USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 22
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 22
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Up to 1730, there was no school, church nor town organization on Shelter Island although as early as 1666 it had been given a town's political privileges and immunities. When in 1683 Suffolk County was created, Shelter Island was again officially designated as a town- ship although it was not organized as such by the selection of town officers until 1730, having been directed the year before by the Gen- eral Assembly to do so henceforth on the first Tuesday in April each year.
Shelter Island had till then associated itself with the town of Southold, its own local officers being chosen and other matters trans- acted in that town. Although the freeholders on Shelter Island attended Southold town meeting, they had no vote therein. Deeds and other documents were recorded in the books of neighboring towns. Consequently, there are no town records for Shelter Island before 1730.
Pursuant to the mandate of the General Assembly, William Nicoll II was chosen as the first supervisor of Shelter Island town and served as such during 1730 and 1731, and again from 1734 to 1741. In the meantime, in 1739, he was also elected to the Assembly to succeed his father, William Nicoll I. Other town officers chosen at the first town meeting held on the island were John Havens and Samuel Hudson, assessors; Edward Havens, collector; Edward Gilman, constable. Besides these, the only other men, most of them heads of families, then residing on the island and considered to be among the town's founders, were Joel Bowditch, John Bowditch,
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Daniel Brown, Thomas Conkling, George Havens, Jonathan Havens, Henry Havens, Joseph Havens, Samuel Hopkins, Sylvester L'Hom- medieu, Abraham Parker, Elisha Payne, Brinley Sylvester, Noah Tuthill and Samuel Vail.
In 1732 Brinley Sylvester, grandson of Captain Nathaniel Sylvester, and son of Nathaniel and Mary (Hobart) Sylvester, who had inherited the Sylvester Mansion and homestead, was chosen as the second supervisor to succeed William Nicoll I. Born at East Hampton in 1694, as a boy he had moved with his parents to Newport where he became a merchant. When at the death of his father he came to Shelter Island to live he built the present Sylvester Mansion.
Brinley Sylvester, who married Mary Burroughs, had no sons and his family name ended on the island when he died in 1752. His eldest daughter, Mary, married Thomas Dering, a merchant of Boston. To their son, Sylvester Dering, known as General Dering, the mansion property descended. At his death, Ezra L'Hommedieu of Southold, grandson of Benjamin and Patience (Sylvester) L'Hommedieu, came into possession of the Sylvester estate, but he always resided at Southold.
Margaret, younger sister of Brinley Sylvester, married Ebenezer Prime, for sixty years pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Hunting- ton, fearless advocate of liberty prior to the outbreak of the Revolu- tion and paternal grandsire of Nathaniel Scudder Prime, the Long Island historian. Margaret (Sylvester) Prime died three years after her marriage and four years later Ebenezer Prime married Experience Youngs, granddaughter of John Youngs, Southold's first pastor. Their daughter, Mary Prime, married, August 16, 1753, Israel Wood of Huntington. Ebenezer Prime married as his third wife, March 11, 1751, Hannah (Wood) Carll, born at Southampton, daughter of Richard and Hannah (Reeve) Wood.
From 1652, when Nathaniel and Grissell Sylvester came to Shelter Island, until 1743, a period of ninety-one years, there was no house of public worship on the island. The island was, to all practical pur- poses, religiously as it was politically, a part of the parish and town of Southold. So it was that some of the inhabitants, weather and wind permitting, on occasion crossed the water to attend services in the old First Church at Southold.
Brinley Sylvester, who had his own private chaplain at the Manor House, made an abortive attempt in 1732 to have a meeting house built on the island. Storekeeper and school teacher John Ledyard at' Southold, grandfather of the famous traveler, offered twelve shil- lings to the project while Benjamin Woolsey, pastor of the Southold parish, signed two pounds, a sum topped only by Theophilus Howell and Nathaniel Huntting of the South Side.
A decade later, however, Brinley Sylvester, did succeed in hav- ing a meeting house built at the middle of the island on the site of the present Presbyterian Church. Jonathan Havens, Jr., gave a half- acre of land, and other funds were raised largely among the wealthy landholders of the island, Brinley himself being the largest contributor.
This first meeting house, the only one for the greater part of a century, was a small square building with a roof of four triangu-
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lar parts which met at the peak. George Whitefield, the famous English evangelist, preached here in January, 1764, staying with Thomas Dering and family at the Manor House, preaching also to the island's inhabitants on the Sylvester grounds where George Fox, the Quaker, had preached a century earlier. In the meeting house was ordained on June 11, 1766, Shelter Island's first minister, Elam Potter, a graduate of Yale, who died at Southold in 1794.
