"The building was inhabited by the Tredwell family from 1835 to 1933. The family patriarch, the merchant Seabury Tredwell, lived there with his wife and their seven children. The youngest child, Gertrude was born at the house and lived there her whole life before dying at 93. She has been said to haunt the building ever since."
""Her story really speaks to people because it's incredibly romantic," if you ask the founder and owner of Boroughs of the Dead Walking Tours, Andrea Janes, who also co-authored A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts, written with Leanna Renee Hieber. The book focuses on the lives of real women behind well-known ghost stories. Janes says the ghost story stems from Gertrude having never gotten married."
""The spinster trope is a very powerful trope in ghost lore because all women left alone seem to attract or become ghosts," according to Janes. She thinks that a genuine love for the house might be what truly motivates Gertrude's ghost to hang around. "How powerful and how inspiring to have this home and Gertrude be one in the same," and that "when you're here you do feel her and it is really beautiful," says Janes."
The Merchant's House Museum in NoHo was the first building in Manhattan to receive landmark status and was home to the Tredwell family from 1835 to 1933. Seabury Tredwell, his wife and seven children lived there; the youngest, Gertrude, was born in the house, lived her entire life there, and died at 93. Gertrude is said to haunt the building, a legend tied to her unmarried status after Seabury disapproved of her suitor. The spinster trope is cited as a powerful motif in ghost lore, and a genuine love for the house is suggested as the ghost's motivation. The museum stages post-Seabury Halloween displays and offers candlelight and other public tours.
Read at ABC7 Los Angeles
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