And another from the New York Times:

- New York Times Editorial, Oct. 30, 1963

A Guestbook for our Visitors.

We'd be honored if you leave us a comment and sign our Book:

An Autumn view from John Bond Trevor's property circa 1880 from a StereoView Card. (Today it is the Hudson River Museum) Note the sailboat sailing the Hudson River. The exposure time for the photograph was relatively long and the sails movement caused the bluriness.  

The photo above is from the 1940's. A fire in the 195O's consumed the building and it was later torn town. 

This magnificent example of Victorian architecture is long gone. The site is now occupied by condominiums.

The rock wall and pillars remain to this day.

HALCYON SKINNER.

Yonkers resembles other cities in that some of its citizens, by reason of

political influence, or wealth, or fluency of speech, have attained prominence

for a brief time, and then have been forgotten. Among those whose distinction

is deserved, and not short-lived, is Halcyon Skinner. He came to

Yonkers in 1865, an unassuming stranger, neither wealthy nor college-bred,

in dress plain, in manners quiet, in disposition retiring, a man of more

thought than words; and those who met the unpretentious stranger did not

know that his labors here would prove such an important factor as they have

become in promoting the growth and prosperity of the town, and making it

famous at home and abroad as a center of one of the largest carpet industries

in the world; nor did they know that his great ability as an inventor would

materially increase the wealth of the country. Mr. Alexander Smith, his

friend and employer, appreciated his talent, and on more than one occasion,

notably when Messrs. A. T. Stewart & Company endeavored to secure his

services, he made such arrangements with him that Mr. Skinner remained_

with him.

The annals of Yonkers would be incomplete without a record of Mr.

Skinner's contributions of original thought to its development. His father,

Joseph Skinner, of New England, was an inventor and natural mechanic,

whose tastes turned him away from farming, to which he had been bred, and

influenced him to engage in mechanical pursuits. Halcyon Skinner's early

education was obtained in a log-cabin district school in Ohio, and subsequently,

when the family moved to Massachusetts, he attended school at

Stockbridge during several winters, working in summer for the neighboring

farmers, or for his father in the shop. His father's success in devising and

constructing machines for rapidly and efflciently forming the various parts of

violins, led him to the construction of a large machine for cutting veneers,

and one of his father's large machines for veneer-cutting was in use for some

years in Mr. Copcutt's mill, at West Farms, New York. In 1838 the family

moved to West Farms, where the father became foreman for Mr. Copcutt,

and the son worked with him in the mill. When the mill was destroyed by

fire, in 1845, Halcyon Skinner found work as a carpenter. He was then

twenty-one years old. In 1849, when Mr. Skinner was about twenty-five

years of age, Alexander Smith, who was owner of a small carpet factory at

West Farms, and who knew something about his mechanical skill, had a

conversation with him about a new method of dyeing yarns, in which he and

an assistant were interested. The carpet factory was not then in operation,

but Mr. Smith and Mr. John G. McNair were engaged in devising and

constructing some apparatus for parti-coloring yarns for ingrain carpets. Mr.

Smith desired Mr. Skinner to aid them. The object was to so dye different

parts of a skein of yarn that when woven into the fabric each color would

appear in its proper place in the design. If this could be accomplished the

striped appearance, which was a great objection in ingrain carpets, would be

avoided. The process required reels of a particular form and a special reeling

machine, also an apparatus for immersing parts of the skein in the dye

liquor accurately to a measured depth. Mr. Skinner overcame the difficulty

with which the experimenters had met, and devised a reeling machine and

dipping apparatus which proved to be efficient. A factory was built for manufacturing

the new style of carpet on a large scale, and Mr. Skinner became

the general mechanic of the factory. When his connection with the Alexander

Smith & Sons Carpet Company terminated, in November, 1889, he

had rendered Mr. Smith and his business successors a service of forty years.

Only those familiar with the history of carpet manufacture in the United

States and abroad can begin to realize what Mr. Skinner accomplished.

The carpet industry as he left it widely differed from what it was when he

became connected with it.

