Daniel Melanchthon Tredwell (July 26, 1826 – November 10, 1921) was an American attorney, businessman, book collector, and author.
The son of Daniel Tredwell and Susan Ellsworth,[1] Tredwell was a native New Yorker and graduate of Columbia before it was Columbia.[2] His first job out of college was as a reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Freeman, a newspaper edited by Walt Whitman.[2] Tredwell initially worked as a lawyer and chief clerk of the Supreme Court of Brooklyn.[2] A bibliophile and book collector, in his spare time he wrote several books, often about the history and natural history of the greater New York area, with a focus on Long Island and Brooklyn.[2][3] In later life he worked as an executive for various title insurance companies.[3] He died in Brooklyn at the age of 95 and is buried in Greenfield Cemetery at Hempstead, Long Island.[1][4] Tredwell was predeceased by his wife and survived by a daughter, Ida Tredwell Butler.[5]
There is a painting of Tredwell by William Merritt Chase in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[6]