History of Suffolk county, New York, 1683, Part 74

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 74


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He was married January 9th 1861, to Ellen, the only child of the late Hon. Joshua B. Smith of Smith- town.


He has held successively the offices of town clerk, town superintendent of schools, justice of the peace, supervisor, county treasurer, trustee of town lands and health officer of the town; but has now retired from pub- lic life and is living quietly on a portion of the same estate which has been occupied by his ancestors for one hundred and eighty years.


COLONEL TREDWELL SCUDDER


DR. RICHARD UDALL


was born in Islip. His mother was a descendant of the Patentee of Willett's patent. He was graduated in medicine from Kings (now Columbia) College, in the city of New York, in 1772. He resided in the island of Antigua, West Indies, for several years practicing his profession. He returned to Islip after a few years, and continued to practice until disabled by blindness and old age. He died October 6th 1841, aged 90. He was a skilful physician, renowned for his success in fevers, and esteemed for his gentlemanly qualities.


COLONEL BENAJAH STRONG


was a resident of Islip in 1772, owning nearly all the land on which the present village of Islip is located. He was chosen captain of the Islip Company, but, owing to the disastrous result, to the American side, of the battle of Long Island, August 27th 1776, he with others escaped to Connecticut. During the war he, together with Major Tallmadge, was engaged in many daring operations against the British, among others the capture of Fort St. George, November 23d 1780. The attacking party marched nearly forty miles in twenty hours, took the fort, burned the magazines, etc., and retreated without the loss of a man. Colonel Strong died in Islip, Decem- ber 29th 1795, aged 54. His sister Joanna married General William Floyd, one the signers of the Declara- tion of Independence.


COLONEL SAMUEL STRONG


was born in Islip, October Ist 1774. He was the oldest son of Colonel Benajah Strong above named. He filled various town offices, was member of the New York Assembly in 1823, 1827 and 1830, and was regarded as a superior man, disgtinuished for good sense, integrity and decision of character. He died January 20th 1854, aged 80.


JUDGE ISAAC THOMPSON


was a descendant, in the sixth generation, from Elder William Brewster, who came to new England in the "Mayflower," December. 11th 1621, and in the fifth generation from Hon. Roger Ludlow, deputy governor of Massachusetts in 1634 and deputy governor of Connec- ticut in 1639. His mother was Mary Woodhull, first cousin of General Nathaniel Woodhull, president of the Provincial Congress in 1775 and 1776, who was brutally wounded after his surrender August 28th 1776. Judge Thompson married, first, Mary, daughter of Colonel Abraham Gardiner of East Hampton, of the fifth gen- eration from Lion Gardiner, who settled on Gardiner's


was a descendant of Timothy Scudder who settled in Islip in 1710. Colonel Scudder was a member of the New York Assembly in 1802, 1810, 1811, 1815, 1822, and 1828, and representative in the 15th Congress. He was very agreeable in manner, a good talker, and justly de- served the confidence of his fellow citizens. He died Island in 1639; second, Sarah Bradner of Goshen, Orange October 31st 1834, aged 63. county, granddaughter of Rev. John Bradner, of Scot-


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THE TOWN OF ISLIP.


1


land, who settled as pastor of the Presbyterian church in Goshen in 1721 and whose wife was a daughter of Count de Colville. Judge Thompson was a "justice of the quorum " prior to the Revolution, and afterward one of the judges of the court of common pleas of Suffolk county. He was a magistrate for more than forty years, and a member of the New York Assembly which met in Yew York city in 1795. He was chairman of the Islip committee and in correspondence with the Continental Congress in February 1776.


In September 1776, after the occupation of Long Isl- and by the British and Hessians, he was robbed and nearly killed by being hung up in a tree opposite his owr door, and was only saved by one of his assailants sayin; that as he was a magistrate under the king they should not hang him. He was afterward shot at, but no' wounded. The musket ball, which struck the stair be low him, is still preserved in the family. His intimac! with Lindly Murray, who was a royalist, and with othe Englishmen, saved him from further abuse. During the war Sir Henry Clinton, General Abercrombie and other British officers staid at his house, and while Genera' George Washington was president he and his suite re- mained one night, April 21st 1790, at Judge Thompson's. Judge Thompson died January 30th 1816, aged 73. H. was a man of strict integrity; his manner was mild and courteous, and in the discharge of all his official duties he manifested sound judgment, united with firmness and impartiality.