In 1855, when Mr. Smith spoke to him about the possibility of constructing

a loom for weaving Axminster carpet, that fabric was woven by a slow

and costly process of hand weaving. It seems that no attempt had ever been

made to weave it in any other way. Mr. Skinner at that time knew little or

nothing about power looms of any kind, and had not even seen a power loom

in operation for many years. His tools were few, as were the conveniences

with which he had to work. The invention of the Axminster loom was the

beginning of a new period in the art of carpet-weaving, because it first made

possible the production of this high-grade fabric by automatic machinery.

One operative with the new loom could easily produce as many yards per day

as seven or eight could produce by the best previously known method. The

weaving of tapestry ingrain by power was also considered to be impossible,

until Mr. Skinner devised machinery by which the work was efficiently done.

When looms for weaving tapestry Brussels were brought to Yonkers from

England and proved defective, Mr. Skinner designed a loom so superior that

eventually the number of yards of carpet produced by it was double the number

manufactured by the imported loom in the same time. The English

looms were sold for half what they cost to make room for the improved ones.

"When the English yarn-printing machines accompanying the looms were

found unsatisfactory, Mr. Skinner designed a new machine as much superior

to the old one as the new loom was to the imported loom. The printing

machines from England were broken up.

In 1874 he received from A. T. Stewart & Company an offer of a much

larger salary than he was receiving from the Smith Company, to enter their

service and take supervision of the mechanical department of the various factories

which they controlled. After careful consideration he decided to remain

in Yonkers, and made an engagement with Mr. Smith for a term of years.

Immediately after the engagement Mr. Smith broached to him the subject of

getting up a power loom for weaving moquette carpets. Mr. Skinner gave

his attention to the matter and made some experiments, but as much of his

time was taken up with planning buildings and other matters, it was several

years before much progress was made. In 1877 a patent was obtained

and half a dozen looms were built. Two of these were sent to England and

France, where several concerns were licensed to build and operate looms

under the patents which had been obtained in those countries, and he spent

a number of months there attending to the construction and starting of them.

In 1879 forty looms were built and put in operation by the Smith Company.

From that time the manufacture of moquette carpets increased as experience

and skill were acquired in operating the looms, and various improvements in

details were made, until one operator attending two looms can weave from

twenty-five to thirty times as much in a given time as could be woven by one

working by the best methods known previous to the invention of the moquette

power-loom. These and other very important inventions did not engross all

Mr. Skinner's attention. Much of his time was occupied in oversight of the

general mechanical work of the large factory, and in planning and superintending

the construction of the new buildings which the expanding business

required. Having reserved the right to use in looms for weaving body-Brussels

carpets the improvements which he had made in tapestry looms, Mr. Skinner,

in 1881, designed for the Bigelow Carpet Company, of Clinton, Massachusetts,

a loom for weaving that class of goods. He prepared working drawings, and

a loom was built at the works of the company, which proved so successful

that all the looms put in operation after that time were constructed after his

plans in preference to those previously designed by Mr. E. B. Bigelow, the

original inventor of the power looms for weaving body-Brussels carpets. Mr.

Skinner's rights in the subjoined list of patents were assigned to Mr. Alexander

Smith, or to the Alexander Smith & Sons Carpet Company:

I. Axminster loom; 2, Improvements on Axminster loom; 3, Improvements

on ingrain loom; 4, Improved tapestry loom; 5, moquette loom; 6,

Improvements on moquette loom; 7, moquette fabric (4 shot); 8, moquette

fabric (3 shot and 2 shot); 9, improved chenille carpet loom; 10, chenille (or

" fur ") loom.

