The William Sackett Jr. House - 123 East 10th Street

123 East 10th Street (left) is identical to its next door neighbor.

Once part of Director General Peter Stuyvesant's farm, or bouwerij, the block of East 10th Street between Second and Third Avenues saw an explosion of development in the early 185os.  Robert and Franny Carnley moved into a newly built house at 191 Tenth Street and in 1854 Robert erected two matching homes next door at 193 and 195 (they would be renumbered 123 and 125 East 10th Street in 1865).

Four stories tall and two bays wide above a low basement, their rusticated first floors held fully arched openings.  Full-width cast iron balconies fronted the second floor windows.  The red brick-faced upper floors featured elliptically arched openings with molded stone lintels.

Carnley originally rented 193 Tenth Street.  His first tenants were the family of James P. Harper, a grocer, who remained through 1857.  They were replaced by the Kendall family.  Merchant Joseph A. Kendall operated an enterprise at 30 Barclay Street and Rufus W. Kendall ran a dry goods business on Vesey Street.

On January 20, 1864, the Carnleys' daughter, Frances (known as Fanny), married William H. Sackett, Jr.  The couple initially moved into the Carnley house, but by 1866 they owned and occupied 123 East 10th Street next door.  Sackett operated a furniture business at 397 Eighth Avenue.

Like many families, the Sacketts took in a boarder.  Living with the family in 1868 was Luke Wisely.  He unwisely decided to take a swim in the East River at the foot of East 17th Street on July 2 that year.  The New York Times reported that he "undressed himself to bathe...and on jumping in struck his head on a rock, sustaining severe injuries."  Wisely was taken to Bellevue Hospital and it appears he recovered.

Later that year, in December, William and Fannie welcomed a son, Robert Carnley Sackett.  Tragically, the boy died at the age of one-and-a-half on June 23, 1870.  His funeral was held in the house two days later.  (The couple would have two other children, Emma Carnley and Isabel Thompson Sackett.)

The Sacketts left 123 East 10th Street in 1871, but retained ownership.  The Donoho family occupied it in 1872.  Sisters Mary and Margaret, who were 25 and 28 years old respectively, worked in Archer & Anderson's bookbindery at 81-85 Centre Street.

At 5:20 on the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1872, a fire broke out in the Centre Street building.  On December 26, The New York Times reported, "It was hoped that all had been rescued from the building by the firemen, police, and others, who were soon on the spot, but there now seems no reason to doubt that seven or eight persons lost their lives."  The girls' brother, John Donoho, searched at the Franklin Street Police Station and the Park Hospital for the women with no success.  Four days after the inferno, the New York Herald reported that the Donoho sisters were among the seven bodies still not recovered from the ruins.

The following year, the Barker family rented the house.  William H. Barker worked in City Hall, as did Edward P. Barker, who was a deputy park commissioner.  (Edward was appointed in 1858 with an annual salary of $480, or about $19,000 in 2026.)  William J. Barker listed his profession as a clerk in 1873, but ran a storage business on Washington Street by 1876.

The Barkers remained here at least through 1880.  The house saw a rapid succession of renters until Dr. Richard W. Muller moved in around 1892.  Born in 1860, he was considered a specialist in diseases of the scalp and hair.  

Muller originally rented at least one room in the house and his first tenant was Charles Moehling, described by The New York Times as "a well-educated and highly-cultured German."  Moehling was the head bookkeeper at the banking house of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co. 

If Dr. Muller was hoping for engaging conversation with his roomer, he was disappointed.  The highly-private Moehling spent his evenings in his room, studying and writing.  He contributed several lengthy articles on finance and literature to local German-language newspapers.  Muller remarked later, "in all the time Mr. Moehling was in my house, I never exchanged five minutes' conversation with him.  He lived entirely to himself, like a hermit, almost."

On the morning of February 22, 1894, Moehling left home unusually early.  Instead of going downtown to his office, he went to Central Park.  Around 11:00 that morning, Park Policeman McKenna found the body of the 50-year-old in a clump of shrubbery.  He had shot himself in the left ear with a 32-calibre pistol.  Next to the dead man was a note that read,

My name is Charles E. Moehling, and I occupy a furnished room in the house of Dr. R. W. Muller, 123 East Tenth Street.  I desire that my body be taken to Charles Diehl’s undertaking shop in Essex Street.

No one could imagine why the bookkeeper had taken his life, although Dr. Muller noted, “The servant in the house said she had noticed him several times feeling his way about the house, as if he were losing his sight, and it may be because of his failing sight and utter friendlessness that led him to take his life.”

