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In the summer I occasionally have to shake off torpidity -- the combination of overcast skies and muggy weather make it hard for me to get started. Bearing in mind that this is pretty much what you get most of the summer in NYC -- with the alternative being horrendous heatwaves -- I have to take advantage of whatever time off I have and get out of Little Neck for a few hours.

That said, a welcome visit to Richmondtown, Staten Island seemed like the right idea on July 4th, 2008. I'm drawn to this area at almost the geographic center of the island for a variety of reasons. It does not possess the look of NYC's other neighborhoods, with grid-patterned streets filled with detached homes, Fedders specials of rows of brownstones, but it also doesn't look like so much of what Staten Island is becoming: Mallville, USA. This was the third July 4th visit I've made, and about the 10th overall.

Knowing the toll modernization was taking on the island, and perhaps presciently imagining the devastation to be wreaked on Staten Island's old and out-of-the-way places by the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Historic Richmond Town was established in 1958 by the Staten Island Historical Society and the City of New York at the area surrounding the junction of Richmond, Richmond Hill, and Arthur Kill Roads. Colonial-era homes from all over the island were moved to this 25-acre site over the ensuing years, and the place has also acquired a culture all its own, with costumed guides, holiday happenings, and a studied 19th-Century atmosphere. This year, for example, July 4th activities included book readings, tableaux vivants (costumed performers re-enacting scenes from famed paintings), pie baking and ice cream making using 19th-Century implements.

Richmondtown's buildings have been arranged along Richmond Road, Center Street, Court Place, and Arthur Kill and Richmond Hill Roads. The area is more properly called Richmond and is located at the foot of the ridge of high hills at the center of the island that include Ward's, Grymes, Emerson, Todt and Lighthouse Hills. Richmond Creek, a thin stream here , becomes much wider as it enters the Fresh Kills Landfill several miles to the west. Near Richmondtown we find expansive LaTourette Park and Golf Course, the picturesque Staten Island Lighthouse, the Jacques Marchais Tibetan Museum, "Crimson Beech" (Frank Lloyd Wright's only residential building in NYC) and the spooky ruin at Heyerdahl Hill. It's not near the Staten Island Railway, but can be accessed via the S74 bus, Tottenville-bound, from the ferry terminal. Motorists can use the Staten Island Expressway, exiting at Slosson Avenue and then following Manor Road, Rockland Avenue, and Richmond Road to the village.

Richmond Town Map and Guide

Richmondtown Google map

Center Street

...the heart of Richmondtown, running parallel to Richmond Road, features several 19th Century buildings, as well as the former Richmond County courthouse.

The village's Tinsmith Shop was constructed in 1840 and operated as a grocery store by the Colon and Doetscius families in the Woodrow section (a few miles west of Richmondtown). On holidays, demonstrations in producing plates, cups and other items using tin are demonstrated.

The Henry Seaman Cottage next door was built by entrepreneur Seaman in 1836 as part of a planned village in Richmond. The Panic of 1837, the USA's first great depression, put his plans to an end.

At the corner of Center Street and Court Place is the Stephens-Black House, constructed in stages from 1839-1853, has always been at this spot and was part of a wellspring of new houses near the Richmond County Courthouse (see below). It was the home of Stephen D. Stephens and family, the owners of the adjacent grocery on Court Place.

The Staten Island Historical Society Museum was opened in 1838 as the Richmond County Clerk's and Surrogates' Office. Today it hosts three floors of changing and permanent exhibits, including some very old and valuable maps. The clerk's office was moved to the new govermnent center in St. George in 1920 and the building was converted to a museum in 1934.

One of the most important historic buildings in Staten Island, the old Richmond County Courthouse was built in a Greek Revival style with four imposing Doric columns on its porch in 1837, the 3rd incarnation of the courthouse on the site. It was the main courthouse in the borough until 1919, when most countywide governmental buildings moved to St. George. It is currently the Museum's visitor center and museum shop.

