USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 53
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 53
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* * * * * did laye a valewation upon euery mans Estate". A partial list follows :
Lb.
Lb.
Josiah Latting 080
Richard Willits 090
Simon Cooper.
100
Mary Willits. 220
Henry Townsend Sr 050
Jeams Weeks. 050
John Ffeexe.
130
Joseph Ludlam.
050
John Underhill 159
Will: hoackshurst.
030
Caleb Wright.
058
Richard Cirby . 090
Nathanell Coles
070
John ffry .
etc. etc. 040
In May, 1677, James Townsend and his wife, Elizabeth Wright, were among the Freeholders of the Town entitled to vote and hold office.
The first town meeting was held in 1660. These meetings were often held in private houses, and one year in a church in Wolver Hollow, while the Episcopal church was used as a Town-House almost to the time of the Revolution. At these meetings business was mingled with pleasure : there were trotting horses, turkey-shooting and other lively features.
Toward the end of the 17th century Governor Bellomont com- plained to the Lords of Trade in London of the great amount of goods "run in" in Nassau Island, Oyster Bay being one of four towns "lying most convenient" for a private trade with New York. "I constituted one John Townsend a Custome house officer.
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THE TOWN OF OYSTER BAY
He undertook it cheerfully; but within a month he and his security begged he might resigne his commission, telling me that tho' most of that towne were his near relations, yet he was threatened by them to be knocked on the head, and had already suffered many abuses, insomuch that he was in fear of his life * that has discouraged me from appointing such officers in the other towns."
An early real estate operator in Oyster Bay Town, although he came with the avowed purpose of opening a trading post, was John Richtell, Mer- chant, as thus he was known. He arrived in 1660 and was granted on Feb- ruary 12 of that year a large tract of land along the westerly side of Cold Spring River. On Decem- ber 13 following he made additional acquisitions by purchase which gave him four freeholders' rights, making him one of the town's largest land- owners.
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Shortly after December 13, 1660, he was granted a ten-acre tract on Cove Neck on the north side of the town and also ac- quired interest in a large area of meadow on the West Alle LI south side in what is now (Courtesy of Jesse Merritt) Massapequa. Some time before the English con- Colyer House, West Hills, Inspiration for the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum quest of 1664, Richtell purchased direct from the Indians a point of land east of Oyster Bay village known as Horse Neck, now a part of Huntington Town and known as Lloyd's Neck. Richtell was indeed a fast operator for by 1666 he had disposed of all of his property in Oyster Bay Town, the greater part of it in one final sale to a partnership comprised of Thomas Hart, Captain Nathaniel Sylvester (of Shelter Island fame), and Latimore Sampson, none of whom was a local resident.
Hart was an overseas trader who lived in London and had a colonial residence in the Barbados. John Bowne of Flushing and Robert Story of New York were his American agents. Captain Syl- vester was part owner of Shelter Island while Sampson, an employee of Hart and a man of considerable means in his own right, was engaged to Sylvester's daughter, Miss Griesel or, as sometimes writ-
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
ten, Grissel. Sampson died in the Barbados in 1675, leaving his estate to Miss Griesel who, the following year, became the wife of James Lloyd of Boston. Acquiring full interest in Horse Neck, the couple there established their home estate and gave it the name of Lloyd's Neck, which was destined to remain in their family for many genera- tions.
In 1681, what remained of the partnership's land in Oyster Bay was purchased by Dr. Simon Cooper who thenceforth lived upon it until his death in 1691 when it was divided between his two sons, Robert and Simon, and his daughter Mary, the wife of Edward White.
1
Home of Smith Family on Centre Island, Oyster Bay. Built by Thomas Smith Just Prior to 1750. Destroyed by Fire in 1897
Dr. Simon Cooper, a "Chyrurgion", who came to Oyster Bay from Shrewsbury, N. J., is described by McQueen as "one who played a vital part in the life of the Village and who may be rightly consid- ered as one of the first of Oyster Bay's really distinguished citizens".
Doctors were scarce and widely separated. There may have been one in Hempstead and another in Flushing. There was certainly none between those villages and Oyster Bay and possibly none in Flushing. In John Bowne's account book in 1687 we find the following entry :
Dr. Simon Cooper, Cr.,
for letting Daniel's blood. 1 shilling
Wormseed
1 shilling
Two journeys from Oyster Bay to Flushing 24 shillings
5 Plasters
5 shillings
7 doz. pills 14 shillings
2 bottles cordials. . 10 shillings
salve and cere cloth 3 shillings
a purge. 2 shillings 6 pence
drawing a tooth 1 shilling
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THE TOWN OF OYSTER BAY
An inventory of the Doctor's movable estate gives its value at 384 pounds. Some of the items read as follows:
His bookes & Medecines. 51 lbs.
