USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 52
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 52
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The Great Neck Methodist Episcopal Church, known for many years as the "Spinney Hill Church" was built in 1872, by the munifi-
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TOWN OF NORTH HEMPSTEAD
cence of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph S. Spinney, who donated the entire property, including land, completely furnished church, parsonage and other buildings, communion service and Sunday School Library at a cost of about $21,000.
St. Aloysius R. C. Church was established in Great Neck in 1876 by the Rev. D. F. Sheridan in a small frame building. Father Malloy later built the present fine edifice which was dedicated in 1913 as well as school and convent which were opened in 1923.
In 1886 four acres of land at Great Neck were given for an Episcopal Church by Miss M. Gerard Messenger and Mrs. Charles Gignous, daughters of the late Thomas Messenger. Erected by public subscription at a cost of $12,000, All Saints' Church was dedicated and admitted into the Diocese of Long Island in 1887. A parish house was built in 1898. With the growth of Great Neck, in 1928 the parish was divided and All Saints' Chapel, now St. Paul's Church, was founded in 1928. The Kirkland Huske Memorial Parish House was dedicated in 1935.
The First Church of Christ Scientist had its inception in Great Neck on January 18, 1920, when a small group met to plan a building and in February, 1922, the property upon which the church now stands was purchased. The new church was opened February 17, 1929, and dedicated June 16 following.
Temple Beth-El was organized in October, 1928, with Rabbi David Goodis its first leader. One of the outstanding activities of the Temple was the organization of the Great Neck Community Forum by the Men's Club.
The exact date of the introduction of Methodism at Hempstead Harbor (Roslyn) is unknown, but, according to the record, Bishop Asbury preached in the paper-mill in 1787. In 1814 this group built the first house of worship in Roslyn and the only one for more than thirty years. In 1843 a parsonage was erected and in 1869 the church was enlarged.
Trinity Episcopal Church was founded at Roslyn in 1835 and its first building was consecrated by Bishop Potter on December 5, 1862, as Christ Church Chapel which in 1869 became Trinity Church.
Roslyn Presbyterians organized in 1849 and their first edifice was erected in 1879 at a cost of $1900.
The Roman Catholic Church was established at Roslyn in 1871 and soon began the erection of a large brick and stone church of Gothic style, with seating capacity for 400, which was dedicated June 23, 1878.
Christ Church, Manhasset, a child of St. George's Episcopal Church of Hempstead, was founded in 1802 when the parish included all of North Hempstead Town. With $3725.50 subscribed, the group purchased a plot on Northern Boulevard which was later increased to over five acres. On November 19, 1803, a church building was consecrated. The Rectory, built in 1819, became a Church School in 1924 when a new Rectory was built.
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St. Mary's R. C. Church, on Northern Boulevard, Manhasset, was dedicated October 14, 1857, in a much smaller building on Plandome Road, adjoining the premises now occupied by the Town Hall. Its present edifice is one of the most beautiful in the town.
SCHOOLS
In 1748 the settlers of Cow Neck showed their interest in educa- tion by the following advertisement in the New York Mercury: "Thomas Dodge and Petrus Onderdonk want a man well qualified to teach school on Cow Neck. He may be settled with reasonable
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support." In 1757 the first school house in this section was built at Flower Hill. It taught the three "R's", navigation and merchants' accounts.
About 1848 a school house was built at the head of the Mill Pond in Port Washington. This was a one-story frame building 16 feet x 36 feet. The village then consisted of about forty houses and the population was less than 200. This "little red school house" con- tinued in use for over 20 years and was abandoned in 1870 when a new three-room school house was built.
The high school was built in 1907 on Main Street at a cost of $110,000. In 1928 a grade school was built at Sands Point and a senior high school was opened April 6, 1929. This school cost $497,000 with an additional $50,000 for equipment. There is now a Parochial School which cost $200,000 and also the Manhasset Bay School, a private day school. The Public Library was built at a cost of $38,000 in 1926. Maintenance is charged in the school budget.
The history of the Great Neck free school system goes back to 1813 when the first school house was built near Wooley's Brook. This
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and a second building were destroyed by fire. The third school was built on Middle Neck Road. In 1869 the Arrandale School was erected and in 1898 it was doubled in size. A frame house, known as School No. 2, was erected on the Kensington site in 1905. The first High School was built in 1913. In 1921 the Arrandale grade school was destroyed by fire and rebuilt and in the same year a new Kensing- ton school was erected. In 1928 the Lakeville school was built and in 1929 a new High School was erected on Polo Road.
