LUDLOW HOUSE BURNED DOWN

Historic Bronx Landmark, More Than a Century Old, Razed to the Ground.

Fire destroyed the historic Ludlow house on the Ludlow estate, situated on the west side of Classon Point Road, between Westchester Avenue and Long Island Sound, the Bronx, at 4 o'clock yesterday morning. A night watchman at the Classon Point Military Academy, while making his rounds of the campus, saw smoke issuing from the Ludlow house. He notified the director of the military academy. The entire four companies of cadets scrambled out of their trousers on, forming a bucket brigade.

In the meantime the watchman had rushed off to the Ludlow house to arouse the residents. William Hamburg, a truck gardener, who has occupied the historic house with his family for twenty-five years, had already been awakened by the crackling of the flames. Byt[sic] the time he had safely gotten his children out the grand staircase became enveloped in flames. Company B of the Classon Point Military Academy reached the scene. An old well near by was sucked dry by the bucket brigade, and two of the cadet companies ran back to the military academy and pulled an old hand pump and hose cart up the hill. With this they pumped water out of a near-by swamp and played it on the fire.

In the meantime Mounted Policeman Scarlett of the Westchester Precinct had galloped a mile and a half in order to turn in an alarm in Westchester Avenue. Two alarms were turned in bringing Battalion Chief Gray and two engines, but there was no use in trying further to save the old house, which by now had become one mass of flames.

A rough estimate of the damage was given as about $5,000, but with the destruction of this old landmark New York lost one of its historic shrines.

The New York Times, New York, NY 20 Mar 1910
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!