When Mr. Skinner began working for Mr. Alexander Smith, in 1849,

the establishment consisted of one small wooden building, containing nineteen

hand-looms for weaving ingrain carpet. The looms were not then in

operation, but when in full work would turn out about one hundred and seventy-

five yards per day, making about a wagon load to be sent to New York

each week. The looms were all in use in the spring of 1850, when the new

method of dyeing had proved a success. When Mr. Skinner left, in 1889,

after a service of forty years, there was a series of large brick buildings, with

floor room to the extent of about three acres, all of which had been planned

by Mr. Skinner and erected under his supervision. These buildings contained

at that date nearly eight hundred power-looms, the more important and valuable

of which Mr. Skinner had invented and designed, and the remainder

of which he had so greatly improved that the production of each one of them

equaled that of two of those used previous to his improvements. About

thirty-five hundred operatives were employed in the various departments, and

the actual production of all kinds reached 9,217,000 yards per year. In

1892, three years later, the production had increased to 40,000 yards per

day, of which 15,000 yards were moquette, amounting to 4,500,000 yards

per year of that kind of carpet. In 1895 the number of looms of all kinds

had reached 930.

To show more fully the importance and value of the invention of the

moquette loom, it may be said that the production above mentioned (15,000

yards per day) would yield to the owners of the patents a royalty of twenty

cents per yard, amounting to nine hundred thousand dollars for the year,

besides a still larger amount in profits to the manufacturer. In addition to

this, the Hartford Carpet Company, in this country, and several companies

in England and France, were paying large amounts in royalties. The most

important result of the inventions of the moquette loom and auxiliary

machinery for preparing the materials is the reduction in the price of this

very desirable style of carpet from three or three and a half dollars per yard

to considerably less than one dollar, thus bringing it within the reach of all

who care to have a carpet of any kind. This difference in price, taking the

quality produced by the Smith Company alone (say 15,000 yards per day),

represents a saving to the consumer of nearly twelve million dollars a year.

The quantity produced by other companies would greatly increase this amount.

Notwithstanding the small cost of manufacturing this fabric, which was never

produced in this country before the invention of the loom, the daily wages of

the operatives are more than double those of the workers under former

methods. These statements help one to realize what Mr. Skinner has done

for Yonkers and for the country. Since leaving the Smith Carpet Company^

he has been engaged a considerable part of his time in designing and constructing a new moquette loom,

which has shown a capacity for greatly increased production and greater economy of material.

Having no interest in the royalties or profits derived from his former patents, he is at the present

time, at the age of seventy-two years, with the co-operation of a few

friends, making preparations for manufacturing carpets in the mill near Nepperhan avenue,

and at the east end of the Glen.

Mr. Halcyon Skinner's two sons are both inventors. In 1879 Charles

E. Skinner, who had worked with his father in constructing and putting in

operation the Axminster loom, and afterward on the moquette loom, studied

out some devices by which he thought moquette goods could be woven in a

way different from that in which the original loom operated. Not being a

practical weaver, he associated with himself Mr. Eugene Tymeson, who had

started many of the moquette looms at the Smith works, and was an expert

at that work. An experimental loom was built which gave good results, and

a patent was obtained. Arrangements were made by which the patent, with

several others afterward obtained, were transferred to the Smith Moquette

Loom Company, for the consideration of one hundred thousand dollars in

stock. Unfortunately for him the company did not prove a success and the

stock proved to be of no value, the property being transferred to the Alexander

Smith & Sons Carpet Company. His improvements were not put in

operation as a whole, but some of them were applied to the original moquette

loom, with the result of a considerable increase in production.

About 1881 Mr. Halcyon Skinner's second son, Albert L. Skinner, who

had been working for several years in the machine shop connected with the

Smith Works, a considerable part of the time on looms, thought he could

do something in the way of inventing a moquette loom. His ideas were

quite novel and gave promise of good results if properly carried out. He

made drawings of some devices embodying his ideas, and obtained a patent

for the same. He made arrangements with the Bigelow Carpet Company,

of Clinton, Massachusetts, and built a loom, which was put in operation at

their works. It proved very successful, and a large number of the looms

were built and have been profitably operated by the company ever since.

287 Palisade Avenue - The residence of Richard Edie Jr. and his wife, the former Priscilla Van Tassel as photographed in 1900.  Richard Edie Jr. was Treasurer and later Chairman of the Board of the Alexander Smith Carpet Factory. He also served as President of the Yonkers Board of Education in the late 1920’s. To this day, there is a scholarship still given to a graduating student of a Yonkers High School in his name.

