The Lost Aaron Burr House - 11 Reade Street

 

In the 1890s a barber shop operated from the parlor floor, while a painter had his shop in the basement.  The hinged, 12-paned dormer windows open inward, unlike the double-hung 6-over-6 windows below.  photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Until 1804 Aaron Burr was wealthy, politically important and well-respected.  He entertained lavishly in his country estate, Richmond Hill, and could boast having been Attorney General, a New York Senator, and Vice President under Thomas Jefferson.  That all ended when he fatally wounded Alexander Hamilton in the infamous duel.  Antagonistic public opinion forced him to abandon New York and on July 27, 1804 a newspaper reported "He has for the present, and we trust forever, fled from the city and the State."

A decade earlier the cemetery which would become known as the African Burial Ground had been closed and a year later, in 1795, the land was subdivided and sold for house plots.  The graves were filled over in preparation for residential development.  Reade Street, named for Trinity Church warden Joseph Reade, was opened in 1797 and within the next two decades it filled with handsome brick-faced homes.

Among these was No. 31, a modest two-and-a-half story residence with splayed stone lintels, a plain fascia board below the roofline and two rather severe dormers which poked through the peaked roof.

Perhaps surprisingly to many, the 56-year old Burr returned to New York in 1812, reopening his law offices on Reade Street near Broadway in June that year.  The former Vice President struggled.  No one had forgotten the duel and clients were scarce.  In 1831, when he moved his office and home into No. 31 Reade Street, he was in serious financial difficulty.

In 1832 wealthy French-born merchant Samuel Jumel died in a carriage accident.  His wife, Eliza (known popularly as Madame Jumel), came to Burr's office "to consult him as a real estate lawyer," according to The Sun decades later.  At the time Burr owed back rent on No. 31 Reade Street and was facing a lawsuit for unpaid debts.  Despite the significant different in their ages--the widow was 58 and Burr was now 78--the unlikely couple married in the splendid Jumel mansion in 1833.

Eliza Jumel would quickly regret the union.  According to The New York Times decades later, “He abused her confidence, lost a portion of her fortune, and she summarily dismissed him within a year.”

Aaron Burr and his partner, William D. Craft, had closed their law practice at No. 31 Reade Street in 1832, not long after the romance had blossomed.  By the first years of the 1850s it was home to the young couple Theodore and Mary Elizabeth Humbert.  The 25-year old woman died in the house on Sunday, April 18, 1852, and her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

In 1856 Reade Street was widened and extended between Broadway and City Hall Place, requiring a renumbering of the addresses.  The former Burr house became No. 11 Reade Street.

At the time what had been a quiet residential block half a century earlier was quickly seeing the rise of office buildings and the renovation of houses for business purposes.  No. 11 escaped demolition and in 1863 its owner petitioned the Board of Aldermen for a paved sidewalk.  On June 9 that year the Board resolved "That the sidewalk in front of No. 11 Reade street, be flagged."

The house was used as a barrel and wooden bucket making shop around this time.  But in 1870 the owner was ready for retirement.  On March 24 he placed an advertisement in The New York Herald offering "For sale--Good chance, cheap for cash, old established Cooper Shop 11 Reade street, between Centre and Broadway, with Stock, Tools and Work, as the owner wants to get out of business."

The upper floors continued to be rented as living space.  It was the home of the Connor family in 1873.  On Christmas Day that year Hugh and Margaret Connor's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, died in the house at the age of 21.  Her funeral was held here two days later.

In 1890 the house had been owned by the Alexander T. Stewart estate for decades.  The millionaire merchant had died in 1876; but the family continued to own and lease it.  Two families lived upstairs--those of W. S. Haskins and R. Ford--on May 4, 1890, when fire broke out just before 8:00 p.m.  The following day The New York Times reported "A fire last night burned through the roof of the little three-story house at 11 Reade Street.  The loss was $1,000.  There was no insurance."  The loss to the Stewart estate would equal about $27,000 today.

Charles Mielatz sketched the house in 1898.  Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Fine Arts Library, Harvard University

On April 4, 1895 The New York Times reported that William Platt had purchased "the old Aaron Burr house, 11 Reade Street" for $36,650.  The newspaper noted "Mr. Platt represents the owner of adjoining property."  As is the case today, when property owners began bundling real estate it often signaled a future development.