JONATHAN THOMPSON


was born in Islip, December 7th 1773, the eldest son of Judge Isaac Thompson and Mary Gardiner. He was a merchant in the city of New York in 1795, of the firm of Gardiner, Thompson & Co., and as such was the pioneer in the warehouse business in Brooklyn. He was well known in the city of New York as an eminent politician. He was collector of that port from 1820 to 1829, and president of the bank of the Manhattan Company when he died, in December 1846, aged 73. An account of him in Stiles's History of Brooklyn, Vol. II, page 129, concludes with the following words:


" Mr. Thompson was unostentatious in manner; he courted no popularity; and, although he never filled or desired to fill any exalted station among the great ones of the land, yet carried with him no stinted share of that respect which belongs to genuine worth; and dying, left behind him a name which relatives and friends have never heard and never will hear connected with aught but expressions of approbation and esteem."


JOHN WOOD.


John Wood, of Sayville, was born at Swan Creek, near Patchogue village in the town of Brookhaven, February 5th 1819. Joseph Wood his father was a native of York-


John Wood 1


shire, England, and was born March 20th 1778. He was a woolen manufacturer and came to Smithtown in the year 1800 and established his business in a factory at the "Head of the River," at which place he will be remem- bered by the old inhabitants. He subsequently removed to Swan Creek, and carried on the same business there during the remainder of his life. Shortly after this re- moval he married (September 12th 1815) his second wife, Sally, daughter of Frederick Hallock, of Quogue. Here were born to him children as follows: Hannah, June 22nd 1817, now Mrs. Gilbert C. Smith, of Hempstead; John, the subject of this sketch; Elizabeth, September 22nd 1820, who became Mrs James Y. Wells, and died at Greenport May 8th 1879; and Mary J., now the widow of James Soper, deceased, of Bergen, N. J.


When John was four years old his father died, and in 1823 he went with his half-sister to England, where he lived with his uncle John Wood in Delph, Yorkshire, during the next nine years.


At the age of eleven his education was considered fin- ished, and he was put at the shoemaker's trade and kept at it until his return to Patchogue in August 1832. In the meantime his mother had married Daniel Haff, who was engaged in woolen manufacture at Patchogue, the old factory at Swan River having been discontinued. John at once entered Haff's factory and acquired and followed his second trade with his step-father.


In the spring of 1838, when our shoemaker and woolen


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THE TOWN OF ISLIP.


manufacturer was 19 years old, he engaged to teach the Sayville district school. A year passed away pleasantly to all parties, and satisfactorily also, for after spending six months of the next year at a school at Bellport, taught by Rev. George Tomlinson, he returned to Say- ville and taught one year. In 1840 he went to Virginia, and stayed till June following engaged in buying, carting and selling pine wood in King William county. In the fall of 1841 he again took the district school at Sayville. He afterward taught a year at Patchogue, then a year at Riverhead, and then again at Sayville.


About 1848 he engaged in the mercantile business as a member of the firm of Howell & Wood, Sayville. The next year W. J. Terry bought Mr. Howell's interest, and the firm of Terry & Wood continued for many years.


In 1849 Mr. Wood was appointed postmaster at Say- ville under Fillmore's administration. The same year he was elected justice of the peace, to which office he was re-elected from term to term, discharging its duties till January 1862. He then resigned to enter upon his duties as county clerk, in which position the fall election of 1861 had placed him. He also resigned the office of postmaster at the same time, to which he had been appointed by President Lincoln. After serving his first term as county clerk he was elected in the fall of 1864 to a second which expired December 31st 1867. His next experience as a candidate for official position was not equally fortunate, for he was beaten in the fall of 1869 by B. D. Sleight, who was elected on the Democratic ticket member of Assembly by 43 majority.


In 1872 Mr. Wood was elected supervisor of his town, in which position the verdict of a majority of the voters kept him for ten consecutive terms. As a member of the board of supervisors it is only necessary to refer to his record to show that he rendered most important services to the people of his town. He initiated the call for a special meeting of the board at which a new county clerk's office was decided upon. The building committee consisted of Dr. S. B. Nicoll, John Wood and Gilbert H. Ketcham, and the building itself attests the merits of their supervision.


