Whaling Days

by Mrs. Edward P. White | circa 1932

The years 1828-48 were the great whaling days on eastern Long Island. Sag Harbor or the Harbor of Sagg on the border of East and Southampton Towns became an important whaling port. New Bedford, Nantucket, and New London were the New England ports, but Sag Harbor stood first in New York State. Southampton, East Hampton, and Bridgehampton were all flourishing villages before the Harbor of Sagg boasted a house. Then in 1707, one Russell had locate don Hog Neck—now North Haven. But the Harbor of Sagg was so good that it soon forged ahead of North Sea Harbor in Southampton and North West Harbor in East Hampton. By 1770, we find inhabitants from both towns building a wharf there and we know that by 1795, Prime’s shipyard was established. It seems impossible to believe, but in 1790, Sag Harbor had more tons of square rigged vessels engaged in foreign trade than New York City. Her custom house was established in the same year as New York’s, 1788, and to Sag Harbor goes the honor of the first post office and the first newspaper on eastern Long Island.

This thriving town owed its growth to the deep sea whaling industry. Soon after the Revolution, Capt. Ephraim Fordham cruised for whales along the southern shore of Long Island. In 1786, we find ships which had outfitted in Sag Harbor docking in New London with 360 barrels of whale oil brought from Brazil. Heretofore trade had been in horses in the West Indies, and the New London Gazette of that day writes, “Now, my horse jockeys, beat your horses and cattle into spears, lances, harpoons, and whaling gear, and let us all strike out, many sprouts ahead, whales plenty, you have them for catching.” In 1817, we find the good ship Argonaut of Sag Harbor venturing around Cape Horn into the Pacific and brining home 1700 barrels of sperm whale oil from a voyage of twenty months. This gallant ship under Capt. Eliphalet Halsey had made as fair a voyage as that of Jason when in the older day he sailed in the Argo to find the golden fleece, for whale oil came to be the “golden fleece” that made the golden years for Sag Harbor and all of eastern Long Island.

Mr. Harry Sleight in his book, “The Whale Fishery on Long Island” says, “The Sag Harbor whalemen were the flower of eastern Long Island. Every boy’s ambition was to become a boatsteerer or master mariner, and a young man was not considered to have arrived at his majority until he had doubled Cape Horn. The whalers were a hardy, fearless lot of men, officers and crew sharing thrilling dangers and emerging form hair breadth escapes with the stoicism of red Indians. And they were ever to the fore when their country needed strong arms and cool heads, fired only by the flame of patriotism.” The whaling business made the whole countryside prosperous. By 1836, Sag Harbor owned twenty-one vessels, by 1843, more than twice that number. Business grew in all the trades related to whaling. “There were the coopers who made the barrels, the block and pump makers, the ship carpenters, sail makers, whaleboat makers, the masons for trypots, the stevedores, and all the other business that goes along with Provisioning a crew of a score to fifty men.” The great year was 1847, when the Sag Harbor fleet numbered fifty vessels with eleven more from Greenport registered in its custom house, bringing a million dollars into the town. At the lowest estimate one thousand able-bodied seamen were employed besides those who found work in the village in connections with the whaling industry.

All this made a busy and a lively town. To “go to the Harbor” in those days meant more to the boys and girls of Southampton than the first trip to New York does today. There were always ships going out to sea, always some young men of the family or neighborhood to “see off.” It was often a brother or a father, and we must remember that whaling voyages lasted two or three years. Duke Fordham’s Inn (where the Sea View House now stands) at the head of the Long Wharf was a merry place the night before a ship sailed, for the sailors not knowing whether they would ever see home and friends again made the most of their time.

And when a returning ship was sighted “down the bay!” “Flag on the mill, ship on the bay!” the old saying ran from mouth to mouth. People rushed to the wharf. Long before the ship docked the whole town had gathered to welcome her home. The ship owners, always a little more prosperously dressed than their neighbors, would get aboard a small sloop and go out to meet the ship. The crew, decked in their best with gifts from far away countries, were welcomed by their friends and loved ones. There was work for all in the discharging of the cargo of oil and bone that had to be transferred to packet slops and taken to New York for market. The ships had to be re-fitted and made ready to sail again shortly. Riggers, carpenters, masons, coppers, and caulkers, found ropes and spars to be replaced, timber and planks to be renewed and strengthened, try works to be set up, casks to be stowed and seams to be caulked. Painters swarmed over the hull, and grocers’ clerks and supercargoes ran to and fro, taking orders and delivering provisions and supplies for the outward voyage. But the returning sailors—Long Islanders, Portuguese, Kanakas, Figians, Malays, and Montauk and Shinnecock Indians—all good whalemen—walked the streets, flush with money, spending and giving away lavishly. They rolled along Sag Harbor’s Main Street, frolicking as they went, knowing their fun would soon be over and they would be aboard ship and sailing for the strange and unhomelike places of the earth.

