USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 43
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 43
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By 1870, that part which made up South Huntington had a popu- lation of about 3000. The villages of Amityville and Babylon were well established; Breslau (now Lindenhurst) was founded in that year; Deer Park and West Deer Park (Wyandanch) were small set- tlements about the railroad depots of the central Long Island line. The increasing political importance of this area and its geographical isolation from the north side of the town led in the late 1860s to local agitation for a separate township. No definite action was taken until January of 1872, when citizen meetings were held in each of the five election districts of Huntington town. Resolutions approving a parti- tion of the town were adopted. At District 5 meeting in Amityville it was suggested that a proposition be submitted to the voters in a special election. This suggestion was accepted at a meeting of town representatives at Deer Park on January 17. A proposition which gave the opportunity of a "nay" vote, a two town division approval, or that of a three town division was put before the electorate. Vot- ing took place January 27, in each election district except in Dis- trict 3, the middle island section, which evidenced no particular interest in the question.
The special election result follows: for no division 284, for three town division 242, for two town division 651. In the South Hunting- ton area there were 445 votes to 4 for a two town set-up. A memorial, formally petitioning for a town division, was forwarded to the State Legislature under the date of January 27, 1872.
Members of a Commission on Division were selected at the special election. They included: District 1, Stephen C. Rogers and J. Amherst Woodhull; District 2, A. C. Vail and E. G. Lewis; Dis- trict 4 (the Babylon district), Jesse Conklin, Jonathon Sammis; District 5 (Amityville district), James T. Morris, Samuel Robbins. H. C. Platt later substituted for Mr. Rogers who was ill.
The Commission met within a week at the American Hotel in Babylon to discuss boundary lines and to make arrangements for the presentation of a bill to the State Legislature. A division along a straight line one mile north of and parallel to the main line of the Long Island Railroad, suggested by James T. Morris of Amityville, was unanimously adopted by the committee. Judge John R. Reid of Babylon was instructed to draft a legislative bill embodying all
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the necessary provisions for the town division. The Judge, together with J. A. Woodhull and David Carll, were appointed to take charge of the bill and secure its passage by the Legislature. Hon. John S. Marcy, assemblyman, introduced the bill at the 95th session.
On March 13, 1872, "The People of the State of New York repre- sented in Senate and Assembly" declared "there shall be erected out of the town of Huntington in the county of Suffolk, a new town to be called the town of Babylon, which is hereby set off and separated from said town of Huntington". Section 2 of the act provides for boundaries of the new town as follows: "On the north by a line commencing at the boundary line between the towns of Huntington and Oyster Bay, one mile north of the line of the Long Island Railroad; on the east by the town of Islip; on the south by the Atlantic Ocean; and on the west by the town of Oyster Bay; the eastern and western boundaries being by the lines now established and recognized as the town divisions of the said several towns respectively".
A quit claim deed was executed on January 3, 1873, by J. Amherst Woodhull, president of the Board of Trustees of the town of Hunt- ington, deeding the south portion of the town to the town of Babylon. This included the ocean front, all islands of the Great South Bay, and Bay bottom and lateral waters thereof. Villages within the territory included : Babylon, Breslau, Amityville, East Farmingdale, Deer Park, Wyandanch, and Pinelawn. Three maps of the boundaries between Huntington, Babylon, and Islip towns were made from sur- veys by Jonathon Sammis and Abram G. Thompson and a copy, signed by the supervisors of the three townships, was filed with each of the towns.
The Legislative act further provided that the personal property of the town of Huntington "including moneys, belonging to the town in the hands of town officers, not required to meet liabilities of said town *
* shall be apportioned between the townships of Babylon and Huntington pro rata according to the amount of taxable property listed on the assessment roll of 1871".
J. Amherst Woodhull, the incumbent supervisor of the town of Huntington, and James Teller Morris of East Amityville were appointed to make the necessary financial adjustments. A final set- tlement dated April 2, 1874, shows that the town of Babylon paid $1,625.37, which represented 203/4% of the total debtor account.
