Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn

My latest find is this pair of photos of the block in Brooklyn where several of my ancestors lived.  This is the south side of Lafayette Avenue, between St. Felix Street and Ashland Place (formerly Raymond Street).  The eight houses on this block were built in 1857.  From left to right, they were #36 through #22.  The block was razed in 1905 to make way for the new Brooklyn Academy of Music building which still stands there today.

The condensed family history on this block: #28 was home first to the Harrison family - Frederick H. Harrison, his second wife Caroline Cutler, and two daughters from his first marriage: Mary and Hattie.  Mary E. Harrison met Henry C. Williams at a dance, and he called on her at the house.  They were married there by none other than Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.  In 1878, Mary and her father Frederick passed away within a few months of each other.  Two years later, Henry C. Williams moved into #28 with his second wife Mary Sellers, and his and Mary Harrison's sons: Freddie and Harry.  Caroline Cutler Harrison still lived with them for a time.  Meanwhile, the Corbett family - Marshall J. Corbett, Alice Waldron, their son and four daughters - lived next door at #26.  Frederick H. Williams courted one of those daughters, Alice E. Corbett, and they married in 1893.  After setting up house nearby and having their first child (Marshall), they moved into #28 to help take care of Fred's father.  The Corbetts left #26 and moved to Corbettsville, New York, in 1893.  The Williamses left #28 and also moved to Corbettsville, in 1898.

Frederick H. Williams described the house at #28:

It was one of those red brick, three story and basement houses, in the center of the block. ... The dining room and kitchen occupied the basement, about three feet below sidewalk level.  On the next floor, a huge parlor with an "extension" ran the length of the house, used only when callers came or on Sunday evenings when father and mother sang hymns and simple little songs like "Annie Laurie".  At the front end of the parlor between two large windows was a "pier glass" extending from near the floor almost to the ceiling and framed in gilt.  On either side in the corner stood a couple of busts on their pedestals, one of John Bright and the other of [Richard] Cobden, for my grandfather was a "free trader" and admired those two Englishmen.  Some of the chairs and sofas were covered with a rose colored silk plush which we thought very right and beautiful.

On the second floor front was a large bedroom with an alcove used by father and mother; this was also the family sitting room where we played or studied our lessons.  Back of this was another large bedroom -- Harry's and mine.  All rooms were large and high ceilinged in those old houses.  On the third floor were four more bedrooms -- [two for guests, one for the cook and one for the housemaid]. ... Our houses were lighted by gas, a chandelier having from two to four jets and the light so dim by modern standards that I wonder our eyes did not give out early.  As the lights were quite high, we sometimes had a bright oil lamp on the center table to study or read by.

Richard Cobden

John Bright

Sources:
Special thanks to the Brooklyn Historical Society - I found these photos by searching their image database.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10 Jan 1905, illustrated supplement page 1.
New-York Tribune, 19 Feb 1905, page 7.
Wikimedia Commons.
Family papers.