On April 26, 1785, an undenominational church society was organ- ized and on September 28, 1808, a Congregational church was organized with fifteen members. On March 27, 1812, it was changed to the Presbyterian form. A new church building had long been needed. When in the notorious September gale of 1815 many trees were blown down, General Sylvester Dering donated sufficient of his fallen hick- orys and oaks for its erection on the original site and it was dedi- cated July 17, 1817. Aaron Woolworth, pastor at Bridgehampton, preached the sermon. The old building was moved across the road to where the public library now stands, and was used for some years as a sheep fold.
The new edifice was built according to the fashion of the times with high-backed square pews. The pulpit, stairs, sounding board and some of the pews were brought from the Rutgers Street Church in New York. The pulpit, very high and ill adapted to the size of the building, was finally removed in 1844. The building was remodeled, lengthened fifteen feet and given a belfry in 1859 but not until thir- teen years later was a bell installed.
The year previous to the building of the first meeting house, 1742, Jonathan Havens, son of the first George Havens, was elected supervisor and served one year only. When he married Hannah Brown, daughter of Jonathan and Elizabeth (Sylvester) Brown, his father gave him two hundred acres on Shelter Island. Here he built their home, known as the Great Mansion, north of Old Mill Pond.
In 1743, Jonathan Havens, Jr., one of the ten children of Super- visor Jonathan, was himself chosen to that office. His wife was Catherine Nicoll, daughter of William Nicoll I, the patentee of Islip.
Daniel Brown was elected supervisor in 1747 and with the excep- tion of 1749 held that office for seventeen years. In 1775 and 1776 he served as a member of the First, Second and Third Provincial Con- gresses. The son of Daniel and Frances (Watson) Brown, he was twice married, his second wife being Mary Havens.
Thomas Dering, born at Boston, May 16, 1720, the son of Henry and Elizabeth Dering, married Mary Sylvester, daughter of Brinley Sylvester, on March 9, 1756, four years later taking up their residence at Shelter Island Manor House which Mrs. Dering had inherited from her father together with twelve hundred acres of land. Dering became a gentleman farmer, cultivating the estate on a large scale. Chosen supervisor in 1766, he held the office for three successive years. He also acted as moderator of the town meeting held in April, 1776, at a crucial time in island history. He was a delegate to the Third Provincial Congress in New York and also at White Plains. During the war he removed to Middletown, Connecticut, where he remained until peace in 1783. He died September 26, 1785.
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Nicoll Havens succeeded Thomas Dering as supervisor in 1770, having been town clerk for eighteen years. In 1780 he was again elected town clerk and held that office until his death in 1783. He married Sarah Fosdick and they had two sons and eight daughters, one of whom married General Sylvester Dering while another became the wife of Ezra L'Hommedieu of Southold.
No fighting occurred on Shelter Island during the Revolution, but the British made frequent raids and destroyed most of its forests. From the Dering estate alone they took some four thousand cords of wood. At the close of the war a jubilee was held on Prospect Hill, the island's greatest elevation, to celebrate the departure of the enemy's ships from neighboring waters.
James Havens, cousin of Nicoll Havens, was elected supervisor on December 22, 1783. He also served in the Provincial Congresses of 1775 and 1776. Jonathan Nicoll Havens, who served as supervisor from 1785 to 1793, was a son of Nicoll and Sarah (Fosdick) Havens. In 1786, he was elected an Assemblyman and served for ten consecu- tive terms. He was also a member of the State Convention of 1788 which ratified the Federal Constitution and later a member of Con- gress. He never married.
General Sylvester Dering, second son of Thomas and Mary (Sylvester) Dering, was elected supervisor in 1793 and again in 1796, also serving as town clerk for many years and later as assessor and assemblyman. Married to Esther Sarah Havens, sister of Jonathan Nicoll Havens, their daughter, Margaret Sylvester, married Richard Floyd Nicoll. Dering was a major general of the militia at one time. His younger brother, Henry Packer Dering, was commis- sioned customs surveyor and collector at Sag Harbor by President Washington and at his death his son Thomas succeeded to the office.
"Squire" William Bowditch succeeded General Dering as super- visor in 1794, serving a period in all of twenty-one years. He was the son of Joel Bowditch, one of the town's founders. Samuel Benjamin Nicoll I, son of William III, was chosen supervisor in 1795 and again in 1817. Having inherited Sachem's Neck and also West Neck from his father, at Samuel's death the property descended to his son, Richard Floyd Nicoll, who sold the former Neck to his brother, Samuel Benjamin Nicoll II.