I was unaware of why the Museum was displaying the USA 33-star flag, in use from 1859-1861. Note the unusual arrangement of two rows of 7 stars, 1 row of 5, and two more of seven. In the 18th Century, flag makers had to get creative about how to arrange odd numbers of stars in the flag.

Fun fact. Staten Island's Fingerboard Road is so named because the road once had a large finger-shaped sign pointing the direction to the county courthouse at Richmondtown.

Richmondtown easter eggs

There are some intriguing surprises rattling around in Richmondtown, including some artifacts I'm not able to explain fully. See what you think, and of course, if anyone has any ideas, I'd be glad to hear them.

Richmondtown employees wear period dress (ca. 1860) photo: Jean Siegel

A Mystery

A milestone appears at the Center Street curbline in front of the Courthouse, with the chiseled words "6 Miles to New York Ferry". I'm almost 100% sure it's an original but I wonder if it's in its original spot. (Logic would put it on Richmond Road, a block away, since that route has been in use since the colonial era.)

The Rezeau-Van Pelt Cemetery, west of the Courthouse, is one of dozens of small cemetery plots in Staten Island, some well-cared for, others abandoned. The two families whose members are buried here lived in the Voorlezer's House (see below).

LEFT: one of the few FNY pages your webmaster got any flak for was my Bicentennial Fire Hydrant page. (I was accused of getting just a little too addicted to minutiae.) However, I think they're true historical artifacts. RIGHT: one of R-Town's two horse troughs, this one dedicated by the Philemon Literary Historical Society (a long-ago Tottenville women's association).

I'll need the assistance of Staten Island historians for this one...

A concrete slab containing a plaque dated 1941 near the cemetery proclaims the existence of Ramona Boulevard, "constructed by the Richmond District Office, Federal Works Agency." Of course no such route exists, though a Ramona Avenue runs through Arden Heights and Woodrow. Since the Veterans of Korean Wars Parkway (I wish they'd've stuck to the original easier name, Richmond Parkway) seems to assume some of Ramona Avenue's route, I'd guess this is related to the genesis of the parkway, which, as Steve Anderson reports in NYC Roads, was planned as early as 1930 and its first incarnation, as a surface road named Drumgoole Boulevard, was built in the 1940s, with the present sunken parkway arrangement completed in 1972.

Turns out my educated guess was right...here's a 1949 Hagstrom Staten Island showing Drumgoole Boulevard, with Ramona Blvd. in parentheses.

I couldn't come to any other conclusion; it couldn't have been any other road.

The identity of this building set back from Center Street near Arthur Kill Road is no mystery: it was once the station house at New Dorp on the Staten Island Railway, once Staten Island Rapid Transit. It was moved here by the Staten Island Historical Society in the 1970s, but I wish it could be restored and reinstalled at New Dorp.

Court Place

Surprisingly the Richmondtown General Store was closed on July 4th. In this 1840 building native to Richmond Town and owned by Stephen D. Stephens (who lived next door in he house on the right) and later Joseph Black until 1926, an old-time general store, complete with potbelly stove, was reconstructed in 1964 (the building was partially demolished in 1944); it's truly a must-visit. It serves as Richmondtown's post office.

Partially seen on the left is a small shack marked "job printing"; this was originally a one-room grocery, the Eusabia Johnson store, built in Eltingville in 1860. It has been recast as an old-fashioned print shop from before the days of computer screens, keyboards and even typewriters, when 'leading' meant an actual slug of lead inserted between lines of type to increase spacing.

Arthur Kill Road

Formerly known as Fresh Kills Road, Arthur Kill Road is one of Staten Island's longest routes, stretching from Richmondtown as a continuation of Richmond Hill Road southwest along the Arthur Kill (the waterway separating Staten Island from New Jersey) all the way to Tottenville, which contains New York State's southernmost zip code. Several of Richmondtown's oldest structures have been placed along this road.

