'Southampton Under Siege' Recalls British Occupation During Revolution

Some Southampton residents may be surprised to learn that while their 375-plus-year-old town is the heart of Americana today, in Revolutionary days not all colonists were 100-percent American. Many colonists were not overtly sympathetic to the Patriot cause, and some joined the Loyalist opposition.

Addressing this irony in regard to one of America’s most iconic American towns was one of several prompts for Southampton Historical Museum curator Emma Ballou to mount “Southampton Under Siege: The British Occupation of Southampton During the Revolutionary War.”

The multimedia display may well lead to lively discussion about American heritage, especially in schools—another motive for Ms. Ballou, who will give tours for fourth grade history teachers.

In addition to the physical artifacts and documents that make up the exhibition, an attractive and informative catalog will be on hand, but Ms. Ballou said she knows that youngsters today more readily tune into visual displays. And so she has timed the exhibition to take advantage of a popular TV drama on AMC, “Turn: Washington’s Spies.” About to begin its third season, the series based on Alexander Rose’s book “Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring” is about The Culper Ring, a group of spies from Setauket led by a farmer and his childhood friends in 1778.

Although the drama “takes liberties with some characters and events,” it generally keeps to the historical facts, Ms. Ballou said, and she hopes interest in its presentation of an adventurous tale about espionage and rebellion will transfer to the exhibition.

Funding, she added, had been in place for a few years, thanks to the Southampton Bath and Tennis Club and the Daughters of the American Revolution, or DAR, so it was finally time to move, especially considering material that kept turning up.

A couple of years ago, in the archives of the Suffolk County Historical Society, someone discovered a list of names of East End residents who signed an Oath of Allegiance to The Crown. The document was sent to the national headquarters of DAR, who sent a copy to the Southampton chapter. Since all the signatures seem to be in the same hand, Ms. Ballou says, it may be difficult to authenticate the list.

Nonetheless, its existence has given the local DAR pause about membership for future descendants. Even if an argument were made that signatories were forced to sign the oath, the document could still serve as a counterforce to “committees of correspondence,” or “safety committees,” that pressured colonists to “fall into step” with the revolution—meaning, agreeing to boycotts, petitions and taking a public stance opposing British policies.

Although Second Continental Congress delegates arriving in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775 had no authority or instructions from their home governments to declare independence, they would within weeks begin to act otherwise, moving to ensure international alliances and taking up plans for confederation. These revolutionary moves were not supported by all colonists.

In one sense, Southampton’s experience of the Revolution was “typical,” Ms. Ballou said. “A small farming village intimately bound with the wider world of commerce,” particularly trade with Connecticut by way of Sag Harbor, Southampton should have been an ardent supporter of the revolution. But its location “at the far end of an island dominated by Loyalists with a very different cultural inheritance,” and “its status as occupied territory” made Southampton’s experience of the American Revolution “rather novel.”

The “siege” itself might be construed as novel, considering that a number of Southampton residents tolerated the enemy in their homes, even as the homes were being plundered, and land and livestock depleted. What else were they to do, those left behind—women, who could be abused, the elderly, the sick, slaves and young children—after their men, heads of households many of them, went off to fight in the Continental Army or fled to New England? The exhibition explores these ambiguities.

Cut off from western areas in New York, especially after General George Washington’s Continental Army lost the August 1776 Battle of Long Island (which took place in Brooklyn) to British General William Howe, East End residents would have found themselves isolated, vulnerable, subject to adversity. Moreover, whatever crops the British did not plunder, “the American forces in Connecticut requisitioned.” Hardships varied from town to town.

Wherever they were stationed on the East End, British overseers enforced English law. Southampton was fortunate in having a relatively respectful British general, William Erskine, garrisoned at Pelletreau House, while Bridgehampton suffered cruelties under a Major Alexander Cochrane.

What did those in other jurisdictions know of Southampton’s plight? As records show, after the war, New York State levied a hefty hardship tax on those felt to have sat out the Revolution or who seemed not to have been wholehearted patriots. Regardless, those who had fled and returned after the war came back to devastating conditions: homes pillaged, families broken, livelihoods ruined.

The exhibition, in this regard, is both celebration and lament.

“Southampton Under Siege” occupies two rooms at the Rogers Mansion. In the larger area, a timeline mural runs the perimeter of the room, the top section of which features national events from 1740 to 1785. The mural is meant to compare and contrast what was happening locally with what was happening in other colonies, and to make local history personal.

The bottom section focuses on Southampton and is augmented by a kitchen display near the fireplace that, in Ms. Ballou’s words, shows “what it was like for those who stayed behind,” and also what occupied homes such as Elias Pelletreau’s looked like. Artifacts stored at Halsey House have been brought over to re-create the Pelletreau dining room.

Pelletreau himself was quite a figure, one of the “old gentlemen” of Southampton, who may have organized one of the country’s first and likely only regiments “consisting of grandfathers.”

The exhibition features landscape paintings, portraits, maps, charts, documents and also a fascinating video that tells the story of a 17-year-old enlistee, Christopher Vail, from Sag Harbor. Scripted by Southampton Historical Museum Research Center Manager Mary Cummings, writer Megan Flynn and Ms. Ballou, the video may entice older teens to test themselves against this daring young man who, in May 1777, participated in a “storied” assault on a British garrison in Sag Harbor, known as Meigs Raid; the Old Burial Ground adjoining the Whalers’ Church on Meeting House Hill was a battle site.

Six Loyalists were killed, nine prisoners taken and not one American lost his life. The narrative, replete with details of what soldiers like Vail endured, including rampant disease and “seemingly pointless marches through harsh environs with inadequate supplies and glory-chasing officers,” proves a timeless, significant and sobering reminder of the horrors of war, even as they informed the birth of our great nation.

“Southampton Under Siege” will open at the Southampton Historical Museum’s Rogers Mansion on March 19 and run through December. Long Island and American history Professor Emerita Natalie Naylor will give a presentation titled “Long Island Women During the Revolutionary War” on Thursday, March 24, at 11 a.m.

Call (631) 283-2494, or visit southamptonhistoricalmuseum.org for more information.