The Steamer Old Dominion Plying between Norfolk and New York, Oil on canvas, 1894, The Collection of the Trustees of the Sailors’ Snug Harbor in the City of New York
E.F. Neilson (1865-1909): Paintings by a New Brighton Artist in the Sailors’ Snug Harbor Collection
Online exhibition
Ernest Fiedler Neilson was born to William Neilson and Louisa Fiedler on August 4, 1865 in Hong Kong, then a colony of the British Empire. His father traveled the world as a tea merchant, but by the time he was 10 years old, his family settled into his mother’s family home on Richmond Terrace in New Brighton, Staten Island. Neilson was an early member of the Staten Island Museum, then called the Natural Science Association, and was a scientist, naturalist, and author of Reptiles of Staten Island and Northern New Jersey, published in 1881 when he was only 16 years old.
In 1894, under the leadership of Sailors’ Snug Harbor Governor Gustavus Trask, the Trustees of the retirement home started collecting maritime art for the benefit of the residents. The Trust ultimately collected over 100 paintings that were hung in the halls of the dormitories and in administrative offices. By this time Neilson was also an amateur artist and 15 of his maritime paintings were acquired by the Trustees and remain part of their collection. He often depicted maritime scenes from a local vantage point and would note his New Brighton location adjacent to his signature in the lower right corner of his canvases.
He studied theology at Columbia College, the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, and by 1900 was the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Newburgh, New York, where he lived with his wife Frances and daughter Helen. He died on December 24, 1909 at the age of 44.
Map of New Brighton in 1874
The Fiedler mansion, home to E.F. Neilson’s family, was located at 300 Richmond Terrace, just over a mile from Sailors’ Snug Harbor.
J.B. Beers & Co., Part of New Brighton: Town of Castleton, Ink on paper, 1874, Courtesy of the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library
Democratic Club House, New Brighton, Staten Island, Postcard, c. 1925, Courtesy of the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library
E.F. Neilson’s mother, Louisa Fiedler, was from a very wealthy Staten Island family. The Fiedler mansion, like many of the Sailors’ Snug Harbor buildings, was a grand Greek Revival building, with tall white columns on three sides of the front portico. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, large mansions like this were a common sight along Richmond Terrace. By 1917, the Fiedler mansion was the headquarters for Democratic Club of Richmond County before it was razed in the 1930s. That plot of land is now the parking lot for PS 59 The Harbor View School, the old St. Peter’s Girls High School.
This exhibition is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; and a Humanities New York CARES Grant with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the federal CARES Act.*
*Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
