The Sylvesters of Shelter Island (repost and edited from March 15, 2015)
I may have many ancestors of whom I had been totally oblivious. And these were some of them, and I've become more interested in them since I now have a friend who used to live on Long Island (very near where Shelter Island is located.)
They
are part of my family tree of my gandmother, Ada Swasey Rogers.
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Shelter island is at far right (East) end of Long Island |
First, what is Shelter Island? Where? Long Island, New York State.
There
was also a movie by this name, which I know nothing about. If you wish to read all about the Sylvesters settling of Shelter Island, I'll copy from Wikipedia at the end of this post.*
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Shelter Island at eastern end of Long Island |
On Ancestry 11) Capt. Nathaniel Gascoigne Sylvester is listed as being born either in
1610
in
London City, Middlesex, England or between 1615-25 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands,
and dying on 13 Jun 1680
in
Sylvester Manor, Shelter Island, Suffolk County, New
York. I just discovered one of his brothers, Peter Sylvester, is listed as being born in Holland, as well as Nathaniel, and there are parents given which means I need to chase these new (to me) ancestors also.
In the Wikipedia quotation below, his birth was given as Rotterdam,
where he later did business in shipping. There are so few records, and yet he did have a family because his brothers were in business with him at times (and yes, I've seen these records).
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Impossibly small picture, no idea what the script at the bottom says...it may have been a fictionalized portrait from an Ancestry member, I don't know where it came from, sorry! |
His wife was 11) Grissell Brinley Sylvester (born 16 Jan 1635
in
Datchet, Buckinghamshire, England and died
13 Jun 1687 at
Sylvester Island, Suffolk, New York)
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signature of Grissell Brinley Sylvester |
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St Mary the Virgin, Datchet |
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Datchet Mead and Datchet Ferry in 1686 with Windsor Castle in the background |
Where Grissell Brinley Sylvester was born:
Datchet (Buckinghamshire, England) was a village on the River Thames, England. which developed because of its close proximity to Windsor and the ferry service which connected it to the main London road across the River Thames.
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Dachet Village center |
When Grissell was 17, she married Captain Sylvester, in 1652 on Shelter Island, NY.
Quote from Wikipedia on Shelter Island
In 1651 the island [was sold] to a group of Barbados sugar merchants for 1,600 pounds of sugar. Nathaniel Sylvester
(1610–1680), one of the merchants, was the island’s first white
settler. He was among a number of English merchants who had lived and
worked in Rotterdam
(where he was born) before going to Barbados. His connections there and
with the Netherlands helped him establish a far-flung trading
enterprise. On March 23, 1652, he made the purchase official by
agreement with Youghco (called Pogatticut), the sachem of the Manhanset tribe. The other owners, Sylvester’s brother Constant, and Thomas Middleton, never came to Long Island. In 1673 Nathaniel Sylvester claimed ownership of Shelter Island, Fishers Island, and other parts of Long Island.[3] By that time the Manhansett had declined in number and power.[4]
In 1652 Sylvester constructed a house on the island for his 17-year-old bride, Grissell
Brinley from London. Her mother was Anna (Wase) Brinley and her father
Thomas Brinley had been an auditor in the court of King Charles I. With
the Revolution he had lost his position; Grissell had gone to the colony
with her older sister Anne, who had married William Coddington, the governor of the Rhode Island colony.[4]
Archeological research in the 21st century has revealed there may have
been two early house complexes. The Sylvesters had eleven surviving
children. The more elaborate manor house, which survives today, was
built in 1733 by a Sylvester grandson [see photos above.]
The Sylvester estate was developed as a large provisioning plantation.
It raised food crops, as well as livestock for slaughter, sending casks
of preserved meats and other supplies to Barbados. Labor was provided
by a multicultural force of American Indians, enslaved Africans and English indentured servants. His descendants continued to use slaves on the plantation into
the 19th century. An estimated 200 blacks are buried at the Negro
Burying Ground on the North Peninsula.[4]
The Sylvesters gave shelter to many persecuted Quakers. Sylvester Manor stands today, just off New York State Route 114,
and is controlled by Sylvester descendants. All but about 24 acres of
the original thousands of acres have gone into other hands.[4]
Following the death in 1680 of Nathaniel Sylvester, Shelter Island
was divided between his two sons, Giles and Nathaniel II. In 1695, William Nicoll, a resident of Islip, bought from Giles the area now called Mashomack Nature Preserve. Three years later, in 1698, another newcomer, George Havens, bought 1,000 acres (4.0 km2)
from Nathaniel II. This parcel comprises what today is the Center; it
stretched south to South Ferry and west to West Neck Creek. Over time
these estates and parcels were split and divided by marriage and
purchase, so that by the early 18th century, 20 families lived on
Shelter Island. By order of the Provincial Government, the Town of
Shelter Island was established in 1730.
Note: Most of the photos are from public domain Ancestry collections, or Wikipedia.
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Photo of the Sylvester Manor as it is today. It was inhabited by family members for 12 generations, from 1652. |
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Sylvester Manor
as rebuilt in 1737, as it looks today (2016?) These windows have the
ability to go up from the bottom or down from the top. |
Ann Sylvester was daughter of Nathaniel and Grissell, and Ann married
Jonathan Bower, and their home looks like this (below)...also still standing.
Their home was the first built in Somerset, MA in 1723, not on Shelter Island.
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These are incredible windows! |
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Obviously the
window with the air conditioner is newer, but I notice the one with
diamond panes below it swings out to the side, of the older part of the
home. |
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