4 Sag Harbor

Customs of the Custom House
by Aelish Mullaney

This week for the MAR 355 Coastal Cultural Experience class we went to the Custom House in Sag Harbor, owned by Henry Packer Dering. Built around 1770, it served a family home as well as the first U.S. Custom House on Long Island when Sag Harbor became a designated Port of Entry in 1789. This had a large impact on the community, as Sag Harbor would become a very prominent trade and whaling spot in the U.S.. The purpose of the custom house was so that all these new resources coming in through the port would be recorded and taxed appropriately by the federal government. This really tied the community in with the government and made it known as a maritime hub.

 
The home belonged to a Mr. Henry Packer Dering, a revolutionary war veteran and prominent member of the village. Him being so known was vital for his role, as it was probably easier to inspect cargo, collect taxes, and prevent smuggling when you're relatively friendly with everyone. The house also served as the first postal office, which Mr. Dering also ran and operated.

 
In 1795, the house was extended to have more family space. The extension also served a separation between family and business, with the custom and post offices being on one side, and the family and dining rooms on the other side. The family slept on the second floor. Dering and his wife Anna Fosdick had nine children together, with the oldest son following in his footsteps as a custom house operator. They also had people enslaved under them, but seemed to be free after only about a year of work under the family. It's unclear if this was because Mr. Dering was an early abolitionist or if he simply didn't have the finances to keep staff for very long. It’s thought that the enslaved people probably slept in the attic as live-in staff.
 

Image 1: Anna Fosdick’s bedroom. During this time it was not uncommon for spouses to have separate bedrooms if they could afford it, for the purpose of it being easier for the mother to take care of children without the father being woken up. See how Mrs. Fosdick’s room has a crib and connects to other rooms of the house, which are her older children's bedrooms. 

The Custom of Riches

by Vivian Taylor

Built in 1790, the Custom House was created to collect tariffs on imported items by the major port in Sag Harbor. Owned by the Dering family, the house works as both a post office, a customs office, and a home for the family and Sag Harbor residents. The customs office was the most important part of the building. Alexander Hamilton was left with the task of figuring out how to pay off the debt that came from a war for independence. Customs were how the newly formed US government was able rebuild the economy without causing outrage over taxes. This meant that there was a combination of expensive items and money within the building.

Alexander Hamilton created the customs office to provide the newly formed US government with revenue. Under the Articles of Confederation, the US government lacked the power to impose taxes. As a result, customs duties emerged as the main source of federal revenue. He assigned the role of custom officer to those who already had standing within their communities. This made the people who would be paying increased prices for imported goods more willing to go along with pay increases.

Many items located in the house were imported from elsewhere in the world. The act of importing goods was expensive and was a way for the Dering family to display their wealth. Their home contained many signs of wealth displayed throughout. One example of this is that many of the rooms contained a mirror. Mirrors were very difficult to make and had to be imported. This made them very expensive and made displaying a large number of them a big show of wealth. Additionally, Chinese porcelain is set out upon their dining table. At the time this would have been very expensive as porcelain is difficult to ship over seas.
 

Image 1: The main room that would have contained the day-to-day functions of the custom house. There are wooden shutters on the windows that are located inside the building. These were used to prevent the building from being broken into, as the customs house would’ve held money during the time period.

 

Image 2: Boxes of Chinese tea and sugar were items that might have been brought in through the Sag Harbor port. As a result, they would have been brought into the customs house. These items were worth quite a bit at the time.

 

Image 3: Chinese porcelain and a mirror are displayed within the dining room. The delicate nature of porcelain made it difficult to transport over the ocean. As a result, it was uncommon in the colonies, and therefore fetched a high price.

Interesting Architecture in the Sag Harbor Custom House
by Caitlin Brislin

Our first stop of the day was the Sag Harbor Custom House, built by Henry Packard Dering in 1770. The house served both as a residence for him and his eventual family, as well as his office for collecting customs. The left part of the house was built first, as it was before Dering built a family with his future wife, Anna Fosdick. When walking into the parlor, a room that was a part of the later addition, the ceilings are notably much higher than the ceilings of the older rooms. The extra height, as well as the lavish furnishings of the parlor, indicate the wealth of the Dering family. Due to the extra ceiling height from the new addition, the upstairs rooms that were added have a significant step up to get into them. These rooms include Henry Packard Dering’s bedroom as well as the stairway to get into the attic space.

