History of Suffolk county, New York, 1683, Part 100

Author: W.W. Munsell & Co., pub; Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather); Cooper, James B. (James Brown), 1825-; Pelletreau, William S. (William Smith), 1840-1918; Street, Charles R. (Charles Rufus), 1825-1894; Smith, John Lawrence, 1816-1889
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: New York : W.W. Munsell & co.
Number of Pages: 677

USA > New York > Suffolk County > History of Suffolk county, New York, 1683 > Part 100

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By nature and training he was quick to think and prompt to act, sometimes impulsive, sometimes full of indignation at what he considered injustice, and yet with great power of restraint over passion. When fully aroused his wrath was as magnificent in expression as honest in heart. The son of a devout elder of the Presbyterian church, and the descendant of the second minister of the

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church in East Hampton, he was by inheritance, consti- tution and choice a devout man, worthy of his honored ancestors. He neither practiced nor tolerated duplicity, meanness or oppression. He was a man of clear percep- tions, sound judgment and solid worth; a grand speci- men of one of many of a former age of navigators who by energy, daring, self-reliance and enterprise wrested from the distant oceans the wealth that enlarged com- merce, built maritime cities, and furnished for the navy the elements that made the flag of the United States speak of heroic achievements on every sea.

HENRY P. HEDGES.

Henry Parsons Hedges was born in East Hampton, Suffolk county, N. Y., on the 13th of October 1817. He prepared for college at Clinton Academy, in his na- tive town; entered the sophmore class in Yale College in 1835; graduated in 1838; studied in the Yale Law School during 1839-40, and in law offices until May 1842,

9th of May 1843 he married Glorianna Osborn, and the following September commenced the practice of law in Sag Harbor, where he resided until 1854, when he re- moved to Bridgehampton, his present residence. There he has been engaged in the practice of his profession and in agricultural pursuits.

when he was admitted to the New York bar. On the |has the courage of his convictions, and is not moved by policy, public clamor or private interest. He wears and always has worn the chaplet of honesty, and not the faintest whisper of distrust has ever been syllabled against his integrity by utter stranger, lukewarm friend or bitter enemy. E. A. C.

In 1849 he published a history of East Hampton, and he is the author of several published addresses on tem- perance, agriculture, and the history of certain locali- ties on Long Island.

In 1852 he was member of Assembly from Suffolk county; was district attorney of the county from 1861 to 1866, and county judge and surrogate from 1866 to 1870 and from 1874 to 1880; and he is and has been since 1869 president of the Sag Harbor Savings Bank.

In politics he has been a Whig and a Republican.

He became a member of the Presbyterian church in 1840, and since 1847 has been an elder in that church at Sag Harbor and Bridgehampton. He has been a total abstainer from strong drink for more than forty years, and an earnest worker in promoting the cause of temper- ance.

He is descended from the old English stock of early immigrants to this country, and is believed to be the first of his name to trace his family line from William Hedges who came to East Hampton in 1649-the line running thus: I, William Hedges, died about 1674; II, Stephen Hedges, died July 7th 1734, aged nearly one hundred years; III, Daniel Hedges, died after 1723; IV, Daniel Hedges, died April 12th 1766; V, David Hedges (deacon), died November 8th 1817; VI, Zephaniah Hedges, died September 16th 1847; VII, Henry P. Hedges ..

Judge Hedges is a type of the early Puritan settlers of eastern Long Island: wholly without pretensions in dress and manner; genial and courteous to all and over- flowing with a fund of quaint wit and anecdote; cautious in counsel; conservative in his habits of thought and in

forming his judgment; radical in expression and action when that judgment is once formed.

As a lawyer he excels as a counsellor, while in the forum he is a formidable adversary.

As a judge he was noted for his perfect impartiality, his studious carefulness, his quick perception of the truth, and his apt application of law to facts.

As a writer he shows in his published addresses, essays, judicial opinions and even in his correspondence great clearness of expression and a remarkable power of con- densation of thought and language.

In religion and morals he is intensely earnest and ag- gressive, holding the faith of his Puritan ancestors, mod- ified in form but not in essence. Every thing which tends to elevate man, to make him purer and nobler, finds in him an ardent advocate. Intemperance he both deplores and abhors. Total abstinence he preaches and practices, and believes it is the only panacea for a great moral and social evil.

Too inattentive perhaps to the conventionalities of society, and perhaps too radical on some questions, he

CAPTAIN ISAAC LUDLOW.

