Mannons in New York City – A Walkabout

The Mannons and Hicksons lived for many years in the New York City environs. Susan Hamilton Hickson emigrated here in 1868 from Ireland and her husband Samuel, born in England, came to Canada at age one, and eventually settled in the United States in June 1882. George Mannon brought his young family here from Philadelphia in 1903 where he found work as a conductor on the railroad. His younger brother, William, followed in about 1909, doing the same work.

Two generations of Mannons set out in March, 2019 on a Walking (& Subway) Tour to discover some of the places where their ancestors had lived (and were buried).

Fortunately, many of the buildings are still standing with their original exteriors. For a complete listing of the Mannon & Hickson residences in New York, please see the Documents section. Here is a summary of our little tour:

Woodlawn Cemetery, 4199 Webster Avenue, Bronx

This is where we started – the burial place of May Reiff Williamson Mannon and her son, Hamilton Williamson Mannon.

We knew that May and Hamilton were buried here from their death certificates.  However, it had been impossible to find the exact locations from the various Gravefinder websites.  We contacted the Woodlawn Conservancy to research this.  We were provided with a copy of the information they had on file giving the location and a plat map showing adjacent stones.  Grandad’s name was still listed as the owner/purchaser of the plot.  Additionally, the Conservancy genealogist photographed the graves.  We could immediately see why they had been so hard to find.  There was no “MANNON” marker on the site.  It is a double plot and there are two footstones – one says “MOTHER 1871-1917”  and the other says “BROTHER 1902 – 1927”. 

The Conservancy provided us with the following description and a map with the Acacia area marked in pink. 

Armed with this, we set out for the Woodlawn Stop on the #4 Lexington Avenue Express.  The Cemetery is enormous and right across the street from the stop.  We soon discovered (with the help of the entrance security guard) that the map was “upside-down” saving us from walking miles.  It turns out the Acacia section 155 was very close to the entrance.  Once we reached it, we had a very difficult time determining the exact location since we were searching for footstones and no large headstone.  Knowing the names on the adjacent markers helped us finally pin it down.  A detailed explanation and orientation photos can be found in the Mannon Documents, if you are interested in visiting.

It is interesting that Grandad never put up a marker stone for his mother and brother.  Every plot we saw had one.  At the end of our visit, we found the Conservancy office open and we talked with one of the resident Genealogists.  She was very interested in the story of Hamilton Mannon and the circumstances of his untimely death. We plan to provide her with a detailed accounting and they might add that to their “Notable Persons” listing.

Of course, we had to take photos!

We got back on the subway and went south into the Bronx neighborhoods where the Mannons lived for almost 30 years. The George Mannons lived in a total of 7 residences in the 13 years they spent in the Bronx before Alfred was married and the children left home. The first 5 of these have been torn down and replaced by other buildings. (See table in Mannon Documents section.) We managed to see the final 2 locations in the Bronx and one location where George’s brother William lived for many years.

First (after lunch at an authentic Cuban restaurant!), we went to 1956 Anthony Avenue. This is a narrow row house with 3 apartment units where the George Mannons resided from 1915 – 1918 along with the Ruderhausens and the Schneiders. Alfred would have been 17 to 20 years old. He had dropped out of school and was working as a property man to help support the family at this time. Clarabelle (19 – 22) was living here while working as secretary to a doctor and Hamilton (13-16) was a student. George was still working as a Railroad Conductor. Perhaps having three wage earners is why this property seems to be a little more upscale than the other apartment blocks (aka tenements) we visited. This is where the family was living when mother, May Mannon, died of complications from a hysterectomy in May, 1917.

We had the Google Maps photo of the building and were surprised to see that it had been completely resided in the last year. A search revealed that the building, originally built in 1901 had recently sold for $500,000.

Next we went to 405 E. 182nd Street, a large multi-apartment unit built in 1915. It must have seemed fairly new when the Mannons moved in in 1918. This is where the family was living while Alfred was in the Army and before he was married to Marion in October, 1919. We haven’t found George, Clarabelle, or Hamilton Mannon in the 1920 Federal census, so we’re not sure how long they lived here.

From the Bronx, we traveled to Upper Manhattan to see the three residences where Alfred & Marion lived after their 1919 wedding. For the first couple of years, they bunked in with Marion’s parents, William and Susan Hickson in their apartment at 552 W. 186th Street, in the Fort George neighborhood. The Hicksons had lived here since 1912, when the building was brand new. This is where Marion spent her teenage years.

The first residence of their own for Alfred and Marion was at 41 Pinehurst Avenue, several blocks south and west of the Hicksons. It appears they moved here right before the birth of their oldest son, William Hamilton (Uncle Bill) in 1921. This building was built in 1910 and has 6 stories and 41 units. It was hard to find because the door now says 45 Pinehurst Ave. However, instantaneous research on Google proved that the original building was addressed as 41, 43, 45, and 47 Pinehurst. So we had found the right building.

The building is on the corner of Pinehurst and W. 179th Street and a block from George Washington Park on the shores of the Hudson River. It looks right down onto the westbound on-ramp for the George Washington Bridge. This bridge between Manhattan and New Jersey was approved in 1925, construction started in 1927 and completed in 1931. The young Mannon family moved several blocks north of this location in 1924 and missed the commotion of the bridge construction

The last residence of Alfred and Marion Mannon before they moved to California was at 536 Ft. Washington Ave. in the Hudson Heights neighborhood. This stately building was finished in 1920 and has 5 stories with 62 apartment units. They lived here between 1924 and late 1926. This residence was listed on Alfred T. Mannon, Jr.’s birth certificate in 1926.

Hamilton Mannon had one address listed in the 1922 City Directory at 101 Audubon Ave. in the Washington Heights neighborhood. We didn’t visit here on this tour, but one of our “Great-Greats” checked it out earlier. (Photo by E. Mannon)

After Hamilton lived here, he moved in with William and Susan Hickson at their place at 552 W. 186th St. He is listed at that address in the 1924 N.Y. City Voter Listing and the 1925 New York State Census.

This was pretty much a whole day! What did we miss? The Hicksons had another residence which is still standing at 504 W. 171st St. in Washington Heights. They lived here from 1909 – 1911. Before that they lived above the bakery where William Hickson worked at 1810 Amsterdam Ave. from 1903 – 1909. In 1899, the bakery where William Hickson’s worked as a manager was located at 1785 Amsterdam Ave. My daughter, one of the Great-Greats, took another walkabout on her own and snapped these 3 locations:

What happened to patriarch, George Mannon, after the death of his wife, May, in 1917 and son Alfred’s wedding in 1919 is somewhat sketchy. We found 3 addresses for George living alone between 1924 and his death in 1934. However, there were many directories and censuses where he did not appear. At his death, his brother William was in charge of his affairs and he was buried upstate in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale and not near his wife and son at Woodlawn.

For more details on the residences and the sources I used, please visit the Mannon Residences Document in the Mannon Documents section.