Photo of the Week
FROM THE SCHS LIBRARY ARCHIVES
“How shall we know it is us without our past?”
– John Steinbeck
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Captain Henry Green of Sag Harbor and Peconic, 1824
by Wendy Polhemus-Annibell, Head Librarian
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Left: Captain Henry Green, 1824, oil on canvas, by Hubbard L. Fordham of Sag Harbor (from the Collection of the Suffolk County Historical Society Museum). Right: War of 1812 Pension Certificate No. 2453, issued August 10, 1871, by the Pension Office of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior to Henry Green of Peconic (from the Collection of the Suffolk County Historical Society Library Archives). Images © Suffolk County Historical Society. All rights reserved.
Born in Sag Harbor in 1794, Henry Green served as whaling captain of numerous ships during his twenty-six-year tenure in that occupation. He married Roxanna Stewart Fordham of Sag Harbor, and in 1851 he moved with his large family to a home on Main Road, Peconic, opposite Skunk Lane. The home still stands today, and was among a row of Main Road residences occupied by retired whaling captains, an area that was known as Blubber Row or Blubberville.
On August 26, 1839, the Spanish schooner Amistad dropped anchor off Montauk, and as sea captains Henry Green and Pelatiah Fordham were shooting birds in the area, they came across the African shore party. The Africans told the men, through sign language, that there were two great chests of gold aboard that they would give anyone who supplied them with provisions and helped them get back to Africa. (For more on the Amistad story, see the citation below.)
During the War of 1812, Henry Green served as Private to Captain David Hedges’ Co. Militia. Upon his retirement, Green collected an $8 per month pension from the Dept. of the Interior. He died in 1873 and is buried at Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor.
Suggested Reading: “The Amistad Case,” by Douglas Linder, University of Missouri School of Law, 2007, available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=
Seeking Sanctuary Exhibit Extended by Popular Demand to Dec. 23, 2021!
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1708 House, Southampton / Bed & Breakfast
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