HYLAND
cause was Charles Edison, son of the inventor and
a former New Jersey governor, who summered
in Sag Harbor at the Hannibal French House
on Main Street. Anna Dering's own household
inventories aided the Committee and the Society
for Preservation of Long Island Antiquities in their
three-year restoration of the house to all its shadowy,
romantic splendor.
In his famous 1850 introduction
to The Scarlet Letter, entitled
"The Custom-House," Nathaniel
Hawthorne wrote of that in old
Salem, Massachusetts words
which could well be applied
to the Dering abode: "But, for
myself, during the whole of my
Custom-House experience,
moonlight and sunshine, and
the glow of fire-light, were just
alike in my regard; and neither of
them was of one whit more avail
than the twinkle of a tallow-candle." Sag Harbor's
Custom-Master House is visible to the visitor only
in sunlight—made the more remarkable by the
house's famous pair of windows, forming a ninety-
degree angle at the join of two abutting external
walls, a singular instructive arrangement-- but one
can well imagine its sere, lovely ornaments by fire
