This is our first blog—hopefully the first of many—and an exciting opportunity to share some of the “back story” of our collections.

One of the object records recently added to our Online Collections Database is an early American highchair that is currently on view in the “Bringing Up Baby” exhibition at Historic Richmond Town.  The chair is part of an amazing collection of antiques that was amassed by Staten Islander Edwin Spencer Barnes in the early 20^th century.  We’re lucky to have the Barnes collection, and especially lucky that we also have his hand-written registers that he used to keep track of his antiques (that’s how it was done in the years before online databases!).

What we wished for, however, was more information about Mr. Barnes himself.  Who was he?  Why did he collect?  Does he have any living descendants?

Thankfully, an internet search put us in touch with family members who have been able to provide some answers.  This reminds us of how fortunate we are to be able to find people, all over the world, who have some connection to Historic Richmond Town.

Some intriguing tidbits of information came from the granddaughter of Elizabeth Sterling Robinson, who was the niece of Edwin Spencer Barnes and who lived with him and his wife Mary on Staten Island. Elizabeth died in 1977, but her granddaughter still has a note--written long ago by her grandmother to help her with a school project-- that tells us, “Uncle Ed (Edwin Spencer Barnes) an architect came from Franklin, Delaware Co., NY. He worked on many buildings in NY which are landmarks today, Grand Central Station being one.  Also the Mark Twain Cottage.  Many of the antiques in my house today were bought and restored by him.”

Elizabeth, by the way, was a social studies teacher at Port Richmond High School and a founding volunteer at Snug Harbor—no doubt she had a passion for preservation that was influenced by growing up in such historically rich surroundings.  Elizabeth’s husband, J. Bay Robinson, was the one who brought the highchair to Historic Richmond Town in 1982.  Thank you, Robinson family, and thank you, Edwin Spencer Barnes!!