The Sun jumped the gun in reporting of the imminent demolition of the house on May 31, 1897.  Saying that several vintage downtown buildings were to be torn down "in a few weeks, and there will be nothing left to mark their sites," the article noted "One of these is at 11 Reade street, where Aaron Burr's law office was...An Italian baker now occupies the front 'parlor' of Burr's old office building, and a plumber, whose shop is in the basement, lives with his family on the second floor."

That plumber was John T. Martin who landed a stable position as "attendant" (today's maintenance man) with the Manhattan Municipal Court by 1898.  His yearly salary of $1,000 would translate to about $30,000 today.

The Martin family and the Italian bakery would soon have to find new accommodations.  The house was offered for sale at an auction in March 1898, but according to The Iron Age, the building "formerly the house of Aaron Burr, was passed, as no bid could be got for it."

On September 23, 1903 The Northwestern Miller published a cleaned-up depiction of the old house.  (copyright expired)

But less than a month later the City purchased the property as part of the site for the new Hall of Records building; also engulfing No. 9 Reade Street and Nos. 29 and 31 Chambers Street.   As workers began demolition of the old house, The Sun noted that "tradition...even points out the spike holes in the wall by the door where [Burr's] shingle swung in sight of his legislative triumph."

The magnificent Hall of Records, seen here from Chambers Street, replaced the venerable Burr House.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

American interest in landmarks was limited mostly to battlefields and military sites.  While newspapers and magazines described the Burr House as "old-fashioned" or "curious;" the term "historic" was never used.  After the turn of the century groups first began taking note of other important structures like Fraunces Tavern.

In November 1903 The Northwestern Miller lamented "A little way north of the city hall at 11 Reade street stood until recently a small, low, brick building, and though dingy with age, and hardly noticeable to the casual passer-by, is surrounded with memories of Aaron Burr...This old house was recently demolished to make way for improvements, thus one by one the old land-marks are gradually disappearing to make room for the new, taking with them the memories which connect them with the events of other days."

The 1825 David Mulford House -- 83 Sullivan Street

In 1791, Aaron Burr purchased a portion of the former Nicholas Bayard farm, north of the city and near the small village of Greenwich.   Abutting his acquisition was the country estate, Richmond Hill, with its grand mansion erected in 1760 by British Major Abraham Mortimer.  Since 1789, the estate had been used by John and Abigail Adams as the Vice Presidential mansion.

Burr’s wife died in 1794 and he moved into the Richmond Hill mansion in 1797 where his 14-year-old daughter, Theodosia, acted as hostess.  Around the time he was elected Vice President in 1801, he began plans for development of the Bayard farm holdings.  Burr laid out streets and building plots and in 1802 sold one on Locust Street to Anthony Bowrosan.

Life would change for Aaron Burr two years later when he fatally shot Alexander Hamilton.  On July 27, 1804, a New York newspaper wrote, “He has for the present, and we trust forever, fled from the city and the State.”  The Richmond Hill mansion was abandoned, and, ironically, Anthony Bowrosan later opened a tavern and entertainment garden in the home.

In the meantime, Bowrosan sold his building plot to carpenter David Mulford in 1807, and Locust Street was renamed in honor of Revolutionary War General John Sullivan.  Three years later, Mulford erected a wooden back building on the lot.  It would not be for another nine years, in 1819, that construction was completed on a wooden building on 83 and 85 Sullivan Street.

On December 15, 1825, The Evening Post reported on an enormous conflagration that started in a stable on Spring and Broome Streets around 5:00 that morning.  Before it was extinguished, more than 30 buildings had been destroyed, including Mulford's.  

Mulford sold half of the property, 85 Sullivan Street, to another carpenter Drake Crane.  They erected two brick-faced Federal-style homes on the site.  A near mirror-image of its neighbor, 83 Sullivan Street it was a bit wider owing to the horse walk that provided access to the back lots for both homes.  Two and a half stories over a shallow, brownstone clad basement, the working class home boasted elegant features.  The architect designed its handsome doorway to be slightly wider than its neighbor’s.  It was a subtle detail that preserved visual proportions, necessitated by the different widths of the homes.

The doorway is surmounted by a graceful leaded glass transom.

The six-paneled door was flanked by simple wooden columns that fronted and enframement carved to resemble rusticated stone.  Above, a delicate leaded transom allowed daylight into the entry hall.  Simple brownstone lintels and sills contrasted with the red brick.  Above, prim dormers perched above the cornice.

