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The Manor

Page 58

by Mac Griswold


  ______. “Black Inhabitants of Shelter Island from First Settlement to Manumission.” Long Island Forum 37, no. 8 (Aug. 1973): 146–53.

  ______. “Blacks on Long Island: Population Growth in the Colonial Period.” LIHJ 11, no. 1 (Autumn 1974): 35–46.

  ______. “Shelter Island and Barbados.” America: History and Life. Haverford College: 2004.

  Woudstra, Jan. “What Is Edging Box? Towards Greater Authenticity in Garden Conservation Projects.” Garden History 35, no. 2 (Winter 2007): 229–42.

  Wrightson, Keith. Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain, 1470–1750. London: Penguin Books, 2002.

  Wulf, Karin A. “‘My Dear Liberty’: Quaker Spinsterhood and Female Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania.” In Women and Freedom in Early America, edited by Larry D. Eldridge, New York: New York University Press, 1997, 83–108..

  Yamin, Rebecca, and Karen Bescherer Metheny, eds. Landscape Archaeology. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997.

  Acknowledgments

  “The hardest thing about writing is writing,” as the late Nora Ephron so truthfully said. My friends, colleagues, mentors, allies, and family have been partners throughout years of researching, writing, and rewriting this book, and I am so grateful to them all.

  First, thanks go to the University of Massachusetts archaeology team, Stephen A. Mrozowski, Katherine Howlett Hayes, David Landon, Heather Trigg, and Dennis Piechota, who grounded my work in the manor’s soil. For intellectual guidance and friendship, I owe much to Herbert S. Klein, David Harris Sacks, Karen Ordahl Kupperman, John Wood Sweet, Robert Hefner, Jennifer Anderson, and Philip Morgan, who all contributed important pieces of the puzzle or a path to follow. For details of Sylvester Manor’s history, I thank Michael Austin, Therese O’Malley, David Jacques, Elizabeth Terese Newman, Dean F. Failey, Frederick H. Smith, Marley R. Brown III, Martha McCartney, Martha Saxton, Walter Woodward, Antonia Booth, Carrie Rebora Barratt, Gaynell Stone, Margaret Brucia, Jason Green, the late Eben Case, Jennifer Snodgrass, John Thornton, Peter Benes, the Lamont family, Jonathan Foster, Henry B. Hoff, Andrew H. Lee, Kwame Anthony Appiah, John G. Waite, Robert Forbes, David Lichtenstein, Reginald H. Metcalf Jr., Charla E. Bolton, Gordon Brindley and Yvonne Brindley, Richard Westmacott, and Elisabeth Sifton. For help in Barbados I thank Jerome S. Handler, Karl S. Watson, Harold Hart, and the staff of the Shilstone Memorial Library at the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. For legal questions I turned to Judges Michael Boudin and Pierre N. Leval, and to Daniel Hulsebosch and Faren Siminoff. In the Netherlands, Victor Enthoven and Jessica Dijkman were my guides.

  Organizations of many kinds supported this project, including the Sylvester Manor Project Committee, especially Ashton Hawkins, Jane Gregory Rubin, and Joan Kaplan Davidson. Guidance from Bonnie Burnham and Frank Sanchis at the World Monuments Fund was invaluable. Charles Birnbaum and Nord Wennerstrom of the Cultural Landscape Foundation have freely shared their intellectual capital with me. Generous grants to study the manor house, to organize and preserve the family papers, to speed the slow progress of my writing, and to improve the book were provided by the J. M. Kaplan Fund and the Furthermore Program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund, the Interamericas Program at the Reed Foundation, the Jessica E. Smith and Kevin R. Brine Charitable Trust, the Moore Charitable Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the Arthur Ross Foundation. I thank Elizabeth Barlow Rogers and the Foundation for Landscape Studies for recognizing my work on Sylvester Manor with a Place Keeper Award. A Guggenheim Fellowship permitted me to travel to Amsterdam and Ghana.

