Yet Another View of the Branson Boarding House

[John Fazio]

(08-26-2015 11:58 AM)BettyO Wrote:  

Quote:I don't think there is enough there to go on.

John - I have researched (property records, maps, plats, etc.) the exact location of the Branson boarding house for the last 5 years. According to an 1869-70s Sachse Bird's Eye map of Baltimore in which it plainly stands out; it was a stair-stepped Federal/Greek Revival structure and it stood where the red sandstone Eutaw Savings Bank (1889) at the corner of Eutaw and Fayette Streets now stands - next door to the Western National Bank shown in the graphic. There is also a stereo-view showing a corner of the house taken in the 1870s. Both the "relocated" Eutaw Street Bank and the Western National Bank structures now compose the historic "Baltimore Grand" facility. In 1889, the 1835 Eutaw Savings Bank, which stood across the street from the Branson house, was enlarging and needed more space. The owners purchased the Branson property and tore down the old structure to build the new Savings Bank. The Branson family had vacated the property in 1870 and moved into the home of Maggie and her husband at 3 Union Place, Brooklyn NY. It was there that Mary Branson died in 1871 of uterine cancer and Mr. Branson followed in death the following year of 1872. He died of a stroke and is buried in an unmarked grave in Green Wood Cemetery not far from the grave of Dr. Gillette. The Branson family had been previously well-to-do during the war, but Mr. Branson was apparently more than inadequate in handling money matters (having the bank foreclose on his father's inherited hatter business in the early days of his marriage); he apparently also lost the house and holdings during the beginnings of the financial crisis of the 1870s. Or due to his family involvement in the assassination, the US government confiscated the house which was not unheard of - I'm still trying to sort that out with various court records. The family upon the patriarch's death, was much less than middling middle class. Mrs. Branson, upon her death in 1883, died in a Baltimore poor house.

Betty:

Excellent. Valuable information.

Gillette was an interesting figure. Information obtained from him, and later, as I recall, from his son Daniel, is valuable. What I would really like to get my hands are are Eckert's notes, the ones he made after his talks with Powell. He mentions them, but gives no clue as to where they may be found, if, in fact, they have survived.

John