His furs and wearing apparall. 47 lbs.
Debts due to him upon book. 94 lbs.
Like Robert Williams and John Richtell, the Townsend family early became landowners in what is now Massapequa, on the south shore of Oyster Bay Town. The Townsends, living on the north side, acquired their large south-shore tract from the Indians for the sum of fifteen pounds current money. It remained, however, for the Jones family, headed by "Pirate" Thomas Jones, to settle this part of the town. A Major in the English army, he arrived in Rhode Island from his native Ireland in 1692 and soon thereafter crossed the Sound to Oyster Bay. Here he married Freelove Townsend and her dowry was a large part of her father's Massapequa realty which was then known as Fort Neck.
In 1696 Major Jones built a home here which became known far and wide as the Brick House. Three years later, in this house was born their son David, the first of seven children. Here in 1713 the Major died. He lies buried in Massapequa in the yard of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, the musty old tombstone bearing a long epitaph of his own composition ending with this poetic hope:
Long may His Sons This Peaceful Spot injoy and No Ill Fate his offspring Here Annoy.
Thomas Jones was called Pirate with some reason. He had held letters of marque under the King of England empowering him to prey upon enemy shipping, a privilege which in those days was frequently stretched to include shipping of all nations, especially between wars when there was no specific enemy.
Thomas' oldest son, David, having become a successful jurist in the colonies, built a 30-room Georgian house in 1770, at the age of 71, not far from the Brick House which henceforth stood empty. David's home was indeed a mansion and became famous as Tryon Hall, so named after William Tryon, the last royal Governor of the province of New York, who was tendered a tremendous reception at the place the year after it was erected. Judge David Jones died there in 1775, a short time before the outbreak of the Revolution. His son, Judge Thomas Jones, a bachelor and a royalist, thereupon became owner of Tryon Hall and under his proprietorship, during the Revolution, it was the meeting place of many a group of prominent Tories and British officers. It was from the Hall one night in 1779 that a group of Yankees from Connecticut, having crossed the Sound and marched through the woods to Massapequa, took Thomas Jones a prisoner back to Connecticut. From there some time later he was exchanged for General Silliman of the American forces, who had been captured by the British. Released, Jones fled to England never more to enjoy the proprietorship of Tryon Hall. Following the war, the place was put
L. I .- I-30
POWELL HOME
BUILT BY THOMAS POWELL JUL1700 AFTER PURCHASE OF BETHPAGE FROM MASSAPEQUA INDIAN TRIBE OCTOBER 18: 1695
The Historic Powell House at Bethpage
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THE TOWN OF OYSTER BAY
on the list of Tory property to be confiscated. It was discovered, how- ever, that Thomas' legacy had been made conditional by his father's will that if Thomas failed to have a child and heir, the property should go to his sister Arabella. As Thomas was still a bachelor, title passed to Arabella and as she had remained a loyal American the property was not confiscated as a Tory possession.
The will of Judge David Jones also contained the proviso that to inherit Tryon Hall his daughter Arabella, who had married Captain Richard Floyd, must combine her family name with that of her hus- band. Thus in 1788 the Legislature not only legalized Arabella's title to Tryon Hall but the name of Floyd-Jones. Their son, David Richard Floyd-Jones, in turn inherited the Fort Neck estate containing not only Tryon Hall but the old Brick House which in 1837 was torn down, but not before the famous artist, William Sidney Mount, had made a sketch of it.
David Richard Floyd-Jones married and preserved the family name. His sister Elizabeth became the wife of Major De Lancey of Revolutionary fame, their daughters marrying James Fenimore Cooper, the novelist, and James L. Macadam, inventor of macadam roads. In 1906 Tryon Hall was leased to distinguished tenants who occupied it for many years. Then it stood empty until used as a road- house, at first by Bert Acosta, the aviator who had accompanied Admiral Byrd on his flight across the Atlantic. Broken and disfigured, the historic old place was finally vacated and a few years ago, having been partially burned, it was demolished by a wrecking company.
Robert Williams established his residence in Jericho with his family shortly after 1653. In 1667 he gave a tract of land there to the widow of Richard Willis, Mary, sister of John Washbourne and also of Williams' wife Sarah. Mary was mentioned in the Town records both as Willis and Willets. The property given her by Williams and the estate of her husband entitled her to full right as a Townsman. After the division of Williams' property in 1684, the Widow Willis was the wealthiest person in the Town.