  At libraries and institutions of learning, my heartiest thanks go to Carol Mandel, dean of the Division of Libraries at New York University; to Marvin Taylor, director of the Fales Library and Special Collections at NYU; to Colin Wells and Noah Gelfand; and to Lisa Darms and Liza Harrell-Edge. Thanks also go to the Atlantic World Workshop at NYU, where I met Kristin Block, Lauren Benton, Jenny Shaw, Christian Crouch, Martha Hodes, Michael Gomez, and Nina Dayton, among others; and to NYU’s Sylvester Manor Working Group, especially Karen Kupperman and Patricia Crain. I’m grateful to Plimoth Plantation’s John Kemp; to Amy Rupert at the Rennselaer Institute Archives and Special Collections; to Anita Israel at Longfellow House; and to the staffs of the Library of the Religious Society of Friends, London; the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College; and the Barbados National Archives.

  For opportunities to present ongoing research, I thank among others the American Historical Association, the American Antiquarian Society, the Society of Architectural Historians, the Decorative Arts Trust, Longfellow House/Washington’s Headquarters, the Brooklyn Historical Society, Wyck Historic House/Garden/Farm, and the Atlantic History Program at Johns Hopkins University.

  For research, support, and long-standing friendship I thank Louise Green, Beverlea Walz, Phyllis Wallace, Nanette Breiner-Lawrenson, and Belle Lareau at the Shelter Island Historical Society. At Sag Harbor’s John Jermain Memorial Library I single out Catherine Creedon, Patricia Brandt, Susan Mullen, and Susan Smyth. I thank Hannah and the late Frederick Dinkel for access to their collection of Sylvester family papers. At the East Hampton Library, thanks go to Diana Dayton Deichert, Gina Piastuck, and Steve Boerner; at the Newport Historical Society, to Bert Lippincott III; at the Massachusetts Historical Society, to Anna Cook. Major thanks also go to the New York Botanical Garden, especially Gregory Long, Todd Forrest, and Wayne Cahilly; to the John Carter Brown Library, especially Norman Fiering, director and librarian emeritus; to Paul Gunther at the Institute for Classical Architecture & Classical America; and to Wendy Schnur at the G. W. Blunt Library, Mystic Seaport. Conversations with Lynda Kaplan and Richard Rabinowitz at the American History Workshop and with Dr. Rex M. Ellis, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs for the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian Institution, were critical.

  First among friends and companions I thank Frederick Seidel, who rowed me up Gardiners Creek, made electrifying suggestions for each chapter, and found the patience and love to read the manuscript at least three times. Vast gratitude also goes to my readers Douglas Brenner, Carol Williams, Steven Kossak, Christopher Mason, Richard Rabinowitz, Lorin Stein, Anne Isaak, Catherine Cochran, and Wendy Gimbel. For insights, wisdom, criticism, comfort, useful introductions, good food and drink—and encouragement—I am also indebted to the late Richard Poirier, Jamaica Kincaid, Sarah Plimpton and Robert Paxton, Susan Weitz, Joe Lelyveld, Richard Brookhiser, Tim Lovejoy, Christian Brechneff, Susan Rowland and the late Charles P. Sifton, the late Robert Hughes, Alan Kriegel, Victoria Hughes, Johnnie Moore, Isabel Fonseca, Liz Addison, Miguette Chapin, Douglas Reed and Will Makris, Sam Sifton, Eleanor Weller Reade, William Buice, Grace Tankersley and Nicholas Quennell, Barbara Goldsmith, Suzanne McNear, Leslie Close, Jeanie Blake, Barbara Dixon, Esther and Chris Pullman, Susana Leval, Peter Andersen, Barbara Paca, Vivienne Simpson, and Barbara Schwartz. I cherish my New York City book group, especially Susan Galassi, Anna Fels, and Anka Begley, for help and encouragement. In England I happily owe debts to Janet Kennish, Elizabeth and Lawrence Banks, Peter Banks, Jane Brown, and Patrick Driscoll.

  At my swift and elegant publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, profound thanks go to Jonathan Galassi, who rescued the book and always believed in it; and to my remarkable editor, Courtney Hodell, who found the book in the book; and to those who helped it become a reality, including Mark Krotov, Taylor Sperry, Susan Goldfarb, Debra Helfand, Emily DeHuff, Charlotte Strick, Jonathan Lippincott, and Sarita Varma, among others. Andrew Bush’s photographs powerfully present the manor’s lights and shadows. For technical support I thank Charles Grubb, Sheryl Heller, and Michael Avery. Frances Tenenbaum at Houghton Mifflin was the first to recognize Sylvester Manor as a stirring subject. For encouragement and standing by me in every crisis, I salute Jeff Posternak and Andrew Wylie at the Wylie Agency.

