135 Elfreth's Alley

Look at the small passageway between Houses 131 and 129 next door.  This is simply an enlarged version, big enough to accommodate cart, as well as pedestrian, traffic.  Because of its distinctive arch, House 135 has long been known as the “Coach House.” In fact, there was a restaurant here by that name in the 1950s and 1960s.

House 135 was erected in 1805 by French distiller John Angue.  Angue’s brick shops replaced a frame (wood) building built by Jeremiah Elfreth’s grandson, a cabinetmaker, in 1796.  Before that, the land was used to access the stables at the back of the Elfreth family property on Second Street north of the Alley.

While not much is known about the people who rented the house from Angue, the later inhabitants of House 135 provide insight into late 19th and early 20th century life on the Alley.  The O’Drain family owned House 135 for several decades during this period.  Alexander O’Drain was a fireman and had lived in House 129 before purchasing House 135; he lived here with his seven sons and two daughters until his death in 1906.  O’Drain’s sons, many of whom became policemen and firemen, continued living in the house with their extended families through the 1920s.

The recently accessible 1930 census revealed the first African-American family to live on the Alley here in House 135.  While there is evidence of free Blacks living on the street during the Colonial period, this is the first mention of an entire family living together.  North Carolinian Robert Morton, who worked as a laborer in a shovel factory, rented the house with his wife and daughter.  They also had four boarders, all African-American, living with them.  One, Charles Wilson, was a newlywed who also worked in the shovel factory; another, Nettie McRae, was a single mother who supported her infant son by working in a factory that manufactured clothes.