USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 33
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 33
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East of the Floyd or Robert property, comes Snake or Rattle- snake Neck which was bought by the acting town minister or "clerk", Samuel Eburne. He applied for and got a patent for it dated 27 De-
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cember, 1686 (the same day that the Town got its patent from Gov- ernor Dongan), and then sold it to the heirs of Richard Woodhull, 22 October, 1700. There are about 300 acres of land in the neck exclu- sive of the New Purchase meadows bordering the Bay which are not included in the patent. The neck lies between Pattersquash Creek on the west and Winnecroscum's Neck on the east. This property came down in a branch of the Woodhull family and became the home and final resting place of Nathaniel Woodhull and his illustrious son, General Nathaniel Woodhull, the martyr-patriot of Long Island who died of his wounds in September, 1776. The neck has sometimes been known as Eburne's Neck.
Winnecroscum's Neck of about 100 acres and named after its principal Indian owner, is just east of Snake Neck and was bought by Benjamin Smith, one of the sons of Arthur Smith, the Quaker of Setauket. He appears to have bought it from Samuel Eburne and afterward secured a patent for his purchase from Governor Dongan, 9 December, 1686. The property covered by the patent, like the ones given to Richard Floyd and Samuel Eburne, does not include the New Purchase meadows, but refers to the fact that the patentee Smith was in possession of that part of them in front of this neck adjoining the Bay. These meadows had been divided and allotted to the proprietor- townsmen of Brookhaven, and Benjamin Smith had acquired his share in the allotment; hence, by means of his purchase and his patent of the wooded upland, and by his allotment of the meadows, he became the sole owner of the whole neck.
We now come to the last and easternmost tract known as Mastic Neck which because of its size and prominence has given its name, by extension, to the whole of the Mastic peninsula. It forms the western side or end of the East or Moriches Bay, and has the beauti- ful river which has borne the names of Wegonthotok, Mastic, Forge and Swift Stream, running up from the Bay along part of its eastern boundary. The neck was purchased by Col. William Smith; was included in his patent; and was sold by his son, William Henry Smith, to the second Richard Floyd, 17 May, 1718. The property descended to his son, Nicoll Floyd, who built the east part of the present house in which his noted son, General William Floyd, Signer of the Declara- tion of Independence, was born, 17 December, 1734. The house and a small part of the property in Old Mastic is still in the family and is now owned by Mrs. John T. Nichols, a direct descendant of General Floyd.
We must now consider Colonel William Smith, his many pur- chases and his two patents which played such a conspicuous part in the history of Brookhaven Town. He was born at Newton, near Higham Ferres, in Northamptonshire, England, 2 February, 1654-5. Prior to his coming to America, he was appointed by King Charles II of England as mayor of the City of Tangier in North Africa. While there, he married Martha, daughter of Henry Tunstall of Putney in Surrey, England, on the 26th of November, 1675, and several of his children were born in Tangier. In 1683, King Charles realized the futility of trying to hold the place and decided to destroy it rather
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than have its fortification fall into the hands of enemies, and Colonel Smith was recalled to England where he and his family remained for awhile, then removed to Ireland, after which they sailed for New York. From a family record which he kept in a book which has become known as the "Tangier Book" and which is now owned by the heirs of the late Judge Selah B. Strong, we learn that he was at Yonghall, Ireland, in June, 1686, when he recorded the birth of a fourth daughter, who was appropriately named Hibernia. On the 25th of August, 1686, he recorded her death and burial at sea from the ship Thomas. His arrival in New York was consequently sometime soon after that date-probably early in September. From the same record, it will be found that he was settled in Brookhaven at Setauket by March, 1688-9, at which time he was living north of the old Wood- hull homestead overlooking the Little Neck of Brookhaven.
Space will not permit giving any account of his prominence, his social position and his splendid record in the political and judicial affairs of the New York Provincial Government. All of the standard histories of New York and of Long Island have accounts and bio- graphical sketches of him. His active life is summed up in the brief inscription on his tombstone in the family graveyard on Little or Strong's Neck near Setauket, which reads, "Chief Justice and Presi- dent of ye Council for ye Province of New York".
