The Culluloo Monument, (sculpture).

The Culluloo Monument, (sculpture).

Unknown, sculptor.

The Culluloo Monument, (sculpture).

Installed 1888. Relocated 1901.

Sculpture: stone; Base: stone; Foundation: stone.

Sculpture: approx. 100 x 35 x 35 in.; Base: approx. 16 x 35 x 35 in.

(Upper front of sculpture:) Here lived and died/"Culluloo Telewana,/A.D.1818/the last of the Rockaway/Iriquois (sic) Indians/who was personally/known to me in my boyhood./I, owning the land, have/erected this monument/to him and his tribe./"Abraham Hewlett,/1888" (Lower front of sculpture, raised lettering:) CULLULOO unsigned

A rough-hewn, obelisk-shaped sculpture with a polished and inscribed front face with a stepped lower section, mounted on a rough-hewn, square base. The sculpture is upon a foundation of large rocks set in mortar.

Homage -- Telewana, Culluloo

Ethnic -- Indian -- Iroquois

Ethnic -- African American

State of Being -- Other -- Enslaved

Outdoor Sculpture -- New York -- Woodsburgh

Administered by Woodsburgh Village Hall, 30 Piermont Avenue, Hewlett, New York 11557

Located Intersection of Wood & Keene Lanes, Woodsburgh, New York

Formerly located Broadway near Linden Street, Woodmere, New York until 1901.

Sculpture commemorates Culluloo Telawana, who died in 1818, and may have been the last of the Rockaway Iroquois Indians. It was installed at the request of Abraham Hewlett, who knew Culluloo as a child, and provided an endowment for the monument in his will. The monument was first placed at Broadway near Linden Street in Woodmere, where Culluloo presumably had his hut. In 1901, land developer Robert Burton purchased the property and junked the monument. William S. Pettit, a local historian, convinced Burton's brother, John Howes Burton, to deed over a small triangle of land on Wood Lane, in what is now Woodsburgh. This is where the monument now stands. Doubts have arisen as to whether or not Culluloo was an escaped African American enslaved individual named Lou, who was called "Colored Lou." IAS files contain a related excerpt from a book written by the Students of Far Rockaway High School, "History of the Rockaways," 1932, pg. 35. IAS also contain related sections from Alfred H. Bellot's "Bellot's History of the Rockaways," pg. 69; and a Special Supplement from the South Shore Record (New York) entitled "Our Towns: A Bicentennial History," 1976. IAS files also contain related material.

Save Outdoor Sculpture, New York survey, 1993.

South Shore Record (New York), 1976, Special Supplement-"Our Towns: A Bicentennial History."

The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.

Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

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