very well."

As he stood up, he became dizzy and "before his friend could do anything fell over the stringpiece," reported the New-York Tribune.  Hurley tossed off his coat and jumped into the frigid river.  The Sun said, "The tide was running pretty strong, and by the time he got to Cronk they were yards away from the dock and the current was pulling them farther from it all the time."

Struggling to keep Cronk's head above water and fighting the cold and tide, Hurley yelled for help.  Two policeman ran to the pier and managed to fish the two men out with boat hooks.  Cronk was unconscious and Hurley was exhausted and suffering from exposure.  Both were taken to St. Vincent's Hospital.

The estate of Sarah A. Morgan sold the house in July 1910 to Katherine A. Fitzpatrick.  She continued leasing it to the Cronk family.  

America entered World War I in 1917.  Boarding with the Cronks was Thomas E. Gill.  Both he and Frank Cronk left to fight in 1918.  Frank was drafted and sent to Camp Upton, an Army induction center, in Yaphank, Long Island on April 1, 1918.  On Christmas Day that year, the Cronks received word that Thomas E. Gill had been "slightly wounded" in battle in France.

The house as it appeared in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

While the other houses in the 1845 row were converted to apartments (or razed, in the case of 733 Washington Street) in the first half of the 20th century, 735 Washington Street continued to be leased until 1956.  A renovation completed that year resulted in two duplex apartments.

The house was returned to a single family home in 2009.  Although no historic details survive inside, the exterior is greatly intact.