Captain Ludlow was born in Bridgehampton, February 9th 1807. He was reared without advantages for cul- ture, and as early as the age of 15 began the seafaring . career which occupied most of his life. He made, says the Sag Harbor Express, twenty voyages in whaling ships-the last eight as commander cruising in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In August 1853 he rescued from the island of Amsterdam, in the Indian Ocean, the shipwrecked crew and passengers of the British bark "Meridian." His care for them involved the failure of his voyage, and was but partially compensated by the gift of a fine chronometer from the British admiralty and other presents and acknowledgments. "Few men em- body more prominently the higher traits of ocean life than this man. The sea moulds as if to itself the hardy and resolute spirits that dare its perils. He was brave . as a lion, sincere as truth, generous as a prince, sympa- thetic as a child, tender and humane like the good Samaritan; and if at times the strong emotional nature, so full of elevated sentiment, broke the bounds of decor- ous restraint in censure of aught untrue or dishonest or mean, all remembered that, rocked by the stormy wave, assailed by the tempest's breath, nurtured in the rage of the mighty deep, something of its elemetal wrath seemed inwoven into the fibres of the nature and the frame they nurtured and tried." Captain Ludlow some years be- fore his death united with the Presbyterian church of Bridgehampton. He died very suddenly on the 7th of December 1871.

H.P. Hedges

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THE PELLETREAU FAMILY.

The ancestors of this family were Huguenots who upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes fled from France and sought safety and religious freedom in a for- eign clime. The first of the family in America were Jean Pelletreau and wife Magdalena, and their nephews Jean and Elie, the latter having two sons, Jean and Elie (these names were soon anglicised into John and Elias). These were direct descendants from an ancestor who was physician to Admiral Coligny, and like his illustrious patron perished in the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, August 23d 1572. King Charles IX. granted him a coat of arms July 17th 1571. The following is a translation of the description:

"Azure, upon a column in pale or, encircled with a serpent proper, and boidered on the dexter and sinister sides by a martlet, or; crest, a helmet."

Jean Ist was naturalized in New York September 22nd 1687, and died in 1700. His wife Magdalena died in 1702, without children. Jean 2nd died in 1703, child- less. He and his brother Elie were naturalized July 10th 1696. The native place of this family was the village of Arces, in what is now the Department of Charente In- ferieure. They were all members of the French church | born March 23d 1791.

in New York, and in their wills left funds toward the support of its poor. Their names are found in connec- tion with the troubles in that church, as in favor of Rev. Lewis Row (see Documentary History of New York, Vol. III).

Elie Pelletreau died in 1730, leaving sons Elias, Paul, Francis, John and Benjamin, and a daughter Magdalena. Elias died before his father, leaving a wife Elizabeth. John also died before his father, and left daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Paul is supposed to have had a son Elias, who had children Elias, Samuel, Mary and John. From the first of these are descended the families now living in the city of Brooklyn. Benjamin was the young- est son and is not known to have left descendants.

Francis Pelletreau is said to have been an infant at the time when the family left France in 1686. He came to Southampton, L. I., in 1717. He married Jane, widow of Richard Osborn, September 26th 1721, and by this marriage had two children-Mary, born November 30th 1723, and Elias, born May 31st 1726. His wife Jane died December 6th 1733, aged 38. His second wife was Mary King, widow of Joseph King of Southold and daughter of Judge Thomas Chatfield of East Hampton. She was born September 12th 1707, and was married to Mr. King September 9th 1731. He died while on a visit to his father-in-law at East Hampton, November 6th 1732, aged 25. Mrs. King married Francis Pelle- treau September 4th 1734, and they had children Hugh and Hannah, born in 1735. Francis Pelletreau was a merchant. In 1728 he purchased the homestead of Samuel Woodruff in Southampton village, and this place remained in the hands of his descendants until 1866, and is now the residence of Josiah Foster. The old house remained standing till 1881; it was the last house on

Long Island that retained the old-fashioned rhomboidal panes of glass set in lead, and from these it was known as "the house with diamond windows." In 1737 Francis Pelletreau went to London to undergo a surgical opera- tion, and died from its effects September 26th. His widow married Judge Hugh Gelston, February 23d 1737, and died September rst 1775.

Mary, eldest child of Francis Pelletreau, died July 6th 1736. Hugh died when a child. Hannah married Ed- ward, son of Rev. Silvanus White, in 1757, and died March Ist 18ro.

