From about 1852 to 1906 the southern end of Manursing Island was owned by the Van Rensselaer family. A large part of this property became the Read Sanctuary in 1985. What is left to show from that earlier time? William P. Van Rensselaer was the third son of General Stephen Van Rensselaer, who owned a gigantic amount of property in upstate New York—some 700,000 acres which began as a Dutch patroon (“a landholder with manorial rights to large tracts of land in the 17 th century Dutch colony of New Netherland on the east coast of North America”) . But not being first born, he did not inherit the land; instead he received money, with which he purchased his 85 acre plot on Manursing Island. He built a large Italianate style mansion which sat just east of the Read property, where there is a field today at 2 S. Manursing Island Drive. William was a lawyer and worked in New York City with a descendant of John Jay. Behind his house, William had barns and stables. These had large cellars, with massive stone sides. The cellars are on Edith Read property, about 100 yards northwest from the dorm building on the edge of the Manursing Island Club property. My wife discovered these some years ago while we were walking. This is heavily overgrown and best seen in winter. Someone someday might undertake to clean out this site and make it an attraction to visit. When you leave the headquarters and garage buildings to walk toward the bamboo garden you will pass a long, low stone wall—large field stones which had a topping on them at one time. It is my surmise that this marked the southern end of the Van Rensselaer property. (This is covered over by growth in the summer.) There may also be other indica of their development of the land yet to be recognized.
William died in 1872 and his wife in 1887. Their two daughters inherited the mansion and used it as a summer home—Catherine Atterbury and Eleanor Fairfax. They kept a guest book which I have, showing who visited in 1903 and 1904. In 1906 the property was sold to the Zeeland Realty Corp., which was associated with Simeon Ford of Rye. It is commonly believed that the house burned down. Prime parts of the land became the Manursing Island Club and the Westchester Country Club. The County purchased the main part of the land in 1923 for part of what became Playland. In turn the sanctuary became part of that piece of land in 1985.
By Paul D. Rheingold, Secretary, Edith Read Wildlife Sanctuary, Rye