Thomas Crane and Alexander McDonald--a granite merchant and stone cutter respectively--got into real estate development by erecting a row of five high-end homes on the south side of East 35th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues. Completed in 1860, they reflected the increasing affluence of the Murray Hill neighborhood.
Among the row was 81 East 35th Street (renumbered 129 in 1867). Nearly identical to its neighbors, it featured brawny stone stoop newels and railings with urn-shaped balusters. The double-doored, arched entrance was crowned with an impressive arched pediment supported by sumptuously carved brackets. Four stories tall above the English basement, the home's design was completed by an elaborate cornice featured foliate brackets and frieze panels of flowers and leaves.
The house was purchased by William Birdsall, Jr. and his wife Caroline W. Birdsall during construction. The 37-year-old Birdsall was a partner in Cromwell & Birdsall, flour merchants. His father, William, Sr., had died just months earlier, on July 30, 1859, leaving William and his siblings a significant inheritance.
When William and Caroline moved into 81 East 35th Street, the family of James Cumings was living across the street at 72 East 35th Street. They were apparently renting that house, because in 1865, when the Birdsalls moved to Brooklyn, James and Laura Melissa Shaw Cumings purchased the Birdsalls' home.
Cumings was the owner of the Columbian Foundry and president of the Morris & Cumings Dredging Company. The New York Herald called him, "well known to all old New Yorkers and his active life is contemporaneous with the rapid development of the city." Born in 1803, he entered the iron business as an apprentice to Robert McQueen in the Columbian Foundry. In 1832, McQueen turned the business over to Cumings and his partner Peter Morris.
James and Laura had five children, James Maurice, Joseph, Mary Ida, Laura and Ira T. When his parents purchased the house, James Maurice Cumings enrolled in the New York City College. He and his brothers Ira and Joseph would enter their father's business.
The population of 129 East 35th Street increased following Mary Ida Cuming's marriage to Rev. Zina Doty in 1875. The groom was born in Middletown, Ohio in 1843. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1867 and was admitted to the bar in Dayton, Ohio. After relocating to New York City to practice law, he changed course, entering the General Theological Seminary and graduating in 1873. He was made rector of St. Ambrose's Church. The couple had a son, James Cumings Doty, in 1876.
Laura M. Cumings died on October 6, 1879. Her funeral was held in the parlor on October 9. Two months later, almost to the day, James Cumings died at the age of 77 on December 7. His funeral took place here on December 10.
Two years later, on November 11, 1881, the Cumings siblings sold 129 East 35th Street to Stephen B. French for $21,250 (about $653,000 in 2024 terms). French resold it the following month to Jeremiah Andrews. By 1885, Andrews was renting the house to 20-year-old Rignal Duckett Woodward.
The wealthy bachelor, who was attending the Columbia School of Political Science in 1885, came from a colonial Maryland family. His father, Rignal T. Woodward, was described by The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography as, "one of the largest planters and most influential men in the locality where he resided. Abington Farms was an ancestral home and had been in the Woodward family for a number of generations."
It was most likely during Rignal Woodward's occupancy that the stone stoop railings were replaced with handsome, updated cast iron versions, intricate openwork iron newels and matching, tall areaway fencing.
The original stoop railings and newels can be seen next door in this 1941 photo. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Rignal married Carolyn Atwater Goddard on June 19, 1890 in her parents spacious apartment in the Osborne. Despite being a home wedding, there were eight bridesmaids (coming from as far away as California and Toronto), and seven ushers. The Sun said the bridesmaids, "all wore old fashioned mull gowns and carried bunches of wood flowers."
Carolyn was the daughter of Colonel Calvin Goddard, a Civil War veteran and treasurer of the Wells Fargo Company. Following his death on April 3, 1892, her mother, Caroline Atwater Goddard, moved in with the couple. Rignal's maternal aunt, also lived in the house. In an article about the Woman's Protective League on January 7, 1894, The World mentioned, "Miss Raborg is another hard worker." Getting the family relationship slightly wrong, the article said she "resides with her sister, Mrs. Rignal Woodward, at No. 129 East Thirty-fifth Street." It continued, "Miss Raborg has given her life over to charity, but is nevertheless very shy and retiring."
The family's country home was in Wallingford, Connecticut. While Rignal held a law degree and was a partner in Woodward & Mayer, he was deeply involved in politics. But when he became the target of a politically-driven scandal in 1895, he simply walked away. On April 10, The Sun reported on his resignation "as a member of the Executive Committee of the Grace Democracy and as Chairman of the organization in the Twenty-first Assembly district." The article said, "Mr. Woodward is tired of active politics, and John F. Lynch...has had much to do with his tired feeling." Lynch, who had been vice-chairman of the committee had charged Rignal with embezzlement. An investigation cleared him, finding that "the charges were the result of a personal difference between the two men," said The Sun. Nevertheless, Rignal walked away from politics.
In March 1895, Jeremiah Andrews sold 129 East 35th Street to attorney Thomas Thacher. (Despite having lived here for a decade, the Woodwards apparently did not want to buy.) Thacher was an 1871 graduate of Yale and a partner in the law firm of Simpson, Thacher & Barnum.
A terrifying incident took place here on March 1, 1897. At 7:30 that night, the doorbell rang. A maid, Agnes Kelly, answered the door to find a revolver pointed at her head. Frank Linden grabbed Thacher's overcoat--valued at more than $1,520 in today's money--from the hall tree and fled. Two hours later, the career thief held up Margaret Norris in Central Park.
Agnes Kelly gave a description of Linden and later made an identification of the man who had threatened her and stole the coat. Unfortunately for Walter Taylor, he was a dead-ringer for Frank Linden and was locked up on Agnes's identification.
