USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 48
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 48
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62
The town of Hempstead received its third patent during the Dongan administration. After much delay it was granted April 17, 1685, in the names of Captain John Seaman, Symon Searing, John Jackson, James Pine, Sr., Richard Gildersleeve, Sr., and Nathaniel Pearsall, but only after Seaman and Pine, together with Thomas Gildersleeve, John Smith Blue, Henry Linington, John Tredwell, Timothy Halstead and Thomas Ellison had personally contributed a total of 177 pounds to the cause and the governor and his secretary had received respective "honoriums" of 618 and 280 acres of town land.
Governor Dongan's tract which became his home of retirement in 1688, stood at what is now New Hyde Park, named for Anne Hyde, the wife of Provincial Lieutenant Governor George Clarke who soon acquired part of the property. Far from ending his days in peace and quiet at Hempstead, however, Thomas Dongan returned in 1691 to his native Ireland to become the Earl of Limerick. His departure
410
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
was hastened, no doubt, by the insurrection of 1689 when Captain Jacob Leisler, following the overthrow of Sir Edmund Andros, Dongan's successor, usurped the New York government and soon thereafter ordered the arrest of Dongan for refusing to acknowledge his authority. At the same time and on the same charge Colonel Thomas Willet, Captain Thomas Hicks, Daniel Whitehead and Edward . Antill of Hempstead were likewise arrested.
When another resident of Hempstead, Nathaniel Pearsall, who had been duly elected to represent Queens County in the general assembly, refused to serve as such at Leisler's call, the latter ordered Captain Milbourne, his son-in-law, to proceed with force of arms against the county. Thus Hempstead and all Long Island as well were kept in a constant state of turmoil until March 19, 1691, when Henry Slaughter, governor by royal commission, arrived from England and assumed the reins of office.
Although he died four months later, Slaughter lived long enough to specifically deprive those of the Roman Catholic and Quaker faiths of the privileges prescribed by the "charter of liberties and privi- leges," enacted under Dongan. He also effected the conviction and execution of Leisler and Milbourne as traitors, for which action he was roundly condemned by the people of Hempstead and other Long Island towns even though they had refused to recognize Leisler's authority.
Throughout the colonial period, the people of Hempstead showed little desire for change in the status quo without careful deliberation. This inherent quality undoubtedly accounts for the more or less pas- sive resistance with which they endured the tyranny meted out by most of the English governors between 1691 and the outbreak of the Revolution.
Notwithstanding the abuses heaped upon it by the provincial authorities, Hempstead never ceased to grow in population and impor- tance as more farms and new communities were established. From the "town spot" of 1644 the founders and their sons and grandsons continued to move farther out on the plains and towards the north and south shores. Newcomers were constantly joining the movement. The shores offered opportunities for fishing and shipping. The plains were especially fertile and from the earliest days Jericho turnpike carried their farm products to Manhattan markets by way of the Brooklyn ferry, opened in 1642.
What is now Freeport on the south shore was settled in 1650 by Raynors who gave it the name of Raynortown. A deed of 1680 men- tions Washburn's Neck and Coe's Neck extending into the bay and one Thomas Rushmur who sold Freeport acreage to "John Smith Juner Roc", later written as John Rock Smith, Jr. The witnesses to this deed were Edward Ffrench and Nathanill Persall. The early residents of this section of Hempstead Town became "baymen" as well as farmers. Their farms usually abutted one of the several creeks in which they kept their fishing sloop as well as the broad flat- bottomed hay-boat which they used in the autumn for bringing salt- hay across the bay.
411
HEMPSTEAD TOWN
These farmer-fishermen of the southside marketed fish as well as farm products in New York, using Jones Inlet and the ocean for these trips. The inlet was also a ready means of passage for small vessels engaged in smuggling. By bringing their illicit cargoes to Raynor- town the smugglers escaped the payment of duties imposed in New York Harbor. Thus people began to refer to the little south side community as "the free port"-a name which stuck and eventually acquired permanency in its present form.
