Thomas Dering (1720-1785)
of Sylvester Manor, Shelter Island; New York State Congressman
He failed in business in Boston and came to New York, changing the spelling of his name to "Dering". He was a supporter of the Declaration of Independence, a member of the convention that approved New York's first state constitution and a member of the Congress of the independent United States of America. He was married in 1756 to Mary, daughter and heiress of Brinley Sylvester, of Sylvester Manor, Shelter Island, New York. "Sylvestor Manor was the first — and the largest — slave plantation on Long Island, but the fact that slaves, Native Americans and whites lives and worked alongside each other made it unlike its Southern counterparts, experts say. It had begun in 1651 when Nathaniel Sylvester, an Englishman raised in Amsterdam, brought 24 slaves to work the land so he could provide for his brother’s sugar plantation in Barbados. He originally owned all 8,000 acres of Shelter Island. The manor is now the most intact slaveholding plantation remnant north of Virginia." Thomas and Mary were the parents of 3-children.
