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Hollin HouseMuseum & Garden · Tarrow Landing, New York
The collection

Twelve objects, as plates.

12 objects on these pages; 3 adopted for 2026, 9 still looking for an adopter. Each plate gives the object, its date, material, room and accession number, a paragraph on what is known and what is not, and the cost of the one treatment it needs.

Adopt an object. The cost on each plate is what the named treatment costs, quoted by a conservator. Adopting pays for that treatment and nothing else: the object stays in the collection, no title passes, and the adopter’s name goes on the label for a year. Gifts go to the collections-care fund, which is used for the direct care of the collection and for nothing else, as the museum’s collections policy and the AAM Code of Ethics for Museums require.

Objects are described, never attributed to a maker the museum cannot prove. Where a plate says “we do not know”, that is the catalogue entry. An object without a photograph would say so on its plate rather than show a stand-in, and the staff checks flag it until one is taken.

The study: a slant-top desk with pigeonholes, shelves of leather-spined ledgers, a green-shaded brass lamp, a wooden armchair, dark wainscot and a faded green wall, the window at the left.
Plate IXThe study, where the letters, ledgers and account books are kept. About 4,180 objects are catalogued; the twelve below are the ones a conservator has looked at most recently.
A close detail of the overshot coverlet: indigo wool floated over an undyed cotton ground in squares and lozenges, the frayed selvedge at the right.
Plate 1 · HHM.1974.12

Overshot coverlet

Object
Overshot coverlet
Date
about 1885
Material
Wool and cotton, overshot weave, indigo and undyed
Room
The upstairs bedrooms
Accession
HHM.1974.12

Two loom widths seamed down the middle, indigo wool floated over a cotton ground in a pattern of squares and lozenges. One selvedge has frayed and there is a darned repair near the seam, done in the house, in a slightly wrong blue. We do not know who wove it; the family's papers call it only "the blue coverlet".

Adopt this object · $180 pays for a conservation clean and a padded roll for storage. Adopt it →

The tall-case clock in the front hall: a mahogany case against plaster and dark wainscot, a painted dial with a moon phase, the pendulum behind a glazed door.
Plate 2 · HHM.1974.3

Tall-case clock

Object
Tall-case clock
Date
about 1870
Material
Mahogany, brass, painted iron dial
Room
The front hall
Accession
HHM.1974.3

The clock stood in the hall from the day the house was finished and is still wound on Wednesday mornings. The moon-phase dial is painted iron, the case mahogany veneer on pine. It runs a little fast in summer; the last service was in 2014, which is why it is on this list.

Adopted for 2026 — thank you. $600 pays for a full service of the movement by a clock conservator.

The 1884 day book open on a green felt-covered table under a brass lamp, columns of faded brown ink, a brass paperweight holding the page.
Plate 3 · HHM.1975.40

Day book, 1884 to 1889

Object
Day book, 1884 to 1889
Date
1884 to 1889
Material
Paper, leather spine, marbled boards
Room
The study
Accession
HHM.1975.40

The first of the family's day books: every sale and purchase in the order it happened, before it was posted to the ledger. Flour, salt, lamp oil, freight by the ton, ice by the block. The spine has split and the first gathering is loose, so it is turned only by the curator, with gloves, on request.

Adopt this object · $240 pays for an archival box and a page-by-page digital copy. Adopt it →

A pair of cast-iron sad irons with turned wooden handles on the scorched kitchen table, a folded linen cloth beside them and the stone sink behind.
Plate 4 · HHM.1978.7

Pair of sad irons

Object
Pair of sad irons
Date
about 1890
Material
Cast iron, turned wooden handles
Room
The kitchen
Accession
HHM.1978.7

Two of a set of three that were heated in turn on the range, one always hot while the other was in use. The handles are worn to the shape of a hand. They sit on the kitchen table because that is where the 1911 inventory lists them.

Adopt this object · $60 pays for rust treatment and a protective wax. Adopt it →

The front parlour: a horsehair sofa, a marble-topped table, patterned wallpaper, a tall mirror over the mantel with a clock, lace curtains at the bay window, afternoon light from the side.
Plate 5 · HHM.1974.1

Horsehair sofa

Object
Horsehair sofa
Date
about 1880
Material
Walnut, horsehair cloth, coil springs
Room
The parlour
Accession
HHM.1974.1

Accession number one: the first object catalogued when the museum was founded, because it had never left the room. The frame is walnut, the cover is horsehair cloth worn through on the arms, and the springs are the originals. It is roped off because it would not take a second century of sitting.

Adopt this object · $900 pays for re-covering in woven horsehair, keeping the original springs. Adopt it →

Garden tools on the potting-shed bench: a trowel, a dibber, shears, a green watering can, terracotta pots and a ball of twine, light from a small window.
Plate 6 · HHM.1990.22

Dibber and trowel

Object
Dibber and trowel
Date
about 1900
Material
Ash handles, forged iron
Room
The potting shed
Accession
HHM.1990.22

Found in the potting shed in 1990, hanging where they had been left. The dibber's handle is split along the grain and the trowel blade is worn to half its width. They are the tools the seed order books were written for, and the garden manager still plants by the spacings in those books.