Upon the arrival of Colonel Smith in Brookhaven, Little Neck was the cause of a disturbing dispute. The Indians liad been settled on the "Indian Ground" in its northeast section; the troublesome "Clerk", Samuel Eburne, then acting minister, had bought them out and the town proprietors had been allotted lots in the western and southern sections. The exact nature of the dispute does not appear clear, but previous historians state that Governor Dongan decided that the easiest way to end the trouble would be for Colonel Smith to buy out all the owners on the neck. This he did, and he also bought a few of the low-lying islands near the neck, but it took many deeds and some time to complete the purchases. He turned his attention to the south side of the Island and negotiated the purchase of all the unsold Indian land east of the Town's "Old Purchase at South", of 1664, and west of Mastic River. According to the unrecorded and little known deed in the possession of one of his descendants and dated 8 April, 1692, the Sachem Tobaccus with other Indian native proprietors conveyed to Colonel Smith for "divers good causes" and £70 in money "a certain trackt or trackts of land medowe beaches islands cricks and harbours bay or rivers" with the east boundary described as being the east side of Mastic (Forge) River and a line running north from its head to the middle of the Island and then a line running south from the east side of its mouth, crossing the Bay and Beach to the Ocean. On the west, the boundary is stated to be the west bank of Connecticut River up to and then along the west bank of Yamphanke Creek to its head and from there along a straight line extending north to the middle of the Island-a line which later became known as the "Yaphank Line". Returning to the west bank of the mouth of Connecticut River (now known as Long Point), the
L. I .-- 1-18
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remaining part of the west boundary is described as a line running south across the Bay and Beach to the "mayne sea" or Ocean. The south boundary is the Ocean and the north boundary is the middle of the Island. By an agreement made between Smith and the Town Trustees, dated 21 September, 1693, this latter boundary was estab- lished as the Middle Country Road (Route No. 25). The deed recites that the Sachem has previously sold lands to the Town of Brook- haven (the New Purchase meadows) and to Richard Floyd and to Samuel Eburne, all of which are excepted from the conveyance to Smith.
Armed with this deed and the stack of deeds received in purchas- ing Little Neck and its nearby islands, Colonel Smith applied for a patent to his personal friend, Governor Benjamin Fletcher, who issued a warrant dated 19 September, 1693, to Augustine Graham, the Surveyor-General of the Province, directing him to survey Colonel Smith's lands on the south side of the Island and make a report. The report is dated the 30th of the same month and is interesting in that the west boundary includes not only what had been included in the Indian deed but also the land known as the "Gore-in-the-Hills" or all of what is included west of the Yaphank Line (after it crosses north of Connecticut River in the southeast part of the present village of Yaphank), as far as the west bank of Connecticut River and Hollow and north to the Middle Country Road. This tract had not been included in the Indian deed above cited and had been pre- viously bought by the Town and was the cause of a later dispute. The report estimates the east and west boundaries each to be eight miles in length and the north one to be about five and a half miles. It further continues by reciting that within the limits of the tract there are three patents granted by Governor Colonel Dongan con- taining in all, eight hundred acres of the best land and that "All the meadows between Connecticutt and Mastick Rivers as I am informed were long since purchased & enjoyed by the towne of Brookhaven". These were, of course, the patents granted to Richard Floyd, Samuel Eburne and Benjamin Smith and the Town's New Purchase meadows, as we have seen.
Based on the deeds which Smith produced and Graham's report, Governor Fletcher issued a patent dated 8 October, 1693, in the name of Their Majesties, William and Mary, which releases to Colonel William Smith, all of the title of the Crown (as do all land patents) for the territory included in Tobaccus' deed and the additional land included in the Surveyor-General's report; also includes much of the Great South Bay and the greater part of the Great South Beach, as well as the Little Neck of Brookhaven with some of its adjoining islands. But the patent goes further than that. At the request of Colonel Smith, the Governor erects and establishes the patentship into a manor to be "known as the Lordship and Manor of St. George", with
"full power and authority at all tymes forever hereafter
one court Leet and Court Baron to hold and keep at such tyme and tymes and soe often yearly as he or they [his
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heirs] shall see meet, and all fines, issues and amercements at the sd Court Leet or Court Baron to be holden wth in the sd Lordshipp or mannor to be sett, forfeited or imployed or payable or happening at any time to be payable by any of
the Inhabitents of or within the sd Lordship or mannor * * * also all and every of the power and authority herein before meñconed for the holding and keeping of sd Court-and to issue out the accustomary writts to be issued and awarded out of the sd Court Leet and Court Baron."