For the whalers were explores as well. To them the coast of Patagonia and the Okhotsk Sea were as familiar as the coast of Connecticut. The whale ships Arabella, Daniel Webster, and Franklin were the first to make the long voyages in the Pacific Ocean.

Capt. Royce of the Sag Harbor whaling bark, Superior, was the first master to pass through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean. He found whales very tame and easy to spear. Other whalers followed, and the coast of the Kamchatka and the Sandwich Island became familiar words on the lips of seamen.

It was a Southampton man and Southampton crew who first entered the closed port of Japan—Capt. Mercator Cooper in 1845. He had rescued some Japanese sailors, and in his ship, Manhattan, took them into Yeddo. He was received courteously and allowed to remain four days, although he was requested never to come again.

In 1851, the bark Martha carried the first American consul to Japan.

It was the Sag Harbor whaleship Cadmus that brought Lafayette to the United State in 1824.

Many an old whaleman, sunning himself on his back porch, smoking his pipe, could tell us more thrilling tales than the movies could picture. But whaling was dangerous business and not many whalers lived to die in their beds. In Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor stands a beautiful whaling monument to record the names of six captains under thirty years of age who were lost at sea. The inscription reads: “To commemorate that noble enterprise, the whaling fishing, and a tribute of lasting respect to those both and enterprising shipmasters who periled their lives in a dangerous profession and perished in actual encounter with the monster of the deep. Entombed in the ocean, they live in memory.”

Roughly estimated, over one thousand brave men lost their lives every year in whaling trips, and those who returned alive had either grown rich or lost their all.

The whaling boon died in 1848, when gold was discovered in California, but many old houses standing today in Sag Harbor, East Hampton, Bridgehampton, and Southampton point back to whaling days. The Presbyterian churches in Southampton and Sag Harbor are monuments to these prosperous times. The Sag Harbor Church was built with a spire two hundred feet high, so high that the returning mariner could see it as he rounded Montauk Point. The hymn, “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me,” was written by a minister of this church, Rev. Edward Hooper, D.D. He wrote it in memory of those hardy adventurers whom he had seen “go down to the sea in ships.”

Courtesy Lizbeth Halsey White Files, Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center

How People Lived in Southampton in Colonial Times

by Mrs. Edward P. White | circa 1932

HOUSES—The people who first came to Southampton came from England, and the houses they built were English homes. The old Halsey house standing in the South End (the last old house on the right before you come to the beach) was probably built by Thomas Halsey, the pioneer, about 1660. The stairs go up a few steps and turn to the left twice before you reach the top. There is a huge chimney in the middle of the house with a big fireplace in the south room, also one in the north room, and another in the kitchen at the back. The south room in the old days was probably the “parlor” or the best room, a place nicely furnished with mahogany chairs and a large sofa. But it was rarely opened except for weddings and funerals. The north room was perhaps the parents’ bedroom. In it would be a great mahogany bed, large chests of drawers, a highboy, and a trundle bed which could be pushed under the big one by day.

THE KITCHEN—The kitchen was the place where the people really lived—a great big room—a large fireplace on one side and small windows on the other. Here the cooking was done over the open fire, the bread was baked in the brick oven built into the chimney, the meat was roasted on the spit that was kept turning in front of the glowing coals. The floor was covered with white sea sand, pushed into patterns with a home-made broom. A long table stood in the center of the room, around it stood wooden chairs painted yellow. A Big arm chair stood by the fireplace, and bright pewter platters and blue china dishes stood on the big dresser in the corner.

