USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 49
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 49
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It was at Lawrence that majestic Rock Hall was built by Josiah Martin, a young man of wealth from Antigua in the West Indies, in 1767. Placed on a large tract of level land purchased from Jolın
L. I .- I-27
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Cornell, this mansion remained the home of Martin until his death in 1778, when it passed to his son, Dr. Samuel Martin, who died in 1800. Twenty-five years later the place became the property of the Hewlett family, from whom in 1948 it was acquired by the town.
Nearly eighty years before Rock Hall was built, a few miles away one Joseph Haviland erected a grist mill at Rockaway Swamp in what . is now East Rockaway. From Near Rockaway Landing, Haviland's ground corn was shipped through Hog Inlet (now East Rockaway Inlet) to New York and other coastal points. In time as more corn was grown by nearby farmers, new ships were needed to carry it and a number of shipyards were established here. According to Thompson's history (1839) : "Near Rockaway, five miles south of Hempstead Village, at the head of Rockaway Bay, has also an excel- lent and convenient landing which can be approached at high water by vessels of sixty tons or more many of which have been built and owned here."
The schooner Experiment sailed from East Rockaway for Cadiz, Spain, carrying flour milled in East Rockaway, boards milled in Rock- ville Centre and beeswax from the local areas. She was documented in 1793 for this voyage by George Washington, President of the United States, and Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, who veri- fied the paper before Mayor Richard Varick, of New York, while the capital of the United States was there. It was also signed by Mr. Lamb, Collector of the Port of New York. East Rockaway was then noted for transoceanic and coastal shipping.
The extension of the railroad to Pearsalls (now Lynbrook) in 1865 was a sad blow to the shipping interests of Near Rockaway and for a time slowed the growth of this community. . The old mill, which had been acquired by Alexander Davison in 1818 was operated by members of that family until 1920. Its buildings are still standing in good condition at the Davison Lumber Yard, a few blocks away.
The village of Hempstead remained the town's metropolis throughout the nineteenth century. A number of its institutions being the oldest in this part of the island continued long after similar institutions were founded in other parts of the town to serve a large area of what is now Nassau County. This was especially true of the Presbyterian, the Episcopal and, after 1820 when it built its first place of worship, the Methodist Church. In 1855, the latter group erected a much larger building. The first Roman Catholic Mass was said in the village and, possibly, in the town in 1849, one year after the Presbyterians had built a larger church. The public school, estab- lished by the colonial assembly in 1704, for many years thereafter served a large part of the town. One institution whose membership was widely scattered throughout all of Queens County was Morton Lodge of Masons which was chartered in 1797.
The Long Island Academy was founded in Hempstead in 1832, charging students for tuition, board and washing the munificent sum of $100 per half year. Hempstead's first newspaper, The Inquirer, came into existence in 1830 and was widely read. A few years later The School Master. which survived only a few years, began its career.
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The village's first fire-fighting brigade, Eagle Fire Company, was organized in 1832 by Alexander W. Seaman, John Kellum, Samuel C. Martin, Robert S. Seabury, Stephen Hewlett, Joseph D. Gilder- sleeve, Joseph B. Gildersleeve, Elbert Rushmore, Latten Smith, Floyd Southard, Nelson Jennings, Thomas D. Carman, Samuel J. Ray- monds, Jacob Coles, Isaac Snedeker, Charles Baldwin, Jarvis Bedell, Richard DeMott, William Van Nostrand and James Stephenson.
About this time Alden J. Spooner, an attorney of note, and other progressive citizens started a mild real estate boom by auction- ing off a considerable number of plots in what is now the very heart of the business section. This part of the village became relatively more important two years later when the older business center was swept by fire. In 1839 Hempstead became a railroad terminal when tracks were laid from Mineola through which passed the main line, then being extended eastward to Greenport in Southold Town which it reached five years later.
In 1840, according to a chart of the village of that day, Hoffman's private school stood at the northwest corner of Front and Franklin streets. On the west side of Main Street, along which ran the railroad tracks from Mineola, stood Conklin's Hotel about midway of Front and Fulton streets. On the southwest corner of Main and Fulton was Anderson's Hotel, while on the opposite corner to the north stood the hostelry of J. Akley. Miss Rhodes' boarding house occupied the southwest corner of Fultou and High, while the Seminary stood at the southwest corner of Orchard and High. Another private school operated by G. Nichols stood on the north side of Fulton Street, between Franklin and Main.
