To the left, a sliver of 13 West 38th Street, remodeled simultaneously by Hunt for Eleazar Parmly, can be glimpsed. from the collection of the Library of Congress.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1818, Richard Prichard Rossiter was well established as a painter of portrait and historical scenes by 1851. In 1838, at the age of 20, he exhibited two paintings at the National Academy of Design and the following year moved to New York City. He was elected to the National Academy in 1849.
In 1851 he married Anna Ehrick Parmly, the daughter of wealthy dentist and poet, Eleazer Parmly. The newlyweds sailed to Europe, settling in Paris in 1853. Rossiter won a gold medal at the Universal Exposition in 1855 for his Venice in the Fifteenth Century.
In the meantime, in September 1854 a son, Ehrick Kensett, was born. The following year a daughter, Charlotte C., arrived, and Anna Rosalie was born in March 1856. Shortly after Anna's birth, Anna Parmly Rossiter died at the age of 26.
Thomas brought his children back to New York City. At the time, 30-year-old architect Richard Morris Hunt had relocated to New York from Washington where he had worked on the renovation and expansion of the U.S. Capitol building. He began work on the design of the Tenth Street Studios Building, the first structure in America designed specifically for living-and-studio spaces for artists. It was this work, almost assuredly, that brought Rossiter and Hunt together.
Peter Paul Duggan created this black crayon drawing of Thomas P. Rossiter. from the collection of The Frick
Rossiter and his father-in-law gave Hunt his first domestic commission in New York--two mansions at 11 and 13 West 38th Street. The neighborhood, just feet from Fifth Avenue, was filling with sumptuous mansions as Manhattan's millionaires inched up the avenue.
Completed in 1857, the Rossiter house at 11 West 38th Street was faced in red brick and trimmed in stone. The artist's deep interest in history may have influenced Hunt's neo-classical design. He striated the first floor, above a short stoop, by alternating red brick with stone bands. The arched entrance sat within a portico supported by banded and fluted columns, and neo-Classical swags decorated the entablature. The composition was copied at the easternmost window to preserve balance.
Three grouped floor-to-ceiling windows at the top floor were fronted by a stone balcony and flanked by niches, intended for statues. Thrown open, the windows flooded Rossiter's studio with natural light.
Richard Morris Hunt's watercolor rending. from the collection of the Library of Congress.
Interestingly, Dr. Eleazer Parmly, unlike Rossiter, refused to pay Hunt for the supervisory portion of the project. Hunt finally sued the dentist and won. Later, in 1896, Engineering Magazine would credit Hunt's lawsuit for establishing "a uniform system of charges by percentage."
In his new mansion and studio, Rossiter began work on large canvases, including George Washington and Family, Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon, and Washington and His First Cabinet. As part of his research for those works, in June 1858 he traveled to Mount Vernon.
Rossiter completed Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon 1784 in his 38th Street studio in 1859. from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The East 38th Street mansion was filled with antiques. The Springfield Weekly Republican would later recount,
There were large objects of furniture, such as an oak altar-piece, an oaken buffet of the 14th century, and a sarcophagus of the same age, all quaintly carved with elfish heads, figures of animals, flowers and clusters of fruit. Also a 13th century armoire, or sideboard, ornamented with Byzantine carving.
In 1860, Thomas Rossiter married Mary Sterling, known as Mollie. The family moved to Cold Spring, New York and Rossiter's brother-in-law, Ehrick Parmly, moved his family into 11 West 38th Street.
Born in 1830, Ehrick Parmly, like his father and brother, was a dentist. All three shared an office at 3 Bond Street. (David R. Parmly lived in New Jersey.) Ehrick's wife was Lucie Dubois and the couple had a son, George Dubois, when they moved into 11 West 38th Street. Another son, John Ehrick, was born in 1861 and a third, Dalton, in 1872.
By the time of Dalton's birth, the Parmly family had been gone from the house for about eight years. It was now home to Israel David Salomon (who went by his middle name) and his wife, the former Henrietta Luna Hendricks. Salomon was born in 1820 and Henrietta in 1827. The couple was married in 1864 and moved into 11 West 38th Street. Two sons would be born in the house, Salomon in 1865 and Sidney Hendricks two years later.
Also living with the family was David's brother, Benjamin Franklin Salomon, who was 35 years old in 1864. A bachelor, he died on April 12, 1865. His funeral was held in the drawing room on the 14th.
In 1870, Douw Ditmars Williamson, Jr. and his wife, the former Mary Frances Dodd, moved into the house. Born in New York City on November 15, 1830, Williamson graduated from Peekskill Academy in 1844. Although educated in engineering, he entered business as a clerk. But his mundane business life turned to the stuff of pulp novels starting in 1849 when he traveled to South America. The 1896 Genealogical Records of the Williamson Family in America recorded:
In 1851 [he] went to Panama and Ecuador; was ten days crossing the Isthmus on a mule; was with Garibaldi in Havana when Crittenden and his filibusters were shot, and was followed by soldiers, day and night, on his return home.