THE TRUNDLE BED—Beside the fireplace stood a heavy wooden cradle. In this all the babies of the family were rocked to sleep in their turn. If the fireplace was big enough (and it was), there was a little seat or settle inside it where the children could creep on wintry nights and by the hickory log blaze read in the Children’s Primer until Mother lighted the candle to put them to bed in the cold trundle bed in the next room. It was not so cold though, for there was a goose feather bed to sleep on and wool patchwork quilts to sleep under, and between the homespun linen sheets, she would place the warming pan for a few minutes. The warming pan, you know, was a copper bowl with a long wooden handle. Inside the bowl, Mother placed live coals from the hearth. Their warmth made the trundle bed as warm and cozy as the settle in the kitchen had been. The trundle bed fitted under the big bed only by day, at night it was pulled into the room and there little brother and sister slept “like tops” until morning.

The older children slept in what was called “up chamber.” This was often an attic finished with only a partition. In an old diary we read of a night when the girls “darst not sleep up chamber but came down stairs and slept by the fire. There was a great wind and hail with frightful gusts, we have hardly a dry place in the house.”

If you want to see one of these old houses kept just as it was in the old days, go to Home Sweet Home in East Hampton. It was built in 1684, and was later the home of John Howard Payne who wrote the song we love so well—

            “Mid pleasures and palaces tho’ we may roam—

            Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home.”

FARM LIFE—There was plenty to do in those days for girls and boys as well as men and women. Everything that people wore or ate had to be raised on the farm. A man might be a weaver, a magistrate, a minister, a doctor, a teacher, a tanner, a shoemaker, or a fisherman, he was first and always a farmer. The crops must be sown and cultivated and harvested, the cows must be fed and milked and butchered to provide food for his family. The flax must be sown and reaped to make linen, the sheep must be cared for and shorn to make wool for clothes. The cattle must be grown and butchered to make leather for shoes. This is what Judge Henry P. Hedges says about these old days, “From his head to his feet the farmer stood in clothes of his own and his wife’s make. The leather of his shoes came from hides of his won cattle; the lien and woolen were from produce he raised. The wife and daughters braided and sewed the straw hats on their heads. The fur cap was made from fox or chipmunk he had shot, and the feathers that filled the beds and pillow were plucked from his own geese. The pillowcases, sheets, and blankets, the quilts and the towels and the tablecloths were all homemade. The harness and the lines the farmer cut from hides grown on his own farm. Everything about his ox yoke except the staple and ring, he made. His whip, his oxgoad, his flail, ax, hoe, and fork handles were his own work.

The shoemaker came once a year to make the family’s shoes. The children went bare foot in summer time, and woe betide them when winter came if they did not have shoes left over from last year, for there were many families to visit, and sometimes the shoemaker was late in the season getting around to his customers. The stockings were all knitted by the women and girls of the family. A little girl of six was taught to knit and had her daily “stint” to finish at her grandmother’s side before she might go out to play. She usually began by knitting garters for her father, long narrow strips to hold up his woolen stockings, which he wore inside his boots.

OCCUPATIONS—There were many occupations which are forgotten today. Tallow dipping was a yearly task, when all the candles had to be made at home from the mutton tallow or the bayberries. When whale oil lamps were invented, it was a great help to the women of the household. An old saying runs:

            “Provide for thy tallow ere frost cometh in,

            And make think own candles ere winter begin.”

GIRLS’ WORK—The feather beds had to be stuffed from plucked goose feathers. Every girl had her feather beds and pillows to take to her new home when she married, also thirteen patchwork quilts she had pieced. The thirteenth was called “the bride’s quilt,” and when it was finished this was the announcement of her engagement. Spinning and weaving, too, were done by the women and girls. Often they took their spinning wheels with them when they visited. The weaving was done by the old girls and women, and must of course be done at home. There was all the cloth for men’s and women’s clothes as well as the table and bed linen for the household, and the beautiful woolen coverlids which each girl must have when she married.

BOYS’ WORK—The boys had all the tasks of the farm to learn from driving the cows to curing the beef for winter, from sowing the wheat to thrashing it and taking it to the watermill to be ground into flour, from cutting down the trees in the forest to fashioning the wood into his dwelling in the town.