When, in 1695, Thomas Powell, an Englishman residing on the north side of the island, purchased a large area of land in the eastern and central part of Oyster Bay Town he gave it the name of Beth- page. This transaction has since been designated as the Bethpage Purchase and under that name the deed was originally recorded. The purchase consummated by Powell included what is now Farmingdale, as well as Bethpage and neighboring territory. Thomas Powell, whose home still stands at Bethpage, was a Quaker and near his house he erected a Friends Meeting House.
The earliest reference in the Oyster Bay Town records to what is now East Norwich, to the south of Oyster Bay village, is in a deed from David Underhill to Samson Hawxhurst, dated February 18, 1696, which conveyed "certain lands near Thomas Cheshire's house and land called by the name of Norwich". It is generally believed that this name was given the place by the Townsend family which had come from Norwich in England. The change to East Norwich came many years later when the post office was established there and
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
it was found that there was a Norwich in Chenango County. The name East Norwich is first mentioned in the town records when a town meeting was called for August 26, 1862, to be held at East Nor- wich for the purpose of voting $20,000 for the payment of bounties and for the support of families of Civil War soldiers.
The first house in East Norwich was built soon after the Oyster - Bay purchase of 1653 by one Gideon Wright on land on the east side of Mill River Road, owned at present by the Finletter family. Squire
(From an etching by George R. Avery)
Tryon Hall Which Stood Until Recent Years at Massapequa
George Townsend is credited with having built the first two-story home here. It stood until 1920 about where the gate-house on the Moore Estate, "Chelseas", now stands.
Beginning April 2, 1793, all Oyster Bay town meetings were held at "Norwich" until April 2, 1878.
The first Methodist meetings in this little community were held as early as 1784 but not until 1834 was a church erected.
Christ Church was founded in Oyster Bay in 1704 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The Baptist church, however, was organized still earlier, William Rhodes collect- ing a congregation about 1700. The old church was probably erected about 1724, 20 feet square with 12-foot posts, and pyramidal roof considered a "great curiosity", also a "venerable door and square windows". The second church was built 1805, and still stands behind the modern building of 1900. Robert Feeks, son of a Quaker preacher,
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THE TOWN OF OYSTER BAY
succeeded Rhodes and was the first ordained pastor, serving for 50 years without salary. Caleb Wright, grandson of the founder Rhodes, died on the day he was to be ordained preacher.
The Friends Meeting House at Matinecock was built in 1724.
The Low Dutch Reformed Church at Wolver Hollow (now Brook- ville) was completed in 1734; a subscription meant so many seats- "men's sit places and vroues' places or chairs".
In 1740 Samuel Townsend bought the property comprising about 6 acres on what is now West Main Street in Oyster Bay village. Born 1717, he was a great-great-grandson of the first John Townsend, and named his house "Raynham Hall" for the family home in Norfolk, England, where the "manors of Raynham" had descended through Sir Ludovic Townshende, a Norman nobleman, and are said to have been granted by William the Conqueror.
Samuel Townsend, who married Sarah Stoddard, was engaged in English and West Indian trade, built brigs and smaller vessels, and put his son Solomon in command of a brig at the age of twenty. Raynham Hall was deeded in 1941 by its owner, Miss Julia Coles, a Townsend descendant, to the Oyster Bay Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and is filled with a loan collection as an "historic house". A tall clock in the hall was a gift to Solomon's bride, Ann, in 1778 from her father Peter Townsend of Orange County. The Daughters of the American Revolution gave Raynham Hall to the Town in 1947.
That slaves were then common we learn from a list ordered to be delivered to the magistrate, Jacob Townsend, 1755. The largest num- ber, six male and four female, were employed by David Jones, Esq .; Simon and Joseph Cooper employed four each.
A deed of 1770 records the sale of slaves by Daniel McCoun, Yeoman to Zachariah Weekes, Schoolmaster-a negro woman and her two children, a boy and girl, bought for 13 pounds 9 shillings.
In the McCoun burial ground, on what is now called Sandy Hill Road, a headstone is inscribed "In Memory of Sophia Moore, died 1851, aged 65 years. Born a slave in the State of New Jersey, bought her freedom and for 25 years was a faithful friend and servant to the family of William Townsend McCoun"-the Chancellor.
