This slant-lid desk box, which dates from the mid-1600s, is among the earliest pieces of furniture in the BHS collection. A piece of “pilgrim furniture,” it is typical of the kinds of furnishings that the first generation of English settlers in North America desired for their homes. Modeled after popular contemporary English furniture, early pieces like the desk box are typically broad and boxy, sturdily constructed, and decorated with elaborate carvings. 

When a Wells family descendant donated the box to the Long Island Historical Society (now Brooklyn Historical Society) in 1887, they asserted that the box had been “brought from England by the first William Wells” of Southold, Long Island. Some immigrants did cross the Atlantic with their furnishings, including Southold’s Barnabas Horton, whose English-made red oak chest is also in the BHS collection. However, microanalysis of the wood used to make the Wells family desk box confirms it is of American manufacture. The box is made of post oak, which at the time was only available in New England.

The simple abstract carving decorating the desk box suggests a potential connection to Connecticut. A New Haven–made chest owned by Thomas Osborne of East Hampton, Long Island, in the 1600s shares a very similar carving style to that of the box. Furthermore, Wells traveled to Connecticut often as Southold’s deputy representative to the General Court of the New Haven Colony, to which the Long Island settlement pledged allegiance, making it possible that he commissioned his desk box from an area craftsman. The desk box’s stylistic connection to New England is just one example of the larger social and cultural ties that bound the towns of Long Island’s East End to their neighbors just across the Long Island Sound.

That New York City was once New Amsterdam and part of the Dutch North American empire is well known. Less so is the fact that in the 1600s, the East End of Long Island nearly became part of Connecticut. English immigrants seeking new opportunities or relief from religious oppression traveled across the Long Island Sound to the island’s eastern tip and formed settlements like Southold beginning in the 1640s. Early English Long Islanders desired independence and space, but nevertheless shared close cultural and even political ties with their New England neighbors.   

Southold’s original settlers, drawn to a strict interpretation of Puritanism, voluntarily placed themselves under the New Haven Colony’s political jurisdiction, paying taxes and even sending town representatives to the colony’s general court, William Wells among them. In the coming decades, these political allegiances became a source of conflict, first between the Dutch and the English, and, after 1664, between New York Colony and Connecticut Colony.

In the 1660s, a quick succession of upsets unsettled life in early Southold. First, in 1662, Connecticut Governor John Winthrop, Jr. secured a new royal charter for the colony, effectively absorbing New Haven Colony, including Southold on Long Island. William Wells apparently objected to the merger and refused to become a freeman of Connecticut Colony. However, the English conquest of New Amsterdam in 1664 presented an even bigger challenge to the future of the East End.

Residents of the Long Island towns of Southold, Southampton, and East Hampton were apparently initially excited to see their Dutch rivals defeated. But for these East Enders, the possibility of losing some of the freedoms they had enjoyed under Connecticut rule turned them against New York swiftly. New York Governor Nicolls’ records document the persistent rebellion of the three East End towns, whose residents refused to elect local officials or to “pay the publique Rates,” or taxes. 

This resistance continued into the 1670s, when the Dutch briefly recaptured the region, renaming it New Orange and demanding the obedience of all residents, including those on Long Island. Sensing a final opportunity, the East End towns reached out to Connecticut officials pleading for protection and to reestablish their former political ties with the colony. Ultimately, the Dutch takeover failed, and the 1674 Treaty of Westminster gave New York back to England, whose jurisdiction over Long Island was then cemented.

Eastern Long Islanders’ hostility to New York was resolved by the colony’s third governor, Edmund Andros. He issued generous new land patents to the townships and promised to respect their control of their local common lands. Imagine, though, how different Long Island might be today if the island had been divided between New York and Connecticut.

The inside of the desk box includes one surviving storage drawer. Although faint, an inscription survives on the front of the drawer reads “Governor’s letters for 1665 (66) (67).” Previous studies have suggested that this inscription referred to Connecticut’s governor, John Winthrop Jr. However, new research indicates that New York’s first colonial governor, Richard Nicolls, was more likely Wells’ writing partner. The correspondence stored in this box then was likely dedicated to shaping the new colony’s rule of law.

According to family tradition, Wells studied the English law before immigrating to North America. The rediscovery of several legal treatises owned by Wells and donated to LIHS (now BHS) along with his desk box supports this history and explains why Governor Nicolls named Wells to many prominent positions in his government. In 1664, Wells became one of Nicolls’ five-member advisory council. Nicolls subsequently also named Wells High Sheriff of the newly created county of Yorkshire (which included Long Island, Staten Island, and Westchester), and a justice of the peace in the East Riding Court of Assize (later renamed Suffolk County). Immediately following the English conquest of New Amsterdam, Nicolls’ rule was strict: the new colony’s laws were drafted by him with only the assistance of his advisors, including Wells.

