USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 45
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 45
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name of the Amityville Record has been issued weekly since May 1, 1904. Its present eight page issue prints news of Amityville, Copiague, and Massapequa.
Another Amityville paper came off the press April 8, 1911. The equipment of a defunct Glen Cove newspaper was purchased by Paul Bailey, a former Patchogue newspaper man, and a four page sheet called Long Island Sun appeared under his ownership and editorship. As the Long Island Lighting Company had not yet made daytime power available, the electrically driven presses were of necessity operated at night. In 1929, Mr. Bailey and W. Kingsland Macy of Islip united their respective newspaper interests. Under the Suffolk Consolidated Press Company with the former as president the Long Island Sun continued to be issued weekly in Amityville. And in
Triangle Place, Amityville, 40 Years Ago
Babylon in 1929, the Babylon Eagle was published under the same sponsorship. The Sun and the Eagle appear each week with news coverage of the west and east portions of the township respectively.
Paul Bailey's active participation in the newspaper work of the Suffolk Consolidated Press ended in 1938 when he established a monthly historical magazine called the Long Island Forum. From January to May, 1938, the Forum was issued bi-monthly. But the wealth of available Long Island material and interest in the new publication justified a monthly magazine. As such it is distributed widely throughout the Island, State and Nation.
Amityville on Josiah's and West Necks in the southwestern part of Babylon town was originally called Huntington West Neck South and consisted in the early 19th century of a few homes near the old South Road. Ireland's Mill and Carman's Mill were located at the east and west ends of the early community. The site of the latter was in Oyster Bay township and beyond the present limits of Amity- ville but it was in this area, in Timothy Carman's store, that the early postoffice was located.
The name "Amityville" was adopted in 1840. The late Chauncey Ditmars, historian and Amityville resident, wrote that the cognomen came from a coastwise schooner Amity owned by Samuel Ireland, a local miller. "Peace, good will, sociability, and neighborliness" indi-
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cated in the choice of the name have become attributes of the com- munity. The first postoffice under the new name, and the first within the present confines of the village, was established in 1850 at Broad- way and the South Country Road.
Amityville's three brick-constructed educational institutions on Park Avenue, housing elementary, junior, and senior high school departments, were preceded by three smaller schools of early days. District School #23 was located in 1833 on the old South Road and was followed in 1850 by another on Broadway, north of Wanser Place. The third school house, a frame building of 1872 at Park Avenue and Ireland Place, was removed to make room for the pres- ent brick structure of the Elementary School in 1894. The two brick buildings to the south of the latter accommodating the Senior and Junior High Schools were constructed in 1923 and 1932 respectively.
Amityville Free Library, founded in 1907 by the Mary Myton Literary Society, erected its present building on Broad- way in 1928.
The First Methodist Church congregation dates from the late 18th century. Its first building (Photo by Fred Kull) 17th Century Carman House, Amityville was erected 1823 on the South Road. A second edifice of 1845, moved to Broadway in 1867, is still a part of the present church. The cornerstone of the Church Sanctuary was laid in 1891 and a Sunday School addition was built in 1915. A general remodeling program carried out in 1940 was followed by a rededication of this the oldest Methodist Church in the township.
The Simpson Methodist Church was built in 1869 by people of that faith living on upper Broadway. The building was moved to its present location in 1933 when the Sunrise Highway route was laid through its former property.
St. Mary's Episcopal congregation was organized in 1886 and its church on Broadway was erected in 1889.
St. Paul's Lutheran Church founded in 1930, erected its edifice on Park Avenue the following year.
St. Martin's Roman Catholic Church, built in 1898, on Union Avenue, has a building group which includes a school, erected in 1921, a convent, and a rectory.
A Bethel African Methodist Church had its beginning in 1822. The Holy Trinity Baptist was founded in 1926. Both church build- ings are located on Albany Avenue. The Hollywood Baptist Church, Inc., on Great Neck Road, North Amityville, is a recent outgrowth of the Holy Trinity Church.
