Members will be invited to join us for the Order's annual meeting, held at the 3 West Club, 3 West 51st Street, New York City. Our featured manor this year is My Lady's Manor in Maryland. The recipient of the Timothy Field Beard memorial award will be announced
There will be a reception immediately after meeting, open to all attendees. Following the reception, a ticketed dinner will be served to honor the speaker and award recipient, including remarks by the Timothy Field Beard memorial award winner.
More information, including ticket purchase options, will be available closer to the event.
If you are a member, and are not receiving invitations to our annual meeting, please contact us via email, providing your new mailing address, at
Spring, 2023 Visit to Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum
Lunch to follow at Portofino Restaurant, 555 City Island Ave, The Bronx, NY 10464, (718) 885-1220.
PAST EVENTS
Thursday, June 2, 2022 Annual Meeting, via Zoom
Members attended the Order's annual meeting, held virtually via Zoom. Our featured manor this year was the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum (left), and our guest Speaker was Carswell Rush Berlin, noted expert on American Classical Furniture and Decorative Arts as well as a board member of the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum.
The Timothy Field Beard Memorial Award for Excellence was awarded to Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff, author most recently of The Witches: Salem, 1692, and currently featured in the Ken Burns mini-series Benjamin Franklin, airing on PBS.
More information, including ticket purchase options, has been sent to all members.
If you are a member, and are not receiving invitations to our annual meeting, please contact us via email, providing your new mailing address, at
Thursday, June 3, 2021 Annual meeting, via Zoom
Members attended the Order's annual meeting, featuring Lloyd Manor. Lloyd Manor of Lloyd Harbor, Suffolk County, New York was originally known as the Manor of Queens Village, a 3,000-acre provisioning plantation founded in 1660 on Lloyd’s Neck on the former ancestral lands of the Matinecock Nation. This property and surrounding area was purchased by Peter Wright, Samuel Mayo, and Reverend William Leverege in 1653 from Chief Mohannes, also known as Assiapum/Assiapumor.
Nathaniel Sylvester, Latimer Sampson, and Thomas Hart later bought the land for £450. Nathaniel Sylvester, Lord of Sylvester Manor on Long Island’s Shelter Island, was the father of Grissel Sylvester, the fiancée of Latimer Sampson, his business partner. Sampson died shortly before they were to be married, and left her his interest in the property. She then married James Lloyd and together they bought out the rest of the partners of the property. In 1685, James Lloyd was granted "The Lordship of Queens Village" by Thomas Dongan, the Governor of New York and the Second Earl of Limerick.
James Lloyd and his wife Grissel never resided on the Manor of Queens Village, but lived in Boston. Their son Henry Lloyd built the original manor house in 1711, a red saltbox now located on on the grounds of Caumsett State Historic Park. The second Lloyd house, a white Georgian structure known as The Joseph Lloyd manor house, was built between 1766 and 1767, and is currently managed by Preservation Long Island.
The manor’s most famous resident was Jupiter Hammon, (1711 – ca. 1806). Born into slavery, he became the first African-American poet published in North America (1761), and a founder of African-American literature.
Lauren Brincat discussed Jupiter Hammon’s significance and how Joseph Lloyd Manor became a Literary Landmark. She is the curator of Preservation Long Island where she oversees a collection of over 3,000 objects, 185 cubic feet of archival materials, and three historic houses. Lauren has worked in museums and historical societies for over a decade, specializing in curation, exhibition and program development, and collections management. She has held positions at the Museum of the City of New York and the New-York Historical Society, where she co-curated the redesigned Luce Center for the Study of American Culture. Lauren holds a B.A. in History and Anthropology from the College of William and Mary and an M.A. in American Material Culture with a certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Delaware.
Alexandra Parsons Wolfe, Executive Director of Preservation Long Island, will talk on the recent gift of a group of important early American portraits from descendants of the Nelson and Lloyd families of Boston and Long Island and how these will be contextualized with the storied history of the Joseph Lloyd Manor house. Preservation Long Island is a non-profit organization dedicated to understanding, preserving, and celebrating Long Island’s cultural heritage. Ms. Wolfe has a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and a Bachelor’s from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Previously Alexandra Wolfe was the Executive Director of the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum in Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, New York and as an independent preservation consultant.
