 1771 - 1838 (67 years)
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| Name |
Harmon Hendricks [2, 3, 4, 5] |
| Born |
3 Mar 1771 |
New York, New York (Manhattan), New York  [2, 6] |
| Gender |
Male |
| Alt. Birth |
10 Mar 1771 |
New York [2] |
| Reference Number |
1398 |
| _UID |
708E5FA7B6B349C192176D59CC02300CF0F9 |
| Died |
3 Apr 1838 |
New York [2] |
| Person ID |
I1398 |
aojd-demo |
| Last Modified |
11 Nov 2011 |
| Family |
Frances Isaacs, b. 9 Jun 1783, Lancaster, Lancaster, Pennsylvania , d. 1 May 1854, New York (Age 70 years) |
| Married |
4 Jun 1800 |
New York [2, 4] |
| Last Modified |
11 Nov 2011 |
| Family ID |
F511 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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| Notes |
- (Research):AJLLJ Portraits Database 5 Aug 2011
The Hendricks family story is intimately tied up with America's rise to economic, industrial and military prominence. And within that narrative, Harmon holds a place of prominence— transforming his father's business of importing metal from England into homegrown manufacturing, which his sons and grandsons would continue to advance.
Born in New York, Harmon was the son of and Eve Esther Gomez and Uriah Hendricks, a Dutch emigrant. A few years before Uriah's birth, his father, who served as parnas of Shearith Israel, had left the dry goods business for metals, importing copper and brass from England. Upon his father's death in 1798, Hendricks, the only surviving son of eight children, took over the business.
In 1800 Hendricks married Frances Isaacs, daughter of Justina Brandly Lazarus and Joshua Isaacs. With the outbreak of the War of 1812, the significance of developing American industry and freeing the nation from dependence on imports became pressing. However, in the early nineteenth century, the techniques of metallurgy remained largely unknown, the domain of the English, the world's industrial power. Still, Hendricks set to work and developed with his brother-in-law Solomon Isaacs one of the country's first successful copper rolling mills. His innovations made possible the abandonment of iron for copper in the construction of steam boilers, allowing the boilers to safely reach higher temperatures.
Among his friends and customers was Paul Revere, and most likely Revere fashioned church bells in Philadelphia, Boston and New York with Hendricks copper. He too supplied the copper for the construction of several Navy ships that proved crucial to the American war effort, possibly even for the Constitution, now known as Old Ironsides, still sitting in Boston Harbor.
Yet another customer was Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamship. The boiler driving the Clermont, the world's first inland steam powered packet boat, was fashioned from Hendricks copper.
Harmon and Frances had thirteen children, including sons Uriah and Henry who would carry on the family business. Hendricks maintained an involvement with New York's Jewish community, like his father serving as parnas of Shearith Israel.
[7]
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| Sources |
- [S285] AOJD & Heritage Muse, Inc., David M. Kleiman, (AOJD-online.net.
Heritage Muse, Inc.
165 West End Ave.
New York, NY 10023
[email protected]).
- [S4] FAJF-Stern, Rabbi Malcolm Stern, (3rd edition updated and revised. n.c.: Genealogical Publishing Company for the American Jewish Archives, 1991.), PG. 110 HENDRICKS (1) (Reliability: 3).
- [S78] PAJHS, 1909; 17, AJHS JOURNAL PG. 197 (Reliability: 3).
- [S4] FAJF-Stern, Rabbi Malcolm Stern, (3rd edition updated and revised. n.c.: Genealogical Publishing Company for the American Jewish Archives, 1991.), PG. 124 ISAACS II (Reliability: 3).
- [S49] New York Times, (New York, New York), POSTINGS: FORMER EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY HOUSE...: 19 NOV 2000, (Reliability: 3).
POSTINGS: Former Edna St. Vincent Millay House, Narrowest in Greenwich Village, Is Sold; 9 1/2 Feet Wide, $1.6 Million Published: November 19, 2000 of Form 1 are few addresses as descriptive as 75 1/2 Bedford Street. That ''half'' tells the story of a house so small -- 9 1/2 feet wide -- that it has long been known as the narrowest in Greenwich Village. It is also known as a house whose occupants have included Edna St. Vincent Millay, Margaret Mead, John Barrymore and the cartoonist William Steig. ''They say Cary Grant slept there,'' said Reginald Fairchild of the Brown Harris Stevens brokerage. ''But I don't think he ever lay down crosswise.'' Which raises the question: just how do you sell such a diminutive property at a time when buyers seem to be seeking more space than ever? ''What we were marketing was a piece of New York history, so I didn't see it as challenging,'' said Dorothy Arnsten of Brown Harris Stevens, who represented the owner, Christopher Dubs, together with Ileen Schoenfeld and Mr. Fairchild. The three-story house off Commerce Street was sold for $1.6 million to Steven Balsamo on Nov. 10. Ms. Arnsten said much of the interest in the 42-foot-deep house was from those desiring a pied-a-terre and drawn to the 2,500-square-foot garden in the rear, which is shared with adjacent properties. ''We actually discouraged families who have children looking for a permanent home,'' she said. Mr. Dubs is an architect and designer with a practice, Arc Works Design Studio, in Manhattan and Sarasota, Fla. He fell in love with the house and bought it in 1994. But he did not move in, as he was simultaneously developing a Florida resort. He and his partner, Cedrick Dubs, have lived at No. 75 1/2 from time to time but more often leased it out. In Mr. Balsamo, Mr. Dubs said he found a buyer who appreciated history and also the restoration and renovation work. ''We had other bids that were higher, quite frankly, but I chose to do business with him,'' Mr. Dubs said. ''He made me feel proud of what I'd done. He made me feel as though we had accomplished what we wanted to accomplish.'' Mr. Balsamo's plans are not known. His lawyer said he declined to be interviewed. Though its roofline is marked by the stepped gables characteristic of New York's 17th-century Dutch architecture, 75 1/2 Bedford Street actually dates to 1873, according to the Landmarks Preservation Commission's designation report on the Greenwich Village Historic District. It was built for Horatio Gomez, whose father-in-law, Harmon Hendricks, owned the house next door at No. 77. Millay and her husband, Eugen Jan Boissevain, moved there in 1923, the year she won a Pulitzer Prize and three years after the poem ''First Fig'' earned her a place in the language with its opening line, ''My candle burns at both ends.'' The couple stayed only two years before leaving for a house in the Berkshire foothills where Millay spent the rest of her life. In ''The Poet and Her Book: A Biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay'' (1969), Jean Gould wrote, ''Free spirits such as theirs could not help feeling confined in the narrowest house in New York, no matter how quaint it was.''
Photo: On Bedford Street, an 1873 building. (Reginald Fairchild)
- [S32] Portraits Etched In Stone, Pool, David De Sola, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952.), HENRICKS, EVE ESTHER [GOMEZ]: PGS. 479, BIO 170 (Reliability: 3).
- [S294] Loeb Jewish Portraits Database, (http://www.loebjewishportraits.com/home.html), HENDRICKS, HARMON (Reliability: 3).
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