Location: 52 First Street, Haverstraw

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This site is a privately owned home.

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This sturdy three-story frame structure is one of the oldest homes in downtown Haverstraw. It is believed to have been built circa 1790, predating the high point of the brick industry by almost fifty years. In the years just after the American Revolution the property was owned by Thomas Smith, the Patriot brother of Joshua Hett Smith (of “Treason House” fame) and a lawyer under whom Aaron Burr studied in the early 1780s. Thomas Smith died in November 1795.

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In the early 1800s the house was sold to John Wandle (or Wandell), a Hudson River boatman. It passed down through his family, the Van Houtens, and remained in their possession until 1921. During that time it acquired a reputation for being a “very respectable tavern” because Methodist circuit riders frequently stopped here. Sailors were bunked on the top floor. Local lore holds that Aaron Burr visited the inn when he was in Rockland County.

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Following the Van Houtens, the noted brick manufacturer John Fowler owned the premises. The Fowlers also owned the land just to the south. The Fowler Mansion (as the large red brick building on the corner lot across the street was known before it became Haverstraw’s Elks Lodge 877) also started out as a Federal-style building but underwent many alterations in the nineteenth century. Today, it presents a unique combination of Federal, Greek Revival, and Queen Anne elements, with a cylindrical turret, a two-tier porch, and pediment. It provides an interesting architectural contrast to the Van Houten house, which retains its classical Federal appearance.

 

In 1936, the skilled village physician Francis Glass purchased the property at 52 First Street. His grandfather Jacob Glass had come to America from Germany in the mid-nineteenth century, settling in Kingston, New York, before moving to Manhattan. Dr. Francis Glass had a medical practice in Haverstraw and was a coroner in New York City. The home originally had four large cooking fireplaces, one of them in what for many years served as the dining room. Some of the original wood plank flooring may still be in place in the halls and bedrooms.

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Dr. Glass’s daughter and her family continued to live in the house until the end of the twentieth century, when the home was purchased and divided into apartments. It went back on the market and was bought in 2013 by Pete McGuire, the current owner, who is making extensive renovations.

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A historical marker across the street proclaims this to be the widest part of the Hudson River. Behind you, High Tor looms against the southwestern sky.