One of the most encouraging part of this visit to Long Island was my conversation with Georgette and Brenda. I met Tom Edmonds, executive director, Southampton Historical Museum the night before at the event on Shelter Island. Today, it has been restored and is open to the public as a museum filled with many of the same items that were owned by Thomas Halsey’s family and other relics. The Halsey House is believed to be the oldest English-style house in the state of New York. She, Phoebe, was scalped by Native Americans in 1649. Halsey also known as ‘Bull’ Halsey, he was a great Admiral of the Fleet (five-star) of World War II). He lived there with his wife, Phoebe Halsey, who bore him seven children, (a descendant of one child is William F. In 1648, Thomas Halsey built what stands today as the Halsey House, sometimes referred to as, “the Hollyhocks”. In the 1640s he was one of the first Englishmen to travel and settle the eastern end of Long Island. In 1630 Thomas Halsey sailed to the new world and was an original settler of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (now greater Boston). The heat in the space on this relatively mild day was bearable but I had the advantage of knowing that by the time of the sleepover later in the night, the temperature of the space would be more bearable and, unlike the real inhabitants of the space, I had the option to bail if necessary.

The mattresses where the four of us would sleep were already laid out on the floor.

The space was also adorned with replicas of clothing of the enslaved and trunks for storing items. One of the indentured servants had carved a drawing of a sailing vessel in the wall of his living space. The attic area was quite spacious in accordance with the size of the manor but one would have to take into account the number of people living in the space and the sounds created by both enslaved and free that would limit both parties from fully expressing themselves freely. One misstep could be catastrophic not to mention the punishment received for having such a mishap. One can only imagine negotiating these stairs that extended from the lower level of the house to the attic space and carrying items, a chamber pot or hot food, to accommodate the owners of the plantation. They were winding, narrow and almost straight up. Typically, the stairs that give access to and from this space are challenging and these certainly were.

I got to inspect the space in the attic of the manor where the enslaved would have stayed. I would see some of the participants at the manor house later. All of the seats were filled and to my surprise, the audience was quite evenly racially diverse.

Prior to the stay, the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, planned a lunch at a restaurant in Huntington Village. My first of three nights on Long Island, New York would be spent at the Joseph Lloyd Manor House. The seed of an idea of a collaboration between the three sites was then planted. I told him about my effort to come over to Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island and of my limited involvement in the Pyrrhus Concer House. When I saw him at the National Preservation Conference which was held in Savannah, GA in October 2014, we talked about the possibility of me coming to Long Island, New York for a sleepover in the Joseph Lloyd Manor House. Jason Crowley attended the College of Charleston and once worked at Magnolia Plantation where I now work part time.

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