But the maid was called back to police headquarters on March 18 following the arrest of Frank Linden. Seeing the two men side by side, she was now "unable to say which of the two men had robbed the house," reported The New York World. Under intense questioning, however, Linden confessed and Taylor was freed.
The Thachers remained here until February 1900 when Edward Rufus Adee and his wife, the former Geraldine Fitzgerald, purchased the house for $40,000. The couple had a three-year-old daughter, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and on June 19, 1902 a son, William Townsend, was born.
Edward Rufus Adee (original source unknown)
Born in Westchester County in 1863, Adee was educated in private schools and graduated from Yale in 1885. He and Geraldine were married in 1897. He had been involved with the Mercantile Trust Company since graduating from Yale, and had risen to vice president. Adee's affluence was reflected in his memberships to the Union, Tuxedo, Lawyers' and Westchester Country clubs, and in the family's summer home, Almost Brook, in fashionable Tuxedo, New York.
Late in 1903, Ernest became ill with septicemia, or blood poisoning. He died in the house on December 13 at the age of 40.
Following her period of mourning, Geraldine Adee threw herself into charitable, civic, and political causes. She became president of the Babies Hospital of New York and of the Home for Young Girls in the Bronx, as well as the Committee of the State Charities Aid Association. She was president of the women's auxiliary of Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church, secretary of the United Associations of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and chairman of the New York Committee for the National Cathedral.
Beginning with the winter social season of 1915, however, much of her attention was focused on Geraldine's coming out. On August 21, 1915, the New-York Tribune reported, "Miss Geraldine F. Adee, daughter of Mrs. Ernest R. Adee, of 129 East Thirty-fifth Street, will be among the debutantes of the coming winter. She is now the guest of her aunt, Mrs. Eugene Sugny Reynal, in Newport."
With the winter season in full swing, on February 8, 1916, the New York Press reported, "This evening Mrs. M. Dwight Collier of No. 14 East Sixty-fifth street will give a theatre party, followed by supper and dancing in Sherry's, in honor of Miss Geraldine F. Adee, the debutante daughter of Mrs. Ernest R. Adee of No. 129 East Thirty-fifth street. The guests will be from the debutante sets and additional guests have been invited for the supper and dancing."
Marriage in society often closely followed a young woman's coming out. But Geraldine's marriage to Francis B. Bradley would have to wait until the end of World War I. Bradley would have graduated from Harvard in 1919, but he left school to enlist in the U.S. Navy. Ironically, he served on the U.S.S. Harvard. On October 25, 1919, Geraldine Adee announced her daughter's engagement. The Evening World mentioned, "Miss Adee has been prominent in the Junior League since she was introduced about three years ago."
The wedding took place in "the picturesque Church of St. Mary's at Tuxedo Park," as reported by The New York Times. Following the ceremony a wedding breakfast and reception was held at Almost Brook with "all of the colonists of the park [i.e. Tuxedo Park] attending," said the article.
Geraldine now sold 129 East 35th Street to Dr. Beverley Robinson and his wife, Anna Foster, and moved permanently to Almost Brook, where she died at the age of 83 on May 5, 1956.
Dr. Robinson had a sterling pedigree. Both his parents, Moncure Robinson and Charlotte Randolph Taylor, were considered members of "the First Families of Virginia." A member of the Century Association, Dr. Robinson was a clinical lecturer on "Heart, Lungs and Throat" at Belleview Hospital Medical Center.
Dr. Beverley Robinson, from the collection of the Lillian & Clarence de la Chapelle Medical Archives.
Anna Foster Robinson died on January 3, 1921. Her funeral was held in St. Bartholomew's Church two days later.
Late the following month, Robinson was "attacked with synovitis of the right shoulder joint and severe neuritis of the shoulder and upper arm," according to his self-diagnosis. After self treatment "with the aid of two best consultants" and achieving no relief, he decided to rub laudanum on the afflicted areas. A mixture of opium, morphine, codeine and other agents, laudanum was, understandably, controlled as a narcotic. To obtain the drug, Robinson would have to fill out paperwork; but his affliction prevented him from writing.
He, therefore, asked his pharmacist (whom he had known for years) to fill out the application and have his nurse sign it for him. The druggist refused his request. Robinson wrote a letter to the editor of the Medical Record which was published on February 12, 1921. He said in part, "I am an old practitioner and believe my character and reputation are unblemished and yet I can not have, in dire emergency of extreme pain, a local anodyne, which is a narcotic, to relieve me locally." He ended his letter lamenting, "Alas, the shame, the pity, and the crying outrage of it all!"
Dr. Beverley Robinson survived his wife by three years. He died on June 21, 1924 in the East 35th Street house at the age of 81.
The Robinsons' unmarried daughter, Pauline Lentilhon Robinson, remained in the house. She maintained the lifestyle of a well-to-do socialite. On May 23, 1925, for instance, The New York Times reported that she "sailed early this morning on the Majestic to pass the Summer in Europe," and four months later, on September 19, the newspaper reported, "Miss Pauline Robinson, who passed the Summer in England, Scotland and France, returned on the Olympic and is at her home, 129 East Thirty-fifth Street for the Winter."
Pauline's routine continued for years. On September 17, 1930, The New York Times reported that she "has been at the Madison since returning from Europe last week, [and] opened her house at 129 East Thirty-fifth street yesterday."
It is unclear when Pauline Robinson left East 35th Street. A renovation completed in 1998 greatly updated the interiors. Still a single-family home, in 2007 its façade was restored, windows replaced and the roof repaired.
photographs by the author
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