2
(Photo by Richard F. Hope)
Judge Kirkpatrick Properties (120-22 North 3rd Street, recently Pieces of You Boutique at 122, and apartments).
2-1/2-story brick/stucco facade building, with two entrances. Tudor Revival style row houses, once labeled the “Tudor-style twins”,[1] each with peaked cross-gabled roofs, and a small balcony with decorated wooden pillars and railing on 2nd floor of No.120. They appear to occupy portions of original town Lot No.150, as surveyed by William Parsons when Easton was established in 1752. That Lot was formally sold by the Penn Family to John Nicholas Jr. in 1789.[2] In 1825 he sold the property, together with a log house, to John Carey Jr.[3]
The current buildings on the property appear to be the “two handsome houses” built by Judge Kirkpatrick in approximately 1870.[4] In 1875, they were the residences of Henry Hamman (at No.120) and Mrs. John B. Fine (at No.122).[5] In 1885, they were occupied by Mrs. Susan Kirkpatrick and Frank Burke.[6]
· Mrs. Susan Kirkpatrick was the mother of Judge William S. Kirkpatrick.[7]
· Judge William S. Kirkpatrick was at various times the President Judge of the Pennsylvania Third Judicial District Court, the Attorney-General of Pennsylvania (1887), and a US Congressman (1896).[8]
· Judge Kirkpatrick’s wife, Elizabeth, was a daughter of Easton lawyer Mathew Hale Jones (see entry for Huntington Hotel).[9] By 1900, the Judge lived in the house at 20 North Third Street, which his wife acquired from her father.[10]
In 1900, No.120 was occupied by Dr. Henry Michler, his wife Emily and son Henry,[11] while No.122 was still occupied by Susan Kirkpatrick (born 1821, age 78) and her two daughters Mary Kirkpatrick (age 63) and Elizabeth Nevin (age 68), according to the Census report.[12] There is some suspicion that Mrs. Kirkpatrick might have been a bit older than she admitted to the Census taker, if the ages of her daughters are accurate.
In more modern times, the buildings were remodeled by owners Charles Trapani and Frances Pollard. Their efforts won a People’s Choice Award in the 2008 Properties of Merit program.[13]
[1] See Timothy George Hare, Easton Inkscapes No.48 (Easton: Inkwell Publications 1989). Although Hare does not definitively identify the subject of his artistic renditions, a comparison of his picture with the facades of these two houses leave little doubt.
[2] Deed, Penn Family to John Nicholas Jr., C2 212 (4 Dec. 1789); A.D. Chidsey, Jr., The Penn Patents in the Forks of the Delaware Plan of Easton, Map 2 (Vol. II of Publications of the Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society 1937); compare with Northampton County Tax Records map, www.ncpub.org.
[3] A.D. Chidsey, Jr., A Frontier Village 234-35, 250 (Vol. III of Publications of The Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society 1940)(Building No.28).
[4] City of Easton, Pennsylvania Historic Resource Survey Form, Attachment: Building Description Survey Area 1 Zone A (City Council Resolution approved 12 May 1982); see Northampton County Tax Records, www.ncpub.org (construction date of 1870 for 122 N. Third, plus an apparently “default” date of 1900 for 120 N. Third St.); see also Article, “Interesting Reminiscence, North Third Street a Third of a Century Ago”, Easton Daily Free Press, Thursday, 20 Aug. 1885, p.3 (constructed after 1852).
[5] Article, “The New Numbers”, Easton Daily Free Press, Monday, 24 Nov. 1873, p.3.
[6] Article, “Interesting Reminiscence, North Third Street a Third of a Century Ago”, Easton Daily Free Press, Thursday, 20 Aug. 1885, p.3 (constructed after 1852)(“Judge Kirkpatrick’s two handsome houses . . . occupied by Frank Burke and Mrs. Kirkpatrick” were constructed after 1852); see Census Directory of Northampton County (Eleventh U.S. Census 1890) 45 (Joseph H. Werner 1891)(Susan Kirkpatrick and Morris Kirkpatrick (lawyer), separate listings at 122 North Third Street; William Kirkpatrick and his family were listed at 20 North Third Street). The Northampton County Tax Records, www.ncpub.org, give a construction date of 1870 for 122 N. Third, and include an apparently “default” date of 1900 for 120 N. Third St.
[7] See 1850 Census, Series M432, Roll 802, p.128A (Susan and Newton Kirkpatrick, ages 30 and 25 respectively, with (among others) William Kirkpatrick age 6 – i.e. born in 1844, consistent with Judge Kirkpatrick’s biography). This record would have made Mrs. Susan Kirkpatrick about 55 years old in 1880, although she appears to have shaved a few years off of her age for the Census survey of that year. See 1880 Census, Series T9, Roll 1161, p.387D (S. Kirkpatrick, age 50, living at 246 Bushkill St. with her son Morris Kirkpatrick, age 31, an attorney-at-law).
[8] William J. Heller, II History of Northampton County 17, 20-21 (American Historical Society 1920); John W. Jordan, Edgar Moore Green & George T. Ettinger, Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of the Lehigh Valley Pennsylvania 103-04 (The Lewis Publishing Co. 1905, reprint by Higginson Book Co.); Frank B. Copp, Biographical Sketches of Some of Easton’s Prominent Citizens 244-46 (1879).
[9] Jordan, Green & Ettinger, Historic Homes and Institutions, supra at 104.
[10] See separate entry for Dr. Innes Residence, 20 North Third Street.
[11] 1900 Census, Series T623, Roll 1447, p.70A.
[12] 1900 Census, Series T623, Roll 1447, p.70B.
[13] Lydia Bruneo, “Well Deserved Recognition Given At the 2008 Easton Properties of Merit Award Reception”, The Irregular, Dec.2008/Jan.2009, p.1, at 16.