Raynham Hall

In 1740, Samuel Townsend purchased the property now known as Raynham Hall. His move to Oyster Bay allowed him easier access to the waterfront and his shipping business. Samuel’s property consisted originally of a four-room frame house, an apple orchard, pasture and woodlands for his livestock, and a meadow leading down to the harbor. He enlarged the house to eight rooms by building a lean-to addition on the north side, creating a saltbox-style house. This property, was known simply as “The Homestead.”

In addition to the shipping business, Townsend operated a general store. He was Oyster Bay’s Justice of the Peace and Town Clerk, a member of the New York Provincial Congress from 1774 to 1777, and a New York State Senator from 1786 to 1790.

In September of 1776, British soldiers came to Townsend’s home in Oyster Bay to arrest him for his outspoken Patriotic beliefs, and to imprison him on one of the notorious prison ships in New York Harbor. For a six-month period from 1778 to 1779, the Townsend home served as headquarters for a regiment of over 300 British troops called the Queen’s Rangers, and their commander, Lt. Col. John Graves Simcoe, who quartered himself in the house, alongside the family.

Samuel’s son Robert operated a merchant shipping form in Manhattan. Under the code name “Culper Junior,” Robert formed the first link in a chain of agents who came to be known as the Culper Spy Ring. The spies supplied Washington with critical information about New York City and Long Island.  Raynham Hall is home to the first documented Valentine in the United States, addressed to the Townsends’ daughter Sarah by occupying officer John Graves Simcoe, and presented to her on February 14^th, 1779.

In 1851, Solomon Townsend II, Samuel’s grandson, purchased the Townsend Homestead. He then remodeled and enlarged the dwelling, bringing the number of rooms from eight to twenty-two. He named the home Raynham Hall. By 1912, the house had passed into the ownership of Edward Nicoll Townsend, Jr., grandson of Solomon II. He held the house for two years before selling it to a cousin, Julia Weekes Coles. Julia owned the Townsend home between 1914 and 1933, and though she apparently never lived there, she and her sister, Sarah Townsend Coles Halstead, maintained the home and operated a tea room there for a time. In 1933, Ms. Coles sold it for $10 to the Oyster Bay chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The Daughters of the American Revolution, donated the property to the Town of Oyster Bay in 1947. The Hall is now a museum open to the public.

 

Source:

“About.” Raynham Hall Museum, 18 Sept. 1970, http://www.raynhamhallmuseum.org