Provision was made in the legislative law for the first annual town meeting to be held the first Tuesday of April, in the year 1872, at the hotel of P. A. Seaman and Son in Babylon village. Cyrus E. Smith, who was appointed temporary clerk, reports in the town rec- ords the following results of the April 2, 1872, election : Supervisor, Elbert Carll; Town Clerk, John James Robbins; Collector, Ira Ketcham; Justices of the Peace, William Gauckler, John R. Walker, John D. Capen, David Larned; Assessors, Richard J. Cornelius, Charles Bishop, Jackson Mott; Commissioners of Highways, Elbert Strong, Solomon Smith; Overseers of Poor, Solomon Ketcham, T. J. Winslow; Constables, James Noe, Smith Robbins, Frederick Torns, Edward J. Udall; Inspectors of Election, James Baylis, Ansel
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Ketcham, Elbert Robbins, Jason Heartt; Game Constable, Andrew F. Smith. A total of 713 townspeople exercised their right of fran- chise in the above election.
Two additional offices were created by the Town Board during the ensuing year. One was the office of Sealer of Weights and Measures with the appointment of James B. Southard; the other being that of Health Officer to which position Dr. Richmond was appointed. The compensation for the latter office was to be "the sum of $1. for each and every visit for alleged nuisance or contagious disease upon complaint being made and 10ยข per mile for travelling fees".
The resolutions adopted at the first annual meeting of the new township of Babylon are reminiscent of the 17th century town records of the parent township of Huntington. An appropriation of $1500 for the support of the poor, $200 for repair of roads and bridges, resolution to hire out the grass islands to the highest bidder at public auction, and a motion to reserve for the exclusive use of the citizens of Babylon and Islip townships all privileges of the Bay-all these resolutions were unanimously passed by the townspeople in 1872.
That the old records of the town of Huntington and the minutes of the town trustee meetings are still preserved is attributable to the foresight of the electors of the towns of Huntington and Babylon which voted in each of the annual town meetings of 1886, 1887, and 1888, the sum of $500 to be raised by each township to assemble and publish the records. Three volumes of the town of Huntington records from 1657 to 1872 have been printed and published.
Elections to fill town offices were held each spring upon the day appointed for the annual town meeting. These meetings were held alternately in each of the three larger villages of the township. The Washington Hotel of John Lux in Babylon, F. E. Nehring's and Gleste's Hotel in Breslau, and the Revere House in Amityville were early meeting places. For the greater convenience of the voters the State Legislature in 1886 arranged for town elections to be held in the regular election districts. Since the year 1919 by legislative order both town and general elections have been conducted on the legally designated election day in November.
Until 1842, general elections in Huntington township were con- ducted in the village of Huntington. In that year four election districts were established and the section south of the newly con- structed Long Island Rail Road became District 4. Under this arrangement the November elections were held alternately in Amity- ville and Babylon. On September 14, 1872, the town board of the newly created Babylon township established three election districts within its area. Polling places were indicated as follows: District 1, House of C. S. Pitman, Babylon; District 2, House of F. E. Nehring, Breslau; District 3, House of Ira Ketcham, Amityville. As popula- tion increased during the succeeding years other election districts were created. Twenty-eight such districts are existent in the town of Babylon in the year 1946.
For 178 years since April 9, 1694, trustees elected annually con- stituted the governing board of the town of Huntington. In 1872, the
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State Legislature abolished the elective office of trustee and a Town Board consisting of a Supervisor, Town Clerk, and Justices of the Peace was established in each of the townships of Huntington and Babylon. Members of the Board were designated as ex-officio mem- bers of a Board of Trustees with power to "hold, manage, control, convey, and dispose of the real estate" of the town.
For nearly half a century Town Board meetings were held in rented quarters alternately in each of the three larger communities. In 1917, the Estate of David S. S. Sammis presented in his memory a plot of ground in the village of Babylon for the erection of a town house. On April 3 of that year, the taxpayers voted 667 to 462, to issue bonds in the amount of $35,000 for a town house on the Sammis plot at the northwest corner of Main Street and Cottage Place.
The cornerstone of the building was laid March 13, 1918, with Supervisor John Clinton Robbins the master of ceremonies. In the stone was placed a copper box sealed by Benjamin F. Sammis and containing copies of local newspapers, the Brooklyn Eagle, the Brooklyn Times, a copy of the resolution authorizing the building of the town house, and other papers and pictures of individuals of the town. The next year the present brick structure of colonial archi- tecture was dedicated. The Stars and Stripes presented to fly from its flagstaff was the gift of Captain Henry S. Pearsall, acting keeper of the Oak Island Beach Life Saving Station. The flag had been rescued from the sloop J. M. Rice wrecked on Fire Island Bar on November 2, 1902.