Elias Pelletreau married Sarah, daughter of Judge Hugh Gelston, December 29th 1748, and had five chil- dren, viz .: Jane, born May 13th 1750, married Judge Pliny Hillyer of Simsbury, Conn., whose descendants are now living in Westfield, Mass .; Francis, born May 15th 1752, died September 29th 1765; Hugh, born November 25th 1762, died July 30th 1771; John, born July 29th 1755, died August 26th 1822; Elias, born August 29th 1757, died October 10th 1831.

The last named married Hannah, daughter of Colonel Josiah Smith, of Moriches, August 7th 1782, and had children: Francis, born May r6th 1784; Elias Smith, born May r8th 1789, died September 30th 1821; Maltby,

Hannah Pelletreau, wife of Elias 2nd, died July 1rth 1804, and he married Milicent Post, December 21st of the same year, and by her had one son, Paul, who died when a child.

Elias Smith Pelletreau married Hannah, daughter of Oliver Smith, of Moriches, and had a son Jesse Woodhull Pelletreau, who died in 1878, leaving children Mary (wife of Hon. John S. Havens, of Moriches), Jessie and Legrand.

Maltby married Jane Joralemon, of New York, and left children William Upson, Maltby and Francis.

Francis married Mary Conkling, of Islip, and left chil- dren Henry and Cornelia; the latter married Rev. Ralph Smith; the former died childless.

Elias 2nd married Sarah Conkling, daughter of Zebu- lon Conkling, of East Hampton, June 28th 1786. They had no children. His wife Sarah died April 14th 1784, aged 53.

The descendants of John Pelletreau, son of Elias Ist, were as follows:

. John married Mary, daughter of. Dr. William Smith, April 9th 1785, and had six children, viz .: William Smith, born June 8th 1786, died March 15th 1842; Nathaniel, born September 18th 1787, died January 5th 1823; Sarah, born July 19th 1789, died April 15th 1839; Charles, born December 9th 1791, died February 24th 1863; Edwin, born January 11th 1795, died 1840; John, born February 15th 1804, died December 2nd 1817. Mary, wife of John Pelletreau, died December 2nd 1817, aged 58.

William Smith, son of John Pelletreau, married Nancy Mackey, daughter of David Mackey, May 23d 1810, and had children: Albert, died May 19th 1843, aged 32; George, died December 21st 1832, aged 20; Jane, married

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Lyman Lewis, of Westfield, Mass .; Gilbert, died in 1864; Alexander, born March 4th 1829, now in California; Mary Gelston, wife of William Green, Prairie du Sac, Wis ; Frances, wife of William I. Mathews, Washington, Pa.

Nancy, wife of William S. Pelletreau, died April 22nd 1832, aged 44, and he married Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Isaac Welles, of Westfield, Mass., June 26th 1839, and had children: Helen, now president of Pennsyl- vania Female College, Pittsburg, Pa .; William Smith, of Southampton, L. I .; and George, Virginia City, Nevada.

Nathaniel, son of John, married Harriet Crittenden, and had children: Walter; Mary, wife of Daniel Jagger; and Maria, wife of Albert Jagger.

WILLIAM R. POST.

After five years of fairly successful whaling he spent two years on the old home farm with his father. At the age of 26 he again went to Sag Harbor, and became a partner in the lumber business with Judge Osborn, then collector of the port and a noted politician. It would seem that this old whaling port has always been the home of noted politicians. About 1841 the firm branch- ed out and took in the dry goods trade and ship agency, which it retained till 1852.

At this time Mr. Post withdrew from the firm and re- turned to his native town, which immediately expressed its good will by electing him supervisor, in which office the townsmen continued him for five consecutive years.

In 1865 he was again reinstated as chief officer of the town, where he was kept through the next 12 years. He was chairman of the board each of these 12 years, one of the most active members of the committee for building the county court-house and jail at Riverhead charge of building the county alms-house at Yaphank. The county bonds, to the amount of over $80,000, to pay for these buildings were all negotiated by him, also rail- road town bonds to the amount of $115,000.