At the northeast corner of Fulton and Main streets stood historic Sammis Inn, and to the east arose the spire of the even more historic Presbyterian Church. The northeast corner of Main and Front was occupied by Rushmore & Smith's lumberyard, while farther east on Front Street stood St. George's Episcopal Church. Beyond it to the east, at the northeast corner of Front and Washington, the Methodist Church was standing.
The village was incorporated in 1853, the incorporated area containing some two thousand acres and including what later became a considerable part of Garden City. The population of the new village was 1,355, making it by far the largest community in the town and one of the largest in the County of Queens. Its first board of trustees was comprised of John Bedell, president, and B. Hendrickson, Valen- tine Smith, Jacob Coles and Sands Powell. Other officers were: David Willets, L. W. Angevine and L. D. Rushmore, assessors; Ezra Kellum, collector; John W. Smith, treasurer; John Harold, clerk; Thomas H. Clowes, street commissioner; S. B. Mersereau, Michael Coon and Elbert Wood, fire wardens, and Cornelius B. Adams, pound master.
During its first year as a municipality, Hempstead expended $478.79. Besides paying taxes to this amount, its citizens assumed other obligations. Any male resident who refused to fight a fire or failed to safeguard his property against fire became liable to a fine
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of $3. For dumping garbage in the streets or permitting livestock to run at large, a resident might be fined $1.
By 1856 the village owned two firehouses as well as two fire engines and a hook and ladder truck. This apparatus assumed added importance when three years later S. N. Snedeker and John H. Sea- man were given an exclusive twenty-year franchise to supply gas. within the village. The following year the citizens voted to have eleven gas street lamps installed, but not until 1866 were they turned on.
Meanwhile in 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, the federal government established Camp Winfield Scott on the outskirts of the village and the resultant influx of troops gave impetus to local busi- ness. In 1866 the Long Island Telegraph Company erected poles from Hempstead to Mineola. The following year the Southern Railroad, having reached Valley Stream on the south side, began laying tracks to Hempstead. This company, however, folded up before the work was completed.
In 1877 Philip J. A. Harper, the New York publisher, while serving as village president, presented Hempstead with a new fire- house and village board room combined. One of the matters to soon demand the board's attention in its new rooms was the loss of a large part of the incorporated area which the State Legislature, at the behest of the Hempstead Town Board, returned to town juris- diction in furtherance of the plan of A. J. Stewart to establish the cathedral village of Garden City.
The story of the founding of the Cathedral of the Incarnation and a community on the plains to the north of Hempstead began when Alexander Turney Stewart, an immigrant Irish boy who had become New York's leading merchant, paid the Town of Hempstead $55 an acre for this area, the greater part of which had existed as common lands since 1644. Scarcely was the transaction completed when in 1876 Stewart died, leaving his plans, together with an estate of some thirty million dollars, in the hands of his widow, Mrs. Cornelia M. Stewart, and, as chief executor, Judge Henry Hilton. These two made the plan their chief concern.
With Henry G. Harrison of New York serving as architect and the Rev. Dr. Thomas Stafford Drowne as ecclesiastical advisor, appointed by the Rt. Rev. A. N. Littlejohn, first Bishop of the newly created Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, the corner- stone of the Cathedral was laid within a year of Mr. Stewart's death. While this edifice was being erected, the Bishop's residence, or See House, St. Paul's School for Boys, the Cathedral School of St. Mary for Girls, the Deanery and various other buildings were completed. Meanwhile a community of attractive homes, all beautifully land- scaped, began to take form. By the time the Cathedral was conse- crated in 1885, Garden City had become all that its name implied and has remained so to the present day notwithstanding a constant growth in population.