Tenants living within the Manorship "shall and may hereafter meet together and choose assessors" according to the methods of a city, town or county, for defraying the public charge and to collect and dispose the money so levied as the acts of the General Assembly of the Province shall direct.
The Lordship and Manor so created by Fletcher's patent to Smith was a revival in America of one of the ancient feudal privileges that Parliament had abolished in England except in the Manor of East Greenwich in the County of Kent, which was the personal estate of the King. A few other such feudal manorships were set up in New York, and quite legally, too, for the whole Province of New York was the personal estate of the Crown and, according to the grant from King Charles II to James, Duke of York (who later became King), it was "holden in free and common soccage according to the tenour of our Manor of East Greenwich in the county of Kent in our Kingdom of England" and hence was exempt from most of the acts of Parliament thus making all of New York more directly under the rule of the Crown than England itself.
Colonel Smith, himself, realizing that his purchases and intended purchases within the limits of the Town's patent might cause trouble, inquired at a town meeting, 28 March, 1693, "as hee did before that", whether there were any objection to his making such purchases, and the vote of the meeting was that he might "purchase and peaceably injoy as aforesaide". After getting his patent in October, with all its manorial rights, he read it at a meeting of the town trustees on the 27th of the following November and got their assurance that they had nothing to object to the limits, bounds, powers and privileges contained in it. Just how much they understood of the lengthy docu- ment and its involved legal phraseology, is problematical, especially as Richard Woodhull and Daniel Brewster were the only two trustees present who could read or even sign their names. Not content with the approval of the Trustees, Colonel Smith came before the town meeting election in the following May (1694) and "caused his pattent to bee publiquely read before the freeholders of the Towne" and they too acquiesced to its terms and provisions except that they reserved their shares of meadow in the New Purchase.
It has been shown how Richard Floyd, Samuel Eburne and Ben- jamin Smith had acquired patents for lands in the Mastic peninsula. Colonel Smith's manorial patent surrounded them and the two patents to the Town from Nicolls and Dongan surrounded all of them; hence,
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we have three patents within Colonel Smith's patent and all of these within the limits but not under the jurisdiction of the Town's patent. To complicate matters further, Smith's patent overlapped some of the upland and underwater lands secured to the Town by its earlier Indian deeds and patents, with the result that many lawsuits, disputes and arbitration awards developed in later years after Colonel Smith's death, 18 February, 1704-5.
In less than four years after getting his first patent, Colonel Smith's quest for land caused him to buy up all the land east of his former purchase (which ended at Mastic River) as far east as Paqua- tuck or Terrell's River, where he was blocked in acquiring land farther east by the ownership of Richard Smith, Jr., of Smithtown, as will be explained later on. The new land of Colonel Smith extended his holding as far north as Peconic River and around the land of Richard Smith, Jr., and as far east as the west boundary of the Town of Southampton. Included in this large area are the present villages of West and Center Moriches, Manorville and the semi-barren, hilly tract known as Halsey's Manor, north of East Moriches and East- port. He also secured title to the East Bay and its islands as far as the Southampton Town line. Jumping the Peconic River, he acquired a long, narrow triangular piece in the present Town of Riverhead along the north side of the Peconic River, bordering the east line of the Town of Brookhaven at Wading River and terminating at a point at a small stream, Toyongs (or Toyonge) near the village of River- head. Again he applied to his accommodating friend, Governor Fletcher, and was given a second patent to include the newly acquired lands and annex them to his Manor of St. George. The original docu- ment is now owned by the Suffolk County Historical Society at River- head and is dated the 17th of June, 1697. Because of its overlapping some of the older patents given to others, court decisions have nulli- fied some of the lands conveyed by it and awarded them to the heirs or assigns of the other patentees.
