USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 39
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 39
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Along about this time the trolley craze started. The promoters organized companies and sold stock to local residents. A franchise was granted by the Islip Town Board in 1908 to the South Shore Traction Company to build and operate a trolley from Bay Shore to Bayport with a spur down Candee Avenue in Sayville connecting with a line running into Patchogue. This did not fully materialize as it was a losing proposition from the very start.
William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., conceived the idea of the Motor Park- way. A corporation was formed in 1906 with Vanderbilt as its president. The Commissioner of Highways of Islip Town signed a permit in 1908 for the Motor Parkway to pass through the town. It was built shortly after this, extending more or less parallel to the main line of the railroad and a mile or so north of it. It went as far as Ronkonkoma. It finally became a public highway.
The grandeur of the 1890s has gone. The village of Islip was then the largest community in the Town. Now Bay Shore ranks first, with Sayville next. We still have summer residents, mostly in Sayville, Bayport and Bay Shore. Many, however, have gone
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across the bay to such oceanside communities as Ocean Beach, Salt- aire and Fair Harbor. There are ferries to and from these beaches. As far back as 1862 there was a steam ferry owned and skippered by John Hicks plying between Bay Shore and Fire Island. At that time B. Doxsee's packet sloop Eugenia made regular trips between Bay Shore and New York. Ferries from the beach made con- nections by stage with passenger trains at Thompson's Station.
Many baymen became yacht skippers for the estate owners. Others used their own boats to sail parties. Boats were built in shipyards at Sayville, Islip and Bay Shore. Racing boats were also designed and built in these same yards. Sailboat racing became a great sport and still is here. Many of our baymen won fame in yacht racing and three of them became sailing masters of America Cup defenders. These were Captain Henry Haff of Islip and Captains Urias Rhodes and Leander Jeffreys of Bay Shore.
Double tracks were installed by the railroad between Babylon and Oakdale in 1905 and by 1913 there were fifteen trains a day. Small industrial plants have been established here from time to time. One of these was that of James Doxsee of Islip who began canning clams. The capacity was four hundred bushels a day. The business was later moved in Ocracoke, N. C., in 1897 and still later it was located in Florida. Two State Hospitals, Central Islip and Pilgrim, located in the northerly part of the town, employ thousands of men and women. In 1945, the town population, exclusive of these hospitals, was in round numbers 33,000.
If one looks to the Town bounds on the ocean front one finds that Brookhaven Town comes right into our own front dooryard, coming up past Point o'Woods which is due south of Heckscher State Park. This is due to the fact that certain wide awake freemen of Brookhaven Town bought all the right and title to this bay bottom which is therefore in their town and leaves the Town of Islip that much less bay bottom of its own.
Fire Island inlet broke through during a great storm in 1690, seven years after William Nicoll had purchased his land here. The inlet was first called Nine Mile Gut because the original break-through was of that width. Old maps show the name New Gut. It also was called Great Gut or Nicoll's Gut. There were five small islands in one group where the inlet first came through and these islands were known by an Indian name which meant "seal." The name was appropriate because many seals came to rest on these islands in the winter time. Someone who wrote about the five islands got his wires crossed and misinterpreted the word five, making it Fire Island Inlet. The name Fire Island has also been applied to the entire beach lying between the Great South Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. To the native, only that part of the beach from the State Park westward to the inlet is Fire Island. Only that portion from Point o'Woods to the lighthouse is in Islip Town. Within the memory of living man the inlet has moved westward four miles. When the present lighthouse was built in 1856 it was so near the inlet that boatmen could toss newspapers to the lighthouse-keeper as they
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passed by. The first lighthouse was built in 1825. The present light is 162 feet above the ocean and can be seen twenty miles at sea. The Surf Hotel was built around 1870 to the east of the light- house by S. S. Sammis of Babylon. It could accommodate six hundred guests. Two steamers ran between Fire Island and Babylon during the "heat term" for the convenience of patrons. In 1892 this hotel was taken over by the state as a detention station for cholera immigrants but such a public protest arose that no patients were ever landed there although attempts were made to do so.