From the ForgottenBook: The Voorlezer's House is the second-oldest structure in Richmondtown. Like other buildings native to Richmond Town, the original nature of this house was unsuspected until careful research was done by Staten Island borough historian Loring McMillen in the 1930s. It was built in about 1695 by the Reformed Dutch Church and functioned as a church, school and home for the lay minister/teacher (voorlezer, meaning approximately 'to read in front of' in Dutch) until 1701. The ensuing centuries found it being used as a private residence, storefront and lunch counter until 1939, when it was restored by the Staten Island Historical Society. It is now a National Historic Landmark and is recognized as the United Statesí oldest schoolhouse.

The building has been carefully arranged to resemble an 18th Century schoolhouse, in which the schoolmaster lived when school wasn't in session.

Next door we find the Boehm House: Built in Greenridge, a mile west of Richmond Town, about 1750, it was the home of educator and preacher Henry Boehm (1775-1875) between 1850-1862.

PS 55, on Osborne Street in Great Kills, is subtitled the Henry Boehm School.

Treasure House, where three of Staten Island's major roads meet, was built here in 1700 and was enlarged between 1740 and 1860. The building has housed saddlemakers, tanners, shoemakers, bakers, and has been a post office. During the Revolution, the story goes, British troops hid away a cache of sovereigns worth about $7000; the money was found here by painters in 1854.

Just east of the Boehm House we find the Christopher House, constructed with fieldstone between 1720 and 1730 by Joseph Christopher. It was moved to Richmondtown from nearby Willowbrook. Adjacent is the site of the second Richmond County Courthouse which stood from 1793-1944, serving as a courthouse until the one we see above, on Center Street, was completed in 1837. The building burnt down in 1944 after serving as a private residence, restaurant and hotel. Its site is marked only by artifacts such as an anchor, cannon, and millstones.

Richmond Hill Road

Arthur Kill Road, when it reaches Richmond Road, becomes Richmond Hill Road at a T-shaped intersection; thus, three major Staten Island roads begin here, or end, depending on your point of view. Richmond Hill Road climbs one of Staten Island's highest hills in curving fashion; locals call it "Snake Hill." It ends up at Richmond Avenue and the Staten Island Mall after a run through LaTourette Park and its golf course. It, too, can claim several historic locales, though they are not officially a part of Richmondtown Restoration.

St. Andrew's Church can be found on the west side of Richmond Hill Road, just over a stone bridge built in 1845 (the oldest such on the island) taking the road over Richmond Creek...

St. Andrew's Church

The Episcopal Church of St. Andrew was granted a charter by the British Queen Anne in 1712, which remains in the possession of the church today. The church barracked British troops during the Revolutionary War, and traces of their fortifications can be detected on Fort Hill to the rear of the church. The present church is a Romanesque structure built in 1872. The churchyard contains dozens of stones dating back to the early 1700s, recognizable by the winged angel carvings at their tops.

Two plaques mounted on the church's south end testify to two historic associations:

Richmondtown was the site of a Revolutionary War skirmish October 16, 1776, shortly after a peace parley at Tottenville failed. Gen. Hugh Mercer, leading the patriots, was victorious here, but was shortly routed at nearby Greenridge.

The other plaque marks the presence in the cemetery of family members of Elizabeth Bayley Seton (1774-1821), the first American-born saint (canonized in 1975). St. Elizabeth was born into the Episcopal Church but converted to Catholicism after the death of her husband in 1805, an act that caused her family to disinherit her. She began a school in Baltimore which failed due to anti-Catholic bigotry (ironically enough, in Maryland, a state founded on the principle of religious tolerance); she then founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's, which exists today. A shrine to St. Elizabeth can be found in her former residence, on #8 State Street in lower Manhattan, across the street from Battery Park, in a 19th-Century townhouse.

Albert H. Holtermann, the longtime proprietor of Holtermann's Bakery on nearby 405 Arthur Kill Road at Gifford's Lane, is interred at St. Andrew's. The bakery, founded by the Holtermann family in 1878, has operated from the current building since 1930.

