NORTHRUP HOUSE (1804)
This private residence is not open for interior tour.
This Federal-style brick house built during 1803-1804 for Isaac Northrup, founder of the Village of Athens, is situated on a village lot only one block from the Hudson River. The cornerstone on the northeast side of the house bears the date 1804, written in Dutch letters.
The single-family residence contains eight rooms, with center hall and staircase. It has four original fireplaces, two upstairs and two down. A Franklin grate in the master bedroom bears the date 1877. In the cellar there is space for servant quarters, and this may be where Mr. Northrup quartered his slave.
Looking across the river from Hudson, where he had settled in 1787, Northrup was attracted by the advantages of the open land along the water. In 1800, at a cost of $3,000, Northrup purchased 200 acres of farmland from John M. Van Loon, the grandson of the early settler Jan Van Loon.
Intending to establish a large “city” on his new purchase, he had a survey and map drawn up by John D. Spoor in 1801. Northrup, his wife, Cynthia Morton, and their children moved into this house probably shortly after its completion in 1804. Soon, others of superior class were attracted to Northrup’s “city.”
The entrepreneur also took his civic duties seriously. When the Village of Athens was incorporated in 1805, Northrup served as its first president (mayor), and served again in 1810. During 1814 he was one of the trustees of Joint School District 13 (Catskill with Saugerties), and that same year he was appointed the first justice of the peace of the Town of Catskill. When the Town of Athens was incorporated in 1815, he served as the first supervisor.
Sometime between the death of Cynthia in 1812 and 1820, Northrup left Greene County. Since that time there have several different owners of this house, including J. P. and Frieda Mac Braswell, The Mac Braswells are credited with restoring this house during the 1940s. Restoration included refurbishment of all the windows, and replacement of all the floors in oak and mahogany using pegged construction. Unfortunately, the “widow’s walk” that must have allowed a grand view down the river was removed in 1943.
Walter and Ilse Fox were the owners when an illustration of this house was drawn by Joel Naprstek. The illustration was used to represent the “Widow Douglas house” in June Edward’s 1981 adaptation of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.
The house is also included on the New York State and National Register of Historic Places as one site within the “Village of Athens Multiple Resource Area,” as well as in the “Athens Lower Village Historic District,” where Northrup’s basic “city” design is still retained in the streets and alleyways south of Market Street.
If you are walking through Athens today, the Dernell-Clark House (10 South Washington St) and Nichols/Daley/Albright House (7 South Washington St) are one and one-half blocks north.