The General Theological SeminaryChelseaSSometime about the year 1750 Captain Clarke, a veteran of the provincial army, who had seen considerable service in the French war, built a country house, two or three miles north of the city, to which he gave the name of Chelsea. He gave it this name because he said it was to be the retreat of an old soldier in the evening of his days.It has been thought that the name of Greenwich was given to the neighboring estate by Admiral Warren for a corresponding sentimental reason, but Mr. Janvier, in that very entertaining book, “In Old New York,” shows that the name of Greenwich was in use long before the admiral’s advent. Captain Clarke, unfortunately, was not destined long to enjoy the house he had built. During his last illness, the house caught fire and the captain came very near being burned with it, but he was carried out by neighbors and shortly after died in an adjacent farmhouse. Mrs. Clarke rebuilt the house on the crest of a hill that sloped down to the river about three hundred feet distant.29The estate descended to her daughter, the wife of Bishop Moore, and in 1813it was conveyed to their son, Clement C. Moore,30by whom the old house was considerably enlarged. The house was taken down when the bulkhead along the river front was constructed by the city. Mr. Moore gave the whole of the block bounded by Twentieth and Twenty-first streets and Ninth and Tenth avenues to the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, and it became known as Chelsea Square. The building here shown was built about 1835 and is constructed of a gray stone. The modern buildings, however, are of brick and stone, of a Gothic style and, with the old trees remaining and the stretches of green lawn, produce, especially in summer time, a suggestion of English seclusion and repose quite at variance with the bustle and the crudeness of that part of the city.
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Sometime about the year 1750 Captain Clarke, a veteran of the provincial army, who had seen considerable service in the French war, built a country house, two or three miles north of the city, to which he gave the name of Chelsea. He gave it this name because he said it was to be the retreat of an old soldier in the evening of his days.
It has been thought that the name of Greenwich was given to the neighboring estate by Admiral Warren for a corresponding sentimental reason, but Mr. Janvier, in that very entertaining book, “In Old New York,” shows that the name of Greenwich was in use long before the admiral’s advent. Captain Clarke, unfortunately, was not destined long to enjoy the house he had built. During his last illness, the house caught fire and the captain came very near being burned with it, but he was carried out by neighbors and shortly after died in an adjacent farmhouse. Mrs. Clarke rebuilt the house on the crest of a hill that sloped down to the river about three hundred feet distant.29The estate descended to her daughter, the wife of Bishop Moore, and in 1813it was conveyed to their son, Clement C. Moore,30by whom the old house was considerably enlarged. The house was taken down when the bulkhead along the river front was constructed by the city. Mr. Moore gave the whole of the block bounded by Twentieth and Twenty-first streets and Ninth and Tenth avenues to the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, and it became known as Chelsea Square. The building here shown was built about 1835 and is constructed of a gray stone. The modern buildings, however, are of brick and stone, of a Gothic style and, with the old trees remaining and the stretches of green lawn, produce, especially in summer time, a suggestion of English seclusion and repose quite at variance with the bustle and the crudeness of that part of the city.