In 1868, Fire Island had a telegraph station which was owned by the New York Magnetic Company. Thus the city press would learn of the impending arrival of ships from Europe. A lookout with a telescope was part of the system. Today there is a Naval Radio Station there. Coast Guard stations used to be established every five miles along the beach but now only a few are kept open, including the one at Fire Island.
The details of Islip's war records are buried in the archives of the State and National government. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War a company of Colonial troops was organized in the town by Captain Benijah Strong. They were a part of the First Regiment, Commanded by Col. William Floyd, Signer of the Declaration of Independence. After the Battle of Long Island this company was broken up but some of its men went into the Colonial army. Captain Strong went to Connecticut and aided Col. Talmadge in his daring adventures along the Sound and on Long Island. In the Civil War there were one hundred and twenty-six men from Islip Town and many also served in the Spanish-American War. Nine hundred local boys wore uniforms in World War One while in World War Two over 5500 men and women served the nation.
Bay Shore, which had a population of 8353 in 1943, leads all the other communities in population and wealth. In 1865 there were only nine dwellings besides the Dominy House, Robinson's General store, Smith's Tavern and a gristmill. The Wicks, Crumbs, Thurbers, Clocks and Burrs occupied the nine houses. The most impotant cross- street was Telegraph Road, now Fifth Avenue. The mail was taken to Thompson's Station once a day by stagecoach. The post office was located in a store on the corner of Main Street and Fourth Avenue. The first postmaster was Seth Clock who held the position thirty- eight years, starting in 1850.
Up to 1831 Bay Shore was called Sodom and then Mechanicsville, but in 1849 its new post office was named Penataquit. In 1868 it became Bay Shore. Selah Wicks, who owned what is now the center of the village, gave the railroad the site for its first station which stood on Third Avenue until 1881 when it was moved to Fourth Avenue. Walter Burr was the first station agent and telephone operator and directed the arrival and depature of the four daily trains.
The Dominy House was established in 1861 on the corner of Main Street and North Bay Avenue. In the 1920s it was torn down to make way for a modern business block. The Cortland House is
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on the site of Selah Wick's farmhouse. It was named for Cortland Wicks, who in 1809 quit farming to become an innkeeper.
The first wharf for sizable vessels in Bay Shore was at the foot of Ocean Avenue. It was owned and built by Treadwell O. Smith who owned a farm extending from Main Street to the bay. Ocean Avenue runs through it today. Besides being a farmer, he was Wrecking Master, local agent for the Marine Underwriters, village banker, storekeeper, owner of several vessels, had a sawmill, a coal and lumber yard and was never too busy to extract teeth when called upon. The dock was a busy place. Smith had a ninety-ton boat that ran cargo to and from New York. It brought back his store freight, lumber, coal, and took away wood, oysters and farm products.
Bay Shore had two school districts until 1893. The west dis- trict, No: 1, formed in 1825, ran as far as Babylon and the east district, No. 2, was a part of the village of Islip. In 1836, this was cut off from Islip and called District 8. The west-enders had their school near the lake in Brightwaters. The east-enders had theirs near the present site of the Southside Hospital. There were 235 scholars in attendance in both schools. The value of the two buildings and their sites was estimated to be $600.
In 1874, the eastern district built a new building costing $5000 and in 1893, when the districts consolidated, their first building was built on Fourth Avenue. The Nassau Institute was established on Oakland Avenue in 1861 by Amos Doxsee and ran for twenty-five years teaching astronomy, navigation, printing, music, languages and mathematics.
Methodists began meeting in 1810 in the home of John Doxsee in Islip. In 1828, midway of Bay Shore and Islip was built a Central Church. However, in 1854 the Bay Shore members built their own chapel and in 1867 a church. The parsonage was constructed in 1880 and in 1893 the church was enlarged and a pipe organ installed.
The Bay Shore Congregational Church was built in 1854 on East Main Street. It was first called the Congregational Methodist Church. In 1860 it was enlarged and later moved to where the Public Library now stands. In 1891, the present church on Union Street and First Avenue was erected.
The Episcopal, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, A. M. E., and Chris- tian Science churches are now represented in Bay Shore. Also the Hebrew Congregation.
