Nicoll’s historical treasure trove released

“Collected Letters of Charlotte Anne Nicoll 1820-1888,” a recent release of the Shelter Island Historical Society, was transcribed, edited and annotated by Islanders Patricia and Edward Shillingburg.

The letters were culled from about 350 documents that range in time from the 1820s to the 1880s. The bulk of them are family letters from the 1850s and 60s — many of which, the Shillingburgs say, were written by all seven children in the Nicoll family to each other, their parents and their aunts. They “tell a number of delightful and some not so delightful stories, but all of them interesting.”

The collection was given to the Queens Public Library in 2001 by a descendant of the Nicoll’s family and then given by the library to the Shelter Island Historical Society in 2010.

The Nicoll family lived in Sachem’s Neck on Shelter Island, which covered one third of the Island. They were a distinguished family, one of New York’s aristocratic first families, descended from Matthias Nicoll, the secretary to the first English governor of New York.

The Shillingburgs note in their introduction to the book that the letters and other documents in this collection were all handwritten on rag paper; the handwriting is often faded and there are torn places. Because the letters refer to many different people and events, the Shillingburgs have provided some notes to assist the reader “but they are not exhaustive and are only intended to offer guidance, not a full narrative.”

Copies of “Collected Letters” will be available at the Historical Society’s Holiday Open House on Sunday, December 11 at the Havens House from 1 to 3 p.m.