The St. Aloysius Parochial School opened its doors in 1923 with a teaching staff of seven Sisters and the same year the Great Neck Preparatory School was organized by a group headed by B. Lord Buckley, the eminent New York educator. The first Headmaster was Donald B. Goodrich. The extensive school property is on Steamboat Road.
In 1915 Mrs. Clara Wykenham Sweetland established a private school for girls in her home on Linden Street. "Stepping Stones" kindergarten was started in 1934 by Mrs. Charles A. Brooks, Jr., and her sister. Great Neck today boasts of an educational system second to none in the county.
Manhasset was organized as Union Free School District No. 6, in 1866 and the first public school was built in 1868. The average attendance was then about 85. One of the early schools was a small two-story frame building on Plandome Road with three teachers. This village now has three grade schools, a high school and St. Mary's Parochial School. Roslyn has four public schools, a Junior-Senior High School and three grade schools, while Westbury has four public schools, a high school and three grade schools. Williston Park and East Williston each have a grade school.
OLD CEMETERIES
In Colonial days there were no regular public cemeteries in the town and each family had its own burying ground. One of the oldest of these is the Cornwall plot near the junction of Sands Point and Cow Neck Roads, Sands Point, which contains 36 graves. The oldest legible stone is that of Samuel Longfellow who died October 4, 1780.
There is also the Sands plot at Sands Point, near the Condé Nast homestead, recently purchased by Charles Budington Kelland, the author; the Mitchell plot on Fifth Avenue; the Hegeman-Onderdonk plot on the Onderdonk farm (later Monfort farm) and a small bury- ing ground on the old Elbert Bogart farm, all in Port Washington. The latter is thought to be the original burying ground of the Dodge family. The markers are field stones with only initials and some dates from 1711 to 1767. The remains of about twenty-seven bodies and the stones were removed in 1928 to the Nassau Knolls cemetery.
In Roslyn a cemetery was founded on December 8, 1860, by a gift of 4 acres of land from Caleb Kirby to the Presbyterian Church. In 1864 ten acres were added to this public cemetery in which lie the remains of Roslyn's illustrious citizen, William Cullen Bryant.
The Friends have an ancient burial ground adjoining their meet- ing house in Manhasset and the Episcopal and Reformed churches of
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that village also have burial grounds, established more than a century ago. In the Friends' meeting-house grounds at Westbury and at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Searingtown are other old plots.
In Great Neck there is the old Treadwell-Kissam-Platt and Wooley Cemetery located on a high bluff of the Alker Estate over- looking Manhasset Bay. The oldest grave is that of Treadwell Kissam who died April 4, 1717, when he was four days old. In the Reformed
(Photo Courtesy of Mrs. Roswell Eldridge)
Great Neck Library
Church Cemetery and the adjoining Rosswood and Christ Church Cemeteries in Manhasset were buried many of the pioneers of the community.
POPULATION
The population of North Hempstead Town increased very slowly until some years after the Revolution. In 1810 there were but 310 taxpayers, the average tax being $5.70, and the population of the town was 2570. In 1850 the town population was 4291; in 1880, 7562; in 1905, 14,143; in 1940, 83,385 and in 1944, 88,000. The assessed valuation of North Hempstead for 1945-6 was $290,058,655. The value of tax-exempt property used by the United States Government was $848,820.
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The village of Port Washington offers a good example of rapid growth. In 1858 it had about 200 inhabitants and as late as 1890 only 800. In 1898 there were but 1200, but with the coming of the railroad that year the village started to increase rapidly and the census of 1945 showed 13,330. This is typical of all villages of North Hempstead, especially Manhasset and Great Neck which have also had a phenomenal growth in population in recent years.
CLUBS
Port Washington has more outdoor clubs than any other village on. Long Island. Located here is the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club which has one of the finest clubhouses on the eastern seaboard, built in 1929 at a cost of over $400,000. Here also are the Knickerbocker Yacht Club, the Port Washington Yacht Club, the Sands Point Beach Club. all with fine clubhouses; the New York Canoe Club, the Man- hasset Bay Sportsmen's Club, the North Hempstead Country Club with a fine old colonial clubhouse and a superb golf course, and the Sands Point Club with golf course and one of the finest polo fields in the United States.
