A Sycophant's Sycophant in Old New York

You could certainly make the argument that New York’s upper classes hardly want these days for personal attention, surrounded as they are by helicopter pilots who fly them to the Hamptons and private stylists who make haircut house calls. But even with today’s apparently recession-proof forms of conspicuous consumption, it would be hard to find a servant with the all-encompassing talents — the cradle-to-grave service — of Isaac H. Brown.

Mr. Brown, who died 130 years ago, was the longtime sexton at Grace Episcopal Church in Greenwich Village, an official title that belied his real role as the amanuensis to, and the arbiter of fashion in, Knickerbocker society. Working at the church from 1845 until his death in 1880, he was a handyman to the smart set: planning their weddings, arranging their soirées and seeing to their funerals when they died....