But a more enduring monument to his administration of the office of supervisor than the walls of the clerk's office is to be found in the record that office contains of the final settlement . of the Great South Bay fisheries questions between Islip and Brookhaven. Without attempting here an account of the differences between those two towns on the question of their respec- tive rights to the shell-fisheries, which subject is treated of in the history of Brookhaven, it is sufficient to say that for upward of 40 years they had been a prolific source of contention and irritation, and had occasioned numerous and expensive lawsuits. These difficulties Mr. Wood succeeded, during the last two years of his services as supervisor, in settling for all house in which he now lives.


time, by an agreement between the trustees of Brook- haven and Edgar Gillette, Charles Z. Gillette and him- self, as a committee representing the residents of eastern Islip. By this agreement the trustees of Brookhaven, for the consideration of $1,500, to be expended in the improvement of the oyster fisheries for the joint benefit of both towns, granted to the residents of eastern Islip forever, equal rights with the citizens of Brookhaven to the bay fisheries of that town. This compact, which was ratified by an act of the Legislature in 1881, has been of immense benefit to all parties, and by common consent to Supervisor Wood more than to any other man is accorded the credit of the honorable and final settlement.


He also, in connection with William Nicoll and A. G. Thompson, as a committee, rendered efficient service to his town in the litigation and settlement of differences between Islip and the adjoining town of Babylon, grow- ing out of the passage by the Legislature in 1874 of an act drafted by him, known as the Islip Oyster Law. This settlement was ratified by Legislative enactment in 1878.


During the last year of Mr. Wood's service there was not another member of the board who had belonged to it during his first term, ten years before. Ex-Supervisor Reeves pays the following tribute to Supervisor Wood:


" We are sorry to learn that Supervisor John Wood, of Islip, positively declines to be a candidate for re-election to that office at the next town meeting. We regret the decision, not only on account of the people of Islip, whose interests he has so ably and intelligently upheld, but also on account of the people of Suffolk county, to whom Mr. Wood has rendered most useful, most valua- ble and most faithful service. While we have not always agreed with him in his views or his action on matters coming before the board of supervisors, we have been in a position to estimate the degree of zeal, fidelity and capacity which he has brought to the discharge of public duty, and we should be doing less than justice to ourselves or to our readers if we let this occasion pass without expressing our high appreciation of Mr. Wood's general course in the board of supervisors."


Mr. Wood was appointed a notary public by Governor King in 1857, and has several times since received a similar appointment. At the centennial celebration at Sayville, July 4th 1876, by request of the committee of arrangements, he read a history of the village of Sayville prepared by him, which was well received, and published with favorable notices by several of the county news- papers.


Mr. Wood married Matilda, daughter of Gamaliel Vail, of Riverhead, in February 1851. Their children have been: Mary E .; Ruth Strong, died at school in Burlington, N. J., December 8th 1871; Joseph, now in his sophomore year in Yale College; and James T., now at Phillip's Academy, Andover, Mass.


In 1853 Mr. Wood built the tasteful and commodious


.


RIVERHEAD.


BY R. M. BAYLES .*


HE town of Riverhead lies on the northern side of the county and island, occupies fifteen miles in length, from east to west, and has an average width of five miles. Peconic River and Bay separate it from Brookhaven and Southampton on the south, it is washed by the sound on the north, on the east it is bounded by Southold and on the west by Brookhaven. The surface along the north side is elevated and broken, while that along the south side is level and low. The soil of the elevated portion is strong and fertile. A continuous settlement of well-to-do farmers extends through the north side the entire length of the town. There are no harbors, therefore no favorable sites for commercial villages are afforded in this section of the town. There are, however, many delightful sites for summer residences, overlooking the sound and the distant hills of Connecti- cut. Though but few of these have as yet been occupied doubtless many of them will ere long be improved. Many city people have found that this section has at- tractions for rusticating which in some respects are superior to those of the more popular resorts of the south side. Abundant crops of grain, hay and potatoes are grown in this part of the town. The north Country road runs through it, and most of the settlement is on that road. The soil along the southern side of the town is more or less mixed with sand, though farming is success- fully carried on, and forms the chief occupation of the people. Small fruits, garden vegetables and root crops are raised in the eastern part of this section, and cran- berries are raised to a considerable extent in marshes which abound in the western part, about the headwaters of the Peconic River.


PURCHASES AND BOUNDARIES.


