Sitgreaves Folly (237 Northampton Street)

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Sitgreaves’ Folly (Montague Portion on Right)

(Photo by Richard F. Hope)

Sitgreaves’ Folly (East): The Montague Building (237 Northampton Street)

By Richard F. Hope, last updated 2 November 2018.

3-story brown brick building with Victorian roof balustrade atop a dental roof cornice with end buttresses; balustrade includes inscription “Montague Building”. Upper story windows have projecting window pediments. Ground floor has modern show window, with projecting cornice. The building has been identified as being in the “Italianate” architectural style, constructed c.1850-70.[1]

The early history of this property is given in the separate entry for 62 Centre Square. This was at least part of Samuel Sitgreaves second Easton mansion, known as “Sitgreaves’ Folly”. Sitgreaves acquired the land for the “Folly” in 1812 from John Ross, who owned the entire block to the corner with Centre Square. Sitgreaves’s “Folly” property occupied a front of 60 feet on Northampton Street.[2] One authority has stated that the “Folly” itself occupied all of this front,[3] which is in accord with a water color picture painted by Mary Elizabeth Maxwell (later Mrs. Washington McCartney) shortly thereafter.[4] The “Folly” took some five years to build,[5] standing three stories high[6] with an “imposing central entrance of an old English design.”[7] Sitgreaves lived here beginning in 1817, and died here in 1827.[8]

Samuel Sitgreaves[9]

Samuel Sitgreaves was a lawyer; a Federalist Congressman from Pennsylvania; and from 1798 a US Commissioner to Great Britain regarding British claims under the Jay Treaty. In addition, he was the first President of The Easton Bank, a leader of the campaign to build the Delaware River Bridge in 1806,[10] and made crucial donations to found Easton’s Library Hall[11] and the Easton Trinity Episcopal Church.[12]He also served as Chief Burgess of Easton in 1789-90 and 1791-99.[13]

On 19 March 1831, approximately four years after Sitgreaves’ death, a major fire “almost entirely destroyed” two “very large three-story” brick buildings which were the “property of late Samuel Sitgreaves, Esq.” One of these buildings – and apparently the one in which the fire started – was the “Folly”.[14] Another article at the time indicates that one of the two buildings was pulled down to contain the fire.[15] The 1831 fire also damaged some 8 adjoining structures, including the “extensive establishment of William White and the large German (First Reformed) church; and if they had not been promptly extinguished would have burned the whole northwest part of the town.” A line of Easton men and women handed “leathern buckets” of water from the Delaware River to the fire engines (and a second line returned the buckets for more water), in order to contain the fire.[16]

• An owner of the Miller & von Tagen clothing store (in which the fire may have started) tried to save his flaming account books, and “burned his hands in a shocking manner.”[17] A newspaper advertisement run the following week shows that notwithstanding his efforts, these account books were destroyed, and the owners requested former customers to come forward and pay their accounts even though the records were lost. It appears that one of the owners (George Miller) had resolved to leave town as a result of the fire, although the other (Charles G. von Tagen) would start up again in another location on Northampton Street, now selling groceries and liquors.[18]

Two walls of the “Folly” completely tumbled down in the wind after the fire.[19] One newspaper article at the time thought that the building “will have to be taken down”,[20] although an 1896 article identified the building then standing (and, apparently, still standing today) as Sitgreaves’s home at the time of his death (i.e., the “Folly” dating from before the 1831 fire).[21] The later statement that the Folly largely survived the fire comports with Mary Maxwell’s 1835 water color painting, which (about four years after the fire) shows the edge of a large 3-story building standing on Northampton Street to the East of the corner with Centre Square, which would appear to be at least the remains of the “Folly”.[22] It seems quite possible that the remainder of the fire-gutted “Folly” structure may have been used as the basis for the remodeled replacement building built thereafter.

• In 1831 (apparently after the fire), Sitgreaves’s protégé and successor as President of the Easton Bank, Col. Thomas McKeen (also spelled “McKean”), agreed to purchase the western half of the property from the Sitgreaves Estate, together with the attached brick building in the rear.[23] McKeen’s heirs extensively renovated the property, now called the McKeen-Young Mansion.[24]

