This was Miss Octavia Fredericks, the mysterious "Cat Lady of Hoyt Street." Her story, a curious blend of wealth, reclusion, and feline superstition, culminated in a fatal fire on Thanksgiving Day in 1912.
Octavia lived in just a few small rooms at 24 Hoyt Street, a property she owned but had let fall into disrepair. Around her, Downtown Brooklyn was booming. The massive Abraham & Straus department store (the predecessor to today's Macy's) was gobbling up block after block, its grand architecture dwarfing Octavia’s little frame house.
But Octavia stubbornly held on. A recluse and a cripple, she hadn't left her apartment in years. Her only regular visitor was the barber from downstairs, Anthony Oreckinto. He was her link to the outside world, and her official cat-procurer.
"She was superstitious about twelve cats," the barber later told the New York Herald. "She did not care what kinds of cats there were as long as there were twelve of them, and many times a day she would round them up and take roll call... If one cat died, I’d have to get her another one."
Despite living in squalor—her rooms were reportedly impassable, filled with rubbish, old cans, and bottles—Octavia was sitting on a goldmine. Her family had once been prominent Brooklyn landowners, and she held the life rights to a valuable corner property at Hoyt and Livingston Streets. Estranged from her siblings after a quarrel over their inheritance, she lived a lonely, land-rich, but cash-poor existence, with only her feline dozen for company.
A Thanksgiving Day Tragedy
On Thanksgiving night, November 28, 1912, disaster struck. Around 6 p.m., a patrolman saw flames licking the windows of Octavia’s second-floor apartment and pulled the alarm.
Firefighters from Engine 126 on State Street (a company still active today as Engine 226!) rushed to the scene. They broke down the door to find the apartment thick with black smoke. After dousing the flames, they were met on the street by neighbors asking if they had found "old Mrs. Fredericks."
The firemen went back in. They found Octavia, about 72 years old, in her chair near the stove. The official cause of death was smoke inhalation. In the wreckage, they also found the bodies of four of her cats.
A Whisker of Suspicion
The tragedy took a suspicious turn when the barber, Anthony Oreckinto, stepped forward with a stunning claim. He told police that Octavia had made a will leaving him everything. Her property was valued at over $150,000—an astronomical sum in 1912.
"She told me that I had been her good friend for many years," Anthony claimed, adding that she'd had a "bitter quarrel with her relatives." He said he managed her finances and was the only person she allowed inside.
But Octavia’s estranged family immediately contested the will—a few hastily penciled lines on a piece of paper. They argued that Octavia was not of sound mind, pointing to her hoarding and animal obsession as proof. The fire itself was also investigated, as some noted her clothes smelled of kerosene, though the official cause was ruled an accident—perhaps from a tipped-over lamp or stray coals from the stove.
The Great Cat Hunt of Downtown Brooklyn
And what about the surviving cats? In the chaos of the fire, the eight remaining felines had fled. A week later, during the bustling Christmas shopping season, they were making a nuisance of themselves around the Fulton Street department stores.
The SPCA was called in to conduct what one newspaper dubbed "a lively cat hunt," rounding up the terrified survivors who had lost their home and their mistress. It was a strange, sad final chapter for Octavia's feline family.
Ultimately, the court sided with Octavia’s family. In 1913, a judge declared the barber's will invalid, and the valuable Hoyt Street property was turned over to her brother and sister. They didn't hold it for long.
The push for modernization was relentless. By 1928, all of Octavia’s old, shabby buildings were demolished to make way for a grand Art Deco addition to the ever-expanding Abraham & Straus.
So, the next time you’re shopping in Downtown Brooklyn, take a moment at the corner of Hoyt and Livingston, right by the entrance to Macy’s. You are standing on the very spot where a recluse with a secret fortune once lived, laughed, and took a daily roll call of her twelve loyal cats, a tiny, defiant holdout against the city roaring to life around her.
