Monday, January 24, 2011

Kreischerville's Rise and Fall



Balthasar named his mansion Fairview, it sat on top of a steep hill in Kreischerville.
The Kreischer Mansion was built in 1885 by a man named Balthasar Kreischer. Balthasar was a wealthy and successful brick manufacture who learned what he knew of brick making in Europe before he immigrated here in 1836.  He built this house along with another similar house for his son and daughter in law as a wedding gift.The other one burnt down ( reason unknown) after a very heated father/son fight, and the newlyweds were killed. From what I have heard the fight was very serous and Balthasar and his son where at each others throats. They weren't able to get over the fight and his son died while they were still fighting. The remaining mansion was turned into a restaurant and was said to be haunted. People reported doors slamming and lights turning on and off. I found a couple stories of the hauntings:

this is definitely i worked at the restaurant for about two weeks. i was a busboy there, and one night i waas sent into the basement to get supplies for the owner. i heard a door shut in the back of the basement. wondering who it was i went to the back and found nothing. after hearing some more suspicious noises i went back upstairs without the supplies. what i heard sounded like argueing but i was sure there was no one there. i quit my job there shortly after.-Chris

OMG! this place is freaky. 2 years ago a bunch of friends and I idled our car in front of the house. My friend (driver) started yelling at the house and siad that the guy dserved to bed dead and such… and some old guy in a pin-strip suit walked through the gate and made a swipe at the window. I screamed for my friend to hit the gas… turns out noone else saw the guy walk and the car and swip it…
Freaky part: after we were driving away finger marks streaked down the window on that side. My friend (driver again) goes “Oh yea… prove your here” “H-E-L-L-O” appeared backwards on the rear window so he could read it trhough his rearview mirror.
Needless to say I got outta that car ASAP. - Kabbit
Very Rare picture of the two houses together, this is the ONLY one I have found.

When I was a teen I used to hang out Feedback Studios which was right up the road from the Kreisher Mansion. This building intrigued me so much I did a day of research at the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences on the house. Balthazar Kreisher built the twin mansions for his sons, he did not inhabit any of the buildings. He had georgian style mansion that overlooked the brick factory. His mansion no longer exists.
Before the firs of the house, his son’s wife was having an affair with Dr. Washington who had his office and house on Main Street in Tottenville. In fact, his house still stands and a friend of mine’s parents still live there. The house is catty corner to the 123 precint. The last time I was there the house was yellow.(I now live in Savannah, Ga) Anyways, B’s son’s wife left her husband and then the house mysteriously burnt down. The fireplaces and some of the fixtures in the Dr. Washington house were actually salvaged from the Kreisher Mansion fire.
Now I have no doubt that the standing Kreisher Mansion is haunted. An ex friend of mine has pictures that prove to me that there are people still there. The last thing I have heard about the mansion is that the property was sold to a property developer that is making an old folks living community. With these changes there have been a ton of changes to the house, which saddens me. It’s a beautiful piece of architecture. - Michelle

this is indeed true my parents owned the resturant that once ocupied the house strange things happined daily we have since shut down the resturant and opened more profitable businesses but we still own the house ive also found that the house makes a greatt setting for a halloween party its a sure fire way 2 scare the sh*t out of my friends - James

MY COUSINS UNCLE OWNS THE HOUSE AND HE LEASES THE PROPERTY I KNOW THIS FOR A FACT AND ALSO WHEN I WAS A LITTLE KID ME AND MY COUSIN WOULD GO IN THERE AND IT REALLY SEEMED HAUNTED AND THE COOK HUNG HIMSELF THERE IN THE KITCHEN IN THE EARLY 1900`S IF ANYONE HAS ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE E-MAIL ME AT AASOFTBALL@TMAIL.COM - Jeff

My grandparents, father and myself all grew up in Charleston, Staten island. My grandfather once told my father a story of how when he was a little kid (early 1900s)on halloween they went running through the yard of the mansion. One kid ran into legs and somebody had hung themselve in the tree right near the house. Maybe that person has somethign to do with the encounters. I also think that the history is incorrect, I think there was 3 mansions built two next to eachother and one across the road. My aunt used to knwo the poepl whome lived there as a house right before it bacame a resturant. I would be scared sh*t to live there. -Charles Kosa