The Sitgreaves estate conveyed the eastern half of the property to Alexander E. Brown, but when Brown failed to pay his debts (probably owed for the purchase of the land itself), the property was resold by the Sheriff to David Mixsell in 1842.[25] This eastern half of the property, presumably renovated from the remains of the Sitgreaves Folly mansion, was listed as 65 Northampton Street under the street numbering scheme then in effect. The building was used as Peter F. Eilenberger’s merchant tailor shop in 1864,[26] and as John Micke’s dry goods store in 1870.[27] It briefly became Easton’s Y.M.C.A. by 1873.[28] Peter S. Hulsizer (an “agent”) also had his home in one side of this building in 1873.[29] Hulsizer would later become an Easton constable,[30] and “spearheaded” the collection of funds in 1887 to built an iron and granite fountain to replace the Courthouse in Centre Square. He was given the honor of drinking the first glass of water from the fountain when it was turned on in August of that year.[31]

The building became the well known Abel’s Confectionery in the 1880s (John Abel, proprietor and resident).[32] The business was continued after John’s death by Abel’s widow, Mary E. Abel; after her death in 1891 by J. Edward Abel, their son, in the name of his mother’s estate;[33] and (at the address next door) into the early 1930s by Miss Mary Abel and Isabel A. Hartzell.[34] Mrs. “Georgie” Chidsey later reminisced: “And then came Abel’s, of blissful memory! No ice-cream ever had been like theirs and never will equal it. Great throgs crowded the long ‘parlor’ particularly on Saturday night, -- Abel’s own family rooms very often taking care of the overflow. . . . [G]oing to Abel’s was the wild extravagence a young man indulged in at that time, to entertain his best girl”.[35]

By 1898, Abel’s Confectionery had opened next door (in the McKeen-Young Mansion).[36] It continued at the No.237 address into the early years of the 20th Century,[37] but it was ultimately replaced there by Charles J. Montague, Bookseller and Stationer.[38]

Montague (b.1863) had originally started work as an employee of Maxwell’s book and stationery store (located in the “Sweet Shop Building”). After Maxwell died in 1901, Montague purchased the business as of New Year’s Day 1902.[39] A picture dated 1 September 1906 shows the book store on the Square.[40] Montague purchased the Sitgreaves’ Folly (East) building in December 1906,[41] and moved his store to that location. It became known as the “Montague Building” by 1914,[42] and that legend continues to appear on the roof façade at the top of the building to the present day. By comparing the modern façade of the building with a 1906 photograph, Montague appears to have replaced the old roof dormers with a new roof façade (including his inscription), and modernized the street level entry, replacing the 19th Century balcony over the entry with a cornice that extends over the windows as well. The second- and third-story widow bays appear to be unchanged.[43]

In the 20th Century, the commercial space became the Printing Place of Easton, which (together with the building) was purchased in 1984 by Fran “Pinter the Printer” and his parents, Robert and Nancy Pinter. They moved to 201 Northampton Street when Roger Barlow retired from his store, Barlow’s Fine Jewelers, at that location.[44]

The building later became the Montague Restaurant and Tavern, taking its name from the earlier book store. It has more recently become the Sogo Fusion Restaurant.

[1]City of Easton, Pennsylvania Historic Resource Survey Form, Attachment: Building Description Survey Area 1 Zone E (City Council Resolution approved 12 May 1982).

[2]Deed, John (Mary) Ross to Samuel Sitgreaves, H3 40 (1 May 1812); Article, “History of Sitgreaves Street”, The Daily Free Press, Friday, 28 Aug. 1896, p.3, col.3 (building where Sitgreaves died was Abel’s confectionery store in 1896); see also F.S. Bixler, “’Hon. Samuel Sitgreaves’, An Illustrious Citizen of Northampton County”, Speech read at meeting of Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society, 18 Feb. 1922, at unnumbered p.5; Floyd S. Bixler, The History with Reminiscences of the Early Taverns and Inns of Easton, Paper read before the Northampton County Historical Society on 25 Oct. 1930, 16 (Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society 1931)(“Sitgreaves’ Folly” occupied a “sixty feet front, occupying the present site of the three-story properties of Abel’s Confectionery, Heiberger’s Shoe Store and Montague’s Stationery Store”).

Sitgreaves purchased the entire half-block for his “Folly” from John and Mary Ross in 1812. The property consisted of the eastern half of four town lots (Nos. 77-80) whose chain of title went back to John and Richard Penn, and in the case of three of the lots were previously sold to John Ross by Samuel Sitgreaves himself. These complicated chains of title are recited at length in the Ross to Sitgreaves Deed cited above. See also 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).

