Lots of Frenchtown folks remember No. 12 Bridge Street as the Apgar mansion, since a dwindling number of Apgars lived there from 1910 to 1982.
But for decades before that it was the home of Mary V. Forman, compliments of her son, George.
Here's the story: Merchant Oliver Worman, who would be a charter member of Borough Council, built the mansion and the three-story commercial building next door (now known as the Gem Building) in the 1860s.
But Worman had to divest in the 1870s, and Jacob Rader, about whom I know zero, bought both buildings and sold them to George Van Syckel Forman (1841-1922). Forman then sold the Gem Building to his brother-in-law Hugh Warford, and in 1877 he invited his parents to live in the mansion.
They were Mary V. (1822-1913) and Hamilton Forman (1808-1879). They left their farm in Alexandria Township near Milford and signed a lease for the big house at No. 12 Bridge Street. George's terms were generous. For “the consideration of natural love and affection” plus $10 they could live there for the rest of their lives.
This was a sweet deal by any standard, but it was all the sweeter because the Formans' eldest daughter, Sidney (1843-1922), lived directly across Bridge Street at No. 11, with husband Hugh Warford. (That prodigious house was demolished in the 1970s, so don't go looking for it.) The Formans moved into No. 12, along with their youngest daughter, Alice.
So who was George V. Forman that he could afford such generosity? He graduated from Princeton in 1861, practiced law in Trenton, then embarked on a banking career that was a triumphant march that took him to Buffalo, N.Y., where he was a founder and president of Fidelity Trust & Guaranty Co. Here's a picture of George in his prime:
Although Hamilton Forman died two years after moving in, Mary V. stayed on and on. After son-in-law Hugh died in 1887 and his house was sold to Charles N. Reading, Sidney and her daughters, Mary and Ella, moved across the street to live with Grandma (Mary V. Forman).
In 1910, Mary V. had moved out and was living with her married daughter Carrie in Venango County, Pa., thus freeing up 12 Bridge Street for George V. to sell it to William and Eliza Apgar that same year. Not that George needed the money. No. 12 Bridge Street looked like a humble cottage beside George's own 1893 beaux arts classical mansion in Buffalo with its arches, four towering Ionic columns and porte-cochere.
Not bad for an Alexandria Township farm boy.
But one detail remained before George could sell the Frenchtown mansion to the Apgars: Mary V. had a lifetime lease, and her earthly lease still had a couple of years to run. So in 1910 she cleared the title by signing away her rights in a $1 deal with Eliza Apgar.
From "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"
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