Another interesting architectural choice made by Henry Packard Dering was to include a formal dining room in the later addition built onto his house. Most houses during this time period did not have a dedicated dining space, as it was not very practical. Many rooms were built to be multi-purpose so that the family may have eaten in the kitchen, the parlor, or even upstairs in their bedchambers. Like many items in the Custom House, the formal dining room served as a reminder of the Dering family’s wealth. Henry Packard Dering was said to have thrown many parties in that dining room, which may be a factor in the Dering family’s large debt. Henry Packard Dering and his wife Anna also had separate bedrooms. While this practice was more common among wealthy families of the time, the individual bedrooms served as a further reminder of the family’s money. There are many interesting architectural choices seen in the Sag Harbor Custom House that seem to have been made for both practical and aesthetic purposes. I thoroughly enjoyed my time learning about Henry Packard Dering’s life and the culture of Sag Harbor during the 18th and 19th centuries.

 

Do you notice something weird about these doors? They both lead into the same room. Henry Packard Dering was not only the customs officer for Sag Harbor, but also a postal officer. It is thought that the two doors connected the post office room of the home to the customs office room next door.

 

When Henry Packard Dering inherited a grandfather clock from his father, Thomas Dering, after his death, the ceiling of the Custom House was not tall enough to accommodate the height of the clock. Due to this, Dering built a small extension onto the house and cut out a hole in the ceiling for the clock to fit into. This odd ceiling hole adds to the interesting architecture seen throughout the Custom House.

The Parlor of the Sag Harbor Custom House
by Juliana Hart

The Sag Harbor Custom House wasn’t only a place of tax collection. It was also the Sag Harbor post office and Henry Packer Dearing’s home. The Custom House was built in 1770, but parts of the right side of the house (including the parlor) weren’t built until 10 years later.

As the most public non-business part of the house, the parlor was designed to show off the wealth of the Dearing family. It was lavish and expensive and showed just how much money Henry Dearing made from collecting taxes. The room was carpeted, had an unholstered couch, expensive wallpaper, and instruments. Carpeted rooms were rare at that time due to how expensive it was to cover a whole room’s floor, and an upholstered couch would have been nearly unheard of in Sag Harbor. Other parts of the house had hand-painted walls instead of wallpaper, which was also very expensive to have done (image 1).
 

Image 1 is a close-up on the stenciled painting on the walls of Henry Packer Dearing’s bedroom. This was done by hand and wraps the room.

What drew me in most was the instruments in the room. On a shelf in the corner, there was a flute and a music booklet (images 2 and 3). Next to the shelf, a violin sat in an open case. These instruments display the wealth of the Dearing family but also show that the room was meant for entertainment. There was plenty of art in the room as well, including a painted bowl with a poem about returning home from sea (image 4).

 

Image 2 is of a 18th century flute and music book in the parlor.

 

Image 3 is a close-up of the music book. The lyrics are from a hymn by Joseph Addison.

 

Image 4 is the painted bowl. It depicts a scene of Jack Spritsail returning home from battle at sea. This scene has been seen on other dishware. Jack Spritsail is a fictional character from a 1791 book.

The Importance of Sag Harbor and How It Is Protected.
by Kimberly Bagielto

After the Revolutionary War and the United States became independent from Britain, Sag Harbor became a major shipping center that brought goods into the United States. Sag Harbor was chosen over other places on Long Island because of its depth, which is deep enough to support transatlantic vessels. Other ports like Greenport were too shallow to support transatlantic vessels. Sag Harbor was also a major port for the whaling industry that fueled Long Island’s economy until the industry burnt out.

Sag Harbor is highly valued today since it is protected geographically by the land mass Shelter Island. Also, Sag Harbor is protected by man made structures called breakwaters that are made of large stones to create a barrier between Atlantic ocean waves and the shoreline. The breakwaters dissipate wave energy, so that there is less wave energy when it reaches the shoreline, causing less damage. This is important during storms when waves have a high potential to cause damage to the shoreline and surrounding structures.

 

Image 1. This photo shows some vessels located at Sag Harbor. It is a common spot for people to store their vessels over other places on Long Island due to the protection provided by Shelter Island and breakwaters from wave action. It is a lively and popular spot for yachting along with other recreational activities. 

 

Image 2. This photo shows both Shelter Island and the man made breakwaters. You can see visually how physical barriers can disperse high wave energy coming from the Atlantic ocean that may damage the shoreline and infrastructure if not present. Man-made barriers like breakwaters and also jetties, are commonly built in coastal areas all around Long Island to protect coastal communities.