The Revealing Long Island History project, generously funded by the Robert D.L. Gardiner Foundation, is a groundbreaking collections and research initiative that will make Brooklyn Historical Society’s world-renowned collection of Brooklyn and Long Island artifacts digitally available to the public for the first time. Launched in 2017 and on target to be completed by late 2020, this project will reveal new facets of Long Island history through the lens of the rare historic artifacts that have called BHS home since the 1860s.
You can now access our Revealing Long Island History web portal, which dives deep into Long Island’s history through a select group of objects.
Every day we learn more about our historic artifact collections. Check out some of our recent finds and learn how they tell the story of the people and events of Brooklyn’s past.
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French and Indian War powder horn, circa 1759
Owned by William Yarrington (1735-1811) of Smithtown, Suffolk County. Yarrington served in the Lake George-Lake Champlain region of upstate New York during the French and Indian War. The engravings on the horn trace his journey as a soldier.
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Tickets for the World in Wax in Coney Island
Operated by Lilly Santangelo and her husband from the 1920s until 1984, the World in Wax featured historical figures, entertainers and athletes, as well as gory scenes.
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Framed portrait miniature of George Washington
Painted by Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827) and originally owned by Nicholas Couwenhoven (1744–93) of New Utrecht. Throughout the Revolutionary War, Couwenhoven's loyalties shifted between the American cause and that of the British.
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Firefighter's helmet, early nineteenth century
Worn by a member of Atlantic Hose Company No. 1, a Brooklyn Volunteer Fire Department.
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Reverend Samuel Buell (1716–98)
Painted by Abraham Guilielmus Dominy Tuthill (1777–1846) in 1798. Buell was minister at East Hampton's Presbyterian Church for nearly fifty years, from 1746 until his death.
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Mold for cutting leather, twentieth century
Used by the Wellmade Glove Company, a glove shop and manufacturer specializing in fine gloves made from fabric and goat skin. The business operated in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope from the 1940s to the 1960s.
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40 Miles Around New York, circa 1868
First published in 1866, this map was "H.H. Lloyd's new map of the great metropolis: including the cities of New York, Brooklyn, Jersey City, Hoboken, &c." Brooklyn did not become a borough of New York City until 1898.
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Safety helmet used by Anthony M. Costanzo
Costanzo served as public information officer for the U.S. Department of the Navy at the Brooklyn Navy Yard until its closing in 1966. Opened in 1801, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was the U.S. government's premier shipbuilding facility for 165 years.
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Scandinavian bent wood box, seventeenth or eighteenth century
This small carved box is typical of the kinds of crafts long created in Sweden and Norway. It was supposedly brought to America by Gerrit Cornelisse van Duyn, an early Dutch settler to New Amsterdam, in 1649.
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Red wool beret
Owned by Brooklyn-born activist Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, a volunteer organization dedicated to combating violence and crime in New York City.
The Revealing Long Island History project is driving work across BHS focused on collections care and storage, digitization, and conservation.
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Nearly 10,000 artifacts are being examined and documented for the first time in over twenty years. -
New photography and digitization will make BHS's artifact collections widely accessible to researchers and the public. -
Conservation treatment is preserving our most fragile and historically significant artifacts for future generations.
As we dive into our collections, in-depth research is revealing fascinating stories about the history of Long Island.
Read more about our latest featured find
When we began the Revealing Long Island History project, we knew that BHS’s collections included Revolutionary War artifacts connected to Founding Fathers like George Washington. As artifact cataloging has progressed, however, we have been surprised to learn that many of our earliest donations tell that history through the eyes of the notorious British officers who occupied New York and Long Island during the war. These humble, everyday artifacts reveal a great deal about how the war was remembered by subsequent generations, the marks it left on the landscape, and the wonderful eccentricities of the Long Island Historical Society’s early collecting efforts.
When visiting small historic house museums, it is common to hear claims that “George Washington once slept here.” On Long Island, where many of the crucial early events of the American Revolution took place, similar stories exist relating to British officers. We have discovered one such tale in this metal shutter hook preserved and donated to LIHS in the late 1800s because of its supposed tie to Major John André, the commander of the British Secret Intelligence during the revolution. In 1780, André was caught conspiring against American forces with the notorious Benedict Arnold. He was sentenced to death by a court of fourteen military generals and executed as a spy on October 2, 1780. Although André’s trial and final days took place in upstate New York, his notoriety spread and inspired relic hunters to preserve objects purportedly connected to him. Long after his death, locals in the Bedford neighborhood of Brooklyn, which was occupied by British General Sir William Howe’s troops during the war, made claims about André’s role in local history through their donations. According to BHS’s early collections records, this metal shutter hook was taken from a window of the “West Room” of the Lefferts House in Bedford, where André supposedly stayed before his demise.
We may never be able to definitely prove the legends associated with this artifact. That, however, is not as important as preserving such artifacts, as they remind us of the power of memory not only in shaping our understanding of Brooklyn’s importance in history, and also, in the evolution of American patriotism and nationalism.
