The house at 29 East 4th Street has served as the home of the Treadwell family and their servants for nearly 100 years. Now, 75 years after the last representative of a wealthy merchant family died, the house has hardly changed. It is a carefully guarded time capsule called Merchant's House Museum that shows visitors what life looked like in the distant 19th century.
In 1835, Siburi Treadwell, his wife Eliza, and their six children moved to an affluent neighborhood on Bond Street in Manhattan. The family lived there until 1933 when Gertrude Treadwell, Treadwell's youngest daughter, died in the house at the age of 93.
flickr / cc / Eden, Janine and Jim
In 1936, the house was opened to the public, turning into a museum that perfectly preserved the interior design, as well as the architectural features of the century before last. The museum contains a large number of exhibits, ranging from decor and clothing from the 19th century to more personal, everyday items such as sheets, chamber pots and other small items.
flickr / cc / Eden, Janine and Jim
However, the museum attracts more than just history buffs. They say that the house was chosen by a ghost, which began to appear to visitors of the building already in the 1930s. Over the decades, the museum has often experienced unexplained phenomena, including temperature fluctuations, strange odors, incomprehensible voices, party sounds, and piano playing. Thanks to this, the old mansion in Brooklyn has earned the fame of a haunted house.
Most often, visitors and employees of the museum are a woman in a brown dress, moving around the house. At times, this lovely lady even interacts with visitors to the museum. Experts in the paranormal believe that this is how the ghost of Gertrude Treadwell is "entertained".
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Gertrude Treadwell has lived her entire life in a house on East 4th Street. She never got married, which was extremely unusual for a wealthy woman in the 19th century. At the time of her death, she almost eked out a miserable existence, as her inheritance of $ 10,000 ended before she passed away. The museum workers call unhappy love one of the variants of such a life path.
At about the age of 25, Gertrude had an affair with a man named Louis Walton, who was a Catholic and a medical student. Gertrude's family forbade her to marry him because of his religious faith and possibly his profession (Treadwell were Protestants). Since there is no confirmation of this information, we, alas, will not be able to find out more details about her personal life.
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The first supernatural encounter with Gertrude took place in 1933, when the boys living in the neighborhood reported that they saw the front door open and the ghost began to chase them away. In addition, tourists once met her on the doorstep. A woman dressed in antique clothes informed them that the museum was closed. Only the museum was open, and the museum workers never dressed in 19th century costumes.
flickr / cc / Allison Meier
Museum workers believe that ghosts have settled in the house because everything there has remained much the same as it was 200 years ago. Perhaps the Treadwell family and their servants still remain in the mansion, as they are attracted by the familiar environment and their old belongings, because even the furniture is in its proper place.
flickr / cc / Eden, Janine and Jim
If you are attracted to these urban legends, the Merchant's House Museum is open Thursday through Monday. There are guided tours from 14:00, but you can start exploring the mansion yourself. Who knows, you might be able to see his sociable, but not quite lively, mistress.
Victoria Wright