The secrets of ‘The Dering Letters’
The name “Dering” is a familiar one on Shelter Island. There’s the harbor, the village and the inn, to name just a few prominent places, many of which we pass every day.
But with the publication of the four-volume series, “The Dering Letters,” the name may also come to mean a fascinating glimpse into the quotidian lives of Islanders and the fledgling United States during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The story of “The Dering Letters,” as transcribed and, if you will, “translated” by Patricia and Edward Shillingburg, will be the topic of the March 27 Friday Night Dialogues at the Library at 7 p.m. The Shillingburgs will talk about the process they used and most interestingly, the stories that emerged from the letters.
The letters, some 762 in all, have been sitting in the vault at the Shelter Island Historical Society since 2000, on long-term loan from the Shelter Island Library, which acquired them via a bequest in 1916.
According to Ms. Shillingburg, the project began about 15 months ago when Phyllis Wallace, the archivist at the Historical Society, asked that the Shillingburgs transcribe the letters to make them available to scholars, researchers and the general public.
As the audience will learn on Friday night, there was no end of fascinating stories that emerged from the process. Among some of the more intriguing letters was one from the artist Abraham Tuthill to his patron, Sylvester Dering, that described George Washington’s funeral. In 1770, Miss Abigail Chesebrough Grant of Newport wrote to a friend decrying the lack of religiosity in London. And Dr. Ebenezer Sage penned a letter to his friend Ebenezer Storer about the death of their friend, Sylvester Dering, from a broken neck caused by being thrown from his horse.
Of particular interest was the fact that nearly one third of the letters were written by women, leading the Shillingburgs to create an unplanned fourth volume devoted solely to female correspondence.
Joining the Shillingburgs on the project were a group of dedicated volunteers including Emily Hallman, Charity Robey, Joanne Sherman, Patricia Yourdan and Olivia Land, a high school student from Morristown Beard in New Jersey. The sketches that grace each volume were done by Kirsten Lewis, who used portraits hanging at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sylvester Manor and the Art Institute of Chicago for inspiration.
The Friday Night Dialogues series takes place on the library’s lower level. Admission is free but donations are always appreciated.