The principal part of the territory of this town was purchased of the Indians by the inhabitants of Southold and included in their patent. A purchase which included this territory, which was then called Aquabouke, was made in 1649. To confirm this and other purchases a deed was obtained from the Indians December 7th 1665, in which the boundaries including the land now occupied by the town were given as "the River called


in the English toung the Weading Kreek, in the Indian * toung Pauquaconsuk, on the West, * * *


* and with a River or arme of the sea wch runneth up between Southampton Land and the aforesaid tract of land unto a certain Kreek which fresh water runneth into on ye South, called in English the Red Kreek, in Indian Toyonge; together with the said Kreek and meadows belonging thereto, and running on a streight line from the head of the afore-named fresh water to the head of ye Small brook that runneth into the Kreek called Pau- quaconsuk; as also all necks of lands," etc. The bound- aries given in Andros's patent of 1676 are substantially the same. The straight line mentioned as running from the head of Toyonge to the head of Pauquaconsuk was afterward interpreted as the line from the head of what is now known as Red Creek, in Southampton, to the head of Wading River Creek, a point but little more than a mile inland from the sound at Wading River. This line, running in a northwesterly and southeasterly direction, across what is now the southwest part of the town of Riverhead, afterward became the northeastern boundary of Colonel Smith's " St. George's manor," and it is still known in real estate descriptions as the "manor line." That part of the territory (by this boundary line given to Southold) which lay on the south of Peconic River and west of Red Creek was also claimed by the inhabitants of Southampton. After considerable litigation, in which the rights of the Indians of whom either party respect- ively claimed to have purchased it were diligently in- vestigated, this controversy was finally settled by a mu- tual agreement made March 11th 1667, by which the land was acknowledged as within the limits of the town of Southampton, though reserves were made to individ- ual inhabitants of Southold.


The line which separated Southold from Smith's patentship crossed Peconic River in the vicinity of Bridge street in the present village of Riverhead. At what time the present shape and dimensions were given to the western part of Southold is not definitely known. That part of it which lay southwest of the " manor line " was purchased of Colonel William Smith by the inhabit-


*Mr. Bayles is also the author of the general history of Suffolk eounty, pages 49-82.


---


2


THE TOWN OF RIVERHEAD.


ants of Southold. This was surveyed and divided among the individual owners March toth 1742, by a commission composed of William Nicoll, Robert Hemp- stead, Joseph Wickham, Daniel Wells and Elijah Hutch- inson. This tract was of course triangular in shape, the west end being several miles in width while the east end came to a point. The allotment was made by running lines north and south across the tract. The names of the owners of these shares (which varied in size) in their order from west to east were as follows: Caleb Horton, David Corey, Thomas Reeve, Richard Terry, Samuel Conklin, John Salmon, William Benjamin, David Horton, James Horton, James Reeve, Elijah Hutchinson, John Goldsmith, Solomon Wells, John Tuthill, John Conklin, Jonathan Horton, David and Israel Parshall, Joshua Tuthill, Zebulon Hallock, Joseph Wickham, Nathaniel Youngs, Joshua Wells, William Albertson, Joshua Wells, Noah Hallock.


By reference to the map it will be seen that the head of the brook Wading River, a point which from the earliest days was recognized as the point of separation between Southold and Brookhaven, is considerably further east than the mouth of the creek. The . patent line of Brookhaven ran from that point north to the sound as well as south to the ocean. The tract of land bounded on the east by this north and south line and on the west by the brook and creek was given by the trustees of Brookhaven to the town of Southold May 3d 1709, with £4 in cash, in consideration of the latter town's as- suming the care of a certain indigent person by the name of John Rogers. Thus the channel of Wading River became through its whole length the line between these towns.