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On North Broadway, Amityville, is a large area devoted to private hospitals for the mentally ill. Among these are the The Long Island Home organized in 1881 at the suggestion of John Louden, who became its first superintendent; Louden-Knickerbocker Hall founded 1886, and Brunswick Home established in 1887 by Stephen R. Williams. A modern brick building of the latter erected in 1931 offered general hospital facilities until 1939. The general service, discontinued in that year, was resumed in 1942.
A village clock in a grassed plot north of the Triangle Building was dedicated in 1920 to the veterans of World War I. Acreage on the north side of Montauk Highway, east of Broadway, has been purchased for the development of a recreational park as a World War II veterans' memorial.
A "fresh air home" owned and operated by the Herald Tribune is located on lower Grand Central Avenue and was the former Holi- day House. Nearby on Bayview Avenue is Amityville's municipally owned South Bay beach reserved for village residents.
In 1872, it was observed that Amityville was "composed of almost two distinct settlements located about half a mile apart- upper one on the South Side Rail Road; lower on the Turnpike". The years have closed this gap with a population growth which reached 5058 in 1940.
Amityville became an incorporated village on March 3, 1894, and elected Charles Wood its first president. The present mayor is Charles R. Duryea, Jr., first elected in 1935. Village offices are in a municipal building erected in 1924 on Greene Avenue. The struc- ture is also the headquarters of the volunteer fire department.
North Amityville, an adjoining unincorporated area of scattered homes, has been the location since 1876 of the Catholic religious order of the Sisters of St. Dominick. On the extensive land tract are located several buildings housing the Novitiate, Queen of the Rosary Academy, a rectory, a convent, Church of the Rosary, and homes for the aged.
Babylon village on Sumpwams Neck in the southeastern part of Babylon township had its beginning in the latter half of the 18th century. A few families from the north and middle Island settled in the vicinity of two waterways-Sumpwams and Annuskemunnica Creeks on each of which a mill was operated.
When Nathaniel Conklin in 1803 built his home on the northeast corner of what is now Main Street and Deer Park Avenue, tradition says his mother regretted its proximity to a public house in which liquor was sold. She suggested that the community would be another Biblical Babylon but her son replied that this was to be a "New Babylon". The name was carved in a stone placed over the Conklin fireplace and the community took "Babylon" for its own. The Conklin homestead was moved in the 1870s to Deer Park Avenue near the railroad. In 1945, it became the property and headquarters of the Babylon Town Chapter of the American Red Cross-a gift of the Sammis Estate. The fireplace stone, lost for many years, has been found and now rests above the mantel in the Babylon Public
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Library. It bears these words: "New Babylon This House Built by Nat Conklin 1803".
The postoffice department did not recognize this designation until 1830. On November 5, 1867, people of influence had the postoffice changed to "Seaside" but this cognomen lasted only two months. The name "Babylon" was restored and still remains.
Babylon was one of the important stations on the stagecoach route of early days. The American House, built in 1783 on the northwest corner of Main Street and Deer Park Avenue, became a popular hostelry for travelers. On his tour of Long Island in 1816
Municipal Building, Babylon
Prince Joseph Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain and brother of Napoleon, rested there for several days. Daniel Webster was a guest in 1840 and on other occasions. On one visit he made a patriotic speech from the hotel's porch. The American House, which had operated under various owners for a hundred years, was destroyed by fire on June 4, 1883.
Babylon village's first educational institution, established in the early 19th century, was District No. 21's school house on the old South Road, east of the Presbyterian Church. In 1853, a larger building was erected on George Street and this was abandoned when the first unit of the present Elementary School on Grove Street was built in 1893. A wing was added in 1912, and in 1927 a large High School building adjoining the Elementary School on the north was erected. This present Elementary School and Junior-Senior High School group of buildings is located between Grove Street and Railroad Avenue.
The Babylon Public Library was erected in 1911, with funds con- tributed and raised by the citizens of the village. The site on Main Street was the gift of Elbert Carll Livingston, whose father founded the "South Side Signal".
