The House, Its History & Collections
Built in 1832, the Merchant's House Museum is a unique survivor of Old New York. Home to a prosperous merchant family for almost 100 years, it is complete with its original furniture, decorative objects, clothing, and personal memorabilia.
The Merchant's House survives as the only material link to that important era of 19th-century New York City when maritime commerce flourished, and New York was the preeminent port of the nation.
To visit the Merchant's House is to experience what life was like for a wealthy merchant family during the period of the 19th century when New York was transformed from a colonial seaport to a thriving metropolis.
360-degree full-screen panoramic tours
Our 360-degree interactive panoramic tours invite cyber-visitors to ‘step inside and take a look around’ the Museum's authentic 19th-century rooms, arranged as they were when the Tredwell family occupied them for nearly 100 years and described by The New York Times as “the real thing.’ Click here to take a spin.
The Tredwells: A Prosperous Merchant Family
An importer of hardware with a business downtown on Pearl Street, near the South
Street Seaport, Seabury Tredwell was a typical wealthy New York City merchant of the
first half of the 19th century. Click here to learn more about the family.
Seabury & Eliza Tredwell
New York, following the War of 1812 and the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, had established itself as the preeminent port of the United States, and its economy and population were exploding.
South Street Seaport, 1828
Fully rigged sailing ship 
The Bond Street Area
In 1835, he and his wife, Eliza, moved their large family of seven children, two boys and five girls, into the red-brick and white-marble row house located in the Bond Street Area, near Washington Square, just north of the rapidly growing city. Since the 1820s, this exclusive residential suburb had provided a refuge for wealthy merchants who wanted to escape the commercial congestion of lower Manhattan.
To learn more about the neighborhood, then & now, click here.
The Bond Street neighborhood
"The elegance and beauty of this section cannot be surpassed in the country," exclaimed one New York newspaper in 1835.
“This portion of New York appears to many persons the most delectable. It has a kind of established repose . . . a riper, richer, more honorable look," wrote Henry James in Washington Square.
Ernest Fiedler Family in their parlor, 38 Bond Street, 1850
In 1840, five years after the Tredwells moved to East Fourth Street, an eighth child, Gertrude, was born in the house. Over the years, as the city continued to grow and fashion changed, the Tredwells' neighbors gradually abandoned the neighborhood for more elegant houses "uptown." But the Tredwells remained. Gertrude Tredwell never married and continued to live in the house until she died in an upstairs bedroom in 1933. The house was opened to the public as a museum in 1936.
Gertrude Tredwell
The House
Built in 1832, the Merchant's House exemplifies a transitional architectural style. The façade, with its steeply pitched roof, dormer windows, marble door surround, and elaborate fan light recalls earlier Federal-style homes, while inside, the formal Greek Revival parlors reflect the latest architectural fashion of the day. The Merchant's House is considered New York City's prime example of a Greek Revival home.
Front stoop with wrought and cast iron basket urns
Inside, one of the most exquisite Greek Revival interiors can be found. The formal parlors feature identical black-and-gold marble mantelpieces, a stunning Ionic double-column screen, and mahogany pocket doors separating the rooms, and exquisite plaster detailing. Identical bronze gasoliers hang from matching plaster ceiling medallions, among the finest such designs extant.
Greek Revival double parlors with matching gas chandeliers
The mirror-image Greek Revival parlors with their 13-foot ceilings provided the backdrop for important social activities of the wealthy merchant elite of the 19th century — from social calls to multi-course dinners. The matching gas chandeliers hanging in the double parlors are believed to be the oldest in situ in the country and the oldest form of domestic gas lighting. Click here for more information on and photographs of the gaseliers.
One of a pair of gas chandeliers hangs in the front parlor
Decorative plasterwork in the Greek Revival double parlors
Charles Lockwood, noted architectural historian and author of Bricks and Brownstone: The New York Rowhouse 1783 - 1929, has deemed the ornamental plasterwork in the Merchant's House "a triumph of New York's timeless Greek Revival style."
The architectural and historic importance of the Merchant's House has been recognized by numerous landmark designations:
- 1936, documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey
- October 14, 1965, designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission as one of the first 20 New York City landmarks
- 1965, designated as a National Historic Landmark -- one of only 2,000 in the country
- December 22, 1981, designated as a New York City interior landmark
- Listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
When built in 1832, the house included all of the modern technological conveniences of the era, including a 4000-gallon cistern, and a bell system that summoned the four live-in servants.
The Servants
Bridget Murphy, Martha O’Brien, Annie McNulty, Betsy Kelly, and Mary James were some of the
servants who lived at 29 East Fourth Street. Their names, and others, appear on the census reports between 1840 and 1890. There were always four servants living in the house. Their ages ranged from 18 to 40.
The servants were on call day and night.
Unfortunately, they left no diaries or letters, but we know what they did. From dawn to dark, 12 to 15 hours each day, they lit and maintained the fires, cooked and served the meals, washed the dishes and scoured the pans, polished the silver and brass, cleaned the lamps, washed and ironed the clothes and linens, swept and scrubbed the floors, cared for the Tredwells’ eight children, helped the women in the family into their corsets, and made countless trips up and down the four flights of stairs carrying coal and ashes and chamber pots and stacks of laundered linens.
Servant call bells
Servant call bells hanging above the sink were set in motion by a bell pull in each upstairs room. Candles were used throughout the century, with oil lamps, lluminating gas, and kerosene lamps added over the years.
The built-in beehive bake oven and large hearth for cooking were supplanted in the mid-19th century by the cast-iron stove. Water was pumped from a cistern under the garden until after the completion of the Croton Aqueduct in 1842.
Front bedroom
Rear bedroom 
The Collections
The interior is filled with the family's furniture and belongings, including pieces from New York's finest cabinetmakers, such as and Duncan Phyfe and Joseph Meeks, along with opulent decorative accessories.
One of a set of 12 chairs attributed to Duncan Phyfe
Federal Sofa 
Tole Platewarmer
Personal possessions, unfinished needlework, family photographs, a shaving mirror, sewing boxes, leave the uncanny impression that the family has just stepped out for a while.
Dresses belonging to Eliza Tredwell and her six daughters along with gloves, hats, shoes, parasols, shawls, and undergarments are displayed on a rotating basis.
Tredwell dress, 1870-76
To see other costumes from the collection, click here.
On rotating exhibition are items from the Tredwells' country home, "Sea Bright," in Rumson, New Jersey. To see photographs and learn more about "Sea Bright" click here.