Although Wells’ side of their correspondence may not survive, the colonial records of Nicolls’ administration document Wells’ role in managing the affairs of the young colony. As an advisor to Nicolls, Wells helped draft the legal code that became known as the Duke’s Laws. Inspired by the laws and customs of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and New Haven Colony, and incorporating certain Dutch practices from New Netherland, the Duke’s Laws were a comprehensive alphabetical list outlining appropriate behavior in New York Colony. 

The Duke’s Laws made no provision for representative government or a colonial legislature, a fact that angered the English settlers on the East End. Their resistance to Nicolls’ laws and refusal to pay taxes or elect local officials plagued Wells’ tenure as high sheriff of Yorkshire. Letters from the governor to Wells throughout the 1660s were filled with demands that Wells subdue local rebellion and enforce the collection of taxes in the towns of Eastern Long Island. It’s no wonder, then, that Wells needed a desk with so much storage to hold his extensive, and most likely anxiety-inducing, government correspondence.

As a prominent Long Islander, William Wells served as an intermediary in numerous trials of transitions. In 1666, New York’s first English governor, Richard Nicolls, requested Wells establish and oversee a “Special Commission on Indian Affairs.” The commission was responsible for hearing and resolving land disputes between the English and American Indians on the East End. The establishment of the commission reveals the continuing conflict between Europeans and local American Indian groups and the attempts of Long Island’s new English government to diffuse tensions in the region. 

The arrival of Englishmen on Long Island in the mid-1600s kicked off decades of diplomatic negotiations between them and local indigenous communities like the Montaukett on Long Island’s South Fork. Negotiated exchanges of land and goods opened the door to European settlement on Long Island and initially provided Native American communities with the protection of a powerful ally.  As the first century of contact drew to a close, though, disagreements and misunderstandings arose more frequently, requiring government intervention.

From 1666 to 1674, Well’s Special Commission on Indian Affairs heard testimony and issued decisions on disputes between “Christians and Indians” largely relating to land sales, border disputes, and accusations of trespassing and property damage. The Duke’s Laws, the legal system established in 1665 by Governor Nicolls and his council (including Wells), included nine ordinances relating specifically to Indians, intended to help mediate conflicts before they turned violent. American Indians were understandably reluctant to solve problems within this foreign system, one which undoubtedly skewed heavily in favor of the English. 

Mention of the special commission disappears from colonial records in the mid-1670s, when it was likely absorbed into the larger colonial court system. As the 1600s drew to a close, Long Island’s American Indian population shrank dramatically, decimated by outbreaks of diseases. Those who survived saw their rights curtailed and ancestral lands shrink and, by the late 1800s, real estate developers eager to turn Long Island’s East End into a suburban retreat for New York’s wealthy.

In the late 1800s, urban pleasure-seekers began discovering eastern Long Island. Many learned of the region’s beauties through publications like Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, whose 1878 article “Around the Peconics” took readers on a rambling journey across the island, from Coney Island in the west all the way to Montauk Point. The author marveled at its beaches and bays, animal and plant life, and eastern Long Island’s remote upper and lower “forks” just east of Peconic Bay in Suffolk County.

The writer of the article also introduced his readers to the island’s villages, “clean and bright with new paint and prosperity.” He was fascinated by the region’s historic houses and their massive chimneys, writing that the “interest and distinguishing beauty of Long Island…lie in its antiquity and the traces of the memorable past which have survived.”

That eastern Long Island was “as pretty a picture of rural comfort as the tired city man can well imagine” attracted the interest of urban dwellers and land developers hoping to build getaways for New Yorkers and Brooklynites living in increasingly crowded cities. 

This interest from urbanites in Long Island resulted at times in the destruction of treasured local historic structures. For example, the demolition around 1878 of the Old Horton House made national news. Described as “the oldest house in America,” the house dated back to the 1660s, when it was built by Barnabas Horton (1600–80), one of the original settlers of Southold, Long Island. This steady loss of local history spurred many to action.

When the Long Island Historical Society opened in 1863, it was the first institution of its kind on the island. Many of LIHS’s earliest members lived in Queens and Suffolk counties. Witnessing the disappearance of local history, these early preservationists donated artifacts like William Wells’ desk box and Barnabas Horton’s carved chest to the society, ensuring their long-term survival. 

Many of these early members of LIHS went on to become supporters of the American Preservation Movement, dedicated to preserving the country’s historic sites and structures. Today, the efforts of regional and national landmark preservation commissions, historical societies, museums, and private citizens ensure that Long Island’s “distinguishing beauty,” its local history and heritage, does not disappear.