In the town also are the Plandome Golf Club, the Sound View Golf Club at Great Neck. the Deepdale Golf and Country Club at Lake Success, Links Golf Club at Herricks, Shelter Rock Country Club at Searingtown, New Hyde Park Golf Club in that village and the Engineers' Golf Club at Roslyn Harbor. Besides which at Port Washington the town maintains for its residents Bar Beach on Roslyn Harbor and Orchard Beach on Manhasset Bay.
CHAPTER XV The Town of Oyster Bay
FRANCES IRVIN and H. P. HORTON Associate Editors, Long Island Forum
O N MAY 20, 1648, one Robert Williams of Rhode Island, said to have been a relative of the more famous Roger Williams, founder of that state, purchased for a quantity of cloth from the Indian Pugnipan a large tract of land in the easterly part of the Hempstead plains. This was the first recorded purchase of land by a white man within what was destined to become the town of Oyster Bay. Williams was, to quote Benjamin F. Thompson, "like his kins- man (Roger Williams), a man of intelligence and great moral worth". Before locating in Oyster Bay Town, he settled at Hempstead between 1644 and 1648. His name first appears in the Hempstead records in 1658 when he, in common with other settlers, was allocated six acres of land. At that time he owned a herd of seven cows. In 1659 he was taxed 41 shillings, being the third largest taxpayer in Hempstead Town.
Having lived in Hempstead some twenty years and raised a family consisting of four sons and three daughters, at about 65 years of age Williams moved into Oyster Bay Town and established a plantation on his property acquired in 1648. This was the first known occupancy of the site which was to become the village of Hicksville.
This tract, since referred to as the Williams Purchase, comprised an area embracing Hicksville, Plainview, Jericho, Woodbury and a part of Syosset. Later he acquired from the Indians lands in Dosoris, near Glen Cove, and still later a parcel of meadows at Massapequa on the southerly side of Oyster Bay Town. He thus became one of the largest landowners on Long Island.
In 1653 a small vessel hove to in Oyster Bay harbor under the command of Captain James Dickinson and carrying a small band of pioneers from Rhode Island. The leaders of this group were Peter Wright, Rev. William Leverich and Samuel Mayo, who negotiated the purchase of land from the Indian Mohenes. This deed covered the area bounded on the west by the Beaver swamp, on the east by Cold Spring River, on the north by the Sound, while the southerly line of the division between this purchase and that of Williams five years before was vaguely "bounded neere southward by a point of trees called Cantiague". Thus the line between the Oyster Bay Purchase and the Williams Purchase extending from Pugnipan's marked tree at Cantiague northeasterly to the head of Cold Spring Harbor became a source of controversy for many years.
The purchasers of 1653, together with William Washbourne, Thomas Armitage, Daniel Whitehead, Anthony Wright, Robert Williams, John Washbourne and Richard Holbrooke, joint purchasers, are generally considered the founders of the Town of Oyster Bay.
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In 1667, one year after Governor Nicolls confirmed the original Williams Purchase and Patent, Robert Williams moved to Jericho, then called Lusum. His Hicksville plantation he bequeathed in 1684 to his children and grandchildren, but by 1746 when the property was divided among sixty owners no one by name of Williams was among them.
Although the community of Hicksville did not actually come into being until the arrival of the railroad in 1836, by 1888 it had a popu- lation of 900 which by 1919 had increased to approximately 4000. Today this thriving village in the heart of one of the most fertile areas in the State of New York has more than 8000 inhabitants.
It is noteworthy that the Mohenes deed of 1653 was witnessed by Robert Williams who, among others, was given a full share in the purchase by the original three signers. They having come from Williams' old home in Rhode Island, it is possible that he had been in communication with them, knew their plans and had informed them of the advantages this part of Long Island offered for settlement.
From an unpublished manuscript of Edwin McQueen we learn that of the three actual purchasers, Samuel Mayo was the owner of the ship which brought them from Rhode Island. He may have received his share in the purchase for furnishing the ship. He was allotted a homesite but without erecting a house sold the property to Anthony Wright. There is no evidence that he ever lived in Oyster Bay. Many years later his heirs claimed a full share in the original purchase, on the ground that Mayo sold 6 acres only to Wright and not his privilege of allotment from the Common lands. Eventually the Mayo heirs received a large tract of land which was partly taken from the eastern end of the Williams Purchase.
