page_title: Merchant's House Museum
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Merchant's House Museum / History
caption_attribution_description: The Merchant's House Museum at 29 East 4th Street between the Bowery and Lafayette Street in the NoHo district of lower Manhattan, New York City.
context_page_description: The Merchant's House Museum, known formerly as the Old Merchant's House and as the Seabury Tredwell House, is the only nineteenth-century family home in New York City preserved intact — both inside and out. Built "on speculation" in 1832 by Joseph Brewster, a hatter by trade, it is located at 29 East Fourth Street, between Lafayette Street and the Bowery in Manhattan. It became a museum in 1936, founded by George Chapman, a cousin of the family who once lived there.
  The House was among the first 20 buildings designated in 1965 under the City's new landmarks law. It is the only historic house museum in the Greenwich Village/Soho/NoHo neighborhoods.
context_section_description: Joseph Brewster, the builder, sold the house to Seabury Tredwell, a wealthy New York merchant, for $18,000. Tredwell's daughter, Gertrude, was born in the house in 1840.
  Gertrude and her seven siblings, two brothers and five sisters, all lived in the house together with their parents, four servants, and an ever-changing assortment of nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts and other relatives. Only two daughters and one son ever married, which was unusual for that era and for an affluent family with social position.
  Seabury died in 1865 and the remaining family lived at the home into old age. Gertrude, the youngest member of the immediate family, lived here alone for 24 years after the death of her sister Julia in 1909. As she grew older and more eccentric she became obsessed with holding on to the elegant home in a neighborhood that had become, by the early 20th century, a run-down, semi-industrial, and disreputable part of town. Burdened with severe financial hardship in her last years, she somehow managed to keep the beautiful home in nearly original condition, long after all the neighboring private homes had been demolished or converted into rooming houses, tenements, or commercial structures.
  
  After her death in 1933, a distant cousin, George Chapman, purchased the building, saving it from foreclosure and demolition. In 1936, after needed repair and renovation, the house opened as a museum and has remained one since. The Merchant's House Museum remains a unique time capsule of the lives of a typical affluent New York merchant family of the 19th century, complete with the original possessions of the family.
caption: Entrance
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK EASYSHARE C433 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Gallery 6.0.6001.18000", "Image DateTime": "2010:11:03 21:22:19", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "230", "Image OffsetSchema": "104", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/45", "EXIF FNumber": "3", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:11:03 15:16:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:11:03 15:16:28", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "11/2", "EXIF ApertureValue": "16/5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "16/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "38/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1728", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "125", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "45", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}