The Fire Department of Bay Shore was organized in 1885 as the Bay Shore Hook and Ladder Company. It kept its equipment in a barn behind what is now the Cortland House. In 1892, the first district was organized. Until 1910, the apparatus was hand drawn. The first piece of motor apparatus was a converted Pierce Arrow Limousine. The present building was erected in 1913. In 1932 it was enlarged and now contains many thousands of dollars worth of up-to-date equipment.
Bay Shore has two banks, The Southside Bank, established in 1887 and the First National Bank, in 1911. The first president of
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the Southside was Richard M. Raven, and of the First National, William H. Robbins.
Bay Shore's first newspaper was the Journal, founded in 1886. In 1945 it was combined with the Sentinel, established in the 1920s.
The village of Islip had a greater population than Bay Shore before the railroad came through. As far back as 1870, summer residents established many beautiful homes here. By 1880 Clock Brothers' general store was the largest on the south side. Because its navigable water comes to the main road, Orowac Creek has been the source of much shipping. From 1860 to 1880, a great deal of merchandise, coal, lumber and brick was brought up this creek. Along Doxsee's Creek shipyards were early established and it was here that John H. Doxsee, in 1865, started his cannery for seafood. He also ran a four hundred acre farm.
Islip's first school in 1835 was on Main Street just east of the present school. The first schoolmaster, Squire Harry Brewster, was followed by Amos Doxsee who served from 1839 to 1859. He also became principal of the Nassau Institute. When in 1849 a new school was built Henry Clock bought the old one for a barn. The new three-room school in 1872 had 112 pupils. The next school, between Union and Monell Avenues, built in 1884 was gradually enlarged to contain seventeen rooms. A Union Free School District was formed in 1893. In 1921 the present building was built and in 1928 an addi- tion was made.
When Bay Shore and Islip Methodists decided to separate, Islip members in 1850 leased the little school until their church was erected in 1866. The present church was built in 1890.
In 1852 a Presbyterian Chapel was erected in Islip. It was con- nected with the church at Babylon. In 1857 Islip Presbyterians decided to have their own organization and in 1869 built a church, the present one.
St. Mark's Episcopal Church was started as a mission of St. John's Church at Oakdale. It became a parish in 1847 and the first church building was erected the same year. The rectory was built in 1859 in East Islip and is now a part of the East Islip Hotel. In 1880, the present church was completed, the gift of William K. Vanderbilt. The rectory was built the same year and the parish house in 1891.
The Trinity Lutheran Church began to hold meetings in 1927 in a little store on Main Street. The membership grew so fast that it soon had to move to larger quarters in the old Legion Hall. In 1927, a plot of ground was purchased and the next year the present chapel was built and dedicated.
Islip village is the seat of Town government. The first Town Hall was located on the west side of Grant Avenue. It was built by a syndicate in 1869. The upper floor was occupied by the Masonic Lodge. The second Town Hall was built on Main Street in 1907. It is still used as an adjunct to the present one. The Town Hall now in use is one of the most beautiful in Suffolk County and was dedicated in 1932.
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One of the old-time institutions of Islip was the Olympic Club, located at the foot of Saxon Avenue. It was organized in 1854 by volunteer firemen of New York City and by 1874 owned seventeen and a half acres with five buildings. It was disbanded in 1909 and in the 1920s the main building burned down.
The first newspaper in Islip was the Index, started in 1875. It was followed in 1900 by the Islip Herald which was finally absorbed by the Bay Shore Journal. The Press was first printed in 1912 by Edward Gorton. It was owned and controlled by him and his family until it was sold in 1925 to the Consolidated Press.
East Islip was considered a part of Islip village until 1896 when its own post office was established. Its growth was long retarded by the large acreages held by the Taylors, the Johnsons and the Nicolls. The principal business enterprises were three large hotels which were the summer havens of wealthy people. They were located on Main Street, the Pavilion on the corner of Suffolk Lane; across the way, the Lake House, and farther east, the Somerset House. The swankiest of these was the three-story Pavilion which accommo- dated 125 guests and had stables for fifty horses. The guests owned their own horses and coaches. The Lake House began its existence in 1856. It was more old fashioned and depended upon good cooking to draw its clientele. It had bath houses on the lake for guests. When the Pavilion burned down and the Lake House was moved to make a store, many of their wealthy patrons built summer homes near at hand.
