STREET SMART off East Putnam — Named after Jeremiah Milbank (1818–1884) who owned more than 300 acres of land from the Post Road to the Sound and from what is now Milbank Avenue to Indian Field Road. A wholesale grocer in New York, Jeremiah joined forces with Gail Borden in 1857 and financed what would become the Borden Condensed Milk Company. During the Civil War, they made a fortune overnight supplying canned milk to the Union Army. In 1863 Jeremiah invested in a new railroad company—the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. He soon became a full-time investment banker. Having married Elizabeth Lake from Greenwich, the wealthy New Yorker decided he wanted a summer home in the country and bought the land opposite the Second Congregational Church from the widow of New York politician William “Boss” Tweed. He and Elizabeth lived briefly in Tweed’s house, then sold it to H. O. Havemeyer, who moved the home a short distance to a lot where Temple Sholom now stands. The Milbanks then hired the New York architects Lamb and Rich to design their own magnificent mansion in the 1880s. (Their grandson Jeremiah Jr., a popular and respected Greenwich resident, was known for his generosity to the Greenwich Boys & Girls Club and other causes for disadvantaged youth.) The showcase property would pass down to the Milbanks’ daughter, Mrs. A. A. Anderson, and on to Elizabeth Milbank Ashforth, who died in 1930. She left it to her husband and their two children, Eleanor Mabel and Henry Adams Ashforth Jr. The magnificent iron gate erected by Jeremiah Milbank, which is emblazoned with the letter M, still stands at the intersection of Milbank Avenue and the Post Road.
Milbank mansion in the late 1930s
MILBANK A V EN U E
MILBANK AVENUE
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MOORELAND ROAD
Elizabeth Milbank Ashforth
off Round Hill Road — Named for Charles Arthur Moore (1880–1949), chairman of Manning, Maxwell and Moore, a metal tool manufacturer and a resident of Greenwich for fifty-four years. A man of many interests, Moore, a Yale graduate, went on Perry’s Arctic expedition that brought back the Cape York Meteorite in 1897 and joined Homer Davenport in Arabia in 1906 to import fine desert horses. He also served in the Balkan War and hunted big game around the world. He and his first wife, Annette Sperry, had three children; he and his second wife, Elizabeth Hyde, whom he married in Greenwich in 1920, had two. Moore’s 275-acre estate on Round Hill
Charles Moore
TOP: COURTESY OF HENRY A . ASHFORTH JR .; MIDDLE: CLYDE KISER; GATES: BOB CAPAZZO BOTTOM: COURTESY HISTORICAL SOCIET Y OF GREENWICH
MOORELAND ROAD