By the time Colonel Smith had bought the Indian lands included in his two patents, the Unkechaug Indians (by that time few in number) were reduced to owning no land at all and they had become squatters on his territory. In order to settle them on a regular home- land, he gave them a perpetual lease to run forever provided they and their posterity should pay, as a quit-rent to him or his heirs, two yellow ears of corn when their crops were harvested. The lease is dated 2 July, 1700, and conveys or leases 175 acres in all, compris- ing 100 acres in Mastic Neck, 50 acres at Pospaton (now called Poose- patuck), 15 acres at Constable's Neck and 10 acres at Qualiecan. The lease recites that the Sachem Tobaccus, did in his lifetime, with other Indian proprietors, convey to him, by several deeds, all their land and that the leasehold was given so that they, their children and posterity should not want sufficient planting land.
There are but eight Indians named in the lease, and the mixed Indian and Negro residents now living at Poosepatuck claim direct descent from those eight. There has been no attempt by any of the descendants, within the memory of anyone now living, to use or claim
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any other than the 50 acres in Poosepatuck, and the fact that when Mastic Neck was sold some eighteen years later to Richard Floyd II, by Colonel Smith's son, William Henry Smith, no mention is made of the 100 acres in the neck having been conveyed to the Indians, would indicate that by that time, they had abandoned it or, perhaps, sold it back to either Colonel William or his son, William Henry Smith. As for the 10 acres at Qualiecan, an old half-breed, now long since dead, told the writer that when he was a young man and living at Poosepatuck, it was the tradition among the older residents that Qualiecan was the sacred tribal burying-ground of his people. From his description and other persons familiar with the property, its 10 acres are on the south side of Home Creek in or near Indian Point and probably include the point also. Many Indian articles have been found there especially when the land has been ploughed for planting.
We now come to the big section which was included within another privately owned patentship and forming the southeast corner of the mainland of the Town. On it are located what are now East Moriches and that part of Eastport lying west of the Brookhaven- Southampton town line. The two villages are on Moriches, Watchaug (Watchogue) and Mattuck Necks and a smaller neck east of Mattuck which does not appear to have a recorded name. Moriches Neck adjoins the east side of Paquatuck or Terrell's River and its name has, by extension, been given to the whole section both to the east and to the west.
On the 31st of October, 1677, Dr. Henry Taylor of Flushing obtained the necessary license from Governor Edmund Andros to purchase Indian land in the section and he with Major Thomas Willett, also of Flushing, and Captain Thomas Townsend of Oyster Bay, whom Dr. Taylor took into partnership with him by a document dated 16 December, 1679, succeeded in buying all the necks through a series of deeds given principally by the Indian, John Mayhew. These deeds are not recorded and are now (1946) owned by a gentle- man in Center Moriches, through whose permission they have all been copied and the copies filed in the Town Clerk's office.
Captain Thomas Townsend sold his one-third interest to John Townsend, Jr., of New York and he, in turn, conveyed it to Richard Smith of Smithtown by two deeds dated the 10th and 15th of October, 1694. Major Willett had been promoted to a Colonel and, as Colonel Thomas Willett, he and Dr. Henry Taylor sold their two-thirds share of "ye tract comprised in John Mayhues Deeds ye Indian proprietor". Thus Richard Smith became the sole owner of the necks, except for 100 acres of upland and some meadow in Watchaug Neck which had been acquired by Colonel William Smith of the Manor of St. George, from Robert Wooley of Southampton, to whom they had been sold by Thomas Townsend in 1679. Colonel Smith eventually sold them to Richard Smith and Matthew Howell.
Richard Smith was the son of Richard (Bull) Smith, the patentee of Smithtown, and was not related in any known way to Colonel William (Tangier) Smith of the Manor of St. George. He, Richard Smith, petitioned Governor Fletcher for a patent for his newly
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acquired lands and one was granted to him in the name of King William III and is dated 12 November, 1697. It confirms to Richard Smith-
"certain Necks of Land in Suffolk County in the Island of Nassau Scituate Lying and Being bounded on the west By a River on the west side of Maritches Neck called Paquatuck, on the North by a line from the head of Said River to a white Oake tree marked on the west of the Neck called Watchogue By a pond and from thence by a line running East to Sea- tuck River, on the East By Seatuck River, aforesaid and on the South by the Sea."
