6
(Photo by Richard F. Hope)
Italianate Town Houses (246, 248, 250 Bushkill Street)
3-story brick, elaborate projecting cornices over windows and door, and bracketed roof cornice, in the “Italianate” style.[1] Different construction dates of 1859[2] and c.1870[3] have been suggested.
This property is located on the eastern-most part of original town Lot No.50, as surveyed by William Parsons when Easton was founded in 1752.[4] That Lot fronted on North 3rd Street (then called Pomfret Street) as well as Bushkill Street. At a very early date, the property was informally occupied by Martin Adam. After his death, his widow (Anna Margaret Adam) and her second husband (laborer John Dengler, also spelled Dingler) were appointed administrators of Martin Adam’s estate in 1759: Anna Margaret Adam/Dengler inherited whatever property rights Martin Adam had in the property.[5] An early map of Easton lots shows that Lot No.50 was fenced in by George “Tingler”, while he occupied a house on Lot No.52 next door on Pomfret Street.[6] The house was valued by the 1759 estate at only £6, which “was an extremely low figure and the dwelling must have been a poor structure.” Dengler appears in a record during the Revolution, when he was paid £1 and 10 shillings in continental currency (said to be the equivalent of only 7 shilling and sixpence in specie) for digging the grave of Easton’s first resident lawyer, Lewis Gordon,[7] after Gordon died in 1778.[8]
Historian A.D. Chidsey Jr.’s map of 1776 Easton shows a large building built along the rear alley of Lot No.52, but Chidsey did not identify the source of his information.[9] This large building appears to still be visible in a painting of Easton done attributed to the year 1810 (and actually probably painted in 1811 or 1812), when the property was owned by Samuel Sitgreaves (see below).[10]
The Dengler Family’s free ride finally came to an end in 1789, when the Penn Family’s collection agent Anthony Butler made a push to collect past due rents in Easton, and to sell properties to squatters (such as the Denglers) who had not obtained any formal titles.[11] Dengler’s son, George Dengler (also known as John George Dingler)[12] accordingly purchased formal title to the land from the Penn Family in 1789.[13] In 1807, Dengler sold the two Lots to Samuel Sitgreaves,[14] an Easton lawyer, politician and financier who had erected his “Spring Garden” mansion at the corner with Spring Garden Street in 1793.[15] Sitgreaves ultimately acquired the entire “Square”, all the way from Spring Garden Street to Bushkill Street,[16] and used most of it for a garden behind his “Spring Garden” mansion at the Spring Garden Street corner.[17] After Sitgreaves died in 1827,[18] his estate sold the entire Square to brewer John G. Marbacher for $6,500.[19] Marbacher divided up the Square, and proceeded to sell it off in separate pieces.[20] In 1833, the SW corner of Bushkill and Pomfret (now North 3rd) Streets was sold to Jacob Lesher and his wife for $1,350. No building was explicitly listed on this land in the deed, which is consistent with Samuel Sitgreaves’s use of it as a garden (see above). Lesher’s plot included 60’ of frontage along North 3rd Street, and ran 115’ back along Bushkill Street to a private alley opened by Marbacher.[21] This corner property thus included the Bushkill Street frontage now occupied by the town houses at 246, 248 and 250 Bushkill Street.[22]
Ten years later, in 1843, Jacob Lesher placed his land (as well as a number of other pieces of real estate) in trust for his wife, Anna Maria Lesher. The deed of trust described the SE corner of Bushkill and Pomfret Streets as containing a single “Brick Messuage Tenement”. This suggests that Lesher, a “House-Carpenter”,[23] had constructed a single building on the land by this time, probably at the corner itself. Thereafter, Mrs. Lesher’s trustee may have improved the land by adding a building, which would be consistent with the 1859 construction date suggested (probably by an owner) in the Northampton County Tax Records.[24] However, when Mrs. Lesher and her trustee sold the property on in 1868, the building description remained unchanged as a “Brick Messuage tenement” (singular), which may suggest that the property still held only the building at the corner. That sale brought $10,000 from purchaser William W. Clark.[25]
Eighteen months later, when Clark was only 42 years old,[26] he contracted to sell this property for $16,000 to John Martin. The sale was to close on 1 August. When Clark died unexpectedly on 14 July, his estate had to get court permission to complete the sale after his death, which was finally accomplished on 31 August.[27] Newspaper items about Clark’s death indicate that his wife, Susan, had already died the year before,[28] and that William Clark himself was subject to “temporary fits”. On Wednesday, 14 July, he had “succeeded in getting away” from his family and went missing; on Friday his body was “found hanging . . . in a stable in the rear of his late residence on Bushkill street.” He was considered to be a suicide.[29]
The large increase in sale price obtained by Clark for this Easton property in only a year and a half, suggests that significant construction had been conducted under Clark’s ownership. That would suggest that the separate apartment building was built by Clark, rather than by Mrs. Lesher’s trustee. The alternative “c.1870” construction date suggested for the Italianate Town Houses[30] (see above) would be consistent with construction by Clark.