Baldwin, to the west of Freeport, was originally named Hicks Neck after John Hicks of Flushing who, with John Spragg of Eng- land, both of whom had settled in Hempstead soon after its founding, took title in this southerly part of the town. On January 25, 1686, the Town Meeting granted John Pine gristmill rights and he built his mill on a five-acre tract on Milburn Creek just north of the trail (now Merrick Road), which passed along the south shore. As usually happened, the mill attracted others and within a short time Hicks Neck became a community, later to be called in succession Mil- burn Corners, Milburn, Bethel, Baldwinsville, Baldwins, and finally Baldwin.
Most of the south side villages of Hempstead Town were settled between the years 1643-44 (Wantagh) and 1700 by which time settle- ments had also been made in that part of the town which is now the town of North Hempstead, a sketch of whose history appears under its own heading. The settlement of the Rockaways and of what is now the city of Long Beach on the ocean front, some miles to the south of Freeport and Baldwin, ranged over a much longer period.
In the case of Long Beach, title to this part of the town was not definitely cleared in the early transactions with the Indians and some authorities have it that Tackapousha never intended any of the ocean front to pass from his people who here not only lived and fished, but collected the shells from which they made their wampum. On Decem- ber 25, 1678, Hempstead Town, however, entered into an agreement with forty-two freeholders, by means of which properties were allotted in a territory vaguely described as bounded by Brockleface Gut on the east and Wells Line on the west which included what is now Long Beach.
In 1725, fifty-nine descendants of the original forty-two owners deeded this property to one Jacob Hicks, whose estate sold it to the Lawrence family and they in turn sold a part of their holdings to one Carman Frost. The latter sold a third of his interest in this property to Richard Sandiford who, according to the deed, received one-third of all the property which Frost might own west of Brockleface Gut and east of Rockaway Inlet. This gave Sandiford a provisional inter- est in all of Long Beach, Short Beach, Jones Beach and Hicks Beach, ten thousand acres in all and fronting for sixteen miles on the ocean.
The township, however, did not recognize private title to this ·vast and valuable area, an attitude which for many years retarded its development. Not until 1902 was the title established in court, Frost and Sandiford being awarded Hicks Beach together with certain oyster beds and some fifteen hundred acres of meadowlands, while the balance of the property, valued at five million dollars, went to the
412
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
town and to such parties as might have leased or bought any part thereof from the town itself.
The Rockaway peninsula, the westerly portion of which is now a part of the Borough of Queens in the City of New York but which was originally in the town of Hempstead, was settled by several families. Among those who owned land here were the so-called Rock Smiths, the Gildersleeves, Seamans, Jacksons, Raynors, Pearsalls, Hewletts, Motts, Pettits, Abrams, Browers and Dusenburys. John Rock Smith, Jr., a first settler of Hempstead, became one of the larg- est land-owners on the peninsula, but had his home on a fourteen-acre plot southwest of Freeport, where it is believed he died in 1706 at the age of ninety-one. As early as 1659 he was licensed by the town to keep an "ordinary" and dispense meat, drink and lodging.
The Rock Smiths also participated in the settlement of Merrick where the Smith homestead, erected in 1687, stood for close to two hundred years. Other early residents of this and neighboring south shore sections were the Cornells. One member of this family was known as Richard of Rockaway for having acquired in 1687 large holdings there. He was a resident of Flushing, which town he repre- sented in the Hempstead Assembly of 1665. In 1690 he built the first residence erected at Far Rockaway, on the site of the present Marine Pavilion. He died in 1693 leaving five sons and three daughters. A great-great-grandson, Ezra, founded Cornell College and the latter's son, Alonzo D., became Governor of New York.
Far from retarding the growth of the original village of Hemp- stead, the establishment of other communities contributed to its im- portance. Not only did it remain the seat of town government, but its older churches during the early years served much of the township. This was also true of Hempstead business places which were patron- ized by families living miles away. Here, too, real estate transactions were usually closed and the sale of livestock consummated when ear- marks were to be checked. Town meeting was also an occasion which drew the men and often their families to Hempstead.
Another great event for the town, always held in late October at some point on the plains, was Sheep Parting Day, when sheep pas- tured on the Commons during the summer were herded, identified and driven home by their owners for winter-keep. Farmers from all parts of the town summered livestock on the Commons, an area some sixteen miles long containing sixty-four square miles of level, grassy prairie, patrolled by town-appointed herders and by commissioners whose duty it was to prevent fires.
