Panel 4 of 7
Washington's Visit
In brief
In 1790, President George Washington stopped for one night at Sagtikos Manor during a tour of Long Island. He came not as a general, but as the leader of a brand-new country.
In 1790, George Washington toured Long Island as the first President of the United States. The war was over and the new republic had begun, but the landscape he traveled still carried the memory of occupation, loyalty, danger, and survival. Local tradition places Washington at Sagtikos Manor for one night during that tour, and the same house is remembered in local tradition for the wartime presence, from time to time, of British General Henry Clinton during the occupation, though his exact stays need further research.
The deeper meaning of the visit has to be stated with care. Isaac Thompson was related by family to people connected with Revolutionary intelligence networks, and some modern accounts suggest Washington's tour was partly to thank those who had helped. That cannot be proven. This exhibit does not claim, as settled fact, that Washington stopped “to thank spies,” or that Isaac Thompson worked with the Culper Spy Ring. Those remain open research questions.
A careful telling is enough. Fourteen years after independence was declared, Washington returned to Long Island not as a general but as president, and his stop connected Islip's Revolutionary past to the new nation that followed.
Sources
- George J. Munkenbeck, “Isaac Thompson — A Man on a Tightrope.”
- Michele Antonio, “George Washington Slept at Sagtikos Manor,” Patch, June 26, 2010 (updated June 27, 2010). Secondary local-history source.