Dr. Muller had two roomers in 1895, attorney Reginald H. McMinn and Ellen M. Coe, the head librarian of the New York Free Circulating Library.  The New York Herald described Ellen as "a handsome woman of about 45."  She was appointed head librarian when the Free Library was organized years earlier.  While living here, she met one of Muller's well-respected patients, Dr. Joseph H. Rylance, rector of the nearby St. Mark's Church in the Bowery.

Rev. Rylance's wife died in 1885.  Now, on February 15, 1895, he announced that Ellen M. Coe "would shortly become his wife," as reported in the New York Herald.  The high-profile engagement was covered in several newspapers, resulting in a barrage of reporters rushing to the Free Circulating Library.  Ellen was ready for the onslaught.  When a reporter from The Evening World attempted to interview her, "a bright-eyed, rose-checked young woman" told him, "Miss Coe wishes me to say that she is very much distressed at the publicity given to her name, and she refers inquirers to the Rev. Dr. Rylance."

Ellen Coe's marriage resulted in a vacancy.  On August 16, 1895, an advertisement in the New-York Tribune read, "Cosily furnished rooms; one or two gentlemen; conveniences, private house; reasonable."

By 1899, Dr. Daniel Cook took over the lease of 123 East 10th Street.  An 1867 graduate of the University of New York, he advertised his office hours as 8 to 10 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m.  Cook's reputation earned him a well-known clientele.  On April 14, 1899, for instance, the New York Journal and Advertiser reported that boxing manager Martin Julian was in "very critical condition with typhoid pneumonia."  The article said, "This famous promoter of pugilistic events is being attended by Dr. Cooke, of No. 123 East Tenth street."

Cook remained here until June 1904 when Frances Sackett sold the house to Bernhard Schneller.  (Schneller simultaneously purchased No. 125 from Henry H. and Harriet W. Holly.)  

Schneller's first tenant was yet another physician, Dr. Alfred H. Stiebeling.  Born in 1866, Stiebeling would create headlines three decades later.  His six-year-old granddaughter would die in 1927 and on July 12, 1937 The Berkshire Eagle would title an article, "Doctor Takes Poison at Grave of Granddaughter."

In the meantime, the respectability of some occupants of 123 East 10th Street had declined.  On June 1, 1914, the New York Press reported that George Borden had been arrested as one of the four men who committed a jewel heist from an Avenue A store.

Charles Kirchman rented a room here in December 1914.  He told the landlady that his name was William Dillon and that he had just lost his job with the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company.  (It is unclear why he disguised his identity.)  Three weeks later, Kirchman was still unable to find employment.  On January 25, 1915, he wrote a letter to his sister, saying in part, "My last prayer is that God will deliver my soul into a better world than the one I am leaving."  The next day, The Evening World reported, "His body was discovered to-day in the gas-filled room."

The following year, Julius Segletti occupied a room here.  On Saturday night, July 15, he took his sweetheart to a dance hall on East 8th Street.  As they prepared to leave, 22-year-old Carrol Marres approached and asked, "May I dance with your lady?"

Segletti replied, "She's too tired."

"But just one dance wouldn't harm.  May I?"

"No," replied Segletti.

Marres walked away.  Fifteen minutes later Segletti and his girlfriend left the hall.  As they walked along Avenue A between 7th and 8th Streets, Marres rushed up from behind.  He drove a knife into Segletti's head.  He died of a fractured skull in Bellevue Hospital.  Marres was captured the following day and Segletti's girlfriend, whose name was withheld, identified him as the murderer.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here at midcentury was life-long bachelor Colonel Julian Fairfax Scott.  Born in Maryland in 1877, he was a member of the New York National Guard.  In 1909, he was appointed Cleaning Commissioner in charge of the Bronx.  He died in the house on November 14, 1953.

Scott was followed at 123 East 10th Street by Dr. Edward Campbell Berger and his wife, Ethel.  An osteopathic physician, Berger graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathy.  During World War II he served with the U.S. Army in North Africa and Italy.  While living here he was with the administrative department of the Outpatient Service of the Osteopathic Hospital and Clinic of Le Roy Hospital.

Both 123 East 10th Street and his architectural twin have survived in remarkably pristine condition.

The venerable house was never converted to apartments and remains a single-family home today.  Its exterior appearance is essentially unchanged since 1854.

photographs by the author