Under the arrangement, no sheep might be taken from the Com- mons other than on the day designated for the general roundup and then only under the supervision of the official "sheeptenders". A similar policy was employed for cattle, but as the wool industry grew in magnitude and several fulling mills were established, chief atten- tion was given to the sheep.
Sheep Parting Day eventually took on the aspects of a county fair. The great majority of the people came to enjoy the sideshows, the contests, exhibitions and, a boisterous few, gambling and drinking. Sheep-owners usually left as quickly as their sheep could be started
=
413
HEMPSTEAD TOWN
homeward, but the day ran far into the night for those who had come for amusement only.
Marshing was likewise an important occasion for the people of Hempstead. It consisted of harvesting the salt-hay which grew wild on the south shore marshlands which, like the plains, were held in common. Marshing usually took place in September on days set by the town so that everybody might have an equal opportunity to pro- vide their livestock with this fodder, which was supposed to possess certain beneficial qualities not found in upland-hay.
As early as 1667 the practice of cutting hay on town property was regulated as follows: "July ye 5, 1667: It is ordered this day by the constable and overseers of this present towne that Noe man shall mow under any pretense soever Any of ye common meddows Att the South before ye 25th Day of this present Month upon ye Breach of this order he that shall make ye Breach of ye foresayd order shall forfitt the sayd grass or hay or ten shillings a lode ye one halfe to him that Complains and ye other halfe to ye towne."
That the foregoing action failed to solve the problem may be judged from the many succeeding entries in the town records. In 1723 an attempt was made to divide these commons pro rata among the town's freeholders as a means of discouraging non-residents. Commissioners were appointed to arrange the division but so much dissatisfaction arose that no action was taken and twenty years later, when called upon for a report, the commission confessed that it had made no progress. The plan was thereupon abandoned for a short open season of simultaneous harvesting.
As time went by, marshing became a well regulated institution in the town. Although citizens crossed the bay to the marshlands a day or so in advance and laid claim to a desirable strip by simply setting up a rake, or other piece of equipment, no grass could be cut before sunrise of the opening day, nor could more grass be cut than could be transported to the mainland the same day. Large scows were used to carry the hay across the bay where it was spread on dry ground to cure before being hauled to the farm and stacked in the barnyard for winter consumption.
In his Personal Reminiscences, Daniel M. Tredwell wrote: "We recall with great pleasure the incidents of the nine days spent in the marshing camp, during which period we slept on the marsh, ate eel and clam chowder and smothered flounders, or flukes with the mess." His further description of the occasion leaves no doubt that marshing, though an essential part of farming and by no means a light task, was an event to be enjoyed by the menfolk of Hempstead Town for, in the words of Tredwell, "we believe many farmers looked forward with pleasure to the marshing season, as a relief to the monotony of their lives. They made a picnic of it."
There were years, however, during the long colonial period when many of the town's young men were absent on Sheep Parting Day and during the marshing season. As members of the local unit of the militia, they were called away for training and sometimes to war itself. Governor Nicolls in 1667 ordered one-third of the militia of each county to be ready for instant call. Several years later the
414
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
Hempstead company was ordered to the defense of New York before it capitulated to the Dutch.
More than six hundred men of Queens County participated in Queen Anne's War. A number of Hempstead militiamen served with the British in Canada in 1746 and again in the French and Indian War the town supplied the British cause with men as well as muni- tions. It was during this war that Hempstead householders were obliged to billet a considerable number of French "neutrals" who, like the Acadians in Longfellow's "Evangeline", were removed from Canada by the British. The latter also here quartered detachments of their own troops between periods of combat service.
During the town's first 130 years it was never entirely free of exacting military obligations to the crown, which may account for the militancy of local residents, Whigs and Tories alike, throughout the Revolutionary period. The war for independence was accepted here simply as another though much more critical chapter in a 130- year fight for democratic privileges.
