Charlton Street was laid out shortly after 1817 and was given its name in 1820 in honor of Dr. John Charlton. It quickly filled with prim, brick-faced homes. Among them was 25 Charlton Street, a three-story and basement house erected in 1826-27 by James Marshall. The builder's design straddled the Federal and Greek Revival styles. The entrance above the tall brownstone stoop, with its paneled pilasters, sidelights and leaded transom, were typical of the Federal style; while the short attic level--rather than dormers and a peaked roof--reflected the Greek Revival.
The house was 25-feet-wide above the basement level. Horse walks, or passages to the rear years, were most often open gaps between houses. But by extending the residence over the horse walk in this case, the builder added floor space to the house. In the rear yard was a two-story brick stable.
Living here in 1827 was Catherine Stewart, a widow. She apparently leased the stable to a furniture maker. On April 228, 1829, an auction was held of "the stock of a cabinet maker giving up business," according to the announcement in The Evening Post.
In the mid-1830s, another widow, Frances Vanhouten occupied the house. And by the 1845, John Hogencamp (variously spelled Hogenkemp and Hogenkamp), and his wife, Jemina, lived here. It is possible that John and Frances were related. The extended Vanhouten and Hogenkamp families had been related by marriage since the 17th century.
John Hogencamp, who was born on September 21, 1781, ran a coal business in the area of today's Penn Station. He married Jemima Mable Van Busskirk, the widow of Caspar Busskirk, on February 2, 1829. The Hogencamps took in boarders. Living with them in 1851 were the family of Albert C. Zabriskie, a drygoods merchant, and Charles Bellows, a wine merchant. Bellows's daughter, Josephine, taught in the Ward School No. 29 on North Moore Street.
John Hogencamp died at the age of 71 on September 6, 1853. His funeral was held in the house the following day. Jemima survived him by two years, dying on May 23, 1855.
The Zabriskie family purchased the house. Their teenage son, Charles Augustus, was attending The Free Academy when Civil War broke out, and it appears his age kept him from serving.
Martha Doremus worked as a maid for the family in 1865. The 15-year-old was arrested on June 16 that year "on charge of stealing a two hundred dollar diamond ring from her employer, Mr. Zabriskie, of No. 25 Charlton street," as reported by the New York Herald. It was a pricey bauble, value of which would translate to more than $3,800 in 2024. The New York Times reported, "she confessed she had stolen a diamond ring...and lost it."
On April 25, 1871, Albert C. Zabriskie sold 25 Charlton Street to Patrick Barry for $15,000--about $386,000 today. Barry was born in Kildorrery, County Cork, Ireland in 1819. His Irish roots were reflected in his membership in the St. Patrick's Mutual Alliance Association. Living with him and his wife, Jane, was their son, John J. Barry, who was a carman (or delivery driver).
Just eight months after moving into the house, on December 14, 1871, Patrick Barry died at the age of 52. His funeral was held in the parlor on December 17.
In August 1875, Jane Barry transferred title to the Charlton Street house to John. The family took in boarders, normally one at a time. In 1876, William Mitchel, a merchant on East 20th Street, lived here, and in 1879 Theresa M. Gill, who taught in Primary School No. 14 on Oliver Street, rented a room. The following year, Dr. Daniel M. Brosnan and his wife Tessie boarded with the Barrys. That year Tessie donated $5 to the New York Herald's Fund for the Relief of Irish Distress.
John J. Barry sold 25 Charlton Street to John Lynn on May 31, 1888 for $15,000. Lynn also owned 21 Charlton Street, which he rented. He and his wife had three sons, Crawford, who was in the shoe business by 1892; Robert; and Harry G., who was made a commissioner of deeds (similar to a notary public) in 1898. The family remained in the house until 1899. Lynn sold 21 and 25 Charlton Street to Thomas Rudden on May 17 for a combined price of $31,000.
In 1907, Rudden leased 25 Charlton Street to Dr. Charles Pricelius Devare and his wife. On June 29, 1907, The School Journal announced, "The Abigail Free School and Kindergarten celebrated its eighteenth birthday by moving into a new and more commodious home at 25 Charlton Street, on June 10."
Devare had organized the school in 1889 to educate the children of impoverished families. The 1909 New York Charities Directory explained that the school,
Receives children from 3 to 7 years of age, of any class, nationality, or sect, regardless of creed, provides them with moral and domestic education, which their parents on account of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding them are unable to give. These children are taken from the streets, housed, kept clean, fed, and instructed until fitted for public school. The institution is entire free, no charge is allowed, thus avoiding invidious class distinctions.
Elisabeth Petersen Pricelius Devare apparently used the former stable as her sculptor's studio. An advertisement in the New-York Tribune on March 17, 1912 touted:
The Six Bible Allegories in Sculpture by Elisabeth Petersen Pr. Devare, executed in heads of marble finish, 19 inches high, will make a handsome decoration for your household. Something new! On exhibition at Mrs. Devare's Studio, 25 Charlton St.
