Yes, another post on 399 Franklin, the property within the Allentown Historic Preservation District that the Preservation Board agreed can come down to expand a printing business. The online petition protesting the Preservation Board decision and urging the City to assist Keller Bros. expand elsewhere is still gathering signatures. Chris Brown, First Vice President of the Allentown Association, has researched the history of the property. Details after the jump.
The importance and early history of 399 Franklin Street as told by Chris Brown:
The property, a fine gabled brick Italianate, has interesting and great use of brackets under the wide eaves on all sides of the house. Although some people have said that the house is not historic and not exceptional, Buffalo is losing its brick Italianate houses at an alarming rate.In the early 1990s, Sonia R. Efron was so inspired by Allentown's brick Italianates, she wrote a book on them to document them all, called "Buffalo's Brick Italianates: An Allentown Legacy." She was concerned that some might be lost and thought that a book documenting those in Allentown might help to protect them.
399 Franklin Street appears to have been built in 1867 for Cornelius Miller Horton (1822-1902), a prominent businessman. He was from Kinderhook, NY (a small town south of Albany just east of the Hudson River).
Horton was partners with Albany's Erastus Corning (December 14, 1794 – April 9, 1872), a wealthy businessman and politician and owner of the well -known hardware company called Erastus Corning & Co. Horton moved to Buffalo to open and manage the Buffalo franchise of Corning & Co. The business was much more than what we might think of as a hardware store. Corning bought and sold all manner of iron products, not merely tools and nails as one would expect but also stoves, farming equipment, and, eventually, rails and railroad iron parts and products. At the flagship store in Albany, the company had a wharf and warehouse on the Hudson River, and the store itself served not only Albany and the surrounding towns, but hundreds of large customers from the west who visited two or three times a year to buy and sell products, restock their own supplies, and see what new was for sale. Corning's hardware store soon became one of the most significant businesses in Albany.
Horton's partner Corning went on to become Mayor of Albany from 1834 until 1837 and was then a Congressman in 1856, 1860 and 1862. Corning had diputes with Lincoln's handling of the war but fully supported the effort to maintain the Union. The United States Navy contracted with Corning's iron works to manufacture parts and materials for the USS Monitor, the Navy's first ironclad warship (the design of which was worked on by Allentown's own Richard A. Waite, who worked in the engineer's office in NYC that designed the ship).
After Corning's death, Horton stayed in Buffalo and opened his own hardware store, Horton & Kip.
Horton lived at 399 Franklin with his large family: His wife Caroline D., his son Cleveland K. and his wife Clara H., his daughters Helen M., Albertina M., Margaretta and son Cornelius M., Jr. They also had three servants living in the house: Two domestic female servants and one male coachman.
Horton died at 399 Franklin Street on September 19, 1902 after living in the home 35 years and had his funeral there a few days later.
Neighborhing 401 Franklin was not likely a "carriage house." Early maps/atlas shows that there was house located on the site and the brick structure appears to be a commercial structure, the corbeling that is there on the upper stories indicates that the building was constructed between 1885-1910.
399 Franklin Street is one of many historical properties threatened with demolition throughout the city. Not all will be saved, but preventing demolitions within a designated preservation district seems like a no-brainer. We'll follow this story to see how it unfolds, and continue to profile other 'should' and 'must' save properties that are on the brink.