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recently purchased a home on the same block, at 131
Fort Greene Place, he told Molineaux. The general and
the generalissimo would be neighbors.
The general rushed to tell his sister in Brooklyn the news.
She and her husband, retailer J.S. Burnham, would be
living next door to the Thomas family! Burnham shared
that news with his landlady, Dr. Emma Onderdonk, one
of Brooklyn’s first female physicians. She was horrified
at the thought of a Negro family moving onto the block,
even one so distinguished as that of Hiram S. Thomas.
Soon word of the sale spread to every house on Fort
Greene Place.
Dr. Onderdonk organized a committee to stop the
sale. The group met in her house for a series of strategy
sessions. Her first move was to attempt to sue the seller,
Dr. Harry Smith. He had already moved to a new home
in Prospect Heights and had put the sale of the brownstone
in the hands of his realtor, Thomas J. Henderson.
Smith was on record saying he really didn’t care who
bought his house, as long as the parties had the money
to buy it. Henderson is quoted by the Eagle as saying that
he would not mind living next door to a Negro, in fact,
would prefer one as a neighbor to some white people he
could name.
Naturally, the press had a field day with the story. The
headline in the Eagle on October 1, 1894 read, “Flurry
in Ft. Greene Place, Because a Negro Has Bought a
Three Story House. Aristocratic Neighbors in a Panic.”
The Times headline read, “They Want No Colored
Neighbor.” As the story progressed, it was picked up in
syndication by newspapers across the country. The story
of who Thomas was, the location of the house, the neighbors,
all became fodder for many papers.
Not everyone in Brooklyn was up in arms. Some people
were downright embarrassed and angry. Many of the
residents on the block said they had no problem with
Thomas and his family moving in. Rev. S. B. Halliday,
assistant pastor of Plymouth Church, wrote a scathing
letter to the Times. In part, he said, “I have supposed
that the residents of Fort Greene Place were so eminently
respectable that they could not have feared that their respectability
could ever be called in question by the coming
of half a dozen respectable families of color settling
around them, much less by a single family. What a pretty
story it is to get abroad over the country that a black man
cannot move into a respectable neighborhood without
stirring up a rebellion....I think our city is disgraced by
the presence of such a spirit in its midst.”
Meanwhile, the Molineaux extended family and Dr.
Onderdonk continued their efforts to dissuade Thomas
from moving in. But that only fueled the negative rumors
that Thomas was a greedy speculator out to scare the white
folks into buying him out for big bucks.
When this was passed on to Dr. Onderdonk, she told the
newspapers, “If he Thomas is a respectable good man,
as they say, he will not wish to live there after this trouble.
If he does move in, values will all become depreciated
and he will lose as much as anyone else.” She also went
on to say that if they couldn't stop Thomas from buying
the house, he ought to at least have the decency to not
reside at the property.
Hiram and his family ignored the racism. As speculation
as to his motives and future actions spread around the
neighborhood, he went on with his moving plans. On
October 3, 1894, an article in a tabloid called the New York
World announced that the residents of Fort Greene Place
were jubilant that morning because they heard that the
Thomas family was not moving in.
The day before, the paper reported, neighbors could be
seen peering from their windows, waiting in dread for the
moving van to pull up to No. 131. Had Thomas moved in,
some neighbors declared, they would be moving out. At
once. But they had heard from General Molineaux that
Thomas would not move in. “The matter has been settled,”
Mrs. Molineaux told the reporter. Or had it? Thomas was
of a different opinion.
The next day, the Brooklyn Eagle posted an article with
an interview with Thomas, who was still up in Saratoga
Springs. He denied buying the house as a speculation. He
also revealed that he had considered both Molineaux and
Burnham to be personal friends of his. Burnham had even
written to Thomas entreating him to take special care of
his brother-in-law while he was up in Saratoga. He was
shocked at the amount of vitriol over his purchase of the
house next door to Mr. Burnham.
He also related that the general tried to buy him out.
Thomas told him that he would sell, but he was going to
capitalize on his investment, and sell for a higher price
than what he purchased the house for. “If my coming into
the neighborhood will depreciate property, as some have
said it would, I am willing to sell my house. But I don’t
think I should be put in all this trouble for nothing.” Molineaux
couldn’t afford the house, and the ad hoc Brooklyn
committee didn’t have the funds, either.
“I have ordered carpets and furniture, which are now
being placed in the house,” Thomas told the reporter.
“My family will occupy it in ten days. We will reside
there until I go to Lakewood on the first of December.”
True to his timeline, by late October of 1894, Charles O.