Their output is minimal, compared with the truck-route years, when the bakery turned out some 5,000 Pullman loaves a day. Now they make fewer than 100 at a time, almost entirely by hand, since it's not worth their while to set up and clean the old rounding and dividing machines for such small batches. They still use Occident flour, the brand their grandfather chose for bread. Hot-dog and hamburger buns are also shaped on the bench, and all the white bread products are painstakingly made with a time-consuming sponge dough. They may not be trendy, but the results are delicious. To baby boomers who remember bread like this, its simple goodness is a little heartbreaking: to think that it was once ordinary, something everyone took for granted. New York Times

Old Mill Road

To motorists, it's a dead-end path off pedal to the metal Richmond Hill Road, but to hikers and historians, it's a step back to the era when buggies and carts were the main transportation on the island. Behind that metal gate is a narrow path leading to the heart of LaTourette Park, a road that was once the main route from here to Forest Hill Road, where you will now find the Staten Island Mall. For a complete tour, see FNY's LaTourette Park page.

Richmond Road

Richmond Road begins its lengthy journey generally east in Richmondtown at the foot of Staten Island's highest hills to Old Town, where it meets Vanderbilt Avenue and Van Duzer Street. One of Staten Island's busiest roads, it also has several historic buildings along its route, including the early 18th-century Lakeman House in New Dorp as well as the Stillwell-Perine House. Moravian Cemetery, the resting place of many in the Vanderbilt family, fronts on Richmond Road in Grant City.

Richmondtown's Tavern was originally a general store run by James Guyon, Jr. and was built in 1815, with the larger addition in 1835.

One of Richmondtown's two Victorian-era buildings (along with the Parsonage, a restaurant at Arthur Kill Road and Clarke Avenue) was built at Richmond Road and Court Place in 1869 in a Gothic Revival style by county executive Webley Edwards, whose daughter Ella and husband Willis Barton resided here until the mid-20th Century.

ABOVE: To see it now, you'd never imagine shipping merchant John Bennett's mansion, built in 1839 at Richmond Road and Court Place, was cast as a bus terminal and lunch counter in the 1950s. It has been revived as a showcase for dolls and toys used by Richmond Town children in the colonial era.

RIGHT: Like the Guyon-Lake-Tysen House (see below) the Britton Cottage was originally built in New Dorp (at the foot of New Dorp Lane at Raritan Bay) in 1670, making it Richmond Town's oldest dwelling. It was gradually added to over the centuries and was owned by botanist Nathaniel Britton between 1895 and 1915.

A terrific example of Staten Island's former street sign system is here. These tiny signs were once found at most island intersections. In the early 60s, with busier roads and speeding cars, it was decided to install larger signs here and in the other 4 boroughs as well.

Staten Island's enamel and metal signs, as well as the original vinyl color-coded signs, featured the same gold and black color scheme, which was formerly used in Manhattan as well.

The Dutch Colonial dwelling Guyon-Lake-Tysen House was built in New Dorp by Joseph Guyon in about 1740. (You can find his name inscribed in one of the walls.) This was once the seat of a 112-acre estate that included granaries and cider houses; it passed through the Lake and Tysen families and was then donated to Richmondtown Restoration and moved here to Richmond Road in 1969. Of all Richmond Town's ancient houses, this is the one where both tourgoers and guides have felt the presence of spirits, as cabinet doors have been thrown open with no logical explanation, unaccounted-for footsteps have been heard upstairs, and faces have been seen peering out the windows of the building before the doors have been unlocked. Perhaps some of the families' members are unhappy that their house has been moved down the road. (Your webmaster agrees with Popeye that "ghosks is the bunk.")

Pies were being baked the old-fashioned way in the Guyon House oven when we entered. Unfortunately your webmaster was unable to stick around long enough to sample any.

Here's a look at an old slotted mailbox at the post office. This one is still active, probably because it's under the protective wing of the Staten Island Historical Society.

"How can anybody live in a neighborhood and not know what's been there before?" --Loring McMillen

erpietri@earthlink.net