The Seat of Action

Xiomaro returns to the Long Island Museum (a Smithsonian Affiliate) with four photographs. More details will follow, but the images are drawn from his collection of the William Floyd Estate, which was commissioned by the National Park Service.

Floyd was an American Revolutionary and signer of the Declaration of Independence.  General Floyd served under George Washington in the Continental Army as well as in the first Continental Congress.  By the late 1770s, the British occupied Long Island and the Floyd family escaped to Connecticut. He returned to a ransacked house, which he restored to receive visitors such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other notable guests.

Floyd’s home, known as The Old Mastic House, is located in Mastic, Long Island, and is part of Fire Island National Seashore. Remarkably, Old Mastic House was continuously occupied by Floyd’s descendants up until 1976 when it was donated to the National Park Service. The photographs present interior views and perspectives that visitors to the sprawling 25 room house are not likely to see as well as spaces that are closed to the public, views of the grounds, outbuildings, and the Floyd family cemetery (including an area with markers believed to be associated with slaves).