In 1932 and 1945, additional land to the rear of the Town House was purchased from the Sammis Estate. The building of an extension is a part of the postwar program of Babylon township.
The supervisors who have served the town since its inception are memorialized in a series of framed photographs in the spacious hall of the Town House. These include, in the order of their service, the following: Elbert Carll, John E. Ireland, Charles T. Duryea, Stephen A. Titus, George A. Hooper, Richard Higbie, William G. Nicoll, Thomas Powell, Edward Daily, Henry A. Brown, Frederick Sheide, John Clinton Robbins, William T. Louden, William S. Will- marth, Frederic J. Wood, Joseph P. Warta, Henry S. Johnson. Donald E. Muncy elected in the fall of 1941 and re-elected in 1945 presently serves as supervisor.
Many of the sons of Babylon town have served their town and county well in official capacities. A few have ventured into the state field and one in the national. The following residents of the town- ship have held such representative positions : Samuel Strong of South Huntington, a member of the State Assembly in 1823, 1827 and 1830; Richard Higbie of Babylon, a State Senator from 1893 to 1895; Fred- erick Sheide of Lindenhurst, Assemblyman, 1911 and 1912; Paul Bailey of Amityville, Assemblyman, 1921; Perry Belmont of North Babylon, Congressman of the First New York District, 1881 to 1889, and United States Minister to Spain, 1889.
Babylon will observe its 75th year as a township in March of 1947. Since its establishment the assessed valuation of its property
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has increased from $585,830 to $35,532,250. Its population has grown from an 1875 figure of 4533 to a 1940 census report of 24,297.
Growth demands innovations in the old order. The founding fathers could not have conceived of the future need of a Town Zon- ing and Planning Board which was to be authorized in 1931, the employment of a town nurse in 1930, or the expenditure of $125,000 for land and the erection thereon of a town incinerator in 1946.
Four years after the creation of Babylon township in Suffolk County a movement began in the townships of Hempstead, North Hempstead, and Oyster Bay to found a new county. These three towns were then a part of Queens. Babylon and Huntington were solicited to join the movement and were considered possible loyal allies since the county seat of Suffolk in Riverhead was over fifty miles distant.
A preliminary public hearing held in Lindenhurst on February 19, 1876, uncovered a wide difference of opinion within Babylon town. However, a bill was introduced in the State Legislature to create the County of Nassau which was to include the two Suffolk towns of Huntington and Babylon. A delegation from these two towns opposed the measure so forcefully that the Assembly Committee on Civil Divisions reported adversely upon the bill.
The following year in 1877, in a public poll in Babylon town on the same question, 417 voted to join the proposed new county of Nassau and 314 expressed a preference to remain with Suffolk. The latter county was overwhelmingly supported by Huntington citizens in a 544 to 14 vote. Those opposed to joining the proposed new county made another forceful stand at the hearings of the Nassau County bill of 1877. The bill was defeated in the Assembly. It was not until 1898 that Nassau County was finally created by the Legisla- ture but without the inclusion of the two townships of Huntington and Babylon which had fought so tenaciously to remain with the county of Suffolk.
The town of Babylon includes in its properties, as did its parent township of Huntington before it, the ocean front within its bound- aries, the waters and bottom of the Great South Bay and the islands therein. The rights and privileges of these possessions have been jealously guarded for 275 years.
What is considered the first protective fishing law of Huntington town was passed in 1671 when it was ordered that no foreigner or any inhabitant of any other town upon the Island "shall have any liberty to kill whales or any small fish within the limits of our bounds at the south side of the Island". Whales were not uncom- mon at that period and whale houses were erected on the town's south beach as early as 1733. The government took as a tax 1/15% of the oil of all "drift whales".
On May 3, 1757, it was voted to "joyn together to Defend ye town from strangers fishing and fowling anywhere in ye township". In 1765, it was declared that "no furreners shall clam in our South Bay" and in 1793, Thomas Wickes, Esq., was appointed inspector of clams.