Shadrach Conkling succeeded Samuel Benjamin Nicoll I as super- visor in 1798. He was a son of Thomas Conkling, an island founder, and grandson of John and Sarah (Horton) Conkling of Southold. Shadrach Conkling owned a fine farm on the north side of Shelter Island. Neither he nor his brother Benjamin nor their sister Mary ever married.
"Squire" Frederick Chase, a Seventh Day Adventist and a native of Westerly, Rhode Island, was elected supervisor in 1820 and held the office for four years. He and his wife, Rebecca Caroline Cart- wright, came in 1811 to Shelter Island where her father, Edward Cartwright and others of the name had settled subsequent to the Revolution. She was a sister of Captain George Cartwright and an aunt of Benjamin Conklin Cartwright, a subsequent island supervisor and prominent in the bunker oil business.
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Chase became the owner of a farm on which much of Shelter Island Heights was afterwards developed from the camp meeting enterprise established in 1871 on the northwest portion of the island. He held various offices, including inspector, overseer of the poor, school trustee, collector and constable. The Chases had eight daughters but only one son, who removed from the island. In consequence, the name is perpetuated on the island only by Chase Creek, Chase Bridge and Chase Avenue. Squire Chase was my great-grandfather
Moses D. Griffing succeeded Squire Chase as supervisor in 1824 when the latter was appointed keeper of the lighthouse at Little Gull Island, where he served many years, maintaining his home on Shelter Island. Griffing was elected also in 1826, 1827 and 1828 and again in 1830. He was owner of a large farm and came of a well-known sea- faring family of the island.
"Lawyer" Samuel Sylvester Gardiner, manorial owner of nearby Gardiner's Island and a native of East Hampton, in 1831 was elected supervisor to hold the office four years. Caleb Squires Loper suc- ceeded Lawyer Gardiner as supervisor. He owned a large farm on the south side of the island, later the property of Artemas Ward, Jr.
Loper, a Republican, was chosen several times as supervisor, alternating with Lawyer Samuel Benjamin Nicolls II, a Democrat. Loper also held other town offices. His wife, Hepsibah P. Douglas, was the daughter of Jonathan Douglas of Shelter Island. Lawyer Nicoll succeeded Loper as supervisor in 1836 and again in 1838, hold- ing the office until Loper was elected in 1844. In 1850, Nicoll was again chosen and held the office for fifteen years or until 1865, the year of his death. He held the office for twenty-two years, stretched over a period of twenty-nine years (1836-1865). When he took office, Jackson was President and when he died Lincoln was in the White House. He practiced his profession at Riverhead for several years, returning to Shelter Island in 1832 to settle upon the family estate which he had bought of his brother, Richard Floyd Nicoll.
Marcellus Douglas Loper, son of Caleb, was elected supervisor in 1865. His wife was Mary Squires Horton. Samuel B. Nicoll III, a doctor as well as lawyer, succeeded him and Captain Benjamin Conklin Cartwright, a nephew of Squire Chase, was elected in 1880, holding the office until 1892 when Byron Griffing was chosen, serving fourteen years. His successor was David H. Young who in 1912 was succeeded by Charles H. Smith and he in 1929 by T. Everett C. Tuthill, the present incumbent.
Among the island's early ministers was William Adams who arrived about 1737 and served except for a few years at Orient until the Revolution. In 1789 John Taylor of Connecticut preached here and at Sag Harbor. Whitfield Cowles was the occasional preacher from 1796 to 1798. He married Gloriana Havens, daughter of Nicoll and Desire (Brown) Havens. She died in 1802 and Cowles married Desire Brown.
In 1804 the supply preachers at Shelter Island were Lyman Beecher of East Hampton, Joseph Hazard of Southold, Zachariah Greene of Setauket and Daniel Hall of Sag Harbor, but thereafter Benjamin Bell became the settled pastor at three dollars a Sunday.
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When in 1812 the church entered the Presbytery the elders were General Sylvester Dering, Jonathan Douglas and Lodowick Havens, and the minister was Daniel Miner Lord, who had taught the school some years before. Thomas Harries served from 1864 to 1884, A. F. Bissell 1884 to 1889, Benjamin F. Parliman 1889 to 1895, Jacob E. Mallman 1895 to 1920, and Lincoln Shear 1920 to 1927 in which year George J. Kilgus became pastor.
