🏘️ Croton Local History
Blog posts, articles, and community histories by local historians
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viticulture . . . The scale and the long life of their vineyards give them a claim to be the real founders of the winegrowing industry in New York.” Let’s take a look at what the artist D. C. Hitchcock, aided by a team of Harper’s Weekly engravers,
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recorded for us more than 145 years ago . . . Detail showing the Underhill mansion at the southern tip of Croton Point. The faint white horizontal and vertical lines seen in these details are where blocks of wood, each prepared by a different
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engraver, were glued or bolted together to make the larger image. For more on “the grape king,” see here . For information on how Harper’s Weekly woodblocks were produced, see the online version of “A Visitors’ Guide to Harper & Brothers’
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Establishment” from the 1878 edition of the New York publishing house’s 314-page catalog. Share this: Print (Opens in new window) Print Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X
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(Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Like Loading... Related Tagged Underhill Vineyard Published February 27, 2013
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March 16, 2013
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On July 16, 1928 the New York Times published the obituary of William E. Harmon. Three days later, the Times revealed his secret. “William E. Harmon . . . a retired real estate operator noted for his philanthropies . . . was Jedediah Tingle, the
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mysterious philanthropist who made generous financial gifts to great writers, obscure poets, unsung heroes and good children without ever revealing his identity, it was disclosed yesterday.” Although members of his family were “reluctant to discuss
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Mr. Harmon’s unique method of disposing of his money,” the Times reported that “many have been benefited by his unexpected gifts, and all have wondered vainly who he could be. Once he announced publicly, under the assumed name, that he was carrying
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on the ‘eternal mission’ of his own great-grandfather, whose name he had taken, ‘to bring smiles and tender thoughts to the great in heart, in high and low places, to comfort and cheer those who do exceptional things or suffer.’ ” “He was an unknown
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contributor to the Children’s Aid Society for years,” wrote the Times . Corresponding through “a banking address in Brooklyn” the society honored his request and “made no effort to learn who he was. Only two days ago it made known his latest gift of
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$500 to be distributed as prizes in the form of savings accounts for children of good character among the hundreds who will spend vacations this summer at the society’s eight fresh-air camps.” Coming tomorrow: William E. Harmon describes how he “hit
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upon something everybody wants” and enlisted his brother Clifford to “let everybody know that I have it for sale.” To see some of the ads the Harmon brothers used to let everyone know what they had for sale, see here . Share this: Print (Opens in new
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window) Print Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
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Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Like Loading... Related Published March 6, 2013 March 8, 2013
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A postcard of the Harmon sales office on the corner of South Riverside Avenue and Benedict Boulevard. The building is now a nail salon. On July 16, 1928, when the New York Times published the obituary of William E. Harmon, the newspaper quoted from
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an interview he had given years earlier in which he described how he started his real estate empire. “The surest way is to hit upon something that everybody wants, make it possible for everyone to buy it and then let everyone know that I have it for
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sale. But what does everyone want? ‘Land’ was my answer. That is what everybody would like to own. It wasn’t easy to buy land in those days. The first payments were always so high that a man with little money could not meet them. So most folks went
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wanting land, but they didn’t buy any. I worked out a plan by which even the smallest wage-earner could buy a building lot. All the purchaser needed was one dollar to pay in cash and a few cents to pay each week. It was simply the installment plan
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applied to real estate, and I was sure it would work. I went to Cincinnati, where I had a brother, Clifford B. Harmon, and an uncle, Charles E Wood. I told of my new idea, and they liked it. My brother had a thousand dollars, my uncle had a thousand,
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and I had a thousand. I had already decided upon the best tract to buy, so we pooled our money and bought it. And we had it laid out in lots, built wooden sidewalks and had the necessary papers prepared.” “One advertisement in the Cincinnati
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newspaper brought enough buyers to sell out the entire property,” wrote the Times . “With the success of the idea thus proved, the firm of Wood, Harmon & Company expanded rapidly, putting offices in Pittsburgh, Boston and various other Eastern
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cities. It was in Boston that Mr. Harmon interested capitalists, who invested $50,000 then and millions later, backing the establishment of the firm’s first New York office in 1898. In the years just after 1900 more than $4 million was spent for
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building sites in Brooklyn that were sold on small partial payments. The great expansion of population following the subway extensions prove the wisdom of Mr. Harmon’s choice of territory. Developments of a similar character were carried out in 36
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other cities east of the Mississippi River.” Share this: Print (Opens in new window) Print Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest
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(Opens in new window) Pinterest Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Like Loading... Related Published March 8, 2013 March 25, 2016
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This vintage post card of the Nikko Inn is interesting for several reasons. Given the high cost of color printing at beginning of the 20th century, the fact that this is printed in black-and-white indicates that it was probably a local production—not
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a card issued by a major publisher. The back side confirms this because there is no publisher’s imprint, just a name, “Edward H. Sommers”, hand-stamped in the upper left corner above the handwritten note. This is where it gets interesting. Although
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the note appears to be handwritten, it was actually printed on the back of every copy, so all you had to do to spread the word about the Nikko Inn—the “most picturesque Japanese Garden, situated at Harmon-on-the-Hudson”—was write a name after “Dear”,
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address it, and put on a stamp. Who was behind this clever bit of promotion? Probably the person whose name is stamped on the back. Edward H. Sommers was managing the Nikko Inn prior to 1917. As we reported in a previous post , Sommers “placed Tumble
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