Adopted for 2026 — thank you. $80 pays for consolidating the split handles and waxing the iron.

The child's sampler close and at an angle: a cross-stitched border of strawberries and vines, a house between two trees, rows of faded rose and olive silk.
Plate 7 · HHM.1981.5

Child's sampler

Object
Child's sampler
Date
1891
Material
Linen, silk thread
Room
The upstairs bedrooms
Accession
HHM.1981.5

Stitched by one of the Hollin daughters at nine: a border of strawberries and vines, the house between two trees, and rows of stitched flowers where a sampler usually carries its alphabet. The silks have faded on the side that faced the window for eighty years; the back shows the colours as they were. It is shown in low light for that reason.

Adopt this object · $220 pays for UV-filtering glass and an acid-free mount. Adopt it →

The wrought-iron ice tongs on the brick floor of the garden room: two curved pointed jaws on a hinged pivot, a terracotta pot and ferns behind, old glass in the window.
Plate 8 · HHM.1986.13

Ice tongs

Object
Ice tongs
Date
about 1895
Material
Wrought iron
Room
The garden room
Accession
HHM.1986.13

A pair of tongs for lifting a block of river ice, from the ice house that stood at the bottom of the garden until 1931. The ice trade paid for the garden wall; the tongs are the only tool from it that survives. Not yet photographed: the object is in the study store.

Adopt this object · $60 pays for rust treatment and a protective wax. Adopt it →

The kerosene parlour lamp: a brass base and a painted milk-glass globe with a clear chimney on a marble-topped table by lace curtains, unlit.
Plate 9 · HHM.1974.19

Kerosene parlour lamp

Object
Kerosene parlour lamp
Date
about 1890
Material
Brass, milk glass, clear glass chimney
Room
The parlour
Accession
HHM.1974.19

The house had no gas and no electricity until 1922, so the parlour was lit by lamps like this one on winter evenings. The globe is painted milk glass; the chimney is a later replacement with a crack, which is what the adoption pays to put right.

Adopt this object · $140 pays for cleaning the brass and replacing the cracked chimney with a period one. Adopt it →

The seed order book open on a scrubbed wooden table: faded green cloth boards, ruled columns of soft brown ink out of focus, a pencil beside it.
Plate 10 · HHM.1990.2

Seed order book, 1902 to 1910

Object
Seed order book, 1902 to 1910
Date
1902 to 1910
Material
Paper, cloth boards
Room
The study
Accession
HHM.1990.2

Nine years of seed orders in the garden manager's hand: varieties, quantities, which bed, and notes on what failed. The kitchen garden is planted from these pages. Adopted for 2026, so the digital copy is being made; the book itself is in the study store and not yet photographed.

Adopted for 2026 — thank you. $240 pays for an archival box and a page-by-page digital copy.

The bentwood garden chair with its cane seat alone on the brick floor of the garden room, ferns in terracotta pots and old glass behind.
Plate 11 · HHM.2003.8

Bentwood garden chair

Object
Bentwood garden chair
Date
about 1905
Material
Steam-bent beech, cane seat
Room
The garden room
Accession
HHM.2003.8

One of six chairs bought for the garden room when it was glazed in 1905; four survive and this is the soundest. The cane is original and gives under any weight, so it is the one chair in the house with a sign that says please do not sit.

Adopt this object · $320 pays for re-caning the seat and consolidating the joints. Adopt it →

The walled garden in early autumn: a straight gravel path between box-edged borders of dahlias and asters, espaliered pears on the brick walls, a bench at the far end.
Plate 12 · HHM.1974.30

Cast-iron garden urn

Object
Cast-iron garden urn
Date
about 1880
Material
Cast iron, layers of paint
Room
The walled garden
Accession
HHM.1974.30

At the far end of the main path, where it has stood since the garden was walled. Paint analysis in 2024 found seven layers; the earliest is a dark green, and the adoption pays to take it back to that. It is planted every May with what the 1904 seed book says it held.

Adopt this object · $450 pays for stripping, rust treatment and repainting in the colour found under the layers. Adopt it →

Reading a plate

What each line means

Accession
HHM, the year the object came to the museum, and its number in that year. A set — six chairs, a pair of irons — is one record.
Date
“About” means the date is read from the object itself; a plain year means a document gives it.
Material
As examined, not as the family papers describe it.
Room
Where the object stands now, which is not always where it stood in 1884.
Cost
What the one treatment the object needs costs, quoted by a conservator this year; it changes when the quote does.

“Where a plate says we do not know, that is the catalogue entry.”

The collections policy allows a plate to say less than the family said. Attributions the museum cannot prove are left off; a treatment paid for by an adopter is named on the label for a year, with the adopter’s name beside it.

Hollin House Museum & Garden · 7 Water Street, Tarrow Landing, New York · EIN 00-0000010 · [email protected] · a sample organization: the house, the people, the objects and every number are inventedA sample site · Built by connectNPO →