PLAY—Although they worked hard, girls and boys had time for play. Old games like hop scotch, prisoner’s base, and tag come down to us from the early days. In old attics we find old skates that speak of jolly winter days on the ice and old sleigh bells that ring as clearly as every, though the merry straw-riders have long since gone their ways. Quilting bees and husking bees were times when whole neighborhoods came together, and barn raisings were signals for friends from other towns to “hitch up” and come over to Southampton and lend a hand. In the woods at Millstone Brook the oldest beech trees are still covered with initials of boys and girls who came to the church picnics there one hundred years ago. The greatest day of all was Town Meeting Day but the story of Town Meeting Day will have to be told in a chapter all its own.

Courtesy Lizbeth Halsey White Files, Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center.

Stories of the American Revolution

by Mrs. Edward P. White | circa 1932

Many local stories have come down to us from the days of the American Revolution. Tradition sometimes speaks louder than historical fact. With this in mind let us listen to some of the tales told by our great grandfathers, and remember that they heard them from their grandfathers who had really lived in Revolutionary times.

One of the most famous characters of those days was Pompey, a slave in the Mackie family. He was born in the colonies, was shrewd, a man of good sense, of much force, always ready to make or take a joke. Some English dragoons were quartered on his master in the winter of 1778. They made the mistake of insulting Pomp, and one day to get even he mixed pounded glass in the feed of some of the horses. Suddenly the horses were found dead in their stalls, Pomp was questioned by his master and cross-questioned by the officers, but was ignorant and innocent of any knowledge of the calamity. Sometime after the English troops had been withdrawn from these parts, Pomp’s master said to him one day, “Tell me, now, Pomp, what really happened to those horses.”

“Ground glass mighty good for hosses, Massa, ground glass mighty good for hosses.”

On another occasion he had difficulty with a soldier who was interfering with Pomp’s barn yard arrangements. The dragoon drew his sword. Pomp quickly charged at the soldier with his pitchfork and routed the man from the fields. (Howell’s History of Southampton)

Mrs. Betsy Bush of Southampton has the original bill of Pomp’s sale to his master.

MRS. LEMUEL PIERSON             Major Cochrane was the commanding officer in Bridgehampton. He is still remembered as a merciless tyrant. Bridgehampton suffered much from lawless soldiery by day and night. Cattle were carried off, forage seized without payment, and sometimes they even destroyed furniture in the houses of the inhabitants. One day they came to the home of Mr. Lemuel Pierson and turned him out. He was determined to take some of his furniture with him, and although the soldiers stood over him with drawn swords he gained his point. His wife proved to be as good a fighter as he for when the soldiers called another day in her husband’s absence, she met them at the door with a teakettle of hot water and threatened to scald the first man who came in. She was unmolested. (Howell)

EDWARD TOPPING                        In a house on Main Street and Corwith Avenue, Bridgehampton, lived Edward Topping. One night a number of English soldiers with blackened faces and coats turned inside out came to his house on mischief or trouble intent. Mr. Topping was awakened by their noise, and seizing his gun ran to defend his house. One man raised a window and started to enter. Topping commanded him to get out and said he would shoot if the man persisted. No attention was paid to his warning, and he shot. The man fell back dead and was carried off by his companions. The next morning word was sent to General Erskine in Southampton. General Erskine came down to learn the facts. When he learned the truth, the General said to his soldiers, “Is this one of the flower of the British army?” Then kicking the body, he said, “Take him down to the ocean and bury him below high water mark, and let me hear no more of it.” The same affair under Major Cochrane might have had a different ending for Mr. Topping. (Howell)

MARTHA HALSEY                        There is a pretty story of Martha Halsey, a young girl who lived in Southampton at the time of the English occupation. One day an English soldier approached her and asked her for a kiss. She angrily reached up and pulled off his hat and trampled it on the ground, much to the amusement of his companions, who jeered at him. Muttering, “You cursed little rebel,” he picked up his dusty headgear and slunk away. (Howell)

DR. SILAS HALSEY                        The town furnished four surgeons for the war of the Revolution: Henry White, Shadrack Hildreth, William Burnett, and Silas Halsey. Dr. Silas Halsey was a very determined man. There are many stories told of him. He lived in the Old Post House on Main Street at this time. It is said that once in crossing the ford at Water Mill, he met a squad of English soldiers, who threatened to capture him. In that day everyone was terribly afraid of small pox. They had reason to be, because vaccination was unknown. Dr. Silas on this occasion pulled a vial from his pocket and shook it at his captors.

