In our last update, we looked at the lives of the Grosjean - Cordier families, and their impact on our community. It's really the story of three men. The first, and foremost, is Florian Grosjean who shaped this community, and stood by it when disaster threatened to destroy it. He was, at the time , well known as an important man in shaping Woodhaven's development.
The other two men are Alfred Grosjean, who was being groomed for taking over the factory but died tragically young -- and Auguste Cordier, who started as an office boy, worked his way up to management, and eventually took over the business (and married Alice Grosjean, Florian's daughter.) So, where are they all now? The answer is Brooklyn -- specifically, The Green-Wood Cemetery.
We wanted to go visit their graves, so we hopped in the car one afternoon and took a ride into Brooklyn. But along the way, we made a quick stop -- for there are two streets of interest on Atlantic Avenue. Both of these streets were developed by Florian Grosjean and have recently been designated as landmark districts. The first is Agate Court, a reference to the cookware that he manufactured.
The second street developed by Florian Grosjean is one block over -- Alice Court -- named after his daughter Alice Grosjean, the future Mrs. Alice Cordier.
Both of these beautiful dead-end streets catch your eye as you pass through Bedford-Stuyvesant, especially positioned as they are, right on Atlantic Avenue. And as noted, both streets were designated as landmark districts -- you can read more about that (and the history of these two streets) here and here. If you are really interested in a history lesson, do check out the Alice and Agate Court Historic District Designation Report. It is a wonderfully researched report, detailing many of the tenants who lived in the individual flats. It gives you a glimpse of the level of detail and professionalism that is needed to get something designated as a landmark.
From there, we made our way to The Green-Wood Cemetery, 478 acres and over half-a-million permanent residents - it was also the site of the famous Battle of Brooklyn during the Revolutionary War. They have guided tours there every Wednesday and it is open to the public. It's truly a remarkable place to visit.
The Green-Wood website has a search function, so we already had their locations --
Last Name First Name Burial Date Lot Section
GROSJEAN FLORIAN 1903-01-27 23122 P
CORDIER AUGUST J. 1907-12-12 32398 P
But this place is huge. And if you aren't familiar with it, you can get lost real easy. Luckily, we had a map -- and we pulled over and spent about 20 minutes poring over it before we found Section P, all the way at the back of the cemetery, near something called Mountain Path. If you look at the top left of the image below, you can see the size of the entire cemetery as compared to the portion of it shown below.
It took us a while to make our way through the winding roads, but we eventually found ourselves looking at Mountain Path. It might better be said that we were looking up at Mountain Path. We took this picture more than halfway up Mountain Path while we stopped for oxygen. It might not look it, but it's a steep hill and by the time we reached the top (Hillside Avenue) we were tired. And we hadn't even found anyone yet!
After a short rest, with no idea which direction to go in -- we decided, arbitrarily, to go left. And as luck would have it, we found the final resting place of Florian Grosjean. If you look at the map again, Florian Grosjean is near the "E" in Hillside. Had we known, we could have driven our car up Hillside Avenue. Keep that in mind in case you decide to visit.
It is a solid, simple marker -- very tasteful. Despite th fact that the man owned a large estate, many accounts of him paint him as a man that wasn't "showy" -- so this is the sort of marker I had expected.
Near the end of his life, Florian Grosjean retired and moved back to Brooklyn where he grew a passion for gardening and tending to flowers. At one point, there were rumors that he was very ill and those rumors were corrected in the papers (Brooklyn Eagle, August 5th, 1902).
Florian Grosjean passed away 5 months later a week after his 79th birthday. He was buried 3 days later. Four months later his wife, Eugenie, and his son, Alfred, were moved from their resting place to be at his side.
Eugenie had died young, at the age of 31 when Alfred was just 10 years old. As Alfred grew into manhood, he was being groomed to take over the business and he was a productive member of the community. He was twice elected Justice of the peace of Jamaica, was a member of the Town Board, and was a top manager at LaLance and Grosjean. It should also be noted that he had outside interests that apparently gained him significant wealth outside of the factory. He traveled to Florida with a friend and went on a hunting trip -- they left on Thursday, March 1st and were never again seen alive.
Their fate was no longer a mystery -- but exactly what happened to them remains a mystery to this day. What's kind of odd is that they left on the Thursday, March 1st -- but the date of death on the tombstone is a Tuesday, February 28th (1888 was a leap year). So devastated by the loss of his son was Grosjean that he built a church and dedicated it to his memory.
Chichester Avenue, over time, became 95th Avenue. According to the Woodhaven history book, the French Evangelical Church opened on October 9th, 1890 -- in 1901, the entire Church was lifted and moved 8 feet to the east so a parsonage could be built. Membership dwindled and by the 1950's the French Evangelicals were no more. But the Church itself remains, though technically it is now in Ozone Park, on 95th Avenue between 96th and 97th Streets. And here we are, the church that Florian Grosjean built in 1980, in memory of his son:
This is right across Atlantic Avenue from the Grosjean Estate, a short walk from their residence, on land already owned by Florian Grosjean.
It's very neat to look at this picture in our community, at this small church, and know the interesting story behind it. And to wonder if young Alfred Florian had not gone on that fateful trip, how this community would be different.
Back to Green-Wood. So we said a few prayers over the Grosjeans. And then, before we even moved from this spot, we saw the final resting place of Auguste Cordier. You can see it in this picture.
You can see the Cordier mausoleum in the background -- not the big one at the right -- the one just over the hill in the center of the picture.
So we had a short walk over to the Cordier mausoleum. From all accounts, Auguste Cordier the stress of running all of the Grosjean properties took its' toll on Auguste Cordier and he died a mere 3 years after on October 22nd 1906 at the young age of 52.
He and his wife Alice had 2 children, Auguste Jr. and Alice Marie and they are all buried here.
We've never visited anyone in a mausoleum before, so we didn't know the protocol. The doors were locked. Would it be tacky to peek inside? Probably. That didn't stop us though. We were coming to pay our respects, so we hoped they wouldn't have minded.
And here, at bottom, is the final resting place of Auguste J. Cordier. Above him is his son, Auguste Jr., who in his time would also become president of LaLance and Grosjean, and also die young in 1949 at 58 years of age. Auguste Jr. was a national squash champion.
Auguste's wife, Alice Cordier -- whom Alice Court was named after-- would live to be 77 years old and die in 1937. And at the bottom is Alice Mary Cordier MacGuire (Florian's granddaughter) who married Dr. Constantine J. MacGuire in 1915. She passed away on May 23rd 1974 at the age of 85.
As a side note, directly across from Alice Mary Cordier MacGuire is her husband Dr. Constantine J. MacGuire, who died in 1948. And, at the top is a baby, gave birth to by Alice Mary Cordier MacGuire. There is no name, just the date, October 3rd 1916.
We said a prayer for the family before leaving. There was a lot of sadness and tragedy, but their lives intersected with and impacted the lives of so many in our community.
We had one more person to find (Dr. Combes - unrelated to these families) but the sun was going down and they lock the gates at 7 PM, so we went home Here is a very brief video report of our visit to Green-Wood Cemetery and our trip home down Atlantic Avenue, through East New York in Brooklyn.
As with many of these kinds of stories, we expect this to prompt others to send in fresh information -- so you may want to check back in a few days for updates.
If you have any comments, or would like to suggest other projects, drop us a line at info@projectwoodhaven.com or projectwoodhaven@aol.com .