What interesting is that this family supplied most of the area with its bricks, definitely all of Staten Island, and some of Brooklyn. You can still find some of them in brick work that hasn't been up rooted or destroyed. The business started out being run by two people, Balthasar and his partner Charles Mumpeton, who wound up passing away. The company was first called under the New York branch of The New York & Staten Island Fire-Brick and Clay Retort Works, Kreischer & Mumpeton, it was originally established in 1845. And so it stayed that way until about 1849, when Mumpeton died and Kreischer hired his nephew to help out around the factory along side his 3 sons. With the discovery of the abundant amount of clay that was found in the area around the Sandy Grounds up to what we know today as Charleston, the business flourished.
Post office
In 1863 a post office opened in Kreischerville, named obviously after the family and their business. It closed in 1879 but was then reopened in 1886. It was located on Kreischer and Androvette St. The little town also included a church, a town store, and a small school.
Its one of Staten Island's mysteries, what happened to the Kreischer family? We know that some of them are buried in a cemetery in Brooklyn, but as to where they went and where the descendants are is unknown. Balthasar died in 1886 and the factory burnt down a few years later and then was rebuilt, though the business never really recovered. Under the pressure of a failing business one of the 2 remaining sons shot and killed himself and his widow is said to still haunt the site as well. 


After the restaurant closed down and the house was undergoing renovations to become housing for the elderly, the mansion became a sight for mob slayings. It became the scene of  a crime commented against a man named Robert McKelvey, he was killed by Bonanno family associates over a "bad debt" after being lured to the house by the groundskeeper and mob associate Joseph "Joe Black" Young. McKelvey was strangled, stabbed, and drowned in a pool on the site. After they cut up his body, they burned it in the mansions inferno. Investigators went looking for the furnace for evidence, but by the time they started looking it had been replaced because of the renovations. 

* Courtney Hayes My old neighbor murdered a man in Kreischer Mansion .. His house was soon raided by the FBI one lovely morning while I was leaving for school, and he is now in prison for life ;D Ahh I loved that house in Pleasent Plains lolol

Her neighbor did in fact kill McKelvey. 

6 comments:

  1. He was the nicest guy too which is so weird .. Everyone on the block knew he was involved with the mafia but you would never know it from the way he acted (other than the fact that he blew up our other neighbor's car because he stole his parking spot .. i swear to you, you can ask my mother lol) .. But yea he was so sweet we all used to talk, and he always helped with the block parties and he used to throw birthday parties for his niece and nephew .. I got into a fight with my parents one day and ran out of the house and he followed me and sat me down and talked to me for like an hour about what good people my parent's are and he knew that I was only 16 but I should still respect them and if i ever needed someone to talk to he would always be there for me .. And then i wake up for school one morning and looked out my bedroom window and there were 30 FBI agents kicking his door in and dragging him out .. My father had just started working for the FBI, and I guess he dropped my dad's name thinking that would help him out lol because within 5 minutes my father's work phone started ringing and it was the FBI headquarter's asking my father all about him, and was he friend's with him, what does he do, does he have people over to his house lol all this shit .. It was crazy .. Oh and he was also sleeping with the real estate agent who sold him the house lol we all knew that though

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  2. lmao .. thats like a creepy horror story.. you never really know who lives next door...

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  3. My mother has a gorgeous picture of this house framed in her bedroom. She always wanted to buy it and turn it into an orphanage

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  4. Hello,

    I know this is old post but I very much enjoyed it. I didn't know about the son who died and so I did some research. The New York Times reported that one son, Edward, killed himself there, possibly due to some trouble with his brother. The link to that article is here http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50D1FF93D5415738DDDA00894DE405B8485F0D3

    I am a blogger at http://statenislandgenealogy.com and I linked to your blog! I hope you keep writing.

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    1. Thank you so much for reaching out and commenting on my blog, I know it hasn't been updated in a while, due to my not having a lap top, but I still check it from my phone and appreciate the kind words

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    2. Thank you so much for reaching out and commenting on my blog, I know it hasn't been updated in a while, due to my not having a lap top, but I still check it from my phone and appreciate the kind words

      Delete