“I’ve small pox enough here,” he shouted, “to pepper the whole British army. Let me go or I’ll fire it among ye.” No one stopped the doctor. He afterward moved to Connecticut among the refugees. His wife died there, and when the war was over, he moved to Ovid, New York, where his descendants live today. (traditional)

CAPT. DAVID HAND                        Captain David Hand had been a prisoner of war five times before his twentieth year. He was one of those unfortunate prisoners on the old Jersey, worst of prison ships. He was a man of great courage and daring. He was at one time robbed and plundered of his clothing by English sailors. He marched up to the captain of the ship and demanded it saying, “All I ask now is to begin at your traffrail and fight the whole ship’s crew forward and die like a man.” He was taken to Halifax, and footed it home across New England in winter. After tramping through the slush all one day, he thought he had taken his last step on earth, but he fell in with kind folks who nursed him back to health. He returned to Sag Harbor where he lived to the age of eighty-one, having had five wives. Their five gravestones may be seen today in Oakland Cemetery, Sag Harbor, and on his own this inscription:

            “Behold, ye living mortals passing by,

            How thick the partners of one husband lie;

            Vast and unsearchable the ways of God,

            Just but severe his chastening rod.”  (Adams)

CAPT. JOHN WHITE                        Deacon John White of Sagg was one of the refugees who had gone to Connecticut. While the English were in possession of Sag Harbor on May 23, 1777, he piloted the Meigs expedition which successfully crossed Long Island Sound, transported their whale boats across the north side of the island, crossed Peconic Bay, landed at Sag Harbor, arrested the English garrison and destroyed twelve English brigs and sloops, one hundred tons of hay, ten hogsheads of run, and a large quantity of grain. They returned to Connecticut in twenty-five hours without the loss of a single man. (Mather)

REV. SAMUEL BUELL                        One of the most noted characters of this section was the Rev. Samuel Buell, minister in the East Hampton church at this time. Although a staunch patriot, he made friends with the English officers, and was able by his friendly relations to do more for his people than if he had been unwilling to meet the invaders half way. He and General Erskine were very good friends and often went hunting together. One day General Erskine brought one of his young officers over to East Hampton to meet the minister. “And what division of His Majesty’s army do you have the honor to command?” Dr. Buell said pleasantly.

Lord Percy, young and arrogant, said quickly, “A legion of devils straight from hell.”

Not to be outdone in repartee, the old minister bowed low and said courteously, “Then I suppose I have the pleasure of addressing Beelzebub, Prince of Devils?”

Another time when General Erskine said, “Dr. Buell, I have just ordered your townsmen to appear with their teams at Southampton at seven o’clock tomorrow (Sunday) morning.” Dr. Buell replied, “Your Excellency, you are in command six days a week. Sunday is the Lord’s day. I am in command then. I shall countermand your order.” The teams did not go out the next day. (East Hampton History)

These are a few of the stories of the Revolutionary war, listened to by girls and boys of Southampton for generations. In recounting them we are reminded of Emerson’s Concord Hymn:            “The foe long since in silence slept,

                                    Alike the conqueror silent sleeps.”

The enemies of one hundred and fifty years ago are firm friends today, and England and America stand together, leading the world in understanding and friendship.

Courtesy Lizbeth Halsey White Files, Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center. 

"Colonial Society Plans Historical Museum"

Southampton Press | May 20, 1938

At a meeting of the Southampton Colonial Society [members] were elected for the ensuing year and several articles of incorporation and to the by-laws were adopted. The society plans to establish a museum for the Town of Southampton wherein can be assembled and preserved the relics and mementos of the early days of Earn Long Island. It is proposed to lease the Parrish Memorial Hall from the trustees of the Parrish Art Museum and to renovate the interior. The hall stands close to the site of the original village, and seems ideally suited to the purpose.

The museum is made possible by the generosity of Mrs. Charles B. Foster of Water Mill. She has presented to the society the priceless collection of antiques, mementoes of whaling days and farming implements formed by her late husband. Mr. Foster spent a great deal of time and painstaking effort in getting his collection together. It is now housed in the old barn on the Foster homestead. Many other articles from the attics and store rooms of local families will be loaned or given outright as soon as the project gets under way.