Rev. William Leverich, the second purchaser, erected a home which was sold by his son in 1658. Leverich was an itinerant preacher to the Indians. He later lived for a short time in Huntington and then moved on to Montauk.
Peter Wright, the third purchaser, is called the father of Oyster Bay where he lived until his death. He was a successful builder and left a large family and a comfortable estate. He and Williams were close friends.
Of the other "founders", the two Washbournes built a house near Ship Point which in a few years they sold and returned to Hempstead. Mary, William Washbourne's daughter, was Robert Williams' wife.
Thomas Armitage built a house but soon sold it and moved away. Anthony Wright, brother of Peter, was a very public-spirited citizen. When he died, being a bachelor, his large estate finally went to his brother's children. Richard Holbrook was the first settler to complete his home but soon sold it and moved to Connecticut.
Daniel Whitehead, another "founder", had come from Flushing where with John Bowne he had been active in organizing Quaker meetings. When Governor Stuyvesant arrested Bowne and sent him to Holland for trial, Whitehead moved over to Hempstead. Although owning considerable property in Oyster Bay, he never lived there.
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In 1667, Governor Andros issued a patent for the entire Town- ship of Oyster Bay and confirmed all existing ownerships in land. Thus the Oyster Bay Purchase, the Williams Purchase, together with private purchases from the Indians up to that time and later as they occurred, including the Matinecock purchase, the Musketa Cove or Glen Cove Purchase, the Manetto Hill Purchase, the site of the future Bethpage or Powell Purchase and the purchase of the Massapequa Necks all became merged into one governmental unit.
One thing which was not settled at this time, however, was the question of the boundary between the Oyster Bay Purchase and that of Robert Williams. This matter came up in 1684 and several town meetings endeavored to bring about a definite boundary instead of the imaginary line "extending from Cold Spring Harbor all the way to Cantiague tree" which had by then been replaced by a rock, referred to as the Robert Williams marked stone. Following the death of Williams his heirs and the town were involved in litigation over a period of years before the boundary was finally established.
Robert Williams' wife Sarah was the daughter and sister, respec- tively, of his friends, William and John Washbourne. Robert Williams' sister, Mary, became the wife of Richard Willets or Willis. She inherited a large tract of land and a house from Williams and became in time the largest taxpayer in the town.
Of Williams' four sons, Joseph and Robert remained in Hemp- stead while John and Hope moved to Lusum with their father. John's daughter Temperance married David Seaman.
Of Robert Williams' four daughters, Esther married Thomas Cook. Mary married John Dole, a shoemaker, and lived in Oyster Bay for a short time before moving to West Jersey in 1699. Phebe married John Townsend, son of Richard, who, with his brothers, Henry and John, took a leading part in the early development of Oyster Bay. Phebe left many children. A fourth daughter married John Champion of Hempstead and Westbury and had a daughter, Sarah, who married William Eastland and lived at Lusum.
No trace remains of Peter Wright's house, the first built in Oyster Bay village, 1653, but directly behind its site on West Main Street he erected in 1666 the present Wright homestead. Nicholas Wright, brother of Peter, lived opposite, and the present "Underhill place" was given by Nicholas to his son John, who married a daugh- ter of Henry Townsend.
The oldest house in Oyster Bay was built by Job Wright, and in dilapidated condition still stands in the angle between South Street and Audrey Avenue.
It was during the Oyster Bay settlement's first decade that Cap- tain John Underhill, who has been called "the most dramatic figure" in American colonial history, took up his residence at Matinecock, probably in 1661, where his son John was already living. The year before, the Captain, following his exciting career as Indian fighter, statesman and, according to John Fiske, "the saviour of New Nether- land", had taken as his second wife Elizabeth Feake or Feke, a Quakeress of 26, whose family lived near Oyster Bay. Her mother
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being the widow and cousin of Henry Winthrop, Underhill was thus received into the Winthrop circle. At Matinecock five children were born to John and Elizabeth, their names being entered in the Quaker records of Flushing.
The Matinecock Indians presented Underhill with 150 acres of land for submitting a petition in their behalf to Governor Nicolls, the .
Monument at Mill Neck, Oyster Bay, Erected to Captain John Underhill, Early Long Island's "Gentleman-Soldier of Fortune"
original deed for which, dated 1667, inscribed "Killenworth", is owned by a descendant, Myron C. Taylor, who at this writing lives on the old estate in a home rebuilt and enlarged from that of his famous ancestor.