Dr. Samuel B. Nicoll III and his brothers and sisters were in 1873 instrumental in the erection of St. Mary's Episcopal Church. Our Lady of the Isle Catholic Church was built by Rev. Charles Gibney while he was pastor of the Catholic Church at Greenport and was dedicated June 16, 1907. In 1911 the Passionist Fathers took charge of the Church.
Three brothers by the name of Lord from Lyme, Connecticut, some time before 1800 acquired the Great Woods comprising four or five hundred acres of oak and hickory, there built a house of colonial design and established a shipyard on a tributary of West Neck Creek. Ships large enough to cross the ocean were built at this shipyard by Samuel Lord and his brothers although there is no record of how many they built. When a vessel was completed, one of the brothers would sail her away while the others remained and built more ships. The business was continued until the native timber supply ran out.
Captain Samuel Lord in 1804, with a crew of Shelter Island men, sailed through Napoleon's blockade to Liverpool with one thou- sand barrels of flour. His ship, the Paragon, was a product of the Shelter Island shipyard.
Among Shelter Island's masters of whaling ships may be men- tioned Smith Baldwin, Lewis Bennett, Benjamin C. Cartwright, Maltby P. Cartwright, Erastus Cartwright, Sylvester Cartwright, Frederick Cartwright, Nathaniel Case, Isaac Case, Joseph Case, Davis Conkling, Conklin Glover, Sylvester Griffing, Absalom Griffing, Maxwell Griffing, Charles C. Griffing, Monroe Havens, Joseph Havens, Jacobs Havens, Stratton Havens, Davis Nicoll, Samuel Sherman and Stuart Tuthill.
Among the Forty-niners who went from Shelter Island to Cali- fornia were Joseph Case, Erastus Cartwright, Sylvester Cartwright, Paul Cartwright, Thomas Cartwright, Daniel Conkling, Gabriel Crook, John B. Crook, Charles Griffing, Napoleon Griffing, Absalom Griffing, Alexander Harlow, Jacob Havens, Williams Havens, Oliver Mayo, Elias Payne, Charles Phillips, Hull Phillips, Manly Raynor, Sylvester Raynor, Henry Ross, Benjamin Ryder and Alfred Sanford. None of them made a fortune from digging gold although some were suc- cessful in other enterprises.
In early times the inhabitants of the island made business and social contacts with the settlements at Sag Harbor and at Southold by means of sailboats, rowboats, and barges. The preacher, George Whitefield, when touring Long Island in January, 1764, was ferried across, together with his horse and carriage, on a specially built raft. Samuel L'Hommedieu, great-grandson of Nathaniel and Grissell (Brinley) Sylvester, who was "hopefully converted" at this time under the preaching of the English evangelist, helped build the raft.
L. I .- 1-12
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In time a ferry service was established on both the north and the south sides of the island. At one time, the south or North Haven ferry was conducted by George and William Tyndall. They used a flat-bottomed scow propelled partly by sail and partly by oars. The fare was a shilling. The ferry from Greenport to Shelter Island was early conducted in a large cabin catboat. It made a trip whenever a passenger desired to cross from Greenport or, on signal, from Shelter Island.
In the early part of the nineteenth century, Timothy Dwight, commenting on the ferry accommodations of that time, said: "We found the ferry had neither wharf nor ferry stairs on either side. We were obliged to force our horses into (the boat) by leading them over the gunwale." He referred to "Bushe's" ferry, conducted by John Boisseau, a Huguenot relative of Ezra L'Hommedieu of Southold. This ferry connected the narrow neck in Southold town with Rocky Point on Shelter Island, in modern times known as Jennings and later as Stearns Point. Morancey P. Jennings was the owner of this point at one time. In 1882 John H. Stearns bought the property and built a large residence and other houses there.
When the Shelter Island church in July, 1841, sought to secure the services of Jonathan Huntting of Southold it agreed to also pay his "ferryges."
The ferry on the north side of the island was changed from Stearns Point to its present location at Dering Harbor in 1852. In 1859, Captain John Preston received a charter for a primitive ferry between the island and Greenport. He transferred the charter to Charles Costa in 1863. Two years later, Costa sold out to Samuel Clark and Charles Harlow who in 1869 sold to Captain Benjamin H. Sisson, who in 1871 transferred the ferry to the Brooklyn men who were then developing the camp meeting grounds at Prospect.
The first steamboat ferry between the island and Greenport was the Cambria in 1875. She was built at Greenport by Oliver Bishop. In 1893 she was replaced by more modern boats.