The new president of the society is William D. Halsey of Bridgehampton, who is historian for the town. The other elected officials are:

First vice president, C. Edwin Dimon; second vice president, Adrian H. Larkin; third vice president, J. Foster Terry; fourth vice president, Dr. David H. Hallock; fifth vice president, Frank. H. Corwith; secretary, Miss Grace Foster; treasurer, Horace Foster; and historian, Miss Abigail Halsey.

As the new museum will have to be financed by donations it is hoped that al those interested will give generously in order that this most worthy object may be accomplished. The subscription list is now open and several large gifts are already pledged.

"From the Archives: Zella de Milhau Was Conventionality's Enemy"

Zella de Milhau: Dispatches from the Archives, by Mary Cummings

Southampton Patch | June 1, 2011

 

Making art, making life merry and facing danger when it mattered made for a life full of adventure and fun. 

 

Feminine fussbudgets and finicky old gents may have dominated the social scene in Southampton at the turn of the last century but not without plenty of competition from the irrepressible Zella de Milhau, who came to Shinnecock Hills to study at William Merritt Chase’s Summer Art School and stayed to stir things up.

Here is fellow art student Marietta Minnigerode Andrews’ description of the friend she called Della:
“[She] came to Shinnecock to be with friends and to make life merry for others in her own absurd and lovable way …”

Short in stature and favoring short-cropped hair and plus-fours, de Milhau called the Art Village cottage she shared with Molly Lawton “Laffalot.” When she was adopted by the Shinnecocks in a blood ceremony she took the name Chiola (she who laughs) and when she gave a party, she pulled out all the stops. Heads turned and hearts stopped when she drove her Tally-ho (four-in-hand coach) through the village at a hair-raising clip, a frequent occurrence that inspired this bit of verse:
“When Miss Zella Milhau
Drives her Tally-hau
She takes her whip
And hits ‘em a clip
And makes the horses gau”

“Laffalot” was thought so original that Charles Jagger devoted an admiring article to its charms in the autumn 1912 issue of his Southampton Magazine. Purchased from Mrs. William S. Hoyt, the structure was but a “bare little hut,” he wrote, until it was transformed by de Milhau’s magical hand (with help from her friend, architect Katherine Budd). De Milhau filled it with exotica — “Barbaric rugs and draperies … thousands of Indian relics and trophies of the chase or other sports or adventures in France, in Egypt, on Shinnecock Bay on the Western plains, in the Rocky Mountains, in the woods of Maine or elsewhere all over the world.”

She got around.

With her student days behind her — she also studied printmaking with Mary Moran in East Hampton — she went on to experiment with etching, aquatint and mezzotint, rather successfully it seems: the Library of Congress owns 15 of her prints. She and Ms. Budd were driving forces in the much publicized Street Greenery Movement in Brooklyn Heights where she lived off-season, and she continued to leap into action whenever she thought she could help.

During World War I de Milhau raised the money for an ambulance and shipped it to France where she took the wheel. Writing from France in a letter reprinted in the November 21, 1918, edition of The Southampton Press, she described her service “evacuating ‘old uns’ under shell fire and carrying wounded, too, under the same conditions.” For this act of generosity and heroism the French awarded her the Croix de Guerre.

Twenty years later she was again in rescue mode when the 1938 Hurricane struck while she was spending time at her Montauk hideaway, “Pirate’s Cove.” With Napeague awash, she rallied three men to help her gather supplies of food and medicine for the cut-off community. For this, she was cited by the Red Cross for her courage.

Recalling an impression of childhood, when de Milhau was a family friend, Barbara Lord spoke in a 2007 interview of de Milhau’s unique sense of style. She remembered picnics at “Pirate’s Cove,” where her family was entertained by de Milhau, and Fourth of July parades in which de Milhau could always be spotted marching proudly through town.

“She was an eccentric,” Ms. Lord said. “She was a live wire.”

Sources from the Southampton Historical Museum archives: “Memoirs of a Poor Relation” by Marietta Minnigerode Andrews; “Laffalot,” Southampton Magazine, Autumn 1912; Southampton Press 21 November 1918; “The Students of William Merritt Chase,” The Parrish Art Museum exhibition catalog, 1973; Interview with Barbara Lord, March 2007.

About this column: Lessons on local history from the manager of the Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center