Mulford and his wife had four daughters, Margarette, Elizabeth, Caroline and Eleanor.  As was common, before long they took in a boarder.  In 1842, the unmarried Cecilia Miller lived with the family.  She was a teacher in Public Primary School No. 30 at the corner of White and Centre Streets.

A horse walk (right), now iron-gated, provided access to the rear yards.

By 1855, Thomas Reynolds rented a room in the house.  Listing his occupation as “hatter,” he was a wholesale importer of fashionable hats with a shop at 167 Pearl Street.  He also served as a volunteer firefighter at the M. T. Brennan Hose Company No. 60 at the corner of Elm and Leonard Streets.

Thomas Reynolds listed his vast array of hats in an 1850 advertisement -- the New-York Daily Tribune, April 24, 1850 (copyright expired)

David Mulford’s widow was still in the house in 1858 when it was the scene of Elizabeth V. Mulford’s marriage to John D. North of Hastings, Minnesota on Wednesday, August 25. 

Four years later, G. W. Frances lived here when his name was pulled in the Union Army’s draft lottery.  And in 1867, Catharine Kane, who taught in the Boys’ Department of School No. 8 at No. 66 Grand Street, was renting a room.

By 1874, Edward Elliott owned 85 Sullivan Street, the year that he raised the attic to a full floor.  In 1880, he owned the Mulford house, too.  That year he hired builder Richard Wall to increase the height of this house, as well.  The project cost him $800—nearly $19,000 today—but the extra income from additional rentable rooms no doubt made it financially sensible.

The raised third floor is evidenced by the subtle difference in brick color and the change from Flemish to running bond.

The neighborhood, by now engulfed by the expanding Greenwich Village, saw the arrival of a variety of European immigrants.  Among them was the German-born Fritz Giesemann who moved into 83 Sullivan Street.  On August 24, 1881, he traveled to Brooklyn where he jumped into the river at the foot of Dike Street and drowned.  The New York Times explained the apparent suicide simply by saying “Giesemann was partially insane.”

The working class residents of the house in 1883 included Ferdinand Kochler, a house painter.  Edward Elliott seems to have maintained his properties well.  In September 1885, he demolished the two-story extension in the rear and filed plans to replace it with a new structure designed by architect J. Thompson.  Elliott spent $1,250 for the improvement.

The family of little Celestine Graffini was no doubt filled with pride when the girl’s name appeared in The Evening World on June 9, 1888.  She was pointed out for her meritorious school work in Grammar School No. 8.

One immigrant resident who made a name for himself was John Aquaro.  In 1889, he graduated from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and in 1899 he was among the founders of the Italian Medical Society of the City of New York.

Dr. Aquaro would live at 83 Sullivan Street for years.  During the first decade of the 20^th century he was listed as “interested in General Medicine,” but by 1916, while living here, he was a physician of the Corrections Department. 

The doctor’s choice of neighborhoods made sense.  Once a mixed bag of nationalities, the Sullivan Street block was now part of New York’s Little Italy.  Another resident, Robert C. Papini, joined the United States Army as the country entered World War I.  In 1919, Sergeant Papini’s name appeared on the Casualty List in New York newspapers; the gravity of his wounds “undetermined.”

Stephen Puczetti, like Papini, fought for the United States.  Born in Northern Italy, he was just 22 years old when the war ended.  Six years later he ran a small produce market in Queens and lived with his wife and two children here. 

On Saturday, September 27, 1924, Puczetti received a soldiers’ bonus check for $150.  To celebrate his windfall, he invited several friends, including his father, to dinner in a MacDougal Street restaurant.  Afterward, the group disbanded and Puczetti headed home to 83 Sullivan.  The New York Times reported two days later, “He had not gone a block when one of his friends, Joseph Aloise, of 105 West Third Street, heard four shots.  Hurrying back he found Puczetti lying on the sidewalk.  He died in the arms of his father while going to St. Vincent’s Hospital in a taxi.”  The grieving father told police “his son had not a known enemy.”  None of the group saw the assailant.

The house continued to be home to blue collar residents.  Louis Vetere lived here with his wife, Marie, and five children when he died on August 15, 1937.  His meager estate of $550 (about $9,000 in today’s dollars) went to his widow.

The two near mirror-image homes remain amazingly intact.

