Basement Excavations at Sylvester Manor

During the Spring of 2024, the Fiske Center investigated a crawl space in Sylvester Manor’s basement, to test for any cultural deposits preserved under the standing building.

The brick chimney base associated with the current house cut through the cobble surface that was the pre-1735 ground surface. 

Grad students, Laura Paisley and Kristen Delatour, will be presenting a poster (Under the Floorboards: Rediscovering Past Landscapes in Sylvester Manor’s Basement) at the upcoming Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology in New Haven, CT. Their poster will discuss how this portion of Sylvester Manor’s basement represents multiple phases of the Manor’s history.

Graduate Student, Claire Ross, excavating in the basement of Sylvester Manor

From provisioning plantation to colonial plantation to Victorian estate, Sylvester Manor’s landscape shifted as its role on Shelter Island, New York, changed. Features that show this shifting landscape were a cistern and two different cobbled surfaces. The cistern was likely associated with the first iteration of the standing 1735 Manor house and was made obsolete, and covered over, when a northward addition was made in the early 20th century to acquire more entertainment space. The two cobbled surfaces sheds light on what the walking and work surfaces once looked like surrounding the original 1652 Manor house. These cobbles were covered with a trash deposit when the property was relandscaped prior to the construction of the current 1735 Manor house. These two features highlight how the current landscape camouflages how the property changed to fit the needs of the Manor’s residents throughout its 370 year history.

Images:

The brick chimney base associated with the current house cut through the cobble surface that was the pre-1735 ground surface. 

Graduate Student, Claire Ross, excavating in the basement of Sylvester Manor.

The fieldstone cistern.

Archaeologists and Grad Students excavating in the basement.

Parts of that cobble surface have been preserved in this crawl space.