Charles Pricelius Devare died "suddenly" on December 30, 1912. His funeral was held in the house on January 2, 1913. Elisabeth appears to have continued the school here until 1916, when Philip Rudden leased 25 Charlton Street to Mrs. Maria Aulert for a year at $960 (an affordable $2,300 per month in today's money).
On March 10, 1917, the Record & Guide reported that the estate of Thomas Rudden had leased the "three-story old Colonial house, with a rear building, formerly a private stable, to Garbner Hale, for five years. Mr. Hale is an artist and the son of Professor William Gardner Hale of the University of Chicago. The rear building will be altered and used as a studio while the main building will be occupied as a residence."
Born on February 1, 1894, Hale studied under Onorato Carlandi in Rome, and at the Art Students' League in New York City. By now he was among the foremost muralists in America, The New York Times mentioning, "he painted the mural decorations for the homes of many of the foremost Americans in this country and Europe."
Hale's alteration of the old stable building was remarkable. On June 16, 1917, the New York Evening Post said it is "one of the very few in this city fashioned after the old Italian style."
Gardner Hale's wife, the former Marie Louise Gibson, was an author. She wrote under the pseudonyms of Maurice Ruthledge Hale, Marice Rutledge, Marie Louise Goetchius, and Marie Louise Van Saanen. Born in 1886 and educated in the exclusive Miss Spence's School and in Paris, she was the author of the 1910 Anne of Treboul; the 1912 The Blind Who See; Wild Grapes, released in 1914; and the 1917 Children of Fate; among several other novels, short stories and articles.
Gardner and Marie Hale were the first of an astonishing string of artistic residents. The couple leased rooms and among their first tenants were the struggling, 26-year-old poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and her sister Norma, who moved into rooms on the top floor in 1918. In her 2004 All-Night Party, The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem 1913-1930, Andrea Barnet writes:
By the summer of 1918, Edna's income...was so steady that she was able to send for the rest of her family. Her mother arrived from Maine, her sister Kathleen from Vassar, and they settled into a flat on Charlton Street with room enough for four. Within months, the place had become a Village institution.
Following her 1923 marriage to Eugen Jan Boissevain, Millay would move to 75-1/2 Bedford Street.
In the meantime, Dr. Edwin Davies Schoonmaker and his wife, Nancy M. Schoonmaker had moved into the house by 1921. Dr. Schoonmaker was an author and lecturer. Among his works was the 1916 The Book of Boston. Nancy M. Schoonmaker was was well-known as an author and suffragist. She had toured the United States in 1920 in support of the League of Nations and in 1921 traveled to Geneva to represent the National League of Women Voters and the General Federation of Women's Clubs. Among the books she had published by now were the 1910 The Eternal Fires; The Actual Government of Connecticut, released in 1919; and The Connecticut Idea, published around 1910.
The literary tradition continued in 1922 when newlyweds Lindesay Marc Parrott and Katherine Ursula Towle moved in. Born on July 26, 1901 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Parrott had graduated from Princeton University in 1921 and was a reporter with The Newark Evening News. Ursula Parrott was a novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. Lindesay Parrott would go on to become a renowned journalist and Ursula a best-selling writer; but the bliss of their new marriage was short. Ursula's sensational novel, Ex-Wife, published in 1929, was based on their relationship and included domestic abuse, drunkenness, and divorce--issues skirted in popular literature at the time.
By 1923, another author, Maurice Ruthledge Hale (apparently no relation to Gardner Hale) lived here.
In 1926, Gardner and Marie were divorced. Gardner married Dorothy A. Donovan in 1929 and, although they moved uptown, Garner kept his studio in the rear building. Two years later, on December 29, 1931, The New York Times reported, "The body of Gardner Hale, one of America's foremost young painters of murals and frescoes, was found today at the bottom of a 500-foot precipice, forty miles south of Santa Maria, where his automobile had plunged from a highway."
No. 25 Charlton Street was again a private residence in the early Depression years, home to Henry Marquand Parmly and his two adult daughters, Katherine D. and Elizabeth B. Parmly's father, Dunan Dunbar Parmly, was a banker who started his career in the office of Henry G. Marquand. Henry's middle name was an affectionate nod to his father's mentor.
Parmly died on September 8, 1933. The New York Evening Post reported, "A memorial service will be held at his late residence, 25 Charlton St., New York City, Friday, September 15 at 8:30 P.M." Katherine and Elizabeth shared equally in their father's estate of just under $3 million in today's dollars.
The house was converted to a two-family residence later, then restored to a single-family home in the early 2000s. It was recently offered for sale at $8.8 million.
photographs by the author
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