[3]Floyd S. Bixler, The History with Reminiscences of the Early Taverns and Inns of Easton, Paper read before the Northampton County Historical Society on 25 Oct. 1930, 16 (Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society 1931)(“Sitgreaves’ Folly” occupied a “sixty feet front, occupying the present site of the three-story properties of Abel’s Confectionery, Heiberger’s Shoe Store and Montague’s Stationery Store”). When Bixler wrote in 1930, Montague’s was located at the corner of Sitgreaves Street, and Abel’s was in the McKeen-Young Homestead next door. See H.P. Delano (compiler), West’s Directory for City of Easton Pennsylvania 25 (Union Publishing Co. Inc. 1925)(“Halls, Blocks, Buildings” entry “Montague Building, Sitgreaves cor Northampton”, and alphabetical listing).

[4]Water color painting in the possession of the Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society. This painting was reproduced in Ethan Allen Weaver, “The Forks of the Delaware” Illustrated xxvi (Eschenbach Printing 1900)(dated c.1835). See also Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society, Water Colors Painted by Mary Elizabeth Maxwell McCartney About 1840 Views of Old Easton No.4 (undated, in McCartney File), which also dates the picture to 1835. A black-and-white version of this painting is included in the separate article on 62 Centre Square. The picture shows a 3 story building just to the East of the corner, which the Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society’s accession notes identify as being the Sitgreaves’ Folly building, although the Society’s unstated authority for this was Floyd Bixler (based on the identification of later stores in the accession notes, which are the same stores identified by Mr. Bixler). See Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society, Water Colors Painted by Mary Elizabeth Maxwell McCartney About 1840 Views of Old Easton (undated, in McCartney File)(No.4).

An 1831 newspaper article speaks of two Sitgreaves buildings apparently located on the property at the corner of Sitgreaves and Northampton Streets. See Ethan A. Weaver, “A Disastrous Fire Sixty-nine Years Ago”, reprinted in Ethan Allen Weaver, Historical Notes First Series 153 et seq. (Easton Public Library June 1936)(quoting article in an unnamed newspaper of March 1831). However, one of these brick buildings might have been located in the rear of the property, rather than fronting on Northampton Street. SeeDeed, James Linton, Executor of Samuel Sitgreaves to Thomas McKeen, H5 328 (10 Sept. 1831).

[5]Floyd S. Bixler, The History with Reminiscences of the Early Taverns and Inns of Easton, supra.

[6]See Deed, Gamble Young to Thomas McKeen, H10 553 (6 Sept. 1864), which (in describing the McKeen-Young property that was Sitgreaves Folly (West) in 1864 speaks of land “on which are erected a large Three Story Brick building three story Back Building and other improvements”. Only Col. Thomas McKeen had owned that property between Sitgreaves’ death in 1827 and the date of this two-step conveyance by McKeen’s estate to his nephew (see separate entry for 241 Northampton Street), so it seems likely that the property described in the 1864 Deed is as it was built by Sitgreaves himself.

[7]F.S. Bixler, “’Hon. Samuel Sitgreaves’, An Illustrious Citizen of Northampton County”, Speech read at meeting of Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society, 18 Feb. 1922, at unnumbered p.5.

[8]Floyd S. Bixler, The History with Reminiscences of the Early Taverns and Inns of Easton, supra; F.S. Bixler, “Hon. Samuel Sitgreaves”, supra.

[9]M.S. Henry, History of the Lehigh Valley facing 16 (Bixler & Corwin 1860).

[10]Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, “Samuel Sitgreaves”, searchable from bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp (accessed 3 Jan. 2005); David B. Stillman, Easton in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, Paper presented to the Northampton County Historical Society 17 Jan. 1946, Historical Bulletin of the Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society, No. 3 (Sept. 1947) (avail. Marx Room, Easton Public Library), at 3, 6-7; Rev. Uzal W. Condit, The History of Easton, Penn’a 148-49 (George W. West 1885 / 1889); Ethan Allen Weaver, “The Forks of the Delaware” Illustratedxxi, xxvi (Eschenbach Press, Easton, PA, 1900); Papers Read Before the Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society, The Old County Courthouse and other Northampton County History 18 (1964).

[11]See Easton Area Public Library Website, “Our History” (accessed 3 Jan. 2005); Dr. Elinor Warner, Easton, Pennsylvania Walking Tour, for Pennsylvania Art Education Association Conference 2000, (accessed 4 Jan. 2005).

[12]Warner, Easton Walking Tour, supra; Rev. Uzal W. Condit, The History of Easton, Penn’a 152 (George W. West 1885 / 1889).

[13]Article, “Chief Executives of Easton Since 1789”, easton Express, Sun., 12 June 1937, Jubilee Section A, p.5, cols.1-2.