William Rogers Post was born in Southampton, April |in 1854, and also of the committee which in 1870 had 8th 1811. The family is one of the oldest and its record one of the best among the early settlers. The tracing of Mr. Post's direct lineage is as follows: His father, James Post, was born January 23d 1779, and died April 15th 1855, aged 76. His grandfather James Post was born in Mr. Post was very active in railroad affairs, and it is well known to many that he bore manfully some heavy burdens, always maintaining the honor and credit of his town. He drew the railroad bonding act passed in April 1869, being the author of the clause that provided for the gradual reduction of interest, thereby saving many hun- dreds of dollars. Since the year 1866 he has been a notary public. 1741; married Mary, daughter of Samuel Huntting and sister of Colonel Benjamin Huntting (one of the founders of the Sag Harbor whaling business), and died August 13th 1813, aged 72. His great-grandfather John Post was born in 1700, and died at the age of 92, in 1792; and Abigail his wife died March 17th 1772, aged 67. John Post was the son of Captain John Post, who was born in 1674 and died March 3d 1741, aged 67. Cap- June 11th 1835 Mr. Post married Charlotte F., daugh- ter of Captain James Parker. Their children have been James Henry, Edward Rogers and Frances. tain John's father, whose name was also John, and who died about 1687, was the son of Richard Post, whose name appears in the old records as a landholder in 1643, James Henry, born June Ist 1839, went when a young man to New York city and engaged as a clerk. He joined the 44th regiment of N. Y. volunteers in October 1861; sickened at the siege of Yorktown in April 1862; was returned to New York by the Sanitary Commission on the last boat that came through, with 600 sick and wounded on board, early in May, and died in Brooklyn, May 18th 1862. He was a bright, promising young man, one of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the great slaveholders' war. only three years after the first settlement of Southamp- ton. The conveyance of a piece of land at this date to Richard Post, mentioning that it adjoins lands before held by him, would indicate that he had already spent some time in the young colony and ranked with the first comers. In addition to being a farmer he was a carpen- ter and a contractor and builder. His home lot was the present residence of Captain Charles Howell, on the east side of Main street, which he gave in the latter part of his life to his son-in-law Benjamin Foster, with whom he lived from that time until his death, in 1689. In 1651 he held the office of "marshal." In 1657 he is re- ferred to as being chosen for office by the " souldiers," and in 1660 he was their lieutenant.

On his mother's side our subject is directly descended from Obadiah Rogers. While a boy he lived an un- eventful life at home, working on the farm summers and going to the district school winters. At the age of 19 the attractions of a whaling voyage so impressed his

with Captain Henry Green in the ship " Phoenix." The voyage lasted seven months and resulted in 2,200 barrels of oil, which was thought a good catch. Another good trip lasted 12 months and yielded 2,800 barrels of oil.

Edward Rogers was born May 2nd 1842. He re- ceived a collegiate education, graduating at Nassau Col- lege in Princeton in 1862; and entered the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, finishing the full course and receiving a diploma in 1865. He is now a druggist in Newburg, N. Y.

Their youngest child, Frances, was born in April 1845, and died when two years old.

Mrs. Post was born May 24th 1814, and died Septem- ber 9th 1868. February 23d 1871 Mr. Post married for imagination that he went to Sag Harbor and embarked his second wife Mary, daughter of Jonathan Fithian, with whom he is still living in the unusually comfortable and attractive house that his own hands and tastes have so successfully adapted to their wants.

Mr. Post has always been identified with the Presby-

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terian church, of which he has been a ruling elder for the past 20 years.

A large part of his business for many years has been in administering on the estates of deceased persons as executor and otherwise, in which various capacities he has settled over 70 estates. For a private citizen the amount of business he has done in this line has been immense. The upper room in his house is so full of books and papers containing the records of all these properties that it resembles a county clerk's office. It is needless to say that a constant succession of such trusts is abundant proof that each preceding one was admin- istered with justice and punctuality.

At the age of " three score and ten " he is still hale and hearty, in the full possession of his mental powers.

STEPHEN B. FRENCH.

Stephen B. French was born in the town of Riverhead, Suffolk county, N. Y., January 16th 1829. His father, Peter French, was born in Montreal, Canada, and was of French Huguenot descent. His mother was a descend- ant of one of the original Dutch families who first settled Orange county, N. Y.

The parents of S. B. French removed in 1831 from Riverhead to Sag Harbor, where until his 13th year he attended school. He then entered the office of Captain John Budd, who was actively engaged in the whaling ed president of the board in the year following, and still business, and with whom he remained some eighteen months. Afterward he entered the employ of Thomas Brown, a very energetic merchant, who pursued the like business.

The bewitching desire to sail on the sea impelled him to ship for a whaling voyage, which continued three years. On this voyage he visited Brazil, Chili, the Sand- wich Islands, and many other islands of the south Pacific. Returning home in June 1847 in the ship " Acasta," of Sag Harbor, he had resolved to follow whaling as the business of his life. His father died while he was on this voyage. An elder brother was following the sea. The urgent entreaties of his mother, and his reverence for her, constrained him to remain at home and engage in mercantile pursuits.

