An Intriguing Bit of Hudson History

Back in September, inspired by a photograph of the 700 block of Warren Street discovered in the Evelyn & Robert Monthie Slide Collection at the Columbia County Historical Society, Gossips published this picture of a wonderfully Picturesque house that once stood at 729 Warren Street.

The photograph is from the book Mirrored Memories: A Glimpse into the Photographic Collections of the Columbia County Historical Society, which was published in 1991. It wasn't the first time Gossips had published this photograph. It accompanied a post in March 2011 written in response to a reader's question about where Anna Bradbury, author of History of the City of Hudson, New York, lived. She lived in this house, as a boarder, from 1904 from 1910.

The appearance of the picture on Gossips in September inspired tenacious researcher John Craig to want to learn more about the house, and on Tuesday, he deposited a report of his discoveries on the doorstep of Gossips Central. It is an amazingly comprehensive document, and one that, starting this weekend, will be available to everyone in the History Room of the Hudson Area Library, where Craig does most of his research, with his very capable local history cohorts Tom D'Onofrio and Joe D'Onofrio, who assisted in this research. With Craig's permission, I share some of his discoveries here. For the rest, I urge you all to visit the History Room.

Craig's research revealed that the house belonged to Silas W. Tobey. Tobey acquired the property on which the house was built in 1835, and the house, which occupied four lots--723, 725, 727, and 729--would have been constructed at some time after that. Tobey owned a business that sold paints, oils, glass, and similar wares in what is now the 500 block of Warren Street, and Craig has assembled a vast amount of information about Tobey and his descendants and the chain of ownership of the house.

What Gossips finds most intriguing is something that Craig hasn't yet explored, because it is in the realm of conjecture. The Tobey house, with its brackets and trelliswork veranda, bears a striking resemblance to the Dr. Oliver Bronson House, located on what is now the grounds of the Hudson Correction Facility.

Craig points out that according to the 1873 Beers Atlas map, Tobey owned, in addition to the lots on which his house was built, land that was adjacent Dr. Oliver Bronson's estate.

Bronson purchased the estate in 1838, and the next year--1839--he hired Alexander Jackson Davis, the leading architect of the time, to "refit" the house in the then fashionable Romantic-Picturesque style. The alterations that Davis made to the house--the projecting eaves, the decorative brackets, and trelliswork east veranda--are considered to be the earliest surviving example of the Hudson River Bracketed style, of which Davis is the acknowledged creator.

In 1849, Davis was again commissioned by Bronson, this time to expand his house. At this time, the west facade was added, with an Italianate tower and again a trelliswork veranda. It is likely that somewhere during the decade between 1839 and 1849, Silas Tobey's house was built, and it's tempting to think there is some connection between the two houses. Was the design for the Tobey house influenced by Davis's work on Dr. Oliver Bronson's house? Did Davis have a role in the Tobey house? Was the Tobey house built from a Davis pattern? Intriguing questions.

Another intriguing question is: What happened to Silas W. Tobey's house? Craig has answered that one. The house can be seen in the picture below, at the left and partially hidden by foliage. (The building at the center of the picture is 721 Warren Street, now Animalkind.) When this picture was taken, in 1912, Jane Heath and her daughter Sarah operated a boarding house there.

  
Craig's research reveals that in 1919 William Plass bought the house from Sarah Heath, and in 1921 built the Park Theater on what had been the house's west side yard. 

In 1935, William Kulikowski built the original Columbia Diner on what had been the Tobey house's east side yard.

   
The lot where the house once stood is now occupied by the Diamond Building, and Craig believes that the house was not demolished to make way for the Diamond Building but rather that the Diamond Building was constructed around it, and he has found evidence that supports this theory.

The picture below, from Bruce Mitchinson's collection, shows the Warren Theatre in 1939. To the right, just beyond the original Columbia Diner, is the Diamond Building. If you look carefully along the building's roofline, you can see the top of the three-story tower of the Tobey house. (The finial is gone, of course.)

 

Craig discovered, in the 1923 deed conveying the property east of the Park Theater from Plass to Max Diamond, this curious provision: "that upon the removal or destruction of the dwelling house now encroaching upon said three-foot strip [along the east side of the theater for air and light and access to the building's chimney] the same shall not be rebuilt." This provision appears again in deeds of sale in 1945 and 1959, leading Craig to conclude: "I reckon that the old Tobey 'dwelling house' is still encroaching!"

Craig ends his extensive research document in this way:

The proverbial pagoda on the roof came up just last week [the document is dated March 15, 2015] while touring the Warren Motel under reconstruction. Standing at a second-floor window, I got a first look over the Diamond Building roof--and there, with a flat-top roof but rising above its surrounding--the top of the Tobey Tower!

The rooftop parapet added around the front addition now blocks the view of the tower from the street. But, oh, yesterday, up on an adjoining roof, there, truncated but distinctly three stories high, the Tobey Tower yet stands in full view!

The final proof awaits a look within, in the basement, and for unrealized tell-tale signs upstairs.

Craig had the opportunity to see inside the building yesterday and afterward called Gossips to report that the distinctive footprint of the Tobey house survives in the cellar of the building and details hinting at its origins can be found in the part of the building that was once the tower.
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