[14]Article, “Alarming Fire”, Easton Centinel, Fri., 25 Mar. 1831, p.3, col.1, reprinted inEthan A. Weaver, “A Disastrous Fire Sixty-nine Years Ago”, reprinted in Ethan Allen Weaver, Historical Notes First Series 153 et seq. (Easton Public Library June 1936).

[15]Article, “Destructive Fire!”, Democrat & Argus, Thurs., 24 March 1831, p.3, col.2.

[16]Article, “Alarming Fire”, Easton Centinel, Fri., 25 Mar. 1831, p.3, col.1, reprinted inEthan A. Weaver, “A Disastrous Fire Sixty-nine Years Ago”, reprinted in Ethan Allen Weaver, Historical Notes First Series 153 et seq. (Easton Public Library June 1936); see also Article, “Destructive Fire!”, Democrat & Argus, Thurs., 24 March 1831, p.3, col.2. In 1831, William White’s hotel could have referred to the building now located at 60 Centre Square, or (in addition) to his building at the NE corner of Centre Square and North Third Street (where the western half of the Hotel Huntington now stands). The Church is now the United Church of Christ, at 27-29 North Third Street. See generally separate articles on all of these buildings.

[17]Article, “Alarming fire”, supra.

[18]Advertisement, “To the Public”, Democrat and argus, Thurs., 31 March 1831, p.3, col.5; see Ethan A. Weaver, “Historical Sketches Relating to Easton and Northampton County, Pa., and Their Inhabitants”, in Local Historical and Biographical Notes from the Files of Newspapers Published in Easton, Penna 39, at 40 (Germantown: New Series 1906).

[19]Article, “Alarming Fire”, supra.

[20]Article, “Destructive Fire!”, Democrat & Argus, Thurs., 24 March 1831, p.3, col.2.

[21]Article, “History of Sitgreaves Street”, The Daily Free Press, Friday, 28 Aug. 1896, p.3, col.3 (building where Sitgreaves died was Abel’s confectionery store in 1896).

[22]Painting in the possession of the Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society, reproduced in Ethan Allen Weaver, “The Forks of the Delaware” Illustrated xxvi (Eschenbach Printing 1900)(dated c.1835). See also Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society, Water Colors Painted by Mary Elizabeth Maxwell McCartney About 1840 Views of Old Easton No.4 (undated, in McCartney File)(identifies this building as Sitgreaves’ Folly).

[23]Deed, James Linton, Executor of Samuel Sitgreaves to Thomas McKeen, H5 328 (10 Sept. 1831)(Sitgreaves’ will was dated 29 Dec. 1825). The property description indicates that John Ross owned the adjacent property to the west (now known as the Easton Sweet Shop Building), running 60 feet down Northampton Street from Centre Square. See also Deed, Peter Steckel, Sheriff to David Mixsell, H6 605 (29 Nov. 1842)(property description referring to adjacent “Lot intended to be conveyed to Thomas McKeen Esquire”).

Sitgreaves had obtained the land for Sitgreaves’ Folly from John Ross in 1812. Id. (recital of title referring to Deed, John (Mary) Ross to Samuel Sitgreaves, H3 40 (1 May 1812)).

[24]See separate entry for 241 Northampton Street.

[25]See Deed, Peter Steckel, Sheriff to David Mixsell, H6 605 (29 Nov. 1842). This Deed also contains a recital that the debtor, Alexander E. Brown, owed his debt to Anna Sitgreaves, Executrix of the Reverend Samuel Sitgreaves Esq., who was an heir of Samuel Sitgreaves. See generallyWill of Samuel Sitgreaves, Northampton County File No. 03885, WB 5 150, RW-16 Frame 1459.0 (filed for probate 28 April 1827).

[26]Talbot’s Lehigh Valley Gazetteer and Business Directory 1864-65 13 (Press of Wynkoop & Hallenbeck 1864)(P.F. Eilenberger, merchant tailor and clothier at 65 Northampton Street). See generally entry for 101 Northampton Street.

[27]Fitzgerald & Dillon, Easton Directory for 1870-71 63 (Ringwalt & Brown 1870). Micke’s wife was a niece of Colonel Thomas McKeen’s first wife. Historic Easton, Inc., Holiday Preservation Tour of Historic Easton unnumbered p.3 (9 Dec. 1978).

John Micke’s store had moved to this location from 60 Northampton Street (under the old street numbering scheme) – now known as the Easton Sweet Shop Building. SeeTalbot’s Lehigh Valley Gazetteer and Business Directory 1864-65 25 (Press of Wynkoop & Hallenbeck 1864).