David Hackett Fischer, the winner of the 2021 Timothy Field Beard Award for Historical Excellence, is the Earl Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University and author of numerous award winning books: “Washington’s Crossing,” which earned him his Pulitzer in 2005; “Champlain’s Dream”; “Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America”; “Liberty and Freedom”; and “Fairness and Freedom.” Fischer received the 2006 Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute and In 2015 he received the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. Fischer won the 1990 Carnegie Prize as Massachusetts Professor of the Year and the Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching. He is an honorary member of The Society of the Cincinnati, and a member of the board of College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Wednesday, October 28, 2020 (postponed from June) Annual meeting, via Zoom
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.
“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.
Morrison Heckscher
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.
Saturday, September 14, 2019 Visit to Saint George's Manor
A cross-island motor tour of four properties that were once part of the Manor of St. George, originally covering 81,000 acres between Setauket on Long Island's North Shore to Mastic on the Atlantic, founded 1691/3 by William "Tangier" Smith (1655–1705). Prior to his emigration to America, Smith was the last English administrator of the Crown Colony of Tangier, Morocco. He was Acting Governor of the Colony of New York from 1701 until his death.
The tour ran from at 10:00am to 3:00pm, starting and ending at the Three Village Inn, Stony Brook. Volunteer drivers met the 9:30am train at the Stony Brook LIRR train station, and returned to the station at tour's end. A number of members also drove themselves. The itinerary included:
Visit to the Smith and Strong family cemetery on Strong’s Neck, the burial site of William "Tangier" Smith, founder of the Manor of Saint George.
Guided tour of the "New Manor" home of the Strong family at Strong's Neck, Setauket, hosted by John Temple Strong, descendant of Anna Smith Strong, the leader of the Culper Spy Ring, and great-granddaughter of William "Tangier" Smith.
Guided tour of "Longwood", the former home of Helen Tangier Smith, a founding member of the Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America, hosted by Barbara Russell, the town historian of Brookhaven. This stop served as a sandwich lunch break, catered by Elegant Eating of Smithtown.
Guided tour of the house and grounds of the Fort/Manor of Saint George in Mastic, the former home of Eugenie Tangier Smith, hosted by Jeanne Devito, the site’s administrator. This was the site of a famous Revolutionary battle on November 23, 1780, led by Benjamin Tallmadge. Refreshments of iced tea and lemonade were served at the fort's picnic area.
Thursday, May 30, 2019 Annual meeting
On May 30th, the Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America held its 108th annual meeting at the townhouse headquarters of the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York. In attendance were Mrs. M. P. Naud, President of the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York; Ms. Alexandra Hoyle of The Social Register Association; Mrs. Rosemary Vietor, President of the Bowne House; Mr. John W. Ingraham, Governor of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of New York; Mr. Robert A. Naud, President of the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York; and Ms. Deborah Spaeder McWilliams, Executive Director of the Colonial Dames of America.
After the induction of our newest member, Robb Aley Allan, representing the Manor of Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard created by his ancestor Thomas Mayhew, the program featured a lecture on the storied history of the Manor of Saint George on Long Island, presented by Barbara Russell, the historian of the town of Brookhaven. This enormous manor, and in particular its 18th-century châtelaine, Anna Smith Strong (a Revolutionary War spy) were recently made internationally famous by the television series, Turn. The Manor of Saint George was a vast manorial tract of 60,000 acres bordered by Long Island Sound to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Its founder, Colonel William "Tangier" Smith, a shrewd and dynamic character and his wife, Madame Martha Tunstall Smith were the progenitors of the Tangier Smith family. Ms. Russell discussed Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge's 1780 raid on Fort St. George; the still-existing properties of the Longwood Estate and Manor of Saint George; the brave great-granddaughter Anna "Nancy" Smith Strong, the revolutionary patriot; the name change from Smith's Neck to Strong's Neck, and the important donation of property in Mastic to the Poosepatuck Indian Tribe.
Mr. Michael J. Grillo, the Living Historian and Museum Educator at the Van Cortlandt House Museum, was given the Timothy Field Beard Memorial Award, in recognition of his nineteen years of dedication, bringing the past to life via his hand-tailored period costumes. Mr. Grillo wore the uniform of a General of The Back Watch (42nd Regiment of Foot).
Attendees then gathered in the downstairs dining room overlooking the walled terrance garden for a punch reception hosted by Mrs. M. P. Naud and Mrs. Caroline Brown, fellow officers of the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York. Later, a buffet dinner was served in the upstairs Withdrawing Room to honor the speaker and the 2019 award recipient.
