The 1795 Nicholas Wm. Stuyvesant House - 44 Stuyvesant Street

 

On November 30, 1787, Peter Stuyvesant's great-grandson, Petrus, hired Evert Bancker, Jr. to survey and plot out the still verdant estate of the Stuyvesant farms, or boweries, into building plots and streets (on paper).  The lane that would become Stuyvesant Street separated the two parcels.  

The plot that would become 44 Stuyvesant Street was transferred to Petrus's son, Nicholas William Stuyvesant, by 1794.  For tax purposes it was assessed at 160 pounds.  The following year the assessment jumped to 400 pounds--the increase almost assuredly reflecting a new structure.  

Construction of the house had started in 1794 and was completed in time for Nicholas's wedding to Catherine Livingston Reade on January 31, 1795.  The free-standing, three-and-a-half story structure was an early example of Federal-style architecture.  Faced in red Flemish bond brick and trimmed with brownstone, its peaked attic roof was pierced with dormers.

The Stuyvesants' interior appointments reflected their social and financial status.  The elegant chimney pieces, for instance, were markedly similar to those in Joseph Barrell's 1792 residence in Boston designed by Charles Bulfinch, according to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1969.

Nicholas William Stuyvesant. from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Educated in Scotland, Nicholas was a merchant.  In addition to being directly descended from one of the oldest families in New York, he was related to the elite Livingston, Beekman and Van Cortlandt families.  Catherine was the daughter of John and Catherine Livingston Reade, and her maternal grandfather was Robert Gilbert Livingston.

Catherine Reade Stuyvesant.  image via americanaristocracy.com

Nicholas and Catherine would have nine children in the house--three daughters and six sons--during their 23-year residency.  Petrus Stuyvesant died in 1805, leaving what was known as the Bowery House and the surrounding property to Nicholas, with the stipulation that Nicholas's mother, the former Margaret Livingston, had life rights to it.  Upon her death in 1818, Nicholas and Catherine moved into the Bowery House and rented 44 Stuyvesant Street.

Nicholas Stuyvesant died in 1833.  (The previous year the rooms of the parlor floor--those that visiting guests would see--had been updated.)

The Sheldon family occupied the house in the 1840s.  Henry Sheldon was the principal in Henry Sheldon & Co.  His wife, Eliza A. Sheldon, contracted tuberculosis, known at the time as consumption, and died here on the morning of December 23, 1845.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on Christmas Day.

The Sheldons were followed in the house by the Leonard family, here as early as 1851.  Jane M. Leonard was the widow of Joseph Leonard.  Living with her were her adult sons, Henry K. and Thomas, both of whom worked as clerks.

Thomas Leonard died in the house on April 11, 1860.  His mother and brother continued to occupy the house at least through 1874, at which time Henry had listed as a broker.

By 1878, 44 Stuyvesant Street was operated by Frederick Weichman as what The World described as "a German boarding house."  In October that year, three men engaged the front room on the second floor and remained for several weeks.  They would become the focus of a nation-wide search and mystery.

On November 8, 1878, The New York Times ran the shocking report that, "The grave of the late Alexander T. Stewart was successfully robbed between midnight and sunrise yesterday morning, and his remains carried off, evidently in the hope of obtaining a large ransom for their return."  The New York Herald opined that it was inconceivable that the millionaire's corpse would "be ruthlessly disturbed by the demoniac hope entering the brain of some foul fiend of making money out of a traffic with the body."

The macabre crime riveted the nation for weeks.  Before long, the three mysterious boarders who had occupied the second floor room of 44 Stuyvesant Street were in the crosshairs of detectives.  On November 15, The World reported, "At 7.10 A. M. on the day the robbery became known a hack with several trunks and packages of baggage left that house, and the three men have not since been seen.  The hackman has been traced, and it is believed one of the trunks contained the body of Mr. Stewart."  Other boarders described "an odor" in the room vacated by the trio.

The following day, the Kinderhook, New York Rough Notes reported, "The New York police claim they have discovered a positive clue to the whereabouts of the remains of A. T. Stewart, and that they will be recovered without further delay.  They say that body was taken to No. 44 Stuyvesant street immediately after the robbery and thence to a certain town on the New Jersey Central railroad, by the 7:10 train the next morning."