He died of heart disease in September 1935 at the age of 67. The carpet mills shut down and observed a moment of silence as he was laid to rest. Mrs. Edie died in September of 1947. The home was demolished in the 1960’s and is now the site of a multi-family apartment building.

967 North Broadway - The home of Eva Smith Cochran photographed in 1901

Eva Smith Cochran was one of the true patron saints of Yonkers, having given so many institutions of the city more than $2,000,000 in lasting gifts. The Cochran name remains in many places in the City of Yonkers, even to this day 101 years after her death in 1909. The Cochran's named their residence Duncraggan. The beautiful Victorian home and estate was later sold by Eva's daughter to Samuel Untermeyer their neighbor on the south. Duncraggan at that time was 22 acres. See below what the home looked like and read a little about this incredible woman. She is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Yonkers in the most simple setting. Her estate was valued at the time of her death in 1909 at over 8 million dollars. The mansion has long been demolished, but the stone pillars that once stood at the entry to the estate still bear the Duncraggan name and still stand on either side of the bus shelter in front of St. Johns Hospital (This hospital was just one of her gifts to Yonkers)!

612 North Broadway, Yonkers NY Photographed in 1900.

At that time the home was owned by Charles A. Fulton, a businessman. He and Theodore Heinrichs of Yonkers were partners in a mining company. This home is a truly spectacular example of Victorian Craftsmanship. Stained and leaded glass, Curved windows, superb stone work. It even has a matching horse stable in the rear of the property. This home and stable still exists today in pristine original condition. Look at the "Then and Now" section of this site to see what it looks like today. 

430 North Broadway in Yonkers - The Magnificent Victorian Residence of Charles Perceval Photographed in 1900. The photos below show this residence in 1900. The second shows the home in 1905 as it was placed for sale. There is a detailed description of the home and its features. Finally below this is a map from 1907 that shows its location on North Broadway. Today the site is occupied by garden apartments. Take a look at the then and now section of this site.

Circa --1910 Hudson View Terrace homes newly built off North Broadway near Glenwood Avenue, Yonkers, NY

These homes were listed with Christian Gaul, a local realtor/developer at the turn of the last century. They are all still there today.

The property was owned originally by Andrew S. Brownell and his wife Matilda Gwyn Brownell (her nickname was “Tillie”). “The Aerie” was one of the early Park Hill residences. The principals of the American Real Estate Company, the developers of Park Hill, of which Andrew was one of them, built their homes first. Andrew and Edwin K. Martin were principals in the American Investment Union (Andrew was president and Edwin Vice President) which sold real estate stock to get the capital to underwrite the loans which it made to the homebuyers of Park Hill and other developments around the US. Investors got a guaranteed 6% on their money which was secured by the land. Plus they received a pro rata share of any profits which has averaged around 12%.Andrew was also one of the founders of the Yonkers Board of Trade, The Park Hill Country Club, the Park Hill Association and a number of other incorporated organizations.

1869 - The Warburton Avenue Baptist Church - The magnificent $200,000 gift from John Bond Trevor and James Boorman Colgate

Wealthy Victorians had very strong ties to their houses of worship. They believed their wealth was a gift from God and many gave back significantly to their communities  especially through their houses of worship. At that time churches were a central part of society and socialization, so what better way to share than through their churches.  This particular story had a profound effect on the "Village" of Yonkers in 1869 and continues to play an interesting role in the "City" of Yonkers in 2010. The two men gave the land and new building to the church with a number of conditions which are referred to as covenants. Below is covenant #3. They wanted to insure that their gift would be forever. This condition was accepted by the church. 

North Broadway below Ashburton Avenue circa 1869

Below is a photo of North Broadway in Yonkers looking south. The photo was taken in the late 1860's just south of Ashburton Avenue. On the right is the First Presbyterian Church dedicated in May of 1854. (later destroyed by fire in 1968). On the left are stairs to various residences. Note the group of people on the left and an image of what appears to be a small girl on the right by the fence. Exposure times for these photos were relatively long so in most cases images of people are blurred by movement.