The story of the Cathedral would be incomplete without refer- ence to the strange episode which followed the death of millionaire merchant Stewart. In 1878, two years after his body had been
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interred in the graveyard of the Church of St. Mark's on the Bouwerie, it was stolen and held for ransom. As may be supposed, the crime made front page news throughout the nation at the time and for many months thereafter as follow-up stories told of rumored secret meetings between Judge Hilton and the kidnappers in far-off places, of an alleged attempt by the Judge to substitute another body in order to console the widow and to end the distasteful publicity, and, finally, of the return of the real body from Canada on a flat car with a shipment of marble for the Cathedral. Here the much-traveled remains were incased in a temporary vault until a permanent receptacle could be built. Eventually, with the body of Mr. Stewart inside, the receptacle was sealed and buried beneath two tons of cement. This last interment was performed without ceremony and with only one witness, the sexton, besides the undertaker and his aides, who necessarily included a number of cement workers, and all of whom, according to the sexton, were in complete disguise.
At this period in the history of Hempstead Town, none of its several villages had yet approached the size or importance of the town seat. Freeport on the south shore had had its own public schools since 1820 and had built a larger one in 1852 but not until 1858 was a post office established here, thus making the name free port official. As late as 1858 the Merrick Road, which passed through the village, was a toll road owned and operated by a corporation which charged a fee for its use by horse-drawn vehicles. The tollgate stood at what is now Long Beach Avenue and among the vehicles which regularly passed through was the stagecoach which ran from Jamaica as far east as Amityville. In Freeport the stagecoach station was at the Daniel Raynor homestead which was maintained as a tavern to meet the needs of travelers.
Not until 1892 did Freeport become incorporated. Its first village president was Carman Cornelius, its assessed valuation $423,218, its tax warrant $1,668.60, and its population 1,821. Chosen with President Cornelius to serve the new municipality were Trustees Raynor R. Smith, Henry Mead and H. Asa Nichols; Treasurer Daniel B. Raynor, Collector Mitchell W. Smith, Clerk Joseph Weyant and Street Com- missioner John J. Randall, who for his long public service in the community is referred to today as "the father of Freeport." It is noteworthy that on the first village tax roll appeared the names of forty-seven Smiths and forty-one Raynors.
In 1893 Excelsior Hook & Ladder Company, which had been in existence since 1864, was made the village fire department, and a village police department, consisting of one John Dunbar, was likewise created. This same year William G. Miller was elected to succeed President Cornelius and served until 1900 when he was suc- ceeded by George Wallace who in turn was followed in 1902 by James Dean. Other village presidents were: Julius Detmer 1905-06, Hiram R. Smith 1906-07, Daniel Morrison 1907-10, John D. Gunning 1910-12, James Hanse 1912-13, Smith Cox 1913-14, Roland M. Lamb 1914-16, Ernest S. Randall 1916-17, Sidney H. Swezey 1917-18, Robert G. Anderson 1918-20, Clarence A. Edwards 1920-21, Robert L. Christie
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1921-23, Hilbert R. Johnson 1923-24, Raymond J. Miller 1924-25, W. Irving Vanderpoel 1925-26, and John Cruickshank 1926-27.
The first Mayor of Freeport was Clinton M. Flint 1927-31, then Russell S. Randall 1931-33, Robert E. Patterson, 1933-40, Worden E. Winne was elected in 1941.
In 1875 Freeport built a "modern" school at a cost of $4,000 which served the district until destroyed by fire in 1893 when the Grove Street School became the first of a number of imposing buildings erected'in various parts of the community from time to time to serve its ever-growing educational needs. Today Freeport's school system is second to none on the island.
Freeport Memorial Library
Although religious services in Freeport date back to 1813 when the Rev. Thomas Birdsall arrived to organize a group of local Metho- dists, the first church building did not materialize until twenty years later. It was called the Old Sand Hole Church and here the Metho- dists worshipped until about 1858 when they moved to a new building on the west side of Main street, near Merrick Road. In 1891 the present Methodist Church was erected on Pine Street, since when it has been enlarged and improved several times.
Presbyterians first worshipped in Freeport in 1839, erecting a building the following year on Main Street and in 1860 building a much larger edifice on Church Street. The Baptists erected their first church on South Grove Street in 1890, four years after organ- izing. Their present fine structure was built in 1928. The Episcopal Church was organized in 1893 and erected its present building the following year. The Roman Catholic Church was organized in 1897. Three years later a church was built on Pine Street and in 1911 the present structure was erected. The Lutherans, meeting first in 1909, built a church in 1918 on North Main Street and in 1926 erected
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their present building. The Hebrew congregation built a temple in 1920 while the Christian Scientists erected a meeting house in 1924.
