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The story of a 19th century Staten Island town that nurtured the careers of nationally significant reformers, abolitionists, and transcendentalists.
This book traces five decades of community life in a nineteenth-century Staten Island neighborhood informally called Elliottville, where extraordinary people lived. Its history illuminates the impact of transformative cultural, social, economic, and political change stemming from abolitionism, transcendentalism, the women's suffrage movement, and the rapid growth of the nation. Begun in 1839 as a therapeutic retreat, New Englanders with ties to Emerson settled there, forming a distinctive community. Their achievements in art, literature, and social reform attracted even more like-minded people, including Francis George Shaw, George William Curtis, Theodore Winthrop, Robert Gould Shaw, Helena de Kay Gilder, Charles de Kay, Anna Leonowens, and Maria "Midy" Morgan. Its vibrant intellectual life was threatened by an influx of Gilded Age men in the 1870s and destroyed when a freight rail line separated Elliottville from the Kill Van Kull. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and unique maps and illustrations, this book gives a vivid picture of how one small community could impact the country's intellectual and social development.
"Staten Island's Elliottville contributes successfully to understanding New York City history (including recognition of seldom-discussed Staten Island), family history, neighborhood history over several decades, and, most important, the rise of an abolitionist community of like-minded men and women." — George Dorland Langdon Jr., Colgate University
"This book balances the hyperlocal detail of individual families and their properties while linking them to regional and national events and social movements. Elliottville was a cultural outlier in its time, and it's given a full treatment with this work." — Luke G. Boyd, Historic Richmond Town/Staten Island Historical Society
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Residents Significant to Elliottville History
Timeline History of Elliottville
Introduction
1. Elliottville: A Suburb of Affiliation
2. Boston People: Elliottville Takes Shape
3. The Years of Crisis: Elliottville, 1850 through 1865
4. A Difficult Peace
5. The Gilded Age Yachtsman: The Disillusionments of Reconstruction
6. The 1880s: The Ascendancy of the Middle Class
7. Erastus Wiman and the Death of Elliottville
Conclusion
Source Abbreviations
Notes
Index
About the Author