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Babylon's Presbyterian congregation is the oldest Church group in the village and in the town as well. Its first edifice was erected in 1730 six hundred feet west of the site of the former Episcopal Chapel on Montauk Highway in West Islip. That building was razed by British soldiers during the American Revolution. In 1784, a new church home was built on Main Street east of Deer Park Avenue. When the congregation outgrew this building, another was erected in 1838 at the same location. The 1784 edifice was sold and moved to lots adjoining on the east. Remodeled it stands today as the Sammis homestead and can without doubt be called the oldest structure in both the village and the town. The present and fourth Presbyterian Church building was dedicated in 1871. Its third home was moved to the next lot east and joined to the larger structure for Sunday School use.
The Methodist Church congregation dates from 1837 and its first church, erected in 1840, is now part of the Sunday School building to the rear on James Street. The present church edifice on Deer Park Avenue was built in 1859.
The First Baptist Church was organized in 1871, and the first service in its present church home at the northeast corner of Main Street and Carll Avenue was held October 15, 1872. A Sunday School wing was added in 1923.
Christ's Episcopal Church, organized in 1862, conducted its first service in its former Montauk Highway, West Islip chapel in April, 1871. The present St. Ann's Chapel on the corner of Carll Avenue and Prospect Street in Babylon was erected in 1913.
The First Lutheran Church was erected on Locust Avenue, in 1927. A Sunday School wing was added in 1938.
St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church dedicated its first church on the north side of Grove Street, in July, 1879. Its second and present building at the southeast corner of Carll Avenue and Grove Street was completed in 1912. Its architecture follows that of the center building of San Stefano's Church in Bologna, Italy. A Parochial School, erected in 1927, and a convent and rectory complete the group of church buildings.
A Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and an Ebenezer Baptist Church are located on Cooper Street. The latter congrega- tion was organized in 1874.
A Hebrew congregation worships in the Temple Beth Sholem erected on George Street in 1930.
In recognition of the services of veterans of World War I, Mr. J. Stanley Foster, Babylon resident and president of the Bowery Bank, purchased and presented to the village in 1922, Argyle Lake and an adjoining tract of land for a memorial park. The area was later improved through the generosity of his sister Caroline F. Savidge. The village added to the tract in 1935, by purchase of land along the southeast side of the lake. An attractively landscaped park and a stone spillway at the south end of the lake is Babylon's tribute to its heroes of the first World War. Community concerts and church services are weekly summer features in the park area south of the Montauk Highway. A similar park project at the east-
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ern approach to the village has been voted as a World War II memorial.
At Little East Neck Road in Babylon village is a large modern brick structure completed in 1940 which is the headquarters of the New York State Department of Public Works, District 10. The dis- trict comprises the two eastern Long Island counties and the five boroughs of New York City. Joseph J. Darcy is the present District Engineer.
A deed to the town-owned Fire Island ferry dock was presented to Babylon Village by the town in 1946 and an improved dock and boat basin is a development contemplated within the near future.
Babylon village voted to incorporate in December, 1893, and began to function as such the following year. In 1870, two years before the creation of Babylon township, a proposal to incorporate met with overwhelming defeat. Babylon's first president was Dr. William Wheeler Hewlett. J. Vincent O'Shea, elected in 1943, is the present mayor.
All village offices are located in a modern municipal building built in 1925, at the northwest corner of Carll Avenue and Main Street, on land donated by J. Stanley Foster. The building also houses the local volunteer fire department.
Babylon, which is a residential village of tree-shaded streets and spacious homes, is the governing seat of the town to which it gave its name. The 1940 census reports a population in the incor- porated area of 4742.
Contiguous to the village of Babylon and closely allied with its activities are the communities of North Babylon and West Babylon. The small district school houses of early years have been replaced in each district by modern brick structures of attractive architecture.
Copiague, an unincorporated village on the Montauk Division of the Long Island Rail Road was once called East Amityville or Great Neck, these names being used contemporaneously. In 1895, Copiague, the name of one of the necks upon which it lies, was adopted. The section north of the railroad, developed primarily for an Italian population, has been designated "Marconiville". The wireless inven- tor visited the community in the years 1914, 1917 and 1921.
East Amityville was the home of James Teller Morris at the time he campaigned so vigorously for the formation of Babylon town in 1872. He was appointed one of two commissioners to arrange tlie financial details of the partition. His former store and residence on the old South Road, west of Great Neck Road, now sold and remodeled is called "Old Landmark Inn".