Thursday, June 1, 2017 Annual meeting
The Order of Colonial Lords of The Manor in America held its Annual Meeting, Reception, and Dinner on Thursday, June 2, 2017 at The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York’s headquarters at 215 East 71st Street, New York City.
In addition to researching seventeenth-century colonial manors, The Order of Colonial Lords of The Manor in America also supports historic preservation.
The 2017 Guest Speaker was architectural historian Michael W. Rayhill, who gave a presentation entitled the “Colonnade Row; Birth of the Gilded Age”, on the forgotten history of a remarkable set of neo-classical town houses located at present-day Lafayette Street in New York City where several founding families of the Gilded Age resided. Rayhill detailed how they all came to be neighbours on Colonnade Row and eventually intertwined through marriages.
Mr. Rayhill’s slides illustrated this unique period of New York City’s architectural history by showing what the streetscape and surrounding neighbourhood looked like at the time, and poignantly identified many magnificent buildings that, sadly, have since been demolished.
After Mr. Rayhill's fascinating lecture, Mr. Lawrence Pistell, President of the Order, inducted two new members: Mrs. William M. Evarts (formerly Helen R. Coleman) a descendent of Dr. Luke Barber of Warburton Manor, once located on the shore of Piscataway Bay, Maryland, and Mr. Charles Felix, a descendant of Frederick Philipse, of the Manor of Philipseborough, which was once located in parts of Westchester and Bronx in New York.
Following the induction, the members and their guests attended a lively punch reception hosted by The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York in their beautiful reception room and outdoor terrace at East 71st Street, followed by a candlelight dinner at the same address. Among the guests were Laura Carpenter Myers, Director of the Van Cortlandt House Museum; Mr. John Krawcunuk, Executive Diretor of Historic House Trust; and Mr. William P. Johns, former Director of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.
The dinner, which included toasts, stories, and merriment, ended at 9:30 p.m.
Members will be invited to join us for the Order's annual meeting, held at the 3 West Club, 3 West 51st Street, New York City. Our featured manor this year is My Lady's Manor in Maryland. The recipient of the Timothy Field Beard memorial award will be announced
Members attended the Order's annual meeting, held virtually via Zoom. Our featured manor this year was the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum (left), and our guest Speaker was Carswell Rush Berlin, noted expert on American Classical Furniture and Decorative Arts as well as a board member of the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum. 
The Timothy Field Beard Memorial Award for Excellence was awarded to Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff, author most recently of The Witches: Salem, 1692, and currently featured in the Ken Burns mini-series Benjamin Franklin, airing on PBS.
Members attended the Order's annual meeting, featuring Lloyd Manor. Lloyd Manor of Lloyd Harbor, Suffolk County, New York was originally known as the Manor of Queens Village, a 3,000-acre provisioning plantation founded in 1660 on Lloyd’s Neck on the former ancestral lands of the Matinecock Nation. This property and surrounding area was purchased by Peter Wright, Samuel Mayo, and Reverend William Leverege in 1653 from Chief Mohannes, also known as Assiapum/
Nathaniel Sylvester, Latimer Sampson, and Thomas Hart later bought the land for £450. Nathaniel Sylvester, Lord of Sylvester Manor on Long Island’s Shelter Island, was the father of Grissel Sylvester, the fiancée of Latimer Sampson, his business partner. Sampson died shortly before they were to be married, and left her his interest in the property. She then married James Lloyd and together they bought out the rest of the partners of the property. In 1685, James Lloyd was granted "The Lordship of Queens Village" by Thomas Dongan, the Governor of New York and the Second Earl of Limerick.
James Lloyd and his wife Grissel never resided on the Manor of Queens Village, but lived in Boston. Their son Henry Lloyd built the original manor house in 1711, a red saltbox now located on on the grounds of Caumsett State Historic Park. The second Lloyd house, a white Georgian structure known as The Joseph Lloyd manor house, was built between 1766 and 1767, and is currently managed by Preservation Long Island.
Lauren Brincat discussed Jupiter Hammon’s significance and how Joseph Lloyd Manor became a Literary Landmark. She is the curator of Preservation Long Island where she oversees a collection of over 3,000 objects, 185 cubic feet of archival materials, and three historic houses. Lauren has worked in museums and historical societies for over a decade, specializing in curation, exhibition and program development, and collections management. She has held positions at the Museum of the City of New York and the New-York Historical Society, where she co-curated the redesigned Luce Center for the Study of American Culture. Lauren holds a B.A. in History and Anthropology from the College of William and Mary and an M.A. in American Material Culture with a certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Delaware.