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The town fathers continued this restrictive policy until the year 1819, at which time it was voted to allow any resident of Suffolk County "to catch oysters, clams, eels, fish or horsefeet". Outsiders were fined $12.50. The town's liberality was curtailed in 1833 by limiting the above privileges to residents of Huntington and Islip town- ships. Babylon town in its first annual meeting in 1872 adopted this latter policy.
But in 1917, the Babylon Town Board voted to return to the original ruling of 1671 and limit the Bay rights to bona fide inhabit- ants of the township. The shellfish ordinance now in effect was passed in 1937 and amended in part in 1945. The law refers to the taking of oysters, mussels, winkles, and all kinds of clams from town waters. United States citizens of six months' residence in Babylon township may obtain permits at a charge of twenty-five cents a year. A yearly commercial license is issued on payment of five dollars.
To enforce town laws covering the Bay waters the office of Bay Constable was created by a state law of 1875. Alex Smith was the first incumbent of this office. The present constable is provided with a town-owned boat and has jurisdiction over all town waters and docks.
Ferries now ply each summer across the Bay to Oak Beach, Cedar Beach, Gilgo Beach and Fire Island. It was in 1856, that David S. S. Sammis of Babylon opened the first successful ferry season when he chartered the steam yacht Bonita of John D. Johnson, of Islip. The boat made regular trips from Babylon to Fire Island where the famous Surf Hotel of Mr. Sammis was located. The steamer Wave owned jointly by Sammis and Henry Southard was used in 1859. The latter sold out his interest to Mr. Sammis who continued the service for many years. The Fire Island ferry is now operated under the jurisdiction of the Long Island State Park Commission.
Ferry service to Oak Beach was inaugurated in 1886 and sixty years later a summer schedule is still maintained. Boats subsidized by the town sail each season from Babylon, Lindenhurst and Amity- ville, to the town-owned Cedar and Gilgo Beaches.
On the beachland of the town of Huntington horses and cattle were permitted to graze at a charge established in 1820 of "9 cents per Week for each hors and six cents per week per cattle per head untill the first Day of June Next". At this season the grazers were withdrawn to permit the salt thatch to grow for fall harvesting. The grass meadows of the beach and islands were then leased at public auction to the highest bidders. The accounts of these trans- actions were kept in so-called "thatch books". It was not until 1883 that the town of Babylon ceased to lease out its grass lands for fall harvesting.
In 1845, the town of Huntington began the practice of beach tenancy leases which Babylon town has continued to the present day. The first lease on Oak Island was for a seven-year period at a charge of $5 yearly. The lessee agreed to "pay all damage to grass resulting from his tenancy". However, no permanent type of dwell- ing was erected on Oak Island until 1879, when Henry Livingston of
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Babylon, editor of the South Side Signal, became the pioneer sum- mer resident. Leases of island and beachland with the privilege of erecting buildings, walks, and docks became so numerous that in 1880 the Town Clerk was ordered to buy "a special Record Book of Leases". Babylon townspeople had just "discovered" their beach. And its popularity has never waned. Leases of town-owned beach and island lands at Cap Tree, Oak Island, Gilgo, and West Gilgo will bring to the town treasury an estimated income of $13,000 in 1946.
In years past Oak Island Beach was the locale of many ship- wrecks. At the suggestion made in 1913 by Captain Carll Jackson of Babylon village the names of these unfortunate boats became the street designations of the cottage development at Oak Beach. The following ships are so remembered : Savannah, the first American steamboat to cross the Atlantic, wrecked in 1821; Elizabeth, Sullivan, Voltaire, Toronto, Drumelzia and Brilliant. This latter ship, bound for Mobile, grounded on Oak Island Beach during a storm in Decem- ber of 1831. All but the undamaged cabin of the boat was sold to a New York firm for $137. The cabin was towed across the Bay to Babylon village and set up as a school house and public meeting place. When no longer used for this purpose Charles Bishop, who was a friend of the Brilliant's master-one Captain Nathaniel Webber, purchased the old cabin and moved it to the rear of his home on Fire Island Avenue and there it stands today.
