This autograph book kept by Mary Howard Greene Thompson (1791-1868) is an early version of today’s school yearbook, with messages and drawings left by friends and family to be read when they were apart. Mary kept this book, which is part of Preservation Long Island’s collection, between 1830 and 1839, having friends and family sign it when they visited her home in Hempstead.
Several of the messages left in it are poetry and prose by family members, such as her son-in-law, Jacob Tuthill Vanderhoof (1820-1891), while other messages have only initials after them. Several inscriptions are attributed to notable figures such as Alden J. Spooner (1810-1881), a Sag Harbor-born lawyer and one of the founders of the Brooklyn Historical Society, and Samuel Hains Smith Woodworth (1811-1844), son of the poet Samuel Woodworth, who was famous for “The Old Oaken Bucket.”
Mary and her husband, Benjamin Franklin Thompson (1784-1849), were also friends with the Long Island artist William Sidney Mount (1807-1868), who did several sketches in Mary’s autograph book, one of which depicts her father, the Rev. Zachariah Greene (1760-1858).
Although Mary and Benjamin lived in Hempstead for many years, they were both born in Setauket and met there. Mary’s father came to Setauket as minister of its First Presbyterian Church. Benjamin’s family settled there between the 17th and 18th centuries. Benjamin, a physician and politician, is best known for his work as a historian: In 1839, he published one of the first histories of the region, “The History of Long Island,” which traces the Island’s past from Queens all the way out to East Hampton.
Despite previously being known only as the wife of a prominent historian, Mary is glimpsed through the messages in her autograph book, identifying her as a woman of affection and intellect.
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Megan Bardis is a librarian and archivist in the Long Island Collection.