The youth of East Islip at first had to walk two miles to a one- room school near Great River. In 1858, it became a two-room school. In 1872, there were 101 students. The teachers' wages were $614.64 and the value of the building was $1500. In 1883, the school burned down and a three-room building was built on the present site of the East Islip High School. The present High School was erected in 1926.
A hook and ladder company was organized in East Islip in 1889. Its apparatus was a hand-drawn truck which was housed in a little building just west of St. Mary's Hall. The department began its existence in 1892. The fine firehouse which was built in 1928 still has the old bell which was given in 1891 by George Taylor.
St. Mary's Roman Catholic is the only church building in East Islip. It was built in 1898 by the Rev. Edward H. Duffy, the first resident priest. Erected since are the rectory, the school and the Sisters' home.
Sayville, a thriving village of 3950 people, the second largest in Islip Town, was until 1795 a part of the Nicoll estate. At that time, Willett Green and John Edwards purchased the land which the village occupies. John Edwards took the eastern part because he and his brother were already living there, having had some arrangement with the Nicoll family. John Edwards built his house in 1761. It stood on the corner of Edwards Street and Foster Avenue. Willett Green came from Huntington. These tracts of land were divided and sub-divided.
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In 1858, there were forty-five families in Sayville. Most of the families maintained themselves by farming and fishing until a market for wood was opened. About 1839, the oyster industry became an important factor in the development of the village. It was this year that a number of boatloads of oysters were brought from Vir- ginia and planted in the bay. They grew and spawned. From that time to the present, thousands of seed oysters have been planted. The oyster industry has since become a great and prosperous enter- prise. The bay bottom has been leased and in some cases bought from the town, claims being staked out and protected by bay constables.
In 1836 when a post office was to be established here a blunder in spelling the chosen name of Seville, made it Sayville, and this it has remained. Daniel Howell was the first postmaster.
Sayville people who first used the railroad had to drive six miles to Lakeland Station, west of the present Ronkonkoma Station. A stage made regular trips there until in 1868 the southside railroad came through.
The first school in Sayville was established in 1825 where the present firehouse stands. The first teacher was John Wood who afterwards became supervisor of Islip Town. In 1860 a two-story building took the place of the little school and in 1888 a grade school was erected on Greene Avenue at a cost of $15,000. This, added on to from time to time is now what is called the Old School building. In 1924, a separate building was built for the West Sayville students. A new high school was erected in 1927 and in the 1930s a more modern structure. A Union Free School District was organized in 1894 and a High School department established. The valuation of the school district rose from $107,275 in 1872 to $585,020 in 1945.
There are five churches in Sayville. The first to be organized was the Methodist in 1847. In 1892, its present building was erected on Main Street.
The Congregationalists built a church in 1849, costing $946, on the site of the present one. They did not have a resident minister until 1864. Their present church was built in 1888-1889.
St. Ann's Episcopal Church started as a mission of St. John's of Oakdale. In 1866 it purchased twelve and a half acres of land in the eastern part of the village and built a chapel and school. The school continued for a year. The first resident minister, in 1873, not only had charge of this church but also the one in Patchogue. In 1887, the old church was moved back and a new one of stone was built. It was a gift of Walter L. Suydam and his sister, Mrs. R. Ful- ton Cutting, in memory of their mother.
Sayville Catholics first used the old Methodist Church, but in 1896 built their present church on Main Street. It is of Gothic type and has seating capacity for five hundred people. A rectory and a large Parochial School have been erected. This they call the St. Lawrence Church and school.
The St. John's Lutheran organization was started in 1894 and finally bought property on Greene Avenue where a building was completed and dedicated in 1898.
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The Sayville Hook and Ladder Company was incorporated in 1878. The first firehouse was built on Main Street in 1906. This was replaced in 1938 by the present handsome building on North Main Street.
The telephone system in Sayville was at first a local affair estab- lished by Dr. George H. Robinson. The central office was in what was called the Brush Block. In 1898 the New York and New Jersey Telephone Company purchased the local system and ran lines through the village. The central office was then located in Thornhill's Drug Store and remained there until 1904, when it was moved to Railroad Avenue.