Within eighteen months came the startling news of gold findings in California. On the 8th of February 1849 Mr. French sailed in the ship "Sabina " in a company of ninety from Sag Harbor, bound for San Francisco. Rounding Cape Horn they reached that port August 8th 1849. Then commenced a life full of adventure, arduous toil and changing fortune-working on Denison's ex-

for gold, returning to San Francisco and keeping a hotel there, running a vessel thence to the Sandwich Islands, projecting an express to the northern mines, starting a

store in Marysville, making and losing in five years two or three moderate fortunes. He sailed for the Sand- wich Islands, and found there as shipmaster his brother, whom he had not seen for eight years; and returned home in the same ship, reaching Sag Harbor in June 1854.

As might be anticipated the visit home strangely lengthened out from week to week, until his marriage with a young lady, pure, beautiful, true and accomplished, whom the angel of death early summoned to the land of the blessed. During these years Mr. French was engaged in mercantile life as one of .the firm of H. & S. B. French.

After the death of his wife, in 1865, he sought to for- get his grief by interesting himself in politics and public affairs. He had been a Whig and always afterward a Republican. In 1868, on the resignation of Joseph H. Goldsmith as treasurer of Suffolk county, he was appoint- ed to fill the position thus vacated. He was elected to this office in November 1869, and re-elected in 1872, running hundreds ahead of his ticket. In 1874 as a candidate for Congress he was defeated, although carrying the district outside of the vote in Long Island City. In 1875 as a candidate for county treasurer he was carried down, in the overwhelming defeat of the Republican party, by the meagre majority of 12 votes, running nearly 600 ahead of his ticket. In February 1876 he was appointed ap- praiser at the port of New York by President Grant. He removed to New York in March 1877; was appointed police commissioner of that city in May 1879; was elect- holds the position.

Trained in the hard school of adversity and subjected to conditions fluctuating and varied, tried in the perils of sea and land, on the shores of the Pacific and on Atlan- tic coasts, few men have gained the large experience in a long lifetime which has been crowded into the few years of the early life of this man. Mr. French has great rapidity of perception, strong powers of concentration, large capacity of endurance and almost intuitive knowl- edge of the material and immaterial facts of a case. He has extraordinary executive capacity, is well versed in human nature and the motives and springs of human action, with rare tact to adapt himself to changing cir- cumstances in human affairs. He never forgets a favor or forsakes a friend. His sympathies are with the masses of mankind and their aspirations for freedom, education and mental culture; his character is positive; his con- victions are decided; his action is prompt and resolute, and sometimes impulsive; his great generosity and kind heart are best known to his intimate friends.

He is short in stature, well-knit in frame, athletic in physical development. The dark, luminous eyes that change, ascending to the mines in a whaleboat, digging gleam under a capacious forehead tell of the thought, penetration, energy and daring he is so well known to possess. There is great magnetism to his friends in his very presence, with something like unconscious defiance

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to foes. His positiveness is as attractive to the one as repellant to the other. As an organizer his capacity to master a multiplicity of details, to judge of men as agents to execute or obstruct, his tenacity of purpose, powers of endurance and clearness of conception conjoin to fit him admirably for the position he now occupies as chief of the commissioners of police in the empire city of this continent, and as a power in any political party to which he may belong. H. P. H.

If in these lines the reader sees an outline of a strong character, self-poised, not distracted by innumerable de- tails, not disturbed by the presence or plots of foes, not given to chattering, moving straight forward to an end through storm and opposition, through competition and treachery, with front always to the foe-then the reader sees such a man as the writer intended, and as he has in- timately known from a boy to the present time.

SOUTHOLD.

BY WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU, A. M.

O found a new colony, where church and state should be identical, and where the saints of the Most High God should enjoy a supremacy which it was fondly hoped and steadfastly believed they would yet possess over all the earth, and thus to anticipate in the present the millenium of the future, were the pur- poses in which this ancient town had its origin.

GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES.

This town occupies the eastern portion of the north branch of Long Island, and includes Fisher's and Plum Islands. Its length from the western boundary, separa- ting it from the town of Riverhead, to the extremity of Orient Point, is 23 miles. Its greatest width is four miles, but east of Southold village it is much narrower. in a long point or beach, around which the tide through

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