The whole section lying west of the east line of the present town of Riverhead was called Aqueboke, or Aquebouk. There seem to have been at least four divisions of land made at different times within this ter- ritory, though the records of those divisions have for the most part been lost. The first and second divisions were probably in the eastern part of the present town of Riverhead. An existing record of the third division shows that it covered a small tract extending from the head of Wading River to the sound and about a quarter of a mile in width. This was divided by lines running crosswise, and the width of the several owners' lots, in rods, was as follows, beginning at the head of the brook: Minister's lot 14, Mrs. Mary Mapes 25, Thomas Osman 14, Mr. Moore 7, widow Cooper 7, Christopher Young sen. 7, Mr. Hobart 14, Barnabas Horton 14, Theophilus Corwin 7, widow Hutchinson 7, John Swazey 28, John Conkling 21, Mr. Arnold 7, Josiah Barthol 7, Richard Clarke 7, John Young sen. 21, William Halliock 14, Mr. Budd 21, Thomas Tosteen 14, Daniel Terry 7, Stephen Bayley 7, Mr. Tooker 7, Benjamin Youngs 12, Samuel Glover 12, Mr. Edes 12, Richard Brown 12, John Har- rod "to the clift." A fourth division is also spoken of, the lots in which extended from the " manor line " north to the sound. The division mentioned in the following memorandum may have been the same:


"Southold April th 10 1733 the 50 Acres Lotts att the Waideing River were surveyed and bounded on the south End by the Mannor Line, By Jonathan Horton, John Pain, John Tuthill and Benjamin Emmons, and com- puted att 28 pole In wedth, and the Great Lotts upon sd Mannor Loin are Said to be 76 pole wide. A true copie.


"RT. HEMPSTEAD, Town Clerk." " April 2 1771." SETTLEMENT AND ORGANIZATION.


Up to the time of the Revolution but few settlements had been made within the present limits of this town, and these were small. The settlements at Aquebogue were made in the early part of the last century. They were probably begun even at an earlier date. The set- tlement at Wading River was made about the same time. As early as 1737 the militia met at Aquebogue for drill, under the command of Captain Israel Parshall. A com- pany of men residing at Wading River had been in the habit of joining in the training exercises at Aquebogue, but, considering the fatiguing distance they had to travel to get there, a special arrangement was made by which they remained at home, and were drilled in the military art and inspected according to law by Captain John Pain, under the direction of Colonel Henry Smith, who had command of the Suffolk militia.


The town of Riverhead was created by an act of the Legislature passed March 13th 1792, of which the follow- ing is the text:


" Whereas many of the freeholders and inhabitants of Southold, in Suffolk county, have represented to the Legislature that their town is so long that it is very in- convenient for them to attend at town meetings, and also to transact the other necessary business of the said town, and have prayed that the same may be divided into two towns; therefore,


" I. Be it enacted by the people of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, that all that part of the said town of Southold lying to the westward of a line beginning at the sound and running thence southerly to the bay separating the towns of Southampton and Southold, and which is the eastern boundary or side of a farm now in the tenure or occupation of William Albertson and is the reputed line of division between the parishes of Ocquebouge and Mattetuck, shall, from and after the first Monday in April next, be erected into a distinct and separate town, by the name of River Head; and the first town meeting of the inhabitants of the said town shall be held at the dwelling house of John Griffin, at River Head; and the said town shall enjoy all the rights, privileges and immunities which are granted to the other towns within this State by an act of the Legis- lature passed the 7th of March 1788, entitled 'An Act for Dividing the Counties of this State into Towns.'


" II. And be it further enacted, that the poor of the town of Southold, on the first Monday of April next, shall afterwards be divided by the town of Southold and the town of River Head, in such proportions as the supervi- sors of the county, at their next annual meeting, shall direct, and the contingent charges and expenses of the town of Southold that have already arisen, or shall arise before the first Monday in April next, shall be assessed, levied and paid in the same manner as if this act had not been passed."


The first town meeting of Riverhead was held at the


3


THE TOWN OF RIVERHEAD.


house of Thomas Griffing, April 3d 1792. Daniel Terry was chosen moderator and David Conkling clerk. Ma- jor Benjamin Edwards and Daniel Terry jr. were chosen " to carry in the votes." The officers then elected for the town were a supervisor, a clerk, two assessors, three road commissioners, three overseers of the poor, three constables, seven overseers of highways, one collector and nine fence-viewers.


April 17th following, the poor were let out for the year to the lowest bidder at a public vendne. The following were the subjects of this dispensation of public charity, mission. They were frequently collected for a fee as with the price per week given for the keeping of each: Mary King to John Corwin, 7s .; Abigail Terry to Am- brose Horton, 4s. rod .; Bethiah Reeve to Henry Corwin, 25. 9d .; a negro boy to David Osborn, Is. 8d .; Deborah Moore to Benjamin Luce, 3s .; Richard Payne to Benja- min Luce, IS.




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