Via The New York Times, by Remy Tumin, 15 February 2026
In 1832, Joseph Brewster built a fashionable rowhouse mansion in one of New York City’s wealthiest neighborhoods. The three-story home in the East Village was built to entertain other wealthy, white peers, many of whom were profiting from the slave trade.
What Mr. Brewster’s guests did not know was that just on the other side of the parlor wall was a passageway meant to ensure freedom via the Underground Railroad. In fact, almost no one knew of the narrow chute’s connection to the freedom network until now.
Researchers at the Merchant’s House Museum, which preserves the historic rowhouse, believe that Mr. Brewster, a hatter and merchant who owned the house until 1835, intentionally built a passage to help enslaved people on their way north to as far as Canada.
“This passage is completely unlike any other house in this neighborhood, any other house that we have seen, that architectural historians that we have worked with have seen,” Emily Hill-Wright, the museum’s director of operations, said in an interview. “It’s really quite a remarkable find.”
