The attached is taken from the Morrisania and Tremont directory of 1871. I’m hoping that someone could explain the addresses to me.
The explanation at the beginning of the directory gives some of the abbreviations. Ie n s e w are north south east and west, h is house, and Street is omitted after the name all streets.
I am unable to find an old map of the Bronx for this time, but from the list of the locations of the streets and avenues in the directory, 130th to 149th streets extend only to the east of Third Avenue as they do today, but to the west of Third Avenue they were named streets not numbered. So Edsall Street (as spelled in the list at the front of the directory) is described as running from Third Avenue to the Harlem railroad (which ran up the west of the Bronx).
I have an advertising card which gives the address of Meller and Sheddon as Third Ave near corner 136th Street. So my stab at the first address would be “west side of Third Avenue, 5th house north of Edsell Street”. This would mean that Edsall/Edsell Street was probably what is now the part of 136th Street that extends to the west of Third Avenue.
Is anyone able to say whether my interpretation is correct.
Simon