Back in New York, Williamson married Mary Dodd on November 1, 1853. The couple would adopt George Norman Williamson, the infant son of Douw's brother, Nicholas. Then, in 1863, they adopted the Cornelia Bodwell, the infant daughter of Mary's sister, Abby Lyman Dodd Bodwell.
In the meantime, Williamson and his brother, Nicholas, founded the Novelty Rubber Co. Douw Williamson was, as well, an inventor and in 1870 designed an improved traction engine and a steam plow.
Douw Ditmars Williamson, Jr., from the collection of the Century Association.
Despite his swashbuckling past, the Century Association described Douw D. Williamson as "of a retiring, quiet disposition." Ever expanding his resume, in 1875, he established a chemical works in Long Island City.
The new St. Patrick's Cathedral opened on May 25, 1879. Its architect, James Renwick, Jr., immediately began designing the archbishop's residence and rectory at the southwest corner of Madison Avenue and 51st Street. In the meantime, the archdiocese leased the former Williamson mansion. Four years later, on April 25, 1882, the New York Herald reported, "The new residence of Cardinal McCloskey, which stands back to back with the Cathedral...is very nearly ready to be occupied."
Cardinal John McCloskey. from the collection of the New York Public Library
Born in March 1810, Cardinal John McCloskey was appointed the second archbishop of New York by Pope Pius IX on May 6, 1864. At the time of the New York Herald's article, McCloskey was in ill health. It explained, "it is said that the Cardinal will not move until his health is better. His home is at present at 11 West Thirty-eighth street, from which the furniture is now being removed."
Next to occupy the mansion was lace importer Richard Muser and his wife, Cecelia. On January 4, 1885, The New York Times reported that a defective flue in the basement had started a fire in the house. It resulted in $500 worth of damages, or about $16,800 in 2026. On August 13, 1893, The New York Times reported that three days earlier Richard Muser's body had been discovered "at the lodge gate of his Summer home at Suffern, N.Y., with two bullet holes in his head." The newspaper said there were "divided opinions as to the cause of his death."
The Musers had left West 38th Street several years earlier. By 1889, No. 11 was home to John O. Donner, his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Van Arsdale, and their teenaged daughter. The New York Times described Donner as a "prominent and wealthy man, connected with Havemeyer & Elder in the sugar business." The family's country estate was in Ramsey, New Jersey.
Mary Donner was experiencing health issues at the time, and on July 17, 1889 she sailed to Europe for treatment. Accompanying her was her daughter; Mary's physician, Dr. Ruppaner; a nurse; a governess; and the daughter of Marshall T. Davison (apparently as a companion of the Donners' daughter). The doctor left the party in Vienna and they traveled on to San Remo, Italy.
In February 1890, John O. Donner received a cable informing him that Mary was "in a critical condition," as reported by The New York Times. He sailed on the steamer Zoller on February 26. On March 1, The New York Times reported that a cablegram from San Remo announced the death of Mary Elizabeth Van Arsdale Donner. The article said, "He will not hear of her death, therefore, until he arrives in Europe."
The East 38th Street residence next became home to Elbert Ellery Anderson and his family. Born in 1833, he was the son of Henry James Anderson, a renowned professor of mathematics and astronomy, the grandson of librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte (who brought Italian opera to America), and a descendant of Founding Father William Ellery, from whom Elbert got his middle name. As a teen, Elbert accompanied his father on a Dead Sea expedition. He famously carved his name "E. E. Anderson" onto the wall of the Temple of Abu Simbel, which is visible today.
Elbert Ellery Anderson (original source unknown)
Anderson served in the Civil War, after which he began his law practice. In 1887, President Grover Cleveland tasked him to investigate the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railways. He and his wife, the former Augusta Chauncey, had two children, Henry James and Peter Chauncey.
Peter Chauncey married May Ogden and brought his bride to live in the West 38th Street mansion. Their daughter, May Ellery, was born in 1891. The little girl died at the age of 10 on November 9, 1901 and her funeral was held in the house two days later.
On February 24, 1903, The Chicago Tribune reported that Elbert E. Anderson "went to a matinée with his eldest son on Monday afternoon and spent the evening with his family. About 5:30 this morning Mrs. Anderson heard him call for assistance. He was almost unconscious when she reached his bedside, and he died in a few minutes."
Anderson's funeral was too large to hold in the house. It was held in the Church of the Transfiguration on February 27. Within the church were judges, politicians, and military figures. The New-York Tribune reported that his estate "would probably be found to be nearly $1,000,000." (That figure would translate to about $36.8 million today.)
Peter Chauncey Anderson and his family remained in the house until 1912, when it and the neighborhood mansions were demolished to make way for the Lord & Taylor department store building, completed in 1914.
photograph by Jim Henderson
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