Gary Beeber: Sylvester Manor

A former slaveholding provisioning plantation

Gary Beeber has visited Sylvester Manor on New York’s Shelter Island across several seasons, building a deep body of work some of which is on view at the wonderful Griffin Museum of Photography outside of Boston (through Feb. 21, 2021). Sylvester Manor, once a Native American hunting, fishing and farming ground, has since 1651 been home to eleven generations of its original European settler family. Now an educational farm, the grounds belie their history as a provisioning plantation for the Barbadian sugar trade.