Minnie Babcock, a Victorian house, and social life in “Riverdale-on-Hudson”

[ndembowski]

There is an old brick Victorian at 5525 Independence Ave that was under consideration for landmarking back in 1970, the Samuel D. Babcock House.

Here is what it looked like before renovations:

Earlier this year the scrapbook of Minnie Babcock, daughter of Samuel D. Babcock, went up for auction online:

Unfortunately, it was out of my price range.  But from the screenshots below you can get an idea of the social life of the house and of the old Riverdale elites.  Here’s a photo “taken at Yonkers” from Minnie Babcock’s scrapbook.

In her scrapbook, Minnie Babcock wrote about dinner parties, dancing, skating parties and kept notes on all of the attendees, who were mostly her wealthy neighbors.  She even kept records of the seating arrangements at dinner and  on the coach to NYC:

It is a little hard to read but in this one above she wrote: “Our trip on Colonel Kane’s Coach from Riverdale to New York…” in 1877.  Colonel DeLancey Kane’s four-horse coach was well-known to speed down Riverdale Avenue while the horn player on board played a melodious tune.  She notes neighbors Percy Pyne and Cleveland Dodge were on board with her.  I like the seating chart for the coach on the top right.  At the top left are some notes about “dancing class at our house” where she danced “the german.”

Another page mentions: “Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Dodge’s yachting party on the 4th of July 1877.  I had a lovely time.  We left Riverdale dock at half past ten.  Went up easily to West Point and returned at five.”

Here’s an interesting one: “Entertainment at the Dodge’s Friday evening December 29th ‘76.  Danced with P. Pyne, T. Roosevelt, U. Landon, H. Landon.”  That might be a clue as to who Teddy Roosevelt was visiting when he came to the area in 1899:

Another page refers to a skating party.  I believe it says: “Skating party at Tibbats [or Tibbetts]”

[Thomas Casey]

The has lost its architectural beauty many years ago.

[Thomas Casey]

[Pameladevn]

Another great peek into the lives (& homes) of our Riverdale predecessors. Thanks for sharing.

[jbakerjonathan]

Thanks for this!

I assume that Minnie was a nickname for one of the seven daughters of Samuel as Wikipedia doesn’t list a Minnie. My guess is that Maria, born in 1860, was Minnie as she would have been 17 in 1877 and it seems to me that a girl of that age would have liked to have kept a scrapbook.

As of 1902 she was still living in NYC and was listed as being unmarried:
https://archive.org/details/babcockgenealogy00babc/page/390/mode/2up?q=ezra+babcock

I’ve been unsuccessful in finding an obituary or ferreting out the date of her death. Perhaps that scrapbook has more clues.  Too bad bad that it was so expensive.

[ndembowski]

I did manage to find an obit for Samuel D. Babcock, which mentions Minnie at the bottom (9/15/1902 Brooklyn Daily Eagle):

I have a few more images from the scrap book.  In 1878 Minnie went to the American premiere of Bizet’s “Carmen” at the New York Academy of Music.

Here is a photo “taken at Yonkers Saturday morning Oct. 25th.”  On another day she wrote about “a lovely horseback ride in the morning to Port Chester and back.”

[Author]

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