(The term, Sea, has been defined in legal opinions to mean the East or Moriches Bay.) The territory embraced by this patent became known as the Patentship of Moriches and both it and the Manor of St. George, which nearly surrounded it, remained separate and distinct from the Town of Brookhaven and were not under its jurisdiction.
On the 7th of March, 1788, the State Legislature passed an act establishing the several towns and townships and defining their boundaries within the counties of the State, at which time, the Manor of St. George and the Patentship of Moriches were included within the limits and bounds of Brookhaven. Prior to this, they had paid their share of the cost and support of the Suffolk County government directly to the County. The additions of the Manor of St. George and Patentship of Moriches account for the great area of the Town.
Sometime prior to the 14th of January, 1702, Richard Smith conveyed one-half of his title to Colonel Matthew Howell of South- ampton as on that date, there was a deed given whereby they divided their patent lands, and though the deed appears to be lost, the sale by Smith to Howell of his half interest is recited in a confirmatory deed they secured from the Indian, Wyangonhott, Sachem of Unke- chaug, to extinguish any possible Indian claims to their properties. The description of what Smith and Howell took in their division would be out of place here, but the part selected by Richard Smith, he gave to his sons, Richard and Nathaniel Smith. Nathaniel bought out Richard's interest and settled on Watchogue Neck. A house built and occupied by him in 1740 is still standing and is occupied by a descendant. His son, Colonel Josiah Smith, settled on Moriches Neck (East Moriches) and his home while partly in existence, has been so mutilated and disfigured by remodelling that only a little of the original remains. Not far from it is the Smith and Howell private graveyard, where Colonel Josiah Smith and others of the two fami- lies are buried. Josiah Smith was colonel of all the Suffolk County troops prior to the disastrous Battle of Long Island after which the British overran Long Island and ended his command.
At the close of 1700 and the XVII Century, Brookhaven was well established as a Town and during the 45 years which had elapsed from the Spring of 1655, when the small band of settlers had estab- lished a feeble settlement on the shore of Setauket Harbor, its towns-
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men had had many join them from New England, New York, South- ampton, Southold, East Hampton, Huntington, Jamaica, and other Long Island towns; all the Indian lands had been bought from Stony Brook to Wading River on the north side, and from Blue Point to Eastport on the south side; patents had been bought covering all the Indian purchases; and small, scattered and, in many cases, individual settlements had been made at Stony Brook, Old Field, all around the vicinity of "Brookhaven" as Setauket was then being called; on the Little Neck where Colonel William Smith and his lady had their manorial seat; on Dier's and George's Necks (East Setauket and Poquott) ; at Drown Meadow (Port Jefferson) where John Roe and his family had settled; at Mount Misery (Belle Terre), Old Mans (Mount Sinai), Millers Place, and at "ye Wading River" where by vote of the Town, 17 November, 1671, a village of eight families had been authorized and land allotted to eight men.
Settlements through the middle of the Town do not seem to have been made until a later date, but on the south side of the Town, Colonel William Smith had a summer house on Sebomack Neck; Matthew Howell seems to have been living in the Patentship of Moriches; Jonathan Rose was on Occumbomuck Neck (Bellport) and his brother John Rose was at "ye fire place" (Brookhaven village) ; Samuel Dayton had lived and died on Dayton's Neck, located between the last two places; the whaling design was flourishing off and along the South Beach; corn, wheat, rye, pease, whale oil, pork, beef and cattle were being shipped to New York; and turpentine and tar were being "run" on Tarman's Neck in what is now the center of Brook- haven village; a minister and town church, and a teacher and school had been established. Altogether, much had been accomplished in and by the Town during the 45 eventful years from 1655 to 1700, and when the XVIII Century opened, a solid foundation had been laid for the future growth and development of the Town of Brookhaven.
During the period from 1700 to the Revolutionary War, there were many less events of historic interest which occurred in the Town to detain the reader, and first of these is about two old roads, one of which is the oldest and most commonly traveled road of the present day-Route 25.
With the mother settlement at Setauket, the various scattered settlements required that cart roads and paths be made for horseback riders to reach them. One of such was the Old Town Road from Setauket to Coram, from there to Occumbomuck and Fire Place in the Old Purchase, and to the meadows in the New Purchase-it being the first cross-Island road to be laid out in and by the Town.
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