From 1841 to 1910, the second Saturday in August was a holi- day set aside for an excursion of colored folk to Hemlock Beach. Tradition says this custom began with the Massapequa Indians of this section who enjoyed annually at the same beach a week of festivity high-lighted by Indian dances. A special significance was added to the negro celebration in that the occasion became a yearly anniversary of the emancipation of all slaves in New York State by a legislative act of 1827. Van Nostrand's Pavilion, an abandoned Life Saving Station, was headquarters for the celebrants for many years. Later, difficulty was encountered in accommodating the large groups which came to the beach. In 1910, when 1300 appeared it was evident that Babylon beaches did not have the facilities to handle such sizable gatherings. The celebrations on the second Saturday in August are now a part of the history of the past.
The United States Coast Guard service at present maintains one station and one lookout tower on Babylon town's coast line. Jones Beach Station, near the town's western boundary, is a modern brick structure erected in 1933. Earlier Life Saving Stations near this site include a Hemlock Beach Station, opened from 1862 to about 1880, and a Gilgo Beach Station from the 1880s until its absorption by the new Jones Beach Coast Guard Station. The lookout tower is maintained at the Oak Island Beach Station which was authorized as a Life Saving Station in 1854. The Station was decommissioned at the end of World War II and the tower facility is all that remains.
Severe storms and high tides make many changes in Babylon's coast line. It has been established through testimony in the Nicoll case of 1814, that Fire Island Inlet broke through during a storm
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in the winter of 1690-1691. At that time it was called the New Gut or Great Gut and during the American Revolution is said to have been a passage for privateers. Fire Island Inlet still remains but the 1945 hurricane and the winter storms following have all but closed the boat channel. In the 1700s, and later, there existed a Cedar Gut and a Gilgo Gut, neither one of which exists today. Changing inlets and shifting sands have created an erosion problem on Babylon town's Oak Beach which seems impossible of solution. The beachland at the east continues to narrow and money appropriations by state, county, and town will be used in the coming year for any remedial measures which seem practical.
Babylon town officials, in their customary desire to reserve town lands and privileges for residents, caused to be passed in 1879 the following: "That 1500 feet on Oak Island Beach next west of the west line of the Oyster Planters and Business Men's Association be reserved to the uses of the people of the Town of Babylon". This was the beginning of the reservation of particular areas for the use of the townspeople. Although Babylon town in 1928, 1929 and 1930 contributed much of its beachland to the New York State Park Com- mission for an ocean boulevard and a state park, it reserved certain stretches of beach as its own. On a portion of the latter, Cedar Beach has been attractively developed as a protected bathing beach with bath house facilities. A large concrete parking field is available to town residents at a nominal charge, while nonresidents are asked a higher fee.
Protected bay bathing is provided at a town bathing beach located on the north shore of the Bay at Venetian Shores, Lindenhurst. This was acquired from the Babylon Realty Company in 1940 in an agree- ment whereby the town accepted ownership and maintenance of cer- tain streets in the real estate development of the company.
In 1915, town title was established to acreage northwest of Bel- mont Lake State Park. A portion of this land has been developed into a Town Park with a picnic area and ball field reserved for the use of town residents. Wyandanch Lake and a wooded tract near the village of that name were presented to the town in 1946, and an appropriation has been made for the development of a park and bathing beach in this section.
The New York State Park Commission in its program of creating recreational areas for the people of the State has added to its park acreage many square miles of Babylon town property. In 1908, a legislative act was passed authorizing "the location, establishment, maintenance and use of certain lands in the towns of Islip and Babylon for a state reservation to be called Fire Island State Park". Fifteen years previously D. S. S. Sammis and his wife of Babylon had conveyed the land and premises of the Surf Hotel to the state.
Two-fifths of the town's ocean beach between the Nassau-Suffolk County line and Cedar Island Inlet were deeded to the state for a Gilgo State Park following the favorable passage of a proposition submitted to the town electorate in 1928. A 160-foot right of way for an ocean boulevard on the beachland, to terminate at the eastern boundary of the proposed park, was also included.
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The next year the Board of Trustees was authorized by the Legislature to deed a 500-foot right of way to the state to enable the Park Commission to carry out its plan to continue the ocean boulevard to the Islip town line. An additional land grant in 1930, increased to 400 feet the right of way donated two years before.
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