Clark’s 1869 sale deed continued to describe the building only generally, as a “brick tenement”, but with the inauguration of the modern street numbering scheme only a few years later in 1874, all three modern addresses (at 246, 248 and 250 Bushkill Street) were assigned to three different tenants. This tends to confirm that the Italianate Town Houses had been constructed by that time. The tenants listed in the modernized addresses of 1874 were:[31]
· No.250, as the residence of Miss R. Vanorman;
· No.248, as the residence of Mrs. Charles Smith;
· No.246, as the residence of Edward Ricker.[32] [Under the prior address scheme, Ricker’s address had been 64 Bushkill Street.[33]]
An Atlas of 1874 also shows the footprint of four buildings along Bushkill Street in place by that time, as well as a substantial building at the corner.[34] [This corner building – forerunner of the Bull Apartments building of today – apparently also included several residential apartments.]
Clark’s purchaser, John Martin, had been born in Ireland, and had come to America in approximately 1847. He arrived in Easton in 1852, and “made considerable money in the rag and junk business”. He reinvested his money in real estate, becoming “one of the largest property owners in Easton”. In his later years, he also operated a bookstore out of the building that served as his home, at 116 South 3rd Street.[35]
Further street address history confirms that John Martin continued to use the Italianate Town House building for residential rentals. For example, in 1883, No.248 was the residence of Samuel W. Nevin,[36] before he took up residence the following year at 115 North 4th Street (next door to David W. Nevin).[37] In 1880:
· No.246 was the residence of S. Kirkpatrick and her son, Morris (an attorney-at-law).
· No.248 was the residence of paper mill Superintendent George Ehrhart and family.
· No.250 was the residence of Attorney Robert James and family.[38]
Property owner John Martin died on 10 May 1897.[39] His estate was pressed to pay debs (probably for lack of ready cash, rather than for lack of valuable assets). Within a few months, the entire Bushkill Street corner property (including the land at the corner with North 3rd Street) was sold as a single package by Sheriff’s sale.
The purchasers were partners S. Holland Hackett and Anderson D. Chidsey, who paid $13,000.[40] The Hackett and Chidsey firm was a “private banking and brokerage house” founded in 1889[41] by Andrew Dwight Chidsey, Sr. and S. Holland Hackett. Chidsey was one of the sons of Russell S. Chidsey,[42] owner of a stove store on Northampton Street and a founder of the Warren Foundry and the Thomas Iron Co., and an organizer of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank (later the First National Bank of Easton).[43] It appears that John Martin’s underlying debt leading to the Sheriff’s sale, had been owed to the estate of Russell Chidsey, Andrew’s father.[44]
Two years later (in 1899), Hackett & Chidsey sold the corner building to James V. Bull.[45] In 1901, Bull also purchased the “three brick dwelling houses” next door along Bushkill Street. The sale price for these apartments was $10,000.[46]
James V. Bull (1841-1930) was one of the two partners in the famous Bush & Bull Department store.[47] His Bull Mansion was also located just s few doors down the street, at 226 Bushkill Street.[48] In 1901, James Bull rebuilt his corner building (the Bull Apartments at 139 North 3rd Street),[49] probably to incorporate the separate buildings shown in the 1874 Atlas into the single building that now stands at the corner, with entrances bearing the addresses of 139 North 3rd Street and 256 Bushkill Street. However, there is nothing to suggest that he did any extensive work on the three Italianate Bushkill Street town houses next door.