In 1909, Sayville obtained a trolley system when the South Shore Traction Company laid tracks from the railroad station down Rail- road Avenue. Four years later the Suffolk Traction Company appeared from the east with a trolley line extending from Patchogue to the railroad station but in a few years the whole system became a mere recollection.
West Sayville was once called Tuckertown and later Greenville. In 1849, a number of Dutch families settled here. They had been followers of the sea and in this country took up clamming, oystering and fishing. Other families followed and soon this was quite a com- munity. They went into the business of planting oysters extensively. Some were so successful that they established large processing plants from which oysters are sent all over the country and to Europe. The village grew up as part of Sayville, but when it obtained a post office, the name of West Sayville was adopted.
The first Reformed Church was started in 1864 and in 1866 its first building was erected on Main Street. The next, built on Cherry Street, was burned down in 1933. A handsome brick building has now taken its place.
In 1911, the Atlantic Communications Company, a German con- trolled corporation, bought a large tract of land north of West Sayville and erected a wireless station for transatlantic use. During the first World War, the United States took it over and still main- tains it.
Oakdale for many years consisted of big estates and the South- side Club of 5000 acres, organized in 1864. The site of "Idle Hour," purchased by William K. Vanderbilt in 1878, consisted of 862 acres. When the first mansion, a wooden building, burned down in 1899, Mr. Vanderbilt built the present one-hundred-room, fireproof structure. This estate has passed into the hands of developers who have retained the name. It was Vanderbilt who gave the railroad depot to the village. The Ludlows, who were related to the original Nicoll family, owned property on the north side of Montauk Highway, opposite the present La Salle Military Academy. In Oakdale, the first exporter of oysters to Europe, Jacob Ockers, lived. Starting with his father in the oyster business, he became one of the country's leading shippers.
Great River is located on the west side of the river that it is named for. In the 1850s Erastus Young had a shipyard here and the place was then called Youngsport. St. Mark's of Islip established
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an Episcopal mission here which became Emmanuel Church. The Methodists established a chapel here in 1875.
Great River is most famed today as the home of the Suffolk County Republican Club, occupying what was formerly an immense private estate overlooking the bay from a beautiful setting called Timber Point. The old mansion is now the club house, and the original golf course, bath houses, and spacious grounds are used extensively by the members. The luxurious set-up is mainly supported by dues and the advertising returns from an annual "year book".
Bayport, the village on the eastern border of Islip Town, was once called Middle Road. The principal occupations for many years were "following the bay", farming, boarding houses and summer hotels.
The first school of record here was located to the west of the present firehouse. It was destroyed by fire in 1825. Since then there have been four other buildings built from time to time. The fire company was organized in 1891 and a building was erected the following year on the present site. In 1937 an addition was made. The Methodist Church was organized in the 1870s.
Holbrook, a part of which is in Brookhaven Town, was started in 1848 as a development of 5000 acres. Two miles east of Ronkon- koma, the original school was built in 1860 by popular subscription south of the railroad on Broadway, in Islip Town, and was used until 1905. The first teacher was a Miss Farmer, who was paid $3.75 a week. The present school is in Brookhaven Town.
The Holbrook church, built in 1863, was Presbyterian but in 1869 the society was disbanded. From that time until 1906 the Lutherans, who had already organized and held their meetings in the school, have used this church, now known as St. John's Lutheran. Holbrook also has a fire department.
Bohemia lies midway between Ronkonkoma and Oakdale. It had its beginnings back in 1853 when a group of Bohemian families newly arrived from Prague purchased land from Alexander Wallace. The immigrants were headed by Jan Vacara and Jan Kratochvil. In 1862 other settlers came from Boston. On five and ten acre lots they began to make their living supplemented by work obtained on big estates in Oakdale and Great River. They had their own tinsmith and cabinetmaker and other artisans. They also established cigar factories which flourished for a time.
In 1868 a little white schoolhouse was built on a two-acre plot given to the district by Wallace. Emmett Smith, who became a civil engineer and lived in Islip, was the first teacher. Bohemia is now a thriving village, having two churches, an Episcopal and a Roman Catholic, and a fire department.
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