The Raynam Hall Museum
The Friends of Raynam Hall, Inc., partners with the Town of Oyster Bay, N.Y. to maintain and operate the Raynham Hall Museum, a nearly 300-year-old home which belonged to Samuel Townsend (1717-1790) a prosperous merchant, and his family. The Museum carries on the name given to “the homestead” in 1851 by Solomon Townsend II (grandson of Samuel). Solomon named the property after the home of the Townshends in Norfolk, England, perhaps in homage to it’s most prominent member, Charles Townshend. Townshend authored the Townshend Acts — a series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies.
The Raynham Hall Museum boasts an exceptional collection of archives and artifacts that provide an in-depth look at the lives of the Townsend family and their neighbors from 1740 to 1940. More than 5,000 items of furniture, works of art, household accessories, tableware, cookware, textiles, costumes, toys, and games are preserved and displayed at the Museum. Many objects have a Townsend family provenance. Highlights include furniture and other decorative arts made on Long Island. Typical of wealthy New York families of his day, Samuel Townsend’s business was intertwined with the economics of slavery and a bible in the Museum’s collection contains entries from 1789-1795 of the names, birth and death of seventeen people held enslaved by the Townsends, including a partial geneology. Samuel Townsend also operated a general store which provided a variety of imported wares. A ledger kept by his sons, William and David, records the purchases of goods from the Townsend store by other slaves in the Oyster Bay area during the 1760s and 1770s. This ledger is held in the collection of the New York Historical Society. Other Townsend family papers comprised of numerous manuscript letters, deeds, and voluminous business records, specifically those of son Robert Townsend (1753 –1838) may be of particular interest to researchers of George Washington’s famed Culper Spy Ring, a professional, secret intelligence gathering operation in New York during the British Occupation in the American Revolutionary War.
A complete compilation of Robert Townsend’s account books (1773-1785) and other Townsend family papers can be accessed at the East Hampton Library: http://easthamptonlibrary.org/long-island-history/robert-townsend-account-books/.. Portions of The Raynham Hall Museum’s archival collection is digitized, and can be accessed on the Museum’s website: https://raynhamhallmuseum.pastperfectonline.com and on https://liu.access.preservica.com/archive
Archives Hours: By Appointment
Museum hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 1 – 5 pm, tours at 1 & 3 pm
Address: 20 West Main Street, Oyster Bay, NY 11771
Website: https://raynhamhallmuseum.org
Contact: 516-922-6808
jpearl@raynhamhallmuseum.org
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