THEN:

Hearing the train whistle a dozen times a day and more, the rails now traversing hills once solely the land of the First Peoples and their descendants, The Shinnecock Indian Nation. Since 1859, (Note 1) the tribe has been bound to the reservation/territory while their challenge to the claims of Town ownership of more than 4000 acres continues in courts (2016). In what many called a white land grab furthering the interests of the Long Island Railroad and their directors under the guise of “improvement” has jeopardized the civility of Shinnecock culture, beliefs, practices, and their ancestral roots disputed.

A telescoping story of the railroad’s (Note 2) displacement of native people, flora, and fauna for purposes of development and gentrification (no information survives detailing LIRR payment for a right of way through the Hills (Note 3). In 1859, the Trustees of the Freeholders and Commonality of the Town of Southampton laid claim to the land, “The Hills.”  The Town subsequently sold (1861) the acreage at auction to the newly founded Proprietors of the Shinnecock Hills and Sebonac Sedges. In turn, the Proprietors sold the rights to the Hills (January 5 1884 for $101,000) to the LIRR subsidiary Long Island Improvement Company, which were subsequently sold privately during the leadership of President Samuel L. Parrish to himself (Note 4), associates, friends, and family (above, F. W. Beers Map 1894).  A.B. Claflin, J. Romaine Brown, T.G. Condon, LIRR President Austin Corbin, James  L. Parrish, Frances K Pendleton.  Jane Borrowe Colt (Note 6), Annie Corbin Borrowe, Eleanor Harris Swayne, Helen P. Brown: women exercising their newly won right to own property (Note 5) amidst gains for women’s suffrage. Hill’s landowners (1907) formed the Shinnecock Hills Improvement and Protective Association.

Along with the attraction that artists bring to the narrative such as the lands gifted to plein air painter, William Merritt Chase (Note 7) by arts patrons that included the Southampton Art Museum, founder and art collector (railroad lawyer) Samuel L. Parrish:  for Chase’s Shinnecock Summer School of Art (1891 - 1902) and a home/studio (1891, Architect Stanford White, Note 7). Chase’s conservation efforts, memorialized in his Shinnecock Hill landscape paintings, are mirrored in Sandrow’s art and social practice inspired by her muse the white Padovana cockerel, on ancestral lands, in structures (Note 7) from Chase’s time (1891 - 1914).

The transition of the East End to the Technical Revolution or Second Industrial Revolution (1870–1920) was hastened by train service to the East End: electric power in the early 20th century (1894, Note 8); the first automobile reported (1899, Note 9) in a local newspaper article under one about horse and carriages. Fires burned many Summer “Cottages” to the ground, including the Colt’s (1951): view what “remains”; write a letter in support of preserving these lands, graves (pictured r) from being disturbed.  And what “lays bare” unearthed (pictured right, Glass Insulators) from lands that include the Cottage/Carriage House and Carriage/Gatehouse (Note 7) that survived both currently owned by Sandrow/Skogsbergh.

(1892) Completion of the Shinnecock Canal, named to memorialize First Peoples’ (Note 10) ancestral lands, was a matter of local importance to Southampton - then. And, now (1975 to the present Digital Revolution or Third Industrial Revolution) the environmental impact of new development along its shores of concern to the east end community as well as an element of global dialogue (2006-2016). With “Neighbors”, Sandrow actively opposed a townhouse development along the Canal’s southeastern shores (since 2006, Note 11).  Under construction due to the Town’s recent passage (September 28, 2020) of legislation protecting sacred ancestral sites and lands despite many decades of promises to Shinnecock Indian Nation. The exploitation and marginalization of the past 160 years activated the work of Shinnecock Nation Graves Protection Warrior Society led by Rebecca Genia; artists Jeremy Dennis, Shane Weeks, Artist and Tribal Attorney Kelly Dennis and Tela Troge.

Threads along a two-mile stretch of road in Shinnecock Hills that weave a story of cultural and social history. In which the place of women, community, civil rights, the natural world. and “our” nature juxtaposed to art and social history are investigated, as Sandrow’s art practice.  And life: (Jan 15, 2020) The 38th state voted to endorse the ERA (the first state while Sandrow was in art school March 22, 1972): “Virginia’s decision does not seal the amendment’s addition to the United States Constitution. A deadline for three-quarters, or 38, of the 50 states to approve the E.R.A. expired in 1982.”