In 1660, to escape the persecution directed against the Quakers, John Townsend left Flushing and settled in Oyster Bay. With his younger brothers, Henry and Richard Townsend of Norfolk, England, he had arrived in Massachusetts in 1630 in Governor Winthrop's vessel. He had had three different homes in the wilderness and was now advanced in years.
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THE TOWN OF OYSTER BAY
His son, called "Mill John", married, 1st, Johanna -, and 2nd, Esther Smith, daughter of Abraham Smith. John, the youngest of the second marriage, born 1703, married Sarah Wright, daughter of Edmund Wright and Sarah (Townsend) Wright. Their daughter Ethelinda married the Rev. Peter Underhill, who died in 1806 in Oyster Bay.
Henry Townsend married Ann Coles, daughter of Robert Coles. Henry Townsend's son, Henry 2nd, married Deborah Underhill, daughter of Captain John Underhill.
In 1661 the town granted Henry Townsend the right to erect a mill on Mill River, below the present Mill Pond, and for generations village grain was ground there. The property was on the English side of the settled boundary line, and Mill Hill was owned until the 1920s by the Townsend family. Tradition says that formerly grain had to be taken across the Sound to Norwalk to be ground, and that the Wrights and John Dickinson asked Henry to build the mill. For many years the bolting was done by hand by owners of the grain.
Jotham, the son of Mill John and Esther Smith Townsend, prob- ably built the second mill. A third was built before 1800 by James Townsend, and this small mill, the dusty miller at its doorway, is still remembered by the oldest living inhabitants. The site was obliterated when the railroad embankment and turnpike came into being. A modern mill was built close to the Pond, but was destroyed by fire in .1923. "Mill Pond House", built in 1666 by Mill John at the north- west corner of the Pond, remained in the family until 1929.
One of the oldest houses in Oyster Bay is the Youngs Home- stead in the Cove. The Youngs came to Southold, Suffolk County, in 1640. The name of Thomas Youngs occurs in the Oyster Bay Town Records in 1670 in the deed relating to his orchard, and there is a lease of this house and property by the head of the family to his two sons dated 1690, when the farm evidently was flourishing. President Washington in his progress over Long Island in 1790 stayed a night in this house.
The Townsend domain included the McCoun house by the Mill Pond and the Townsend Cemetery where many of the first settlers are buried. George Fox, the Quaker preacher, spoke here from a "massy rock" in 1671, uttering "words of persuasion to an audience in the woods".
H. D. Perrine's book on "The Wright Family" gives a map showing where the first houses were built along South Street. A brook running north to the harbor was crossed by Anthony's Bridge (named for Anthony Wright) and still flows under the roadway. On the east side of South Street (towards Berry Hill Road) was the first home of Francis Weeks. John Underhill and his son John both had houses here before they settled at Matinecock. On East Main Street, near Ship Point Place, was the home of Simon Cooper, Oyster Bay's first chirurgeon.
Richard Latting was the first of his family to come to America, via Massachusetts, and the first landowner at Lattingtown, in Oyster Bay Town. Before 1658, he had traveled from Fairfield, Connecticut,
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to Huntington, to Oyster Bay, to Hempstead, buying and selling land and cattle, until he finally decided on the Lattingtown land for a farm and bought 130 acres from the Indians.
The Latting Genealogy states: "In 1660 he (Richard) purchased from Anne Crooker of Oyster Bay a house and home lot in the village on the north side of Main Street, a little east of the present Mill Pond and between that and Quogue Lane, and removed thither." Two years later he sold the house to Samuel Andrews.
Josiah, son of Richard Latting, built a house and settled at Lat- tingtown (Matinecock), buying much more land from the Indians. He married Sarah Wright, daughter of Nicholas Wright, one of the early proprietors of the town.
In 1681 there is mention of a brick kiln on Hog Island, and the name Brickyard Point still clings to the spot.
Thomas Townsend, son of John 1st, is mentioned as a leading man of Oyster Bay, inheriting his father's good looks and talents. He married Esther, daughter of Zeruiah Townsend and Dr. Matthew Parish.
When the highway was ordered between Francis and Thomas Weeks' property (later Latting's and Irvin's) it was to go through the Town's burying ground, at Ship Point Lane.
Familiar names appear in a "List of estates of ye inhabitants of Oyster Baye", dated September 29, 1683, 30 years after the first settlers obtained grants. "The inhabitants being at this time sikly and not sending in their lists * ye constables
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