Generations before the Revolution, Hempstead Town had passed from the despotism of governors who named the magistrates and townsmen to a day when town meetings elected men of their own choice to serve as overseers, judges and assessors. In 1721, the town elected its first board of trustees, later making it the principal fiscal body. A similar advance was made in the county of Queens whose seat of government was located at Jamaica, while the provincial assembly constantly became more representative of the people although never entirely free of England's domination.
Hempstead, unlike colonial towns as a rule, usually had a fair surplus on hand, principally due to an additional tax being imposed, ostensibly for maintenance of the official church but which was used as well to defray the cost of the jail, stocks and pound and in sup- port of the poor. Furthermore, as the surplus continued to grow, the board of trustees carried on a profitable banking business for the town by lending its funds to duly bonded freeholders who of course paid interest.
On the other hand the town was faced from time to time with an expensive dispute over boundary matters. The first of these disputes started with the original purchase of land from the Indians. Seldom were boundary lines defined with sufficient thought for the future. A notched tree, a movable stone or the ever shifting mid-stream of a small creek so often used as markers was certain to invite mis- understanding. There were also overlapping grants and patents issued in the early years to individuals as well as townships.
The town of Flushing in 1657, complained to Governor Stuyvesant of an alleged intrusion upon its patent by the adjoining town of Hempstead. Although the provincial convention of 1665 definitely settled this and many similar controversies by. redefining the bounds of each town, it was not until 1683 that Hempstead and Jamaica came to an agreement on a line that had been marked by a number of notched trees and the mouth of a swamp.
Hempstead became involved with Oyster Bay in a territorial altercation which, caused by lines drawn in 1661, was not settled
415
HEMPSTEAD TOWN
until 1879-a matter of more than two centuries of wrangling and costly litigation. Cow Neck in what is now North Hempstead Town was likewise the cause of a bitter title struggle in which one John Cornell, claiming ownership on a grant from Governor Andros, was attacked by a band of local residents who made counter claims to parts of the land. Cornell, however, retained possession following legal proceedings, but this affair caused a family feud between the Cornells and Pearsalls that lasted through several generations. A large area of meadowlands on the Rockaway peninsula, which Hemp- stead had always treated as part and parcel of her original patent, was lost to the town many years later by counter claimants.
By far the greatest loss of territory suffered by Hempstead, however, came about during the Revolution. Early in 1775, when a Tory-controlled town meeting voted to send no deputies to the Continental Congress, residents of the northerly part of the town whose sympathies lay with the American cause sent their own dele- gates. The split thus engendered between the two sections of the town widened until on September 23 of the same year the north side voted to secede and appointed its own militia officers who were approved by Congress. This division remained throughout the war and by act of April 6, 1784, the Legislature officially recognized it by creating the towns of North and South Hempstead, the latter becom- ing the Town of Hempstead by legislative act in 1796.
The division into two towns by no means settled all controversial matters between the north and the south sides. The question of whether or not the residents of North Hempstead might continue to share in harvesting the hay from the southside meadowlands retained by South Hempstead was not finally settled until 1828 when the courts ruled against North Hempstead, many of whose farmers thereupon purchased meadowland in the adjoining town.
During the Revolutionary era Hempstead was the scene of con- stant strife between Tories and Whigs. Under British occupation, which lasted from after the disastrous battle of Long Island in the summer of 1776 to the end of the war in 1783, the Tories had the upper hand and made the most of it. Before the arrival of the British army from Boston in 1776, many a Tory home in Queens County had been searched for weapons by agents of the Committee of Safety. Such an agent reported to the Committee, September 25, 1775: "I have endeavored in the towns of Jamaica and Hempstead to carry the resolutions of congress into effect, but without the assistance of a battalion, I shall not be able to do it." The Com- mittee thereupon delegated Samuel. Verplank, Thomas Smith, David Clarkson, John Vanderbilt and Benjamin Kissam to collect weapons and to report those residents who opposed this and other edicts of the Continental or Provincial Congress and the Committee of Safety.
In January, 1776, a detachment of Continental troops from New Jersey arrived in Queens County and disarmed a number of Tories, and in March, Major General Lee ordered Colonel Ward "to secure the whole body of Tories in Long Island," an assignment which was by no means accomplished.