  On Shelter Island, my profound gratitude goes first to the late Alice and Andrew Fiske
, and to their daughters Lissa and Sue, and then to Bennett Konesni for breathing new life into this old place, Edith Gawler for her grace and draftsmanship, Susan Brady for encouraging children’s programs, Leila Ostby for sharing family memories, and most of all to Eben Fiske Ostby, who has preserved his family’s history by generously giving it away. I hail Rose Wisseman and Gunnar Wisseman for their stories and stewardship. I also thank the board of Sylvester Manor Educational Farm, especially David Kamp, Sara Gordon, and Edith Landeck, and the staff, Cara Loriz, Maura Doyle, and Melissa Mundy.

  Last, for their love and support, I thank my daughters, Anna Brown Griswold and Belinda Griswold and her husband, Robert Lee; my brothers, Christopher and Dennis Barlow Keith and their spouses and children; and my Shelter Island family, Felicity Seidel and Daniel, Daisy, and Enzo Siegel. I dedicate this book to my granddaughter, Emma Tara Johnston Lee, now two years old, counting on her to be a lover of history someday.

  Index

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  Abbey (enslaved on Shelter Island)

  abolitionists

  accents

  Adam, Charlton

  Adams, Samuel

  Adams, William

  Addison, Joseph

  African Burial Ground

  Agassiz, Louis

  Ainsworth, Henry

  Albion’s Triumph (Townshend)

  alchemy

  alewives

  Algonquian Indians; civil society standards met by; language of; witchcraft and

  “American Golgotha”

  American Revolution

  Amsterdam; English merchants in; first English church of; flooding in; houses of; immigration to; religious pamphlets of; Sylvester family in; yellow brick in

  Amsterdam, Fort

  Anabaptists

  Ancient Church

  Andros, Edmund

  anencephaly

  Anglicans

  Antinomian Controversy

  antislavery laws

  Antwerp

  apprentices

  Aquidneck Island

  archaeology

  Arkansas, University of

  Arnold, Nathaniel

  Arnold family

  Asante fetish shrine museum (Besease)

  asylums

  Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Curtin)

  Atlantic World

  Autumn (Hollar)

  Bacon, Francis

  Bacon, Henry

  Bailyn, Bernard

  bale seals

  Banda

  Banks, Peter

  baptism

  Baptism of the Calves

  Baptists

  Barbadian National Archive

  Barbados; deforestation of; food theft on; George Fox in; land value on; plantation layout on; population of; slave rebellions on; slavery on

  Barbados Council and Assembly

  Barclay, Robert

  Barons, Richard

  Barratt, Carrie

  barrel staves

  bathing

  Battle of Long Island

  beans

  beer

  Berkeley, Elizabeth

  Berkeley, George

  Berkeley family

  Berkeley House

  Berkin, Carol

  Berlin, Ira

  Bermuda

  Besease

  Bible

  Biet, Antoine

  Binnen Amstel

  Black Bondage in the North (McManus)

  Blackburn, Joseph

  Black John

  Bland, John

  Block, Adriaen

  Block Island

  bloodroot

  Blunt Point, Va.

  Bonomi, Patricia

  Book of Common Prayer

  Book of Psalms

  Booth, John

  borametz

  Bosman, Willem

  Boston, Mass.

  Boston Massacre

  Boston Tea Party

  Bowne, John

  boxwoods

  Boyle, Robert

  Bradford, Hannah

  Bradford, William

  Brampton

  Brazil

  Brenner, Robert

  Brenton, William

  Brereton, William

  brickmaking

  bricks

  Brinley, Anne Wase

  Brinley, Francis; library of

  Brinley, Laurence

  Brinley, Thomas, Jr.

