Frenchtown then & now

THE ODD FELLOWS BUILDING at 17-19 Bridge Street is 47 feet tall, making it Frenchtown’s tallest. Completed in 1897, it was built for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Frenchtown’s most prestigious and affluent lodge. The lodge brothers, who were dedicated to doing good deeds, met on the third story. When the picture (below, left) was taken circa 1930, the lodge was still going strong. In the 2026 photo (below, right), the building is missing its next-door neighbor. Over the years, that brick residence was the home of Bridge Street merchants Hugh Warford (b. 1826-d.1887), Charles N. Reading (1854-1919), and Samuel Frenchtown then & now O. Eddy (1864-1934). It was saved from the Great Frenchtown Fire of 1878 by men with ladders, buckets, and strips of wet carpet. But in 1962 Wilbur Stout of Pennington bought it and let it decay, finally demolishing it in 1972. —Rick Epstein