Shelter Island is a relatively large island at the northeast end of Long Island. It was first purchased from the Indians in 1652 and passed through several hands before coming into the sole ownership of the Sylvester family who held it for several decades. Gradually, through bequest and sale, it was subdivided until 1730 when it was owned by twenty men who organized it into a town. The Presbyterians first established a meeting house there three years later, but the church of which the author was pastor was not established until 1808. This volume presents a detailed history of the town and of the latter church. Of particular interest are the genealogical tables which occupy about half of the volume, and present the ancestry and descendants of the founders of the town in 1730 and of the town, which had strong connections with Southold, Long Island, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, one of the founders (Samuel Hopkins) being of Mayflower descent.
Jacob E. Mallmann
(1899, 1990), 2016, 5½x8½, paper, index, 348 pp.
ISBN: 1556133359
101-M3335