  Brinley, Thomas, Sr.; as auditor; death of; royal grant given to; as Royalist

  Brinley, William

  British Navigation Acts

  Brocksopp, Joan

  Brocksopp, Thomas

  Brooklyn Eagle

  Brooks, Preston

  Brown, Elizabeth Sylvester

  Brown, John

  Brown, Jonathan

  “Brownists”

  bubonic plague

  Buckingham, Duke of

  Budd, Richard

  Bull, Ole

  Bullock, Lady

  Burford

  burning charcoal

  Burns, Anthony

  Burroughs, Thomas

  burying ground

  Bushman, Richard

  Bushnell, Rebecca

  Butler, Jon

  buttons

  callaloo

  cane fires

  Canne, John

  Canonicus

  Cape Coast Castle

  Carey, Mary Sylvester

  Carey, Matthew

  Carleton, Guy

  Cartwright, Isaac

  Cartwright, Mercie (Nathaniel’s sister)

  Case, Eben

  cassava

  cassones

  Catholicism

  Cato (enslaved on Shelter Island)

  cattails

  cattle

  Cautantowwit

  Cavaliers

  Center for Archaeological Research

  ceramics

  changelings

  Charles I, King of England; execution of

  Charles II, King of England

  Chaucer, Geoffrey

  Checkanoe

  Chesebrough, David

  Chesebrough, Margaret “Molly” Sylvester; portraits of

  childbirth

  childhood

  Church of England

  cider

  Cipolla, Craig

  Civil Rights Act of 1964

  Civil War, English

  Civil War, U.S.

  clay pipes

  Clerkenwell

  clothing; washing of

  clove pinks

  cobbled paving

  Coddington, Anne Brinley

  Coddington, William; house of; slaves of

  cogges (ships)

  Coke, Edward

  Collins, Bernard

  Collins, John

  colonials

  Common Sense (Paine)

  compost pits

  Comus (enslaved on Shelter Island)

  Conanicut Island

  Conconchus

  Congress, U.S.

  Connecticut

  Constant Plantation

  Constitution, U.S.

  “contested spaces”

  Continental Congress

  Cooper, Gary

  Cooper, James Fenimore

  copper beads

  coral

  Corchaug Indians

  Cormantine, Fort

  Cormantines

  corn

  cornmeal

  cost of labor

  cotton

  Cotton, Grizzell Sylvester

  Cotton, John

  Cotton, Seaborn

  Council for Foreign Plantations

  Countrie House-Wife’s Garden, The (Lawson)

  Country of the Pointed Firs, The (Jewett)

  Cowpens, battle of

  Craddock, Matt
hew

  creationism

  “creolization”

  Croese, Gerard

  Cromwell, Oliver; New Model Army of

  Curaçao

  currency

  Curtin, Philip

  Curtis, Benjamin Robbins, Jr.

  Curtis, Benjamin Robbins, Sr.

  Curtis, George Ticknor

  Curtis, Mary Gardiner

  Cushing, Frank Hamilton

  Cuvier, Georges

  Dana, Lily

  Dana, Richard Henry, III

  Dana, Richard Henry, Jr.

  Dana, Rosamund

  Daniel, Stephen

  Darwin, Charles

  Datchet

  Davenport, James

  debt peonage

  de Carli, Denis

  Declaration of Independence

  deer

  Deetz, James

  deforestation

  dehydration

  Delaware

  de Marees, Pieter

  “deputy husbands”

  Derby, N. B.

  Dering, Charles T.

  Dering, Ester Sarah Havens

  Dering, Henry Packer

  Dering, Mary Sylvester; portraits of

  Dering, Nicoll H.

  Dering, Sylvester (Mary and Thomas’s son)

  Dering, Sylvester (Nicoll’s son)

  Dering, Thomas

  Dering family

  Dering Park

  de Vries, David Pieterzen

  Dido (enslaved on Shelter Island)

  Dircxsz, Sijmon

  Dirr, Michael

  diseases

  divining rod

  divorce

  dogs

  Donne, John

  Douglass, Frederick

  Downing, Edward

  dowry

  dowsing

  draft animals

  Drax, Henry

  Drax, James

  Dred Scott case

  Drury, Mary Catherine Fiske

  Duke’s Laws

  Durant, Henry Fowle

  Durant, Pauline

  Dürer, Albrecht

  Dutch East India Company

  Dutch Reformed Church

  Dutch West India Company

  Duvall, Ralph G.

  Dwight, Timothy

  Dyd’s Creek

  Dyer, Edward

  Dyer, Mary; Boston arrest of; execution of

  dysentery

  East Hampton

  Eaton, Amos B.

  Eaton, Theophilus

  Edict of Nantes

  Edmundson, William

  Edwards, Hepzibah

  electrical resistance testing

 

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