Annual Meeting 2020

Members attended the Order’s rescheduled annual meeting, held via Zoom. The guest speaker was Mary Calvi, Emmy Award winning television journalist and author of Dear George, Dear Mary: A Novel of George Washington’s First Love. The recipient of the Timothy Field Beard memorial award was Morrison Harris Heckscher, Curator Emeritus of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Video from CBS New York: Mary Calvi and Alex Denis Tour Philipse Manor
Video from CBS This Morning: Mary Calvi on ‘Sunday Morning’ on CBS

“Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is, therefore, contended that it cannot be resisted.” —George Washington

Did unrequited love spark a flame that ignited a cause that became the American Revolution? Never before has this story about George Washington been told. Crafted from hundreds of letters, witness accounts, and journal entries, Dear George, Dear Mary explores George’s relationship with his first love, New York heiress Mary Philipse, the richest belle in Colonial America.

From elegant eighteenth-century society to bloody battlefields, the novel creates breathtaking scenes and riveting characters. Dramatic portraits of the two main characters unveil a Washington on the precipice of greatness, using the very words he spoke and wrote, and his ravishing love, whose outward beauty and refinement disguise a complex inner struggle.

Dear George, Dear Mary reveals why George Washington had such bitter resentment toward the Brits, established nearly two decades before the American Revolution, and it unveils details of a deception long hidden from the world that led Mary Philipse to be named a traitor, condemned to death and left with nothing. While that may sound like the end, ultimately both Mary and George achieve what they always wanted.

Mary Calvi, who holds a 1989 magna cum laude degree in broadcast journalism from the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, is a ten-time Emmy award-winning journalist and a New York City television news anchor. Calvi spent years wondering about the Philipse heiress who lived in the grand manor in her hometown of Yonkers, New York. Curiosity propelled Calvi to do extensive research that spanned several years and this debut novel is based on what she uncovered. Mary Calvi, who is also First Lady of the City of Yonkers, a board member of the Hudson River Museum. She has three children with her husband, Mike Spano, who was elected mayor in 2011. They reside in Yonkers, New York.

Charles Casimiro, Philipse Manor State Historic Site Assistant, will talk about the daily life and the care of the historic manor house. Philipse Manor Hall sits on a site originally inhabited by the Lenape Indians. In 1646, Adriaen Van der Donck purchased this property and built a saw mill on the Nepperhan, now Saw Mill, River. Frederick Philipse I purchased the property in 1672 and built the oldest part of the Manor Hall ten years later. His grandson, Frederick Philipse II, expanded the building into an elegant country seat. Frederick Philipse III inherited the estate in 1752 and continued to embellish the house. The Manor servedas the seat of the Manor of Philipsborough until the American Revolution, when the Loyalist Philipse family lost its propertyand position and left for England. The building became the Village Hall of Yonkers in 1868 and the first City Hall of Yonkers in 1872, housing city government until 1911. In 1912, the Manor Hall opened to the public as a museum.

Today, Philipse Manor Hall offers standards-based education programs that encourage students to analyze history using primary sources, including place, objects, and photographs. Students of all ages use the Manor Hall and its rich history to develop an enthusiasm for the past and a greater understanding of important movements and turning points in history.

The Board of The Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America congratulates Morrison Harris Heckscher, the Curator Emeritus of The American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as the of the 2020 Timothy Field Beard Memorial Award for Excellence. Mr. Heckscher served as The Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of The American Wing from 2001–2014 and enjoyed a 48 year distinguished curatorial career at the Metropolitan Museum.

Mr. Heckscher joined the Museum in 1966 as a Chester Dale Fellow in the Prints Department. From 1968 to 1978, he was an Assistant Curator, Associate Curator, and Curator in The American Wing; from 1978 to 1998, he was Curator of American Decorative Arts. In 1998, he was appointed the Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts, and assumed chairmanship of The American Wing in 2001. As chairman, he conceived and initiated the redesign and reinstallation of the entire Wing. He became Curator Emeritus of The American Wing on July 1 2014.

Mr. Heckscher’s list of important exhibitions include: The Architecture of Richard Morris Hunt (1986), American Rococo: Elegance in Ornament, 1750–1775 (with Leslie Greene Bowman, 1992), The Architecture of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1995); Central Park—A Sesquicentennial Celebration (2003), and John Townsend, Newport Cabinetmaker (2005).

Of interest to the Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America, Mr. Heckscher helped the Metropolitan Museum acquire noteworthy examples of American furniture, such as a mahogany chest-on-chest made in 1778 by Thomas Townsend of Newport, Rhode Island for the Gardiner family of Long Island, and a carved mahogany armchair made around 1765 by Thomas Affleck of Philadelphia for John Penn, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.