· In 1900, No. 246 was the residence of M. Giberson, a salesman (age 40), while No. 250 was the residence of Dr. E. Doolittle (age 54).[50]
In 1904, James Bull and his wife Mary gave both of their Bushkill Street rental properties to his two daughters, Helen and Jesse, for $1 plus “the natural love and affection they have for their daughters”. The deed was conditioned on the properties not being sold without their father’s permission during his lifetime, and after his death they were not to be sold or mortgaged without the consent of the other Bull sister. In that deed, the two Bushkill Street properties continued to be described separately, as two different tracts.[51] In 1915, the two sisters signed a deed that eliminated their own refusal rights on each other’s interests in this property,[52] although they did not then sell them. The ownership issue became academic, when (after James Bull’s death in 1930 – see above) his daughter Jesse Bull also died on 30 May 1936, willing her half interest to her sister. Helen (by then married to S. Henry Harrison) then held the entire rights to both properties.
· It appears that, despite the ownership being divided in half, the actual occupancy continued to be at least three separate apartments. In 1910, No. 246 continued as the residence of salesman Howard M. Giberson and family, while No.248 was separately listed as the home of bookkeeper Asher E. Renner[53] and of lumberyard driver Isaac Schooley and his family.[54] Dr. Egbert D. Doolittle and his wife continued to live in No.250.[55]
· In 1920, No.246 was the home of Martha Halfrin and her assorted sons and daughters; No.248 housed rooming house landlady Cora Bray and her daughters Minnie and Edna; and No.250 was the home of Henry O. Meeker, a power house Superintendent for the electric company.[56]
· In 1930, No. 246 was the home of photographer Frank L. Mattison (and his wife Nora); No. 248 had now been taken over by Edna V. Bray (apparently the daughter of the 1920 renter); and No. 250 continued to be the home of H. Oscar Meeker (now listed simply as an “electrician”) and his wife Elizabeth.[57]
· In 1942, No.246 had become the home of Nathan G. Shimer, while No.248 housed Mrs. Belle S. Fleming.[58]
In 1948, Helen Harrison separately sold off each of the “three Brick dwelling houses” along Bushkill Street (i.e. 246, 248 and 250 Bushkill Street).[59]
246 Bushkill Street
Helen Bull Harrison sold this town house to Rebecca Prival.[60] She retained it until 1957, when it was sold to Jesse and Dorothy Kieffer for $7,400.[61] Dr. Jesse Kieffer practiced medicine for 35 years in Easton, retiring in 1968.[62] He used the front parlor as a waiting room for patients, next to his examination room, and space in the rear of the building for a lab and dispensing room. The Kieffers’ residence was on the second floor, while their three sons lived on the third floor. Mrs. Kieffer was also a doctor – she had met her husband when they were both in medical school in Philadelphia.[63] She had graduated with an added Masters Degree in microbiology,[64] but did not practice medicine (except to help her husband occasionally). Despite her New York Jewish upbringing, she became a Roman Catholic for her husband, and attended mass daily at St. Michael’s Church around the corner on Spring Garden Street in her later years.[65] After Dr. Jesse died in 1979,[66] Mrs. Kieffer locked the medical office and continued to live in the upstairs apartment. Later, when in her 90s, the first floor was converted back into a residential apartment after Mrs. Kieffer became unable to handle the stairs.[67] Mrs. Kieffer died in 2003 at age 95.[68]
In 2004, Mrs. Kieffer’s estate sold the town house for $130,000 to Theresa L. DeLorenzo.[69] Unfortunately, in 2010 the Sheriff seized the building, selling it to the Federal National Mortgage Association[70] (FNMA, or “Fannie Mae”). A year later (in 2011), Blakely Mayrosh purchased it for $145,000.[71]
248 Bushkill Street
Helen Bull Harrison sold this town house to Richard A. Baddour.[72] In 1975, Baddour and his wife passed the “brick dwelling house” along to Chafiq Melhem and his wife.[73] Chafiq Melhem was born in Kfarsghab, Lebanon. After he immigrated to the United States, he worked as a steel fabricator for the former Argo Welded Products, Inc. of Phillipsburg, NJ. He later was “self-employed in the Real Estate industry.” He died in 2012.[74] A year before his death, the Melhems’s Bushkill Street property was seized by the Sheriff,[75] and resold approximately three months later for $89,900 to Izzat Melhem,[76] one of Chafiq’s sons.[77]