A Forgotten Real-Life Gilded Gentleman: The World of Effingham Nichols

The Gilded Gentleman

XXV. The Merchant's House Museum is one of New York City's most important and cherished historic house museums. Built in 1832 and still intact to this day, the house was home to patriarch Seabury Tredwell and his family for just about 100 years before opening to the public as a museum in 1933.

Nowhere can one see the antebellum world of Old New York quite as clearly one can see here with much of the family's original furniture and belongings still in place. Hidden in the Tredwell family tree is Effingham Nichols, the husband of Seabury's eldest daughter. Born into old Knickerbocker New York, Effingham rose in wealth and stature to become a true player in the Gilded Age that ended the century brushing up against Astors and Vanderbilts.

Join me and my guest, Merchant's House historian Anne Haddad for a look at his life, what he did and where he was, to gather a very personal and extraordinary picture of the life of a long forgotten, but very real, gilded gentleman and just how that life and the life of others like him, came to be.

Credits: The Gilded Gentleman is produced by Kieran Gannon and is a production of Bowery Boys Media.