The first school house was District No. 22's building on the South Road. In the 1900s, this structure was moved to Great Neck Road. Later it was replaced by a two-story frame school. which presently adjoins the rear of Copiague's modern brick Elementary School erected in 1931.
The two churches in the community are The Copiague Union Church and the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption.
The Nassau-Suffolk General Hospital, serving nearby areas, occupies the former William Hawkins residence on Montauk Highway.
L. I .- I-25
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A postoffice, established in Copiague in 1903, serves a popula- tion, according to the 1940 census, of 1584.
Lindenhurst on the Montauk Division of the Long Island Rail Road, midway between Amityville and Babylon, is the outgrowth of a real estate venture of Thomas Welwood and Charles Schleier of Brooklyn. On June 6, 1870, the tract of land about a mile north of the Montauk Highway upon which their proposed city was to be built was dedicated at a ceremony witnessed by hundreds of home-seekers. The place was called Breslau in deference to Mr. Schleier's birth- place and to the German population of Europe, Pennsylvania, and metropolitan New York which was being induced to settle in the area.
Neguntatogue, the neck on which the land lay, was the name used to designate the section in earlier days. In 1869, the railroad depot was called "Wellwood", a misspelling of the name of the owner of most of the acreage at that time.
Breslau grew slowly but steadily. The householders, who carved a home out of a wilderness, were followed by manufacturing establish- ments of various types and for a few years the village had its share of prosperity. Later, misrepresentations and misunderstandings con- cerning real estate transactions led to a seven-year legal battle between the two founders. Breslau's growth suffered accordingly. In 1891, as if in an effort to forget the struggles of a pioneer life in the brush- lands of Babylon town, the inhabitants of Breslau voted to change the village name to Lindenhurst. In the last twenty-five years it has experienced a phenomenal development and growth.
Lindenhurst has an Elementary School on School Street erected in 1910, and a large modern brick Junior-Senior High School build- ing on Wellwood Avenue, built in 1930. The former building is the successor to three earlier houses devoted to elementary education. The first, a small District No. 29 school on the South Road, was erected about 1840 for the limited rural population along that highway. In 1870, an abandoned railroad station was moved to School Street and converted into a schoolhouse. When a new school building was erected just to its south in 1877, this structure was made into a fire house. It now stands at the same location but has been remodeled as a private dwelling. The 1877 building, which was sold and moved a block west to make room for the present brick Elementary School, is now a coat manufacturing establishment.
Among Lindenhurst's manufactories are the Lindenhurst Manu- facturing Company, maker of buttons and plastic articles and organ- ized 1901; the Lakeville Manufacturing Company, a cabinet-making firm which occupies the former home of the Vulcanite Manufactur- ing Company, which was a button and metal specialties concern from 1882 to 1937; Swiss embroidery shops and dress and coat factories.
Churches located in the village are: St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church founded 1876, but owning and worshipping in an edifice erected on John Street in 1871, by a congregation organized as St. John's German Union Church; Grace Methodist Church founded 1926 and its building on Wellwood Avenue erected in 1931; Bethel Baptist Church organized 1941 and worshipping in a Bristol Street building; Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church
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founded 1870, and its present church on Wellwood Avenue erected 1905 with a modern brick parochial school constructed in 1940; a Hebrew congregation whose building was erected 1912 on North Fourth Street.
A landscaped plaza in the center of the village is the location of a large granite monument to World War I veterans. A proposed public library, the site of which on Wellwood Avenue has been pur- chased with volunteer contributions, will be dedicated to those serving in World War II.
Lindenhurst owns and maintains a park in the northeast sec- tion of the village. Facilities for fresh-water bathing, picnicking, baseball, and other sports are available to village residents.
The village incorporated October 25, 1923, and Gustave M. Hahn was its first president. Mayor John Blankenhorn is Lindenhurst's present governing head. A former private dwelling next to the volunteer Fire Department building on Wellwood Avenue houses the municipal offices. Plans for a new municipal building are under way.
The 1940 census records a population of 4756. In a move to establish Lindenhurst as a first class village a local census was taken in March, 1946. This population figure is reported as 6339.
