Author: Furman, Garrit
Biography:
Furman, Garrit (1782-1848: NUC)
pseudonym Rusticus
Furman's poetry celebrates country life on and around Long Island NY, where he and his wife (unidentified) and children had a summer home. A wealthy businessman born and settled in New York City, he purchased an estate that included a small island, Mott Island, in 1815, and built a mansion there. The island was renamed Furman Island; the house was demolished in 1899. Besides the poetry, he published prose fiction (Redfield, 1825), reminiscences (Long Island Miscellanies, 1847), and a farce (The Falls of the Genesee, 1831) set in the area. Furman was partly responsible for the transformation of his rural idyll into an urban eyesore in the course of the nineteenth century. His business interests included a toll road across the island which brought traffic and industry--notably a bone-boiling plant, a manure plant, and a horse-rendering plant within a decade after his death. The island is no longer an island but a part of the New York borough of Queens. (Sharon Seltz and Stuart Miller, The Other Islands of New York City [2011] 233-4) HJ