"Group posing on J. Lott's piazza, centered around woman in rocking chair; Labor Day 1887." - A.V. Martense

The scene for this Labor Day photo appears to be the front porch of the Judge John A. Lott House, facing Flatbush Avenue across from Erasmus High School (then Erasmus Hall Academy). The Lotts were one of several prominent families in Flatbush descended from the town's early Dutch settlers.

John Abraham Lott, born in Flatbush in 1806, was a lawyer and partner in the prominent Lott, Murphy & Vanderbilt firm, before his appointment to the Kings County Court bench in 1838. Lott was elected to the State Assembly in 1842, and served in the New York State from 1843 - 1846.

Following his stint as a legislator, Judge Lott returned to the bench in 1858 as an elected justice of the State Supreme Court, where he served until 1869. Following his retirement from political office and jurisprudence, Lott served as president of the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railway.

After Judge Lott's 1878 death, the house appears to have passed to his son, Jeremiah Lott. (The Lott family was well represented in Flatbush society — Robinson's 1890 atlas of Kings County shows no less than four Lott estates on this block of Flatbush Avenue, not to mention other properties further afield.)

During World War I, "very practical war work [was] being carried on at the Lott Mansion," including the administration of food conservation programs, according to a June 1918 Brooklyn Daily Eagle report. The house sustained damage in a 1923 fire, and was demolished shortly thereafter.