The following are unincorporated areas in the township located on the main line of the Long Island Rail Road:
East Farmingdale has been the home of the New York State Institute of Applied Agriculture of Long Island since its founding in 1912, and more recently the location of Ranger Aircraft Engines Division of Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation and Republic Aviation Corporation. The latter is the maker of the now famous World War II "Thunderbolt" army plane.
Pinelawn is a small farming community with a few scattered homes. Within its boundaries is a National Cemetery serving the metropolitan and Long Island arca.
Wyandanch, which was known as West Deer Park until 1889, has a population of 647. The clay and sand of the lower Half Hollow Hills is suitable for brick making, an industry which began in the 1800s and continued until a few years ago. In the village is the large modern brick school of District No. 9, a Trinity Lutheran Church, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Roman Catholic Church, and a volunteer Fire Department building.
Deer Park in its earlier days was the center of sport hunting. The prevalence of deer gave the place its name. Many acres of the pine and scrub oak have been developed into successful farms. The community, though small, has a modern brick school of District No. 7, erected in 1930, a Presbyterian Chapel, a Mission Chapel of the Roman Catholic Church, and a volunteer Fire Department headquarters. A large boulder with an appropriate bronze plaque has been placed on the school grounds as a memorial to those who served in World War II.
CHAPTER XII
Early Queens County
HERBERT F. RICARD Historian, Borough of Queens
Q UEENS COUNTY was originally more than three times the size of the present county, or borough with which it is coter- minous, and it retained that area until 1899 when the eastern portion was separated from it and made into a new county named Nassau. This account will treat only that part known today as Queens, for the history of Nassau County is told elsewhere in this book.
Before the white men came to this region, Long Island was inhabited by a number of Indian tribes, of which the Canarsies, Rock- aways, and Matinecocks lived here. Exact lines cannot be drawn to mark off the domain of each, but in general it might be said that the Canarsies held Kings County and the southwestern portion of Queens, the Matinecocks the northeastern part as far west as Flushing Creek and south almost to Jamaica, and the Rockaways the remainder of Queens County.
The instrusion of the Europeans into Queens County was long delayed even after the discovery of the Hudson River and Manhattan Island in 1609, for it was under the control of the Dutch whose primary thought was trade, which did not require the presence of many people. This contrasted with the English, who came to New England as settlers and pushed out in all directions in ever increasing numbers. Soon the English threatened to enter and overrun the thinly held Dutch territory. To check this, the Dutch in 1638 opened their country to foreigners who would take the prescribed oatlı of allegi- ance, and two years later they provided for the establishment of civil government. These acts opened the doors to large numbers of New Englanders who took the oath at New Amsterdam and settled under Dutch jurisdiction in Queens County, making it the only county in New York City that was settled by Englishmen. In this manner the towns, or townships, were founded, Newtown in 1642, Hempstead, which included Rockaway, in 1644, Flushing in 1645, and Jamaica in 1656.
Newtown was founded in 1642 by the Rev. Francis Doughty and a number of unnamed associates. They received a patent or charter dated March 28, 1642, which gave them much of the land north of Forest Park and west of Flushing Meadow Park except Long Island City. It seems probable that they had come even earlier for on June 6, of the preceding year, Willem Kieft, the Director-General of New Netherland, reported that "a considerable number of respectable Englishmen with their Clergyman, have applied to us for permission to settle here". A town spot for this colony was begun at Maspeth,
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then called Mespat after the Mespachtes Indians, but it was short lived because of an Indian uprising the next year, followed by a greater difficulty when Doughty asserted that the land had been given to him personally, not to the group. This caused the colony to dwindle to such insignificance that in 1652 the territory was granted to a second group of Englishmen who formed their settlement at Elmhurst, which was called Middleburg because it was half way from Maspeth to Flushing; however, it was commonly called the New Towne, or New- town, in contrast to the older settlement at Maspeth, and in recent years the town spot or village has been renamed Elmhurst. They settled beside the Horse Brook which they made into a mill pond and built their homes along Queens Boulevard and Justice Street, the two banks of the stream.
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