HOW TO ABANDON A BROWNSTONE (1907)
Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes.
The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
Do you know the history of YOUR house?
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The house at No. 178 State Street in Brooklyn Heights once sat untouched for almost 20 years.
Owned by a woman in a sanitarium who was unable to utilize the property, she made all of her heirs promise – in 1889 – never to enter the house until she was dead.
Apparently, though, they kept up appearances well in her absence by putting “help wanted” notices in the paper, and advertising “furnished rooms” in the house.
The woman in question, Mrs. Mary J. Cooke King, according to her obituary, had been a leader during the Civil War in “arranging for the great fair held in Brooklyn in aid of the sanitary commission.”
After she “came out of mourning” two years after her husband’s death “it was found she had developed an eccentricity of character bordering on insanity.”
She “discharged all her servants; she had the windows and doors to her home iron barred and she refused to receive visitors.”
The following piece appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle shortly after she died, noting that the place could finally be placed on the chopping block.
Obviously, none of her family wanted it.
The story read:
“The ‘house of mystery,’ at 178 State street, which was entered on Monday of last week for the first time in nineteen years, will be completely renovated and sold for the estate of Mrs. Mary Cook King, who died in a Flushing sanitarium about two weeks ago. Mrs. King, before abandoning the house many years ago, secured the solemn promise of her relatives that the place would not be entered until after her death, and when the executor of her estate opened the house last week, discovered that the aged widow had filled many rooms of the house with articles which she had bought in many shopping centers and department stores during a mania that is said to have lasted four years.”
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Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
