USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 58
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 58
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Glen Cove High School
Memories of the last two great wars are too fresh in our minds to require more than casual mention, except to say that the names of those who served from Glen Cove are to be found on the Honor Rolls with many a gold star affixed to remind us of those who paid with the last measure. In these names, if nowhere else, is ample evidence that our citizens of today possess the same courage that was in the hearts of those brave pioