“And help us to be true to the best that we know with hearts courageously hungry for the truth.”

Minneapolis Star | 2 January 1926

Minneapolis Star | 4 July 1941

Mrs. J Foster Terry SH to JH

January 1926

personal collection

Dear Jess:

I’m so glad you wrote me, and in the way you did, about Bill Foster’s going. In a cowardly way I had not written to his wife because I had not “lifted up mine eyes” and because I had been thinking in an all too human way only of the lonely, lonely way she must walk alone hereafter and the two babies she must lead and teach without his wise and loving help. I had written to his sister Maria because I knew what it meant to lose a well loved Brother and I knew where comfort lay.

Do you write to Mrs. Bill. You always had the gift of understanding sympathy. Their address is 304 Ontario St. SE, Minneapolis. I had a card at Xmas time with snapshots of the 2 little girls—one 3 ½ and one 8 months. Among other things it said “Bill is getting positively fat.” I had written them and told them we missed them last summer but that next summer they’d surely be here and we’d gather with the Jesse Halseys and have an old time reunion.

I understand he was take with pneumonia Xmas Eve and went to the hospital and daily the family here got telegrams of his condition. Pleurisy

--> set in and he died January 2^nd. Jo was teaching in the university too—I’m not sure what—psychology maybe too. One time she had charge of the correspondence courses they gave. She plans I hear to finish the year there. His body was not brought on—it was his wish that he be cremated and that to the family here was an added horror. His mother (so Mrs. Mourse Lafevre told me) is deeply religious and believed it for the best—only the cremation was a sort of sacrilege. (Personally I would not have been surprised had he willed his body to a hospital.) And unfortunately the cremation has given rise to some most unfounded conclusions. Cousin Amie Goodale in telling mother said, “But what could one expect for he did not believe in the resurrection.” I thought if that were neighborhood gossip you might through cousin Ida Fordham be able to slay it. No man who tho’t as deeply and thoroughly as he, could be unreligious. If his views were not all entirely orthodox, they were none the less sincerely religious and every one fought out with a fierce hatred for hypocrisy. Long ago he showed me a prayer he wrote. I learned it at the time and so to my regret did not write it down. Now I can recall but one line: “And help us to be true to the best that we know with hearts courageously hungry for the truth.”

If you have not written his family (in Water Mill) you might stress that religious side—for in your talk with him that evening here you found nothing but reverence I am sure.

I shall be glad to have your calendar—as you know.

Love from the Terrys to the Halseys,

Bess

P. S. I hope Helen is so pep-y and huskey that she is a regular gad-about. Did I tell you on the Xmas card of the twins we are waiting for in the spring? Little Pallas Napoleon and Cassandra Boneparte Fordham Terry, named for my great-great Aunts.

-->

"rendering up her life in homage for the gift of motherhood"

Southampton Press | 25 March 1926 |Elizabeth Fordham Terry

The community was greatly saddened by the death last week of Mrs. Elizabeth Fordham Terry, wife of J. Foster Terry. Her death followed a short illness which suddenly developed serious complications, and she passed away Friday evening at the Southampton Hospital, where she had been taken that morning. She was 37 years of age.

The funeral services were held at her home on Hildreth Street Monday afternoon and were attended by a large number. The Rev. Jesse Halsey of Cincinnati conducted the services, Mr. Halsey having come for the purpose as a warm friend of the family.

Mrs. Terry was greatly beloved in the village and her death is a sad blow to a large circle of friends. Her bright and inspiring personality and her unfailing consideration for others made her a welcome addition to every group. She possessed a brilliant mind and had unusual gifts as a conversationalist and a writer. She received her education at the Southampton High School, from which she graduated in 1905, and at Vassar College, graduating from the latter institution with the class of 1910. After graduation she taught for several years in the Bancroft School at Haddonfield, N.J.

During the World War, Mrs. Terry served as the local district nurse for the Red Cross. In the epidemic of influenza, he sympathetic ministrations and faithful services endeared her to the unfortunate families where the disease was rife, and there are many of our foreign-born citizens who expressed their grief at her passing.

She is survived by her husband and by two young children, Malcolm and Helen; one sister, Mrs. Albert Burr Craft of Yonkers; and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank T. White. Her only brother, Malcolm R. White, was killed in France during the war.

In a beautiful tribute to the deceased, the Rev. Mr. Halsey said in part, “This earthly tenement was the habitation of one of the finest spirits I have ever known. Her loss to this community seems irreparable. She lent her aid to every good word and work. Many families of our less-fortunate citizens remember her many kindnesses in time of need.

A brilliant intellect; a remarkably balanced and sane outlook on life, a keen sense of humor—these and many other rare qualities of mind and heart endeared her to a  large circle of friends [indecipherable] when we cry, “To what purpose is this waste” can mean, but one [indecipherable] meaning [indecipherable] ever. It means that out beyond the Mystery there is some other room of our Father’s House where character and capacity are valued and where high service is to be performed.

While our presence and our poor words try to express our sympathy with this household, we renew our Faith in the Life Immortal, whose portal we call death, more homelike seems the vast Unknown since she has entered there.

“I have always thought of Malcolm White as the reincarnation of Captain George, and the faith, and courage of the soldier as he “went West” is paralleled in his sister, who with a smile upon her lips went out unafraid, rendering up her life in homage for the gift of motherhood.”

“One who never turned the back

But marched breast forward.

Never doubted clouds would break.

Held, we fall to rise, and baffled

To fight better; sleep to wake.”

"there are hair cloth trunks which will give forth costumes of past generations"

“With rich local history surrounding every American village or country, it is a great pity not to make your own pageant and present to the people pictures from the pages of their own living history which shall give to every child present some understanding of his goodly heritage. The local history of every village is so related to the national history that it is possible to gather outstanding facts of the town history and give them a national significance. There are always old people who can tell you what happened in their grandfather’s time. There are further sources of information to be found in church records, town records, old diaries, old account books, even; and sometimes a chronicle of events compiled by some local historian is available. There are attics which contain spinning wheels, quilting frames, candle moulds; there are hair cloth trunks which will give forth costumes of past generations; there are woodsheds in which lie dusty vehicles. All these can help to make vivid many an event of long ago.” -- "The Historical Pageant in the Rural Community" by Abigail Fithian Halsey published in the Cornell Extension Bulletin, June 1922, Issue No. 54, Publishedby the  the New York State Collegeof Agriculture at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

Southampton Taxpayers Amazed at the Advance in Property Valuations

"Vacation in the East"

1 August 1934 | Cincinnati Enquirer

"Moving Pictures for Thanksgiving."

The Expositor | November 1918

"The history of a typical American village from the coming of the Puritans to the Civil War. (Illustrated by Pathe Moving Pictures of the historical pageant given at Southampton, L. I., last summer in commemoration of the 275th anniversary of the founding of the town. The ancestors of the minister of this church were among these immigrants.)

"Through a rich earth / Mankind still finds reward for labor done"

"Indian Deed of December 13, 1640"

Southampton | 1640-1940

Southampton | 1640-1965

Pyrrhus Concer Home

And today, and action you can take. 

24 July 1899 | Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Big Block Party At Southampton

25 August 1920 | Brooklyn Daily Eagle

275th Anniversary of Southampton | 1915

 

"the place for their descendants to possess both freedom of body and mind--Long Island."

Brooklyn Daily Eagle | 14 March 1915

Yale Pageant | 1916

24 Aug 1916 | Toledo Blade

Francis Hartman Markoe

11 Sept. 1935 | Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Abigail Fithian Halsey | 1873-1946

Southampton Press

Friday, Sept. 27, 1946

Miss Abigail F. Halsey Dies Following A Short Illness

Miss Abigail Fithian Halsey, teacher and historian, widely-known for her production of historical pageants, and author of Southampton’s Tercentenary Pageant, passed away Tuesday afternoon after a short illness.

Born October 2^nd, 1873, the daughter of Charles Henry Halsey and Melvina Terry Halsey, she was a direct descendant of one of Southampton’s earliest families; her brother is the Rev. Jesse Halsey, D.D., professor of Pastoral Theology at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, for 28 years pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati. She leaves, besides her brother, three nieces and three nephews: Mrs. Gerald Adams, Mrs. Joseph Haroutunian, Mrs. James Van Allen, Harry Halsey White, Commander Edward P. White, Charles H. Halsey.

Funeral services were held yesterday afternoon at 3:30 o’clock at her home, North Main Street.

***

A Distinguished Southamptoner

With the death of “Miss Abbie” as she was affectionately known by everyone, Southampton, where she has been a source of wise counsel in historical fields for over two decades, loses a splendid woman and a true “lady of the old school.” Her poise, kindliness and dignity marked her so. Though more of the old school she had kept abreast with the modern and this, with her sense of humor, endeared her to young and old alike among her host of friends.

She and her sister, the late Mrs. Edward P. White, who wrote under the pen name Lizbeth Halsey White, early recognized the richness of Southampton’s history and preserved its traditions for future generations in their writings.

Miss Halsey was especially well-known for her dramatic accomplishments as author and director of historical pageants. For her ability to in this field she was sought, not only by her home village, but by distant communities wishing to depict their historical background in pageantry. These included extension work through Cornell University where many up-State County Fairs featured pageants of local history done by their own people, rather than commercial entertainment. At the request of Governor Al Smith, Miss Halsey wrote and produced the Pageant at Kingston to mark the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution.

Women's Community House | Ithaca, N.Y. | 1921

Educated at Newburgh (NY) girls school, New Paltz Normal and Columbia, Miss Halsey taught not only at Southampton, but in Westfield, N.J., at The Boy’s School, Haverford, Pa., the Northrup School in Minneapolis, and helped found the University School in Cincinnati. She founded the Community House at Ithaca, N.Y., which next week celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary (wheres he was to have been the guest of honor).

**4 August 1922 |Ogdensburg Republican-Journal

Abigail Fithian Halsey publishes Bulletin on Pageants with NY State College of Agriculture in Ithaca

Montauk Community Church Dedicated

7 Sept 1929 | Brooklyn Life

The Montauk Community Church building was dedicated last Sunday afternoon. A large congregation was present at the dedication service. The Rev. Jesse Halsey, D.D., of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Southampton was the chief speaker.

Dr. Halsey is a one-time Southampton boy, the Halsey home having been built something more than a hundred years ago and having been used by the successive generations. Dr. Halsey is now a pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. While a student at Princeton College he became interested in Sir Wilfred Grenfell's work in Labrador and went with him into the north during his college years. After studying at Princeton Seminary and later at Union Theological Seminary, he went again with Dr. Grenfell into Labrador, this time taking with him Mrs. Halsey, and staying there for three years. From this work he went to Cincinnati, and has been there ever since. His message at the dedication was that of one who knows and is deeply interested in Montauk, and came also from the experience of a man who has traveled widely and has become well known both as a missionary and as a pastor.

"Baccalaureate sermon will be preached by Rev. Jesse Halsey"

8 June 1915 | Brooklyn Daily Eagle

W.W. Bishop and Alma Jagger Married

Brooklyn Eagle 26 June 1915

"Mr. Halsey will enter Princeton University in the fall"

24 June 1902 | Brooklyn Daily Eagle