Sarah Price was a professional optician in Brooklyn from about 1835 to the 1870s, at which point her daughter, Sarah (Price) Ensell, took over the business. This was most unusual - both the profession, and the passing on of a family business from mother to daughter.
Sarah Price (born about 1792) and her husband John (ca 1795- between 1860 and 1870) were English immigrants; John Price is listed as a clerk in the Brooklyn directory of 1841, at 106 High Street, though Sarah is not listed.
By 1855 however, Sarah was advertising her services as a "Female Physician and Oculist," practising for 20 years at 106 High Street. She treated all eye problems, "scrofulous diseases and eruptions" and sold Mrs. Price's Family Pills.
High Street is close to Sands Street (historically a rather seedy area), one of the main streets of Vinegar Hill, a Brooklyn neighborhood near the Navy Yard. Today High Street lies between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. See here for a tour of Vinegar Hill, at the incomparable Forgotten New York.
Sarah Ensall's son John Edwin was also a physician and druggist, whose troubles were publicized in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In 1885 he was called to jury duty, reported once and then disappeared. At first his family was alarmed and then told the police that they "knew where he was and that he would return as soon as he had recuperated." He had gone to Washington, D.C. His mother in law, Sarah Price (now widowed and remarried to George North) said he had business troubles, and that he was very sensitive. Rumors of "domestic infelicity" were simply not true.
Edwin sent a wire to his father to tell him that he was in Washington, D.C. with his sister "struggling with an invention, to perfect which he sequestered himself" - he had gone to Washington to secure a patent. A search of Google Patents failed to turn up any patents by anyone by that name (or variants thereof).
Five years later, Edwin walked into McAleenan's pawn shop in Sands Street, and bought a pistol. He went home and shot himself, distressed over money he had lost in gambling. He had given up Sarah Price's drugstore/oculist's establishment "which has been a landmark...for the past half-century," because he had lost so much money through lack of attention to business.
The Eagle mentioned that among Edwin's other former glories (such as being a Freemason), he had attended Plymouth church - that of the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher - a man who had also had some well-publicized career and personal troubles.
Image is of Sarah Price's advertisement in the 1862 Lain's Brooklyn City Directory.
SOURCES
Brooklyn General and Business Directory 1840-41, T. and J.W. Leslie and W. F. Chichester, 1840, link here.
The Brooklyn City and Kings County Record, 1855. (Brooklyn: Wm. H. Smith, At the Office of the City Directory, Montague hall, Court Street City Hall Square).
Lain's Brooklyn City Directory, 1862.
John Price household, 1860 U.S. Census, Brooklyn Ward 4, Kings, NY; p. 910, #475/705, NARA Series M653, Roll 764.
Sarah Price household, 1870 U.S. Census, Brooklyn Ward 4, Kings, NY; p. 424, #953/1352, NARA Series M593, Roll 947.
Sarah Ensell household, 1880 U.S. Census, Brooklyn Ward 4, Kings, NY; p. 493, #112/133, NARA Series T9, Roll 841.
John E. Ensell household, 1880 U.S. Census, Brooklyn Ward 4, Kings, NY; p. 493, #125/133, NARA Series T9, Roll 841.
"Hasn't Been Seen Since," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 14, 1885, p. 4.
"Coming Home; Druggist J.Edwin Ensell Shows Up In Washington," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 1, 1885, p. 6.
"To End His Life; Dr. Ensell, Of High Street, Makes the Attempt," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 15, 1890, p. 6.
2 Comments:
Poor Sarah; to have built up her business in a male dominated world only to have her own son lose it.
Finding a women in this line of work is very difficult. The story is great and of course deals with my favorite fashion accessory.
fM
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