416
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
In reviewing this period one finds that the island's leading citizens as well as members of the oldest families were divided between Tories and Whigs, a division which extended also to those who had served in public office and, in fact, to every class of society. The Episcopal Church which was strongly pro-British and the Presby- terians who were in most cases Whigs did not escape the division which turned friends into bitter enemies.
Hempstead Town, like the island as a whole, paid a stiff toll to the whaleboatmen who, though an effective arm of the Continental forces, in time attracted a lawless element which robbed and murdered
SAPHE STARTS
Sketch of Sammis Tavern Which Stood During Early Times at Hempstead
Tories and Whigs alike in their quest for loot. That both sides used the light, speedy whaleboat in legitimate warfare made it more dif- ficult to suppress the bandits who respected neither flag but adopted either as best suited the occasion. Thus both the English and the American commands were often charged with acts of needless cruelty committed by whaleboat bandits.
As the war progressed and freedom became more certain, many Tory families, fearing the wrath of a victorious America, fled Long Island and other parts of the country, often to join relatives and former neighbors who had chosen exile following the Declaration of Independence. According to Tredwell, "Early in 1782 bands of Loyalists (Tories) had begun to leave New York and Long Island for the adjoining provinces of Canada." The following year, accord- ing to the same source, Long Island exiles joined in the founding of the city of St. John at the mouth of the St. John River in New Brunswick. Two months later their number was increased by two thousand exiles who had sailed directly from Huntington, Long Island.
417
HEMPSTEAD TOWN
Colonel Gabriel Ludlow, of Hempstead, was elected the first mayor of St. John, serving until 1795. Still other Long Islanders settled on Prince Edward Island as well as throughout Halifax, Annapolis Royal, Ottawa and Nova Scotia. Colonel Richard Hewlett was among those who went to Nova Scotia and, in fact, founded the Village of Hempstead, in the County of Queens, up there, and was its leader or Mayor until his death. He is buried there. His widow returned to East Rockaway and is buried in St. Georges Churchyard, Hempstead.
In 1790, when President George Washington made his memorable drive through the westerly part of Long Island, going as far as Patchogue and Setauket, he stopped at Hempstead, thence drove to Merrick and continued eastward along the south road. At that time the southerly part of Hempstead Town was still very sparsely settled, the many thatchgrown necks extending into the bay being largely fenced off with a gateway at each lane leading south from the high- way. The most important of these lanes led to Lott's Landing on Hicks Neck, now Baldwin Harbor. Lott's Landing was then the principal point of shipping for Hempstead Town although some boat- owners who transported local products to New York, returning with supplies and wares for Hempstead Town merchants, preferred to use the "free port" on Washburn's Neck at Raynortown or equally free Coes Neck.
The south side of the town remained far behind the hub village of Hempstead during the greater part of the 19th century. From east to west are now the thriving communities of Seaford, Wantagh, Bellmore, Merrick, Freeport, Baldwin, Rockville Centre, Lynbrook and Valley Stream, none of which was more than an area of scattered homes, a few stores, a mill or two, a post office and a railroad station up to the latter part of the 1800s. Today to the south of these vil- lages are several famous beach resorts including Jones Beach and the city of Long Beach, but within the memory of persons still living much of the so-called outer beach was unoccuupied except by fisher- men's shacks, lifesaving stations, and, here and there, summer pavil- ions, cottages and clubhouses.
During the War of 1812 as in the Revolution, the south shore beaches and bays were infested by guerilla boatmen. Many a story is told of the skirmishes which took place in this isolated part of the town. Following the latter war, however, it became the custom of south shore villages to look to the outer beaches for their summer pleasures. This custom produced the beach pavilion, to be followed in time by the summer hotel and the summer cottage. Not until after the Civil War, when small yacht racing became the fad of summer residents, were the first of the beach clubs established. During this era the Rockaway peninsula grew rapidly. Near Rockaway was divided into Hewlett, Woodmere, Cedarhurst and Lawrence. To the west Far Rockaway and Rockaway Beach began to come into their own as the summer playgrounds of wealthy New Yorkers.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.