The Tile Club: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting The Tile Club | Page 31

“
its people are… as sincere as if it
had never known a summer boarder,
and New York were a thousand miles
away.
and surely as I did when I was with the boys on Long
Island.” 98 Meanwhile, another friend of Abbey’s, Frank
(Francis D.) Millet, had returned to New York and he,
too, was interested in joining the contingent. Thus the
trip was postponed until the fall of 1881.
Abbey and Parsons arrived in New York October
7, 1881, and shortly afterward, along with Charles
Truslow (a young lawyer who was Abbey’s cousin)
rented 58½ West Tenth Street, a small house that
would later serve as headquarters for the club. 99 In
honor of their visit the Tile Club hosted a dinner with
Smith (nicknamed “Owl”) at the head of the table and
Sarony (“Hawk”) at the foot. 100 As whimsically report-
ed, “Other ornithological and mythical bipeds [refer-
ring to the Tilers’ sobriquets] surrounded the table and
kept the ‘guests’ of the evening from flight.” 101 It was
likely at this time that Millet was made a member of
the club, and Parsons and Truslow were asked to join
as honorary members. Also, during one of Abbey’s
visits—perhaps this one—he arranged to have George
H. Boughton made an honorary member. Boughton,
an expatriate painter, was living in London and never
attended a single meeting.
On October 26, 1881, the Tile Club finally made
the journey to Long Island—destination: Port Jeffer-
son. Those who participated were Abbey, Parsons,
Laffan, Quartley, Millet, Baird, Chase, Weir, Dielman,
Sarony, and William Agnew Paton, a newcomer to the
group who was a writer and publisher of the New York
World. 102 The trip, which lasted one week, proved to be
much more successful than the one the previous
summer. “The Tile Club Ashore” in The Century
Magazine (February 1882), provided a composite
account of the Tilers’ two trips to Long Island as if it
had taken place in the course of one excursion. A
detailed description of Port Jefferson is supplied by
Laffan as if it were promotional material for the Long
Island Railroad, by which the group surely traveled:
“There is a very old town, a sea-port,…surrounded by
high hills and owning a deep land-locked harbor. It is
not over fifty miles from New York, and is accessible by
railroad which runs to the top of a hill a mile distant.
...It is…rich in historical interest…its people are… as
sincere as if it had never known a summer boarder, and
New York were a thousand miles away.” 103 Indeed, it
was also a “place of peace and cheapness,” as Quartley
had promised. 104 The Tilers immediately discovered an
inn with rooms at an astonishingly low rate. Further-
Decorative Age or Decorative Craze? 25