Alexandra Parsons Wolfe, Executive Director of Preservation Long Island, will talk on the recent gift of a group of important early American portraits from descendants of the Nelson and Lloyd families of Boston and Long Island and how these will be contextualized with the storied history of the Joseph Lloyd Manor house. Preservation Long Island is a non-profit organization dedicated to understanding, preserving, and celebrating Long Island’s cultural heritage. Ms. Wolfe has a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and a Bachelor’s from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Previously Alexandra Wolfe was the Executive Director of the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum in Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, New York and as an independent preservation consultant.
David Hackett Fischer, the winner of the 2021 Timothy Field Beard Award for Historical Excellence, is the Earl Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University and author of numerous award winning books: “Washington’s Crossing,” which earned him his Pulitzer in 2005; “Champlain’s Dream”; “Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America”; “Liberty and Freedom”; and “Fairness and Freedom.” Fischer received the 2006 Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute and In 2015 he received the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. Fischer won the 1990 Carnegie Prize as Massachusetts Professor of the Year and the Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching. He is an honorary member of The Society of the Cincinnati, and a member of the board of College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Mary Calvi
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.
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.
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.
Morrison Heckscher
Visit to the Smith and Strong family cemetery on Strong’s Neck, the burial site of William "Tangier" Smith, founder of the Manor of Saint George.
Guided tour of the "New Manor" home of the Strong family at Strong's Neck, Setauket, hosted by John Temple Strong, descendant of Anna Smith Strong, the leader of the Culper Spy Ring, and great-granddaughter of William "Tangier" Smith.
Guided tour of "Longwood", the former home of Helen Tangier Smith, a founding member of the Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America, hosted by Barbara Russell, the town historian of Brookhaven. This stop served as a sandwich lunch break, catered by Elegant Eating of Smithtown.
Guided tour of the house and grounds of the Fort/Manor of Saint George in Mastic, the former home of Eugenie Tangier Smith, hosted by Jeanne Devito, the site’s administrator. This was the site of a famous Revolutionary battle on November 23, 1780, led by Benjamin Tallmadge. Refreshments of iced tea and lemonade were served at the fort's picnic area.
On May 30th, the Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America held its 108th annual meeting at the townhouse headquarters of the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York. In attendance were Mrs. M. P. Naud, President of the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York; Ms. Alexandra Hoyle of The Social Register Association; Mrs. Rosemary Vietor, President of the Bowne House; Mr. John W. Ingraham, Governor of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of New York; Mr. Robert A. Naud, President of the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York; and Ms. Deborah Spaeder McWilliams, Executive Director of the Colonial Dames of America.
The Manor of Saint George was a vast manorial tract of 60,000 acres bordered by Long Island Sound to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Its founder, Colonel William "Tangier" Smith, a shrewd and dynamic character and his wife, Madame Martha Tunstall Smith were the progenitors of the Tangier Smith family. Ms. Russell discussed Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge's 1780 raid on Fort St. George; the still-existing properties of the Longwood Estate and Manor of Saint George; the brave great-granddaughter Anna "Nancy" Smith Strong, the revolutionary patriot; the name change from Smith's Neck to Strong's Neck, and the important donation of property in Mastic to the Poosepatuck Indian Tribe.
The Order of Colonial Lords of The Manor in America held its Annual Meeting, Reception, and Dinner on Thursday, June 2, 2017 at The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York’s headquarters at 215 East 71st Street, New York City.
The 2017 Guest Speaker was architectural historian Michael W. Rayhill, who gave a presentation entitled the “Colonnade Row; Birth of the Gilded Age”, on the forgotten history of a remarkable set of neo-classical town houses located at present-day Lafayette Street in New York City where several founding families of the Gilded Age resided. Rayhill detailed how they all came to be neighbours on Colonnade Row and eventually intertwined through marriages.
Mr. Rayhill’s slides illustrated this unique period of New York City’s architectural history by showing what the streetscape and surrounding neighbourhood looked like at the time, and poignantly identified many magnificent buildings that, sadly, have since been demolished. 
Following the induction, the members and their guests attended a lively punch reception hosted by The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York in their beautiful reception room and outdoor terrace at East 71st Street, followed by a candlelight dinner at the same address. Among the guests were Laura Carpenter Myers, Director of the Van Cortlandt House Museum; Mr. John Krawcunuk, Executive Diretor of Historic House Trust; and Mr. William P. Johns, former Director of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.