John Treat Irving was a prominent NYC attorney and writer. He was one of the early "Gold Coast" (Cold Ghost?) estate residents at Glen Cove, owning an estate in the Dosoris District prior to the 1860's.
It helps to know that there was actually a Zodac (as opposed to Zadoc) Townsend at that time... and the Townsend family in Glen Cove was in the insurance business. The Coles (not Cowles) family was one of the leading families in Glen Cove in that era, and still owned huge tracts of land at Dosoris. And in stead of "Derrick Wilkinson" there was Derrick Albertson. Legend has it that many of the similarities in name made the locals most uncomfortable, and greatly enhanced Irving's unpopularity with the home crowd! And there really was a Rev. Benjamin Woolsey, whose wife inherited the land from her father in the early 1700's. Which is why Woolsey named the estate "wife's dowry" from the latin words Dos Uxoris.
Irving's opening description of Dosoris Lane even matched the feel of the road as recently as the 1990's... until developers got their hands on the lands and built McMansions...
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