{"id":18544,"date":"2025-08-19T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=18544"},"modified":"2026-02-03T13:17:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T18:17:24","slug":"once-frozen-in-time-the-colgate-familys-gilded-age-brownstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2025\/08\/19\/once-frozen-in-time-the-colgate-familys-gilded-age-brownstone\/","title":{"rendered":"Once Frozen in Time: The Colgate Family\u2019s Gilded Age Brownstone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Abandoned by William Colgate Colby in 1911, the \u201cmystery mansion of Madison Square\u201d sat untouched for 27 years.<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"Illustration
Illustrations by Bernie Freytag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the first decades of the 20th century, a formerly elegant brownstone in Manhattan sat abandoned. The pre-Civil War beauty, situated across from Madison Square Park at 22 East 23rd Street, was built for the Colgate family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Colgate \u2014 the father of the University\u2019s earliest major benefactor, James Boorman Colgate \u2014 founded his soap, starch, and candle company two years after arriving in New York as an English immigrant in 1804 and apprenticing with a soap boiler. Headquartered at 4-6 Dutch Street, the company grew thanks to products like \u201ccashmere bouquet\u201d scented soap, according to the Encyclopedia of New York City<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the mid-19th century, Colgate was rich and influential. He was an ardent Baptist who worshipped at the Baptist Tabernacle Church on Second Avenue and 11th Street, which he reportedly contributed the funds to help build. He and his wife, Maria, moved with their children to their new brownstone mansion at 22 East 23rd Street in 1851. After their daughter Mary married Robert Colby a few years later, Mary and her new husband moved into the brownstone and shared it with her parents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a befitting new neighborhood for this prominent family. Officially made a city park in 1847, Madison Square was becoming the center of the most exclusive residential enclave in New York \u2014 close in proximity to theaters and shopping but with the peace and privacy of a well-manicured park as a buffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe unique location where Madison Avenue begins afforded the family an uninterrupted view up the avenue, as well as a prestigious place on the park,\u201d wrote Miriam Berman in Madison Square: The Park and Its Celebrated Landmarks<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Colgate didn\u2019t live long in his East 23rd Street house. He died in 1857, after his wife passed away in 1855. Through the next several decades, various descendants of the family occupied the brownstone \u2014 seemingly still lovely but no longer in a fashionable neighborhood. Madison Square Garden, the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and other businesses made the enclave more commercial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last occupant, according to one newspaper account, was William Colgate\u2019s grandson William Colgate Colby, who was born inside the house in 1858. Colby, a Yale graduate, seems to be the family member who, in 1911, walked away from what was described as the \u201csole remaining private residence on Madison Square.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe legend tells that when his wife died 25 years ago, Colby walked out of the brownstone structure, turned the key in the lock, and thereafter left the house unoccupied \u2014 with furniture, books, and clothes untouched from that day on,\u201d reported one newspaper in 1934.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cColby used to come down twice a year from his New Hampshire retirement, and on those occasions his short, square-set figure would be seen entering or leaving the silent house,\u201d the newspaper continued. \u201cBut no one ever lived in the place, and the tightly sealed shutters were never removed from the windows or doors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"William<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

William Colgate Colby died in 1936, but the full story of the mystery mansion didn\u2019t appear until 1944. That\u2019s when William Colgate Colby\u2019s sister, Jessie Colgate Colby, decided to sell the house to a developer who intended to put up a one-story taxpayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berman\u2019s account has the brownstone abandoned in 1918. \u201cFor 27 years the house and its contents stood untouched, visited only on occasion by a guard to check the burglar alarm,\u201d she wrote. \u201cUpon its sale, boards were removed from its entrance and its French windows were opened wide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1945 four floors of furnishings and personal items frozen in time from the Gilded Age were up for sale. \u201cThousands of people on the street who passed the house stopped to gape at the ancient brownstone that had once been one of the finest homes on Madison Square,\u201d wrote Berman. \u201cThe crowds peered through the dusty parlor windows at the elegant objects of a Victorian past, covered with at least 6 inches of dust. There were gold chandeliers, marble columns, elaborately carved gilt-framed mirrors, paintings, and mahogany furniture.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artifacts from the 19th century included a rosewood piano, two gold harps, volunteer fire department helmets, ostrich plumes, waistcoats, crimping pins, and leghorn hats, according to a 1945 Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em> report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust as the sleeping palace might have remained unchanged year after long year, so the Colgate mansion was exactly as it had been in the summer of 1918 when the last of the family stepped across the threshold and rode away,\u201d wrote the Inquirer<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeds were neatly made beneath blankets of dust; towels hung over the old-fashioned wash stands. Writing paper and pens were ready on the desks. Great cedar closets were hung with the hobble-skirted, pointy-shoe styles popular at the beginning of the First World War.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antique dealers were admitted inside to pick through the objects and take what was valuable. Onlookers were able to glimpse pieces as they were carted away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One onlooker stated that he had been a friend of William Colgate Colby, and he recalled how Colby told him about \u201cthe happy evenings he spent in this house,\u201d wrote Berman. The now-empty brownstone sold for less than its assessed value of $77,000, and the taxpayer building that went up in 1944 still stands today. It now houses a McDonald\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n

A longer version of this story by Esther Crain first appeared in a Feb. 23 post on Ephemeral New York, Crain\u2019s blog chronicling the history and \u201cpresent-day urban weirdness\u201d of New York City. It is reprinted here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abandoned by William Colgate Colby in 1911, the \u201cmystery mansion of Madison Square\u201d sat untouched for 27 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1263,"featured_media":18550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3414,1619],"tags":[],"coauthors":[135],"class_list":["post-18544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-salamagundi","category-salmagundi"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4P6","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/08\/ColgateBrownstone_FamilyTree.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18544"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18586,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18544\/revisions\/18586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18544"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}