etching by Alexander Jackson Davis, from Views of New York, 1831 (copyright expired)
Isaac G. Pearson filled both sides of Bleecker Street between Greene and Mercer Streets with elegant mansions designed by Alexander Jackson Davis around 1828. Presumably, the north and south blockfronts mirrored one another. On the south side, six Federal-style residences were entered at ground level. Above their rusticated bases, full-width cast iron balconies fronted the second floors. Centered between these homes were two even grander, mirror-image mansions. Nos. 92 and 94 Bleecker straddled the Georgian and Federal styles. Flanking their high stone stoops were elaborately wrought-iron basket newels. The floor-to-ceiling parlor windows opened onto cast-iron balconies. Commodious fanlights above the single paneled entrance doors spilled light into the vestibules. The doorways were flanked by columns and sidelights. The mansions were unified at the attic level by a balustrade and carved parapet. A centered, square cupola crowned each of the residences.
Mordecai Marks and his family occupied 92 Bleecker Street in 1830. They were supplanted by Guy Richards and his wife as early as 1833. By then, Isaac G. Pearson had successfully lobbied the Board of Aldermen to rename the block LeRoy Place. (The practice was intended to increase the exclusivity of certain blocks and resulted in other sections of Bleecker Street becoming DePau Row and Carroll Place.)
An enlarged view of 8 and 10 LeRoy Place reveals details of the elegant doorways and wrought iron newels. etching by Alexander Jackson Davis, from Views of New York, 1831 (copyright expired)
The Richards house was now 8 LeRoy Place. (The address would be variously spelled Leroy and Le-Roy Place.) Born on January 8, 1788, Richards was an 1807 graduate of Yale College. When he purchased 8 LeRoy Place, he owned a distillery on Perry Street.
As early as 1840, John Rathbone and his family occupied the mansion next door at 10 LeRoy Place. The head of John Rathbone & Son and a founder and director of the Bank of Commerce, John Rathbone was born in Canterbury, Connecticut on October 20, 1751. He and his first wife, Eunice Wells, had 11 children. She died in 1810 and in 1813 he married Mary Sheffield.
John Rathbone, Genealogy of the Descendants of William Chesebrough, 1903 (copyright expired)
Rathbone's immense wealth was reflected in his subscribing to $20,000 in war loans during the War of 1812, and in his financial backing of the Erie Canal. The 1898 Rathbone Genealogy records:
In connection with Eleazer Lord of New York he took the entire amount of the first Ohio Canal loan, in 1825, of $400,000, and subsequently made a loan in connection with John Jacob Astor for same amount to the same State.
Mary Sheffield Rathbone died in January 1840 at the age of 78. There would be two more funerals in the drawing room in quick succession. John Jr. died at the age of 66 on July 30, 1842, and John Rathone Sr. died in the mansion on March 13, 1843 at the age of 92.
A notice in the New-York Tribune on March 15, 1843 said, "His friends and those of his sons-in-law, Robert Chesebrough and Samuel B. Ruggles, are requested to attend his funeral from his late residence, No. 10 Leroy place, this afternoon at half-past 4 o'clock." (Samuel Ruggles is best remembered today for developing Union Square and Gramercy Park, and Robert Chesebrough for discovering petroleum jelly, which he marketed as Vaseline.)
An auction of the Rathbone furnishings (what today would be called an estate sale) was held later that year. The Guy Richards family would now get new neighbors in the Benjamin Lincoln Swan Jr. family.
Born in 1818, Benjamin owned a ship chandlery at 1 Hanover Square. He had left his parents' the magnificent mansion at 416 Lafayette Street upon his marriage to Caroline Post. (Incidentally, Benjamin's brother, Edward, married Caroline's sister, Julia Post.) The couple would establish a country estate, Woodside Farm, in Oyster Bay, Long Island.
The Swanns' country estate included an Italianate villa. from the collection of the Library of Congress
Caroline Post Swan's father, Allison Post, died in 1848. Her mother, Elizabeth Floyd Post, moved into the LeRoy Place mansion and by 1850, Dr. Jotham Post shared the house. (It is unclear how Dr. Post was related to the family.)
It is possible that Guy Richards had a son from a previous marriage. An arcane position-wanted advertisement appeared in The New York Times on May 29, 1856:
Employment Wanted--For a young man of Christian character and principles, who is slightly disabled in the left hand, but active, prompt and energetic. He is competent to teach, but an affection of eyes prevents this means of living. Any confidential post, as travelling agent, or companion, would be acceptable. Any gentleman needing such a companion, will find him intelligent and well bred, being the son of a gentleman. Address X.Q.P. No. 8 Leroy-place, Bleecker-st., New-York.
In 1861, Benjamin and Caroline Swan moved uptown to 5 West 20th Street. Edward Henry and Julia Post Swan moved into the LeRoy Place mansion. Elizabeth Floyd Post remained here and Mary Post (Caroline's and Julia's paternal aunt) moved in at the same time. Mary died in the house on January 8, 1864 at the age of 82. Her funeral was held in the mansion two days later.
Sharing 8 LeRoy Place by 1871 was a distant relative, Dr. Wolcott Richards. Born on May 22, 1827, he graduated from Yale Medical School in 1825. His first marriage to Indiana Cordelia Twiggs ended in divorce. He married Susan Mansfield Strong in 1841.
By the time Guy Richards death at the age of 85 on March 26, 1873, the name of the block had reverted to Bleecker Street. Interestingly, his funeral was not held in the mansion, but at the Brick Church on Fifth Avenue and 37th Street.
At the time of Richard's death, the Swan mansion had been converted for business. It was home to William H. Geib's piano showroom and factory. In 1876 it was taken over by another piano maker, Lindeman & Sons.
In the mid-1880s, both residences had been renovated for commercial use. Then, in the post-World War I years they were replaced by a commercial building. That structure and the rest of the block were demolished in the 1960s as part of New York University's Silver Towers.
photograph by Kidfly182
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