Freeport has had municipal water and electric light systems since before 1900, having been among the island's earliest pioneers in these fields. It led also in becoming an actors' colony and as a center for deepsea fishing in which its present investment in buildings, boats and shipyards runs into millions of dollars.
A few miles to the west of Freeport and sharing in her impor- tance as a rendezvous of sports fishermen is the unincorporated village
Baldwin Public Library, Baldwin
of Baldwin. In the early years of the town, this community, first known as Hicks Neck, was sometimes also referred to as Hempstead South as it was through this bay front group of landings that much of the town's incoming and outgoing coastwise freight was handled. Lott's, Bedell's, Tredwell's and other landings on the waterfront were the scene of great activity in the early days before the arrival of the railroad which gradually took over much of the freight business.
Hicks Neck really grew up around John Pine's mill, established on Milburn Creek in 1686. From here a dirt road ran down to the point of the neck which opened up that territory. John Pine's mill pond long was known as one of the town's best fishing places. As late as 1840, according to Daniel R. Tredwell, one David Lainad caught a four-pound eleven-ounce brook trout here. The excellent fishing in this pond eventually made it the bone of contention in a long-drawn-out legal fracas. One of the millers in later years, Car- man Smith, attempted to keep all others from fishing, until Chris- topher Risley, having leased the adjoining Tredwell property, decided to make an issue of the matter and began fishing in the pond. Sued
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as a trespasser by Smith, Risley, having lost in the local court, car- ried the matter to the Court of Appeals which sustained the decision of the Supreme Court that the pond really belonged to the Tredwells. Shortly thereafter the Tredwells sold the pond to the City of Brooklyn for its water supply.
Many stories are connected with this pond. Milburn's Inn which stood beside it served at one time as a courthouse and jail. During the sheep-raising era it became a wool factory. It was later moved by an owner, Daniel Terry, to another part of the village where it became a hostelry. Terry reestablished a gristmill on the pond and served as the miller for some years. He it was, according to Tredwell, who invented the screw propeller and used it on a small boat on the pond.
Not until 1810 did the community, now known as Baldwin, have a church of its own. In that year Bethel Chapel was erected by Methodists just off Grand Avenue, near St. Luke's Place. It was used until 1843 when the Methodists built a much larger place of worship on the south side of Merrick Road. In 1872 a still larger church was erected by the same group on the north side of Merrick Road.
Baldwin's first school, a private affair, was established by one William Fowler a few years after the War of 1812. It was followed in 1833 by the erection of a public school at Brooklyn and Grand Avenues, which served the district until destroyed by fire many years later.
During the first half of the nineteenth century Baldwin became quite an industrial centre, due perhaps to its several landings which provided easy shipping to New York. Here, besides the wool factory previously mentioned, a broom factory was operated and one John D. Lott ran a large cider plant which shipped its products to all parts of the island as well as to the city. So promising was the little indus- trial village that in 1842 the United States made a survey with the idea of constructing a canal from Baldwin, then known as Milburn, to the head of Hempstead Bay on the north side of the island. For a time the project seemed assured although it never reached the point of actual digging operations.
Baldwin was so named for the Baldwin family which figured prominently in its development during the nineteenth century. Thomas Baldwin, for many years the community's leading merchant, in 1825 erected the Baldwin House which became famous as a hostelry throughout the Town of Hempstead. His son, Francis, served as treasurer of Queens County and as its Member of Assembly, and Elisha Baldwin served as clerk of Queens County. After this family, the village was first called Baldwinsville, then Baldwins and finally Baldwin.
To the west of Baldwin are the attractive villages of Rockville Centre, Lynbrook and, abutting the City of New York, Valley Stream, together comprising the island's most heavily populated suburban area. Each of these communities is amply provided with churches, school systems, and the other institutions which go to make a highly desirable place to live. Rockville Centre is the home of the oldest
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and for many years the county's only daily newspaper, the Nassau Daily Review-Star.
Rockville Centre is also among the county's oldest incorporated villages, having attained municipal status in 1870. Tradition has it that this part of the town changed from an area of scattered farms into a community when a group of retired sea captains built rather
South Side High School, Rockville Centre
pretentious homes along a sandy lane which is now North Village Avenue. Several of these homes are still standing, and while they are old-fashioned their grounds are attractive and spacious.