A road was projected in 1793 to run from the North Ferry, opposite Sterling (Greenport), to the South Ferry connecting with Hog Neck at Sag Harbor. No action was taken, however, until 1828 when a highway was built from the south side and thence to Boisseau's ferry. Nine years later a road was opened through Prospect lead- ing to the Prospect dock. Other roads were laid out as follows: Ram Island Beach Road in 1868, Menantic Road in 1872, Burns Ave- nue in 1874, Gardiner's Avenue in 1877, Winthrop Road in 1881, Cartwright Town Road, leading south from Coeckles Harbor settle- ment, in 1886 and 1887, and Tuthill Road, leading east from Turkum Neck, in 1889. In 1889 the Stearns Point Road was reopened. The State road was laid out across the island connecting North and South Ferries after 1905.
Prior to 1869 there was only a foot bridge across the mouth of Chase Creek at the Heights. At town meeting in April of that year, action was taken for the building of a bridge across the creek at a cost not to exceed one hundred dollars, provided a right of way could be obtained to the old Prospect dock landing place.
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"Priest" Ezra Youngs, a lineal descendant of John Youngs, Southold's first pastor, maintained his residence at Greenport in that town while serving the Shelter Island church from 1821 to 1828. On one occasion he was on his way to the Chase home, accompanied by Squire Chase who then owned much of what is now Shelter Island Heights. As there was no bridge over Chase Creek, the Squire, a Seventh Day Adventist, obligingly carried the Presbyterian minister across the creek on his ample back so that he need not remove his leather boots.
Before the railroad was extended to eastern Long Island, there was occasional mail service between Greenport, Sag Harbor and the Hamptons across Shelter Island by way of its ferries. Before he went to California in 1849, Henry Ross drove the stage across the Island. In 1854 a daily mail service by way of Greenport was pro- vided for Shelter Island and a post office was established in the Old Store. Archibald R. Havens, storekeeper, was the first postmaster and served as such for nearly half a century.
When the first telegraph line was opened through Suffolk County in 1861, submarine cables connected Shelter Island with Greenport and Sag Harbor, giving telegraph service to each place.
There was a school on Shelter Island as early as 1791, a few years subsequent to the enactment of a State law establishing public schools. At a special meeting held April 29, 1794, it was decided that a tax of three pence be collected from non-residents who dug clams about the shores of the island. All but twenty per cent of the money so collected was to be applied for the support of the gospel or to maintain a school. This action was, however, repealed the following year, but what revenue had been received was placed in the hands of William Bowditch and Ezekiel Havens for school purposes.
At a meeting of the inhabitants on September 27, 1813, at the old, original meeting house built in 1743, it was voted to raise three hun- dred dollars to build a new district school house. Sylvester Dering was the moderator of the meeting and the following school officers were chosen: Benjamin Glover, Remington Havens and Frederick Chase, trustees; Sylvester Dering, clerk, and Remington Havens, collector.
During the winter of 1827-29, while Daniel Miner Lord was the teacher, the schoolhouse was destroyed by fire, together with all the school books. A new schoolhouse was built on the same site in 1828 at a cost of $428.48 by Benjamin Glover. The old school thereafter served as a public meeting place. Its site was a short distance east of where stood a two-story building afterwards used as the Town Hall. A schoolhouse was built in the center of the island in 1868. This was enlarged in 1884 and again in 1900. A large brick building was added in 1925.
In early times the schoolhouse was heated by a fireplace, burning wood of which there was plenty on the island. The older boys cut the logs and tended the fire. They would go to the nearest house for a firebrand to light the fire or use a flint and steel to get a spark. The older girls swept the floor. The lower window panes were some- times painted so the pupils could not waste their time looking out of doors.
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The school year was divided into four terms with vacations of three weeks in summer and only two holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. School was held from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. A man was employed as teacher in winter when many large boys were in attendance. In summer a woman was in charge.
The first schoolmaster of record employed on the island was Stephen Burroughs, son of a clergyman at Hanover, New Hampshire. He taught only for a short time after 1790, having been employed by Judge Jonathan Nicoll Havens for a compensation of six dollars a month with board, lodging and washing provided. He lived at the tavern of James Havens.
In 1799 and 1800 a young man by the name of John Rudd taught on the island, boarding with General Sylvester Dering. After leaving the island, he went to New York and opened a school. Later he studied for the ministry. In time he became the editor of the Christian Messenger. In 1805, Benjamin Bell, a clergyman, was engaged to serve in the double capacity. Samuel Phillips of Sag Harbor, later editor of the Republican Watchman and still later sheriff of Suffolk County, taught the school in 1816.
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