With no solid evidence, the three men were released and the case went cold.  Six years later, on April 7, 1884 The New York Times printed hope when the notorious robber Lewis C. Sweigels promised to return the body in return for his pardon.  Working on behalf of Cornelia Stewart, Judge Henry Hilton paid the $25,000 ransom.  Whether or not the returned corpse was actually Stewart's remains a mystery.

The legend of Stewart corpse's being smuggled in and out of the house lasted for years.  On January 11, 1886, the New York Herald reported on the apparent natural death of Eda Wentworth here.  The article said she "had boarded in the house only a few weeks" and that "there was nothing suspicious about her death."  It was the room in which she died, however, that seemed newsworthy.  The article said, "it was said, [the room] was the same one in which the ghouls packed up Stewart's remains after they had taken them from the vault in St. Mark's graveyard, a short distance away."

Eda Wentworth was among the last of the boarders in 44 Stuyvesant Street.  John Brooks Leavitt had purchased the house eight months earlier, on May 6, 1885, for $14,200 (about $478,000 in 2025 terms).  He returned it to a single-family home.  Living with Leavitt and his wife, the former Mary Keith, was Mary's widowed father, Rev. Ormes B. Keith.  

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1849, Leavitt was an attorney and author.  A member of the Good Government Movement, the National Civil Service Reform League, and the New York City League of Reform, he fought against Tammany Hall corruption.

Leavitt ran for Assemblyman in 1890.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Ormes B. Keith was born in Philadelphia in 1817, the son of Samuel Keith, "a widely known philanthropist," as described by The Sun.  He was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in 1858.  The year the family moved into 44 Stuyvesant Street he resigned as assistant minister of the Church of the Holy Communion.  Rev. Keith died in the house at the age of 88 on September 5, 1906.  His long and substantial career filled paragraphs in the newspapers reporting his death. 

Moving into the house around the same time were Morgan Colt and his wife, the former Jean Boudinot Keith, Mary Leavitt's sister.  Born in 1876, the multi-talented Colt was an impressionist painter, architect, and furniture craftsman.  He and Jean were married in 1902.  Around 1911, the couple moved to New Hope, Pennsylvania, an artists colony Colt helped to found in order to focus on his art.

In the meantime, in addition to his continued campaign of reform, Leavitt was the senior warden of St. Mark's Church in the Bowery and was active among the Manhattan alumni of his alma mater, Kenyon College in Ohio.  On June 21, 1891, the New-York Tribune reported, "A meeting of the Kenyon College alumni will be held at the home of John Brooks Leavitt, No. 44 Stuyvesant st., on Tuesday evening at 8 o'clock."  

A decade later, on November 23, 1911, The Evening World published a photograph of the Leavitt house with the caption, "New Club for College Men."  Saying that John Brooks Leavitt had graduated from Kenyon College in 1868, "and came to New York to make his fortune with his brains for his sole capital," the article said that within the year he intended to turn over his home to the use of Kenyon graduates.  Leavitt described his vision, saying in part that it would fulfill, "the need of a comfortable home where younger graduates, coming to New York as strangers, could find inexpensive lodgings and college friends under the same roof, and a place for alumni meetings and smokers."

At some point in the second half of the 19th century, Queen Anne-style upper panes were installed in the second- and third-floor openings.  The appearance of the house in this 1941 photograph is little changed today.  from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Leavitts moved to 1 Lexington Avenue where Mary died on July 3, 1916 at the age of 59.  By 1921, Leavitt returned to 44 Stuyvesant Street.  Then, in April 1926, he hired architect Hubert Lucas to make gentle interior renovations to what the plans called "a four-story apartment house."  The alterations cost him $6,000, according to the Real Estate Record & Guide, or about $107,000 today.  

The following year in October, Leavitt sold 44 Stuyvesant Street to Roger D. Black.  The Black family were still living here as late as 1931 when Roger D. Black, Jr. was appointed a cadet captain at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The current dormers and studio window were installed after an attic fire.

At some point 44 Stuyvesant Street was returned to a single-family home.  The five-bedroom residence was put on the market in 2022 for $8.9 million.  Remarkably, many of the 18th century interior details--like the fireplaces--survive.  Despite its use as the Kenyon Club in 1911 and the renovation to apartments in 1926, the venerable Stuyvesant house is routinely touted as the oldest residence in Manhattan to be continuously used as a single-family house.  In spite of the discrepancy, 44 Stuyvesant Street survives as a rare example of 18th century domestic architecture in Manhattan.

photographs by the author