Quaint and vivid pictures of Oyster Bay life in the 18th century have come down to us in two diaries that were preserved by descend- ants of the Wright family. In the old sheepskin diary of the school- master, Zachariah Weekes, are given the names of fifty townspeople whose children he educated-Townsends, Underhills, Weekes, Youngs, McCouns, Lattens-who paid tuition not in coin but in hardware, groceries, shoes, shirts-even bread, clams, "oisters", according to the business in which they were engaged. The schoolmaster, who lodged in the Underhill house in the Cove, wrote in 1758:
"Jan. 9. Last Saturday came from Eastward two Men of that Sect of Religion called New Lights And came as they said of an Arrand for Jesus Christ *
* * and Exhorted The people for Several Days and Converted Two Viz: Daniel
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
Underhill and Sarah Townsend Who with Several others have for some Time Been Separated from the Established Church of the Association Baptist. At a meeting at Daniel Underhill's there was converted Mary Cooper and Brought out Into the Liberty of the Gospel.
"The Town seems to be in an uproar about raising men * Lord Loudon and Mr. Web is sent for, and Aber- crumby is made Head General of North America. * * * They say this Champain is to be formed against Canady. ** * * I hope they may have better success in a Right Cause than they have had this Three Years past when America has been Gradually choaking to Death.
"The Small Pox seems to be in a likely Way to Spread for in the House that was Cleaned up is now several Broke out having Catched it in the House. *
"March 20. Yesterday morning, Lord Loudon, coming from Eastward and being wind bound, He put a Shoar at Hog Island, and Mr. Thomas Smith went with him to New- vork by land, where there was a Ship ready to carry him Home. * *
"March 27th. Last Friday was launched in Mr. Morrell's Yard a Brig of how Many Tons Burden I cannot tell tho She is pritty Large.
"July 17th. Last Week we had News that our Land Army against the forts at Canady Went over the Lake and was Driven Back with the Loss of a Great Number of Men and my Lord How was killed in the ingagement which has Alarmed our Country and last Saturday Was a General Muster on the same account and Captain Townsend took out all from the Age of forty six to twenty * six hundred men are to go out of this Country with six Captains."
The Schoolmaster's few short entries in the year 1759 tell of the stormy division in the New Light church.
Oyster Bay village had a schoolmaster as early as 1677. On February 18 of that year one Thomas Webb was chosen town clerk to augment his wages as teacher. He may, however, have done his tutoring going from farm to farm, which was common custom during earlier colonial days on Long Island.
The old Oyster Bay Academy was built just prior to May 8, 1802, when one James Farley, a trustee of the "new" Academy, requested that a survey be made of its site "situate on the North side of the highway, where the old Episcopal Meeting house now Stands.' * * * ",
Founded as a private institution, the Academy began receiving State aid soon after 1814. In 1823 a law was passed to permit its trustees to serve in a like capacity for what was then school district number 2. On June 21, 1849, however, the district voted to separate from the Academy, the first school trustees elected being Allen Hawx- hurst, Samuel S. Summers, and Henry B. Wilson, with John R. Kane, clerk; John T. Hamilton, collector; and John Wood, librarian.
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THE TOWN OF OYSTER BAY
Soon thereafter the district purchased Thomas Cheshire's lot on South Street for $175 and Samuel Underhill was given a contract to erect a school building, 25 by 44 feet, for $700. "This", wrote Edwin McQueen, "was the first public schoolhouse in Oyster Bay."
To quote further from Mr. McQueen's writings, which have appeared in the Long Island Forum and other publications : "The first budget in the school for the year 1850 was a masterpiece. * *
* Teachers wages $260, six months rent of Academy $10, 11/2 tons of coal $9, insurance $3, incidentals $15, total $297".
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The Old Toll House Which Stood on Montauk Highway Near Where the Eastern Boundary of Nassau County was Later Established
In 1865 this district became Union Free School District Num- ber 9, with nine members of the Board of Education as follows: Solomon Townsend, Edwin Griffin, Peter Y. Frye, Charles L. Brown, Valentine Bayles, Samuel Y. Ludlam, Henry Bayles, Moses Anstice and Charles H. Burtis.
In 1869 the district purchased a plot of ground for $1500 from Charles H. Burtis, where the old high and primary buildings now stand, and he, by previous agreement, cut through what is now School Street. The school building erected soon thereafter by John D. Velsor cost the taxpayers $9950. That the matter of building such an impos- ing structure caused some heated discussions among the trustees is implied by the unanimous adoption at that time of a resolution, on motion of Trustee Ludlam, to the effect "that any member of this board guilty of using profane language during the meetings shall be fined $1."
