Matthias Van Loon / Palmer House (c 1900)
This private residence is not open for interior tour.
Matthias Van Loon, who was a descendant of one of Athens’ earliest settlers, Jan Van Loon, owned the Athens Shipyard. Among other vessels, this shipyard produced the day boat Kaaterskill the largest boat constructed in Athens.
In 1872, Matthias had a house constructed for his personal use. This transitional house in the Italianate style, it incorporated the elements of large Doric columns of the Greek Revival period. The interior has ten-foot-high ceilings and wide, distinctive moldings.
Matthias Van Loon, born in 1822, was a direct descendant of Matthias Van Loon, the youngest son of Jan Van Loon. In 1871, with Peter Magee as a partner, Van Loon bought the shipyard that had been established in 1843. This shipyard of Van Loon and Magee became the most important shipyard on the Hudson River, building a variety of boats including a three-masted schooner, a steam yacht, barges, ice barges, tugboats, and the ferry boat the A. F. Beach.
The house was purchased in 1900 by William C. Brady, the founder of W. C. Brady’s Sons, Inc., funeral home. First based in Athens, it is now located in Coxsackie.
When the funeral home maintained its office in Athens, it became the gathering place for retired old men and unemployed seasonal workers. In fine weather, they would sit on chairs outside; in inclement weather they met in the front room. They referred to these visits as “going to the morgue.” The rear room would contain the cadavers.
In 1910 the marriage of the Bradys’ daughter Edith to Benjamin Whiting was held on the front lawn. At William Brady’s death in 1938, the Whitings moved into the house to to care for their widowed mother. When Edith Whiting was widowed, her daughter Jeannette and her husband, Harry Palmer, came to be with their mother and to raise their family here. Since 1900, three generations have lived here.
If you are walking through Athens today, the Bedell-Nichols House is two houses north at 27 South Franklin St. The Haight-Gantley House is a block south at 38 South Franklin St.