Lynbrook was once an outpost of Near Rockaway. Because five roads converged there it was known as the Five Corners, and later as Pearsall's Corners, because a man named Pearsall conducted a general store there. Sylvester Pearsall, now about eighty years of age, still has a handsome home right at the five corners, surrounded by business buildings. He is a former postmaster of Lynbrook and still the owner of considerable land at the Five Corners which has greatly increased in value over the years.
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A decade before Lynbrook was incorporated in 1911 it had an influx of commuters from Brooklyn. Not liking the name "Pearsall's Corners" and suffering nostalgia for the then attractive city of Brooklyn, they simply transposed the two syllables. That is the origin of the name Lynbrook.
The Old Sand Hole Church which once stood at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Merrick Road, midway between Lynbrook and Rockville Centre, was an early Methodist Church, serving a wide area. The building having burned several times and been replaced,
Nassau Daily Review-Star Building, Rockville Centre
the present site was chosen for the Old Sand Hole while part of the congregation founded St. Mark's of Rockville Centre.
Valley Stream is largely a product of the last thirty years. It was still a small place when incorporated in 1925, but due to incessant real estate developments it now has a large population, but not much retail business in comparison with Lynbrook and Rockville Centre.
The south side of Hempstead Town was at one time the home of the famous naturalist, Jacob P. Giraud, Jr. At his home between Freeport and Baldwin he mounted varieties of birds, a collection which at his death was presented to Vassar College. In 1844 was published Giraud's now famous book, Birds of Long Island, which listed and described all the then known species, 560 in number, indige- nous to the island.
Giraud was one of a number of residents of Hempstead Town whose endeavors and products carried well beyond local territory. Between the villages of Hempstead and Rockville Centre were Nicolls' gristmill, DeMott's and the more famous Oliver Eagle Flour Mill which was established in 1854 by William Oliver. A gristmill was operated at the town seat by Thomas G. Smith and Thomas H. Clowes
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as were others, as well as saw, paper and cider mills in other parts of the town. Along the south shore flourished the oyster industry in which among the successful shippers were John B. Raynor and D. Pearsall at Freeport and at Baldwin Harbor, Lorenzo D. Smith and Green M. Southard. In these and other south side villages were a number of boatyards, fishing docks and, back from the meadows, many thriving farms where livestock as well as vegetables were pro- duced and sold in the city markets. An industry which for many years was important to the town of Hempstead was that of raising trees, shrubbery and flowers for the New York trade. George Rogers had such an establishment at the town seat, Joseph Marsden at Rock- away (then a part of the town), R. P. Jeffrey and Sons near Wan- tagh and at Lynbrook, R. E. and J. C. Sealy.
As early as 1850 the City of Brooklyn began acquiring water in Hempstead for its fast increasing needs. In that year it purchased Hempstead pond for $12,000, three years later Smith's pond for $11,500 and in 1858 Clear Stream pond for $1,310, Valley Stream pond for $13,000 and Pine's pond for $6,000. Continuing to expand its system, the city acquired Watt's pond at Valley Stream in 1880 for $8,000, and a natural reservoir of 557 acres at a cost of $110,982, later spending more than $1,400,000 on this project. The work carried on in Hempstead Town by the City of Brooklyn during these years gave considerable employment to local labor as well as impetus to the increase of all-year-round populations.
With the other villages and along similar lines have grown Mal- verne, to the north of Lynbrook; West Hempstead, Franklin Square and Floral Park, to the west of Hempstead village, and on the Rock- away peninsula, the communities of Hewlett, Woodmere, Cedarhurst and Lawrence. Occupying several miles of ocean front is the city of Long Beach, distinctly different in both location and character from the town's other communities.
The earliest years of Long Beach have already been referred to. Serving the townspeople generation after generation, for picnics, fish- ing, gunning and the harvesting of salt hay, not until 1880 when the town granted a leasehold to the New York and Long Beach Railroad Company was any serious attempt made to develop the section for all-year-round residence. From then on, the ownership of much of the area was ahnost constantly being fought over until as late as 1902, when the Supreme Court awarded the Town of Hempstead clear title to all except one neck belonging to Richard Sandiford and Carman Frost.
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