When, just thirty years later, in 1899, the district voted to build what is now known as the Old High School, the contractor was
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
George H. Duryea and the contract price $26,680, which grew to $42,974 before the edifice was completed. The primary building was erected in 1910 by Richard Carman at a cost, with land, of $55,000.
Centre Island, Hog Island and Oak Neck, all originally separate islands, gradually through the action of wind and tides became part of the mainland at Matinecock. The low sandy road leading to Centre Island was for many years deeply covered at flood tide. There being no shore road to Oyster Bay in olden days, it was reached by a wide detour through Locust Valley.
The lower half of Centre Island was sold by Joseph Ludlam in 1743 to Thomas Smith, son of Jacob Smith of Hempstead, and Thomas was the first Smith to come to the Island ten years later. He became King's Justice, and wrote to his brother Isaac, who also had left the Smith homestead and settled in Dutchess County: "I believe that this Country is Very Generally Determined not to have anything to do in ye Boston Affair".
About 200 acres of land were retained in the Ludlam family, and in the 1880s the owners of the Island were descendants of Charles Ludlam.
Plum Point was owned by William Underhill, and the Smith farm was divided later among the children of Jacob and Ann Elizabeth Smith. The brickyard-where earlier had been only a brick kiln- was started in 1850 by Daniel Smith and his sons, Jacob and Daniel, and at one time employed sixty-five men, but as the clay ran out it was abandoned and the property sold about 1900.
Centre Island people were farmers, and crops were sent to the boat at Glen Cove to be shipped to New York. All bulk supplies were brought in by schooners which were run ashore at high water, and their cargo divided among the neighbors. The Sarah Elizabeth was owned by the Smith family and took back to town hay, potatoes, apples and cider. Cider-making on a large scale was carried on, only russets and Newtown pippins being used, but the advent of beer ended that business.
Jacob Smith gave his son Charles 20 acres in 1871, and the old brick house made of Centre Island bricks was built then, and has been a family home since that time. Jacob's widow, in 1896, divided among her children the farm of about 250 acres; the Homestead, which stood on the plot owned by Emeline Smith Fletcher was burned down in the fall of 1897.
The wife of Thomas Underhill Smith, Daniel's son, visiting as a bride at the Homestead in 1838 described the many activities there and the parties of young people who "danced to their own singing".
We quote from the History of Centre Island (1945) :
"From the bequests Thomas Smith made in cash, about $25,000, and the farms he owned, he was a wealthy man at his death. He was a Tory and at the time of the Revolution- ary War was a Justice of the Peace and member of the Town Board. He resigned, but after the war he resumed his posi- tion and served for a long time."
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THE TOWN OF OYSTER BAY
Simon Cooper in 1682 had received 400 acres of land at the end of Cove Neck "by a free voat of the town", and here his grandson Joseph Cooper brought his young wife, Molly (Wright) Cooper, about 1729. Esther, their only surviving child, and their granddaughter Sally figure largely in Molly's diary (1768-1773).
Life in the farmhouse on Cooper's Bluff-which has been from time immemorial a landmark along the Sound-was a never-ending round of farm and household duties mingled with a surprising amount of sociability. Esther, then in her twenties, was constantly in demand for quilting frolics, spinning and clamming frolics and turtle feasts. She kept on the go-"to Cedar Swamp-to town-to Huntington", even to New York. She was very capable too in caring for sick neigh- bors. Like her mother she was intensely religious and tramped back and forth to meeting, a walk of three miles, regardless of hours or the weather, and even "exhorts" the others there. She apparently was incompatibly married to her cousin Simon Cooper and not living with him. The marriage is recorded in St. George's Parish, Hemp- stead. "Simon came in a hellish anger and talked extreme ill to Esther. Esther cried and fretted all this day about what Simon had said." Simon left on a whaling voyage and was not again mentioned.
Joseph Cooper, "Daddy", apparently neither church-going nor sociable, was absorbed in directing his farm, where colored men and women, probably slaves, were employed. To Molly, his wife, fell the providing of food and clothing for the family, the spinning of the home-grown flax and of the wool from their own sheep that must first be combed and carded. Hackling or pulling the flax was joined in by parties of friends and relations-once Peter Underhill and his wife Ethelinda worked with the rest all night by the light of tallow candles. Working implements had to be made on the premises. "Thomas Fleet is here making a plow. * * A man who runs spoons stays here this night. * Eliacom came here to spin."
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