As Sullivan Street changed, the Mulford house and its next door neighbor did not.  Astonishingly, their doorways, the ironwork and the historic wooden-sashed windows survive.  The houses present an unexpected slice of early 19^th century life in an area transitioning from farmland to city.

photographs by the author

The Lost 1760 Richmond Hill Mansion -- Charlton and Varick Streets

print from the Library of Congress

Throughout the 18^th century wealthy New Yorkers built grand country estates in the rolling, pastoral hills north of the city.  Here during the summer months they could escape to the open countryside where breezes provided a welcomed relief.

In 1760, just south of the tiny village of Greenwich, Major Abraham Mortimer built Richmond Hill on land leased from Trinity Church.  Mortimer was Commissary to the British Army and an important figure in both military and social circles.  At the time, of course, all New Yorkers were British subjects, but that would change before long.

Mortimer had chosen an elevated, wooded spot called Zandt Berg, or Sand Hill, for his country seat.  Historian William Leete Stone wrote in 1872, 

Having secured from the Church a lease of the property for a long extended term of years, the new proprietor erected…a spacious and imposing edifice, to which, with a natural fondness for familiar English names, he gave the designation of "Richmond Hill."  Mortimer’s estate encompassed a staggering 160 acres.  He speedily commenced, on a scale of generous expenditure, to improve and ornament its grounds.

The wooden Richmond Hill mansion took full advantage of the elevated site.  Broad steps led to the wide, entrance porch below a columned portico.  Chinese Chippendale railings, the zenith of architectural fashion at the time, adorned the balconies and roof.

Mortimer continued to improve the property with costly landscaping until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.  According to Stone, he “devoted much of his time and no small share of his fortune to the embellishment of his highly-prized acquisition.”

print NYPL Collection

The Major’s “embellishments” of the property and his lavish entertainments here came to an abrupt end as the British army was mobilized against the revolutionaries.  On April 13, 1776, General George Washington briefly took over the mansion as his headquarters.  During this time Colonel Aaron Burr, aide-de-camp to General Putnam, became familiar with the estate and the beauty of its grounds.

While here, Washington survived an assassination attempt when Thomas Hickey, one of the general’s bodyguards, was seduced by the British to poison Washington and other American officers, and to blow up the stores of ammunition.  When the housekeeper, daughter of innkeeper Samuel Fraunces, discovered the plot she warned Washington, saving his life.

print NYPL Collection

The Revolutionary Army soon marched north and British officers occupied the mansion for seven years until abandoning it in 1783.  Mortimer’s elegant mansion sat vacant and neglected for five years as political changes took precedence in the city.

Finally, in 1789, George Washington was sworn in as President of the new republic at Broad and Wall Streets.  Vice President John Adams and his wife, Abigail, took over Richmond Hill as the vice-presidential mansion.

Abigail was smitten with the beauty of the house and its grounds.  She wrote, 

In natural beauty it might vie with the most delicious spot I ever saw.  It is a mile and a half from the city of New York.  The house stands upon an eminence: at an agreeable distance flows the noble Hudson, bearing upon its bosom innumerable small vessels laden with the fruitful productions of the adjacent country.  Upon my right hand are fields beautifully variegated with grass and grain, to a great extent like the valley of the Honiton in Devonshire.

The extensive landscaping included a small lake, later called "Burr's Pond" -- NYPL Collection

Years later, in 1829 Gulian C. Verplanck would recall a dinner party for the Talisman.  

There in the centre of the table sat Vice-president Adams in full dress, with his bag and solitaire, his hair frizzled out each side of his face as you see in in Stuart’s older pictures of him.  On his right sat Baron Steuben, our royalist republican disciplinarian general.  On his left was Mr. Jefferson, who had just returned from France, conspicuous in his red waist-coast and breeches, the fashion of Versailles.

Aaron Burr returned to New York in 1783 to practice law.  He was retained by the heirs of Anneke Jans to defend them in a legal battle with Trinity Church.  The Jans family claimed ownership of Richmond Hill, most likely assuming that the Revolution had made void any land grants Trinity had received from the Crown.  Burr, however, fell victim to his own love of the property and, in return for a long-term lease, sided with the church.

Burr’s wife died in 1794 and when he moved into Richmond Hill in 1797, his 14-year-old daughter Theodosia acted as hostess of the manor.  Just before Burr took up residency, a family named Temple was living here.  William Leete Stone noted that “a good deal of public excitement was awakened by an extensive robbery committed on the premises, the perpetrators of which were never discovered.”

Burr spent lavishly on entertaining.  Among the celebrated guests here were Talleyrand, Gilbert Stuart, Washington Irving, Volney and Louis Philippe.  “It was here,” wrote Stone, “that he received, with fitting honors, the distinguished strangers from every land, who came to study the features of the country and to estimate the characters of the people, newly entering into the family of nations.  Certainly no man of that day was better qualified to perform the duty he had taken upon himself.”

Theodosia was a charming and brilliant hostess, even when her father was away in Washington, having become vice-president in 1801.  A window-lined gallery displayed Burr’s collection of art and his extensive library was filled with books imported from a London bookseller.  But glittering dinners and cultured discussions of literature and politics came to an end in 1804 when Aaron Burr fatally wounded Alexander Hamilton in a duel.   Negative public opinion regarding Burr forced him to leave New York and his beloved home forever.

On July 27, 1804, a New York newspaper wrote,

As we are often asked what has become of Mr. Burr since the perpetration of his crime, we presume the following information will, in some degree, satisfy the curiosity of our readers:  He has for the present, and we trust forever, fled from the city and the State.  Late on Saturday evening, he, together with his servants and baggage, embarked on a barge and arrived at Amboy the following morning.  He called on a respectable gentleman of the place, requested that a carriage might be immediately provided, and asked for a dish of coffee and afterward for a bed.  He appeared to be extremely restless and in a few minutes arose.  He departed for the southward, probably for South Carolina.

John Jacob Astor, recognizing a potential bargain, negotiated the purchase of the lease from Trinity Church.  For $140,000 he leased the land and for another $25,000 purchased the mansion.  Astor divided the property into residential building lots, crisscrossing the once-elegant grounds with streets.  Astor placed an ad in 1813 offering the mansion for rent.  “The house and outhouses are in complete repair, with seven acres of land, a good garden, grass land for a pair of horses and two cows.” 

As Greenwich Village spread southward, enveloping the former estate and as brick homes rose along the new streets, the Richmond Hill mansion suffered humiliating changes.  Unbelievably, it was placed on logs and relocated 100 feet away to the southwest corner of Charlton and Varick Streets.

 In 1819, it was home to a circus where the popular clown Charles M’Donald and John May were members of the troupe.  Three years later a pleasure garden was opened that became a popular resort for the neighboring residents.  Refreshments were served from the mansion.  A frequently-offered attraction was a “turtle feast.”  But this, too, would pass.

In 1871, Historical Magazine reminisced, “the old Richmond Hill mansion found itself shorn of all its grandeur, stripped of its verdant groves, despoiled of its gardens and lawns, sitting, sadly, far beneath its former altitude, at the noisy and somewhat unsavory corner of Charlton and Varick streets.  Its stately portals no longer opened wide, to welcome the entrance of distinguished guests from foreign lands, or the brilliant crowds who came to mingle in the gay receptions of joyous and sparkling Theodosia.”

In 1831, an addition was added to the rear of the house and it became home to The Richmond Hill Theatre which opened on November 14.  Unfortunately for the theater, it was too far removed from the established city to attract a sufficient audience.   The management changed its direction, offering Italian Opera and bringing in esteemed names from the European stage.  The theater struggled on for nearly ten years, finally closing for good in 1842. 

For a short time it operated as the Tivoli Gardens, then the National Theatre, and in 1846 became the enlarged New Greenwich Theatre.  The ever-failing venue tried, in vain, a last stab at opera, opening and closing as the New York Opera House in 1847.

After the failure of the opera house, the disgraced mansion limped along as a roadhouse and saloon until 1849 when the property values outweighed the historical importance of the house.  That same year the venerable, if degraded, Richmond Hill was demolished and in its place a row of quaint brick houses arose.

Half a century later, American sentiments finally began to recognize the importance of preserving historic buildings.  On Christmas Day 1910, The New York Times remarked that “Aaron Burr’s old home, Richmond Hill, has, perhaps, made more history for Greenwich than any other place.”  And three years later the newspaper said, “Richmond Hill is undoubtedly the most interesting building ever erected in Greenwich Village.”

Unfortunately, it all came too late for the elegant home built by a British Major, was headquarters to both the Revolutionary and British armies, and was home to two United States Vice-Presidents.