Sir Roderick William Cameron holograph letter
Date Published: ND
Binding: No binding
2 pages. 4 x 5-7/8 inches. RWC crest logo in blue embossed ink on top left corner including HINC ORIOR (From Here I rise). 185 Madison Ave. [his New York city residence] Monday am. (No date)
My Dear Moir. I have consulted Margaret and we both reply yes to your request. Do not style her Daisy in the programme, her signature is Margaret S.E Cameron It is a very long time since I have seen you and we would all be glad if you would renew your visits. I would also be very much pleased to see your father place please say to him that I have pleasant recollections of our cheery days at Lake Dunmore [this is in Vermont] when we amused ourselves with Euchre and the happy companionship of our wives and children, Yrs very ffly, R.W. Cameron
Sir Roderick Cameron was a Canadian and American businessman noted for co-founding the R. W. Cameron and Company shipping line in New York City, as well as for his role as an official representative of Canada and Australia at several international exhibitions during the 1870s and 1880s.
185 Madison Ave residence from where this letter was written history:
The Cameron Building New York 185 Madison Ave was built in 1911 by Margaret Selina Ewen Cameron (1862–1919), Sir Roderick William Cameron daughter. The Cameron Building replaced two brownstones including one owned by Mrs. Hamilton Fish who became one of its first residents
The Cameron Building New York 185 Madison Ave. history.
But time has a way of sweeping old rules under the rug, and that’s just what Ms. Margaret E.S. Cameron intended to do in 1909 when she paid $200,000 for two brownstone homes at the northeast corner of 34th Street and Madison Avenue. She swiftly demolished the homes and began erecting a 16-story office tower on the site, much to the outrage of her new neighbors. One of them even offered Ms. Cameron $600,000, triple the price she paid for the two lots, if she would stop construction and thus preserve the residential nature of the neighborhood. Ms. Cameron refused, stating “that she was ignorant to the agreement and that it did not bind her.”
She invited residents of Murray Hill, who counted such powerful men as J.P. Morgan among their ranks, to file suit with her to test her right to build. But in the end, Ms. Cameron won, as the judge pointed out the already drastically-changed nature of the area since the agreement was drawn up in 1847. A great number of brownstones now operated various sorts of businesses out of their ground floors, essentially nullifying the agreement and allowing Ms. Cameron to press on with her building’s construction. It topped out around 1910 and set off a waterfall of development east of Madison Avenue that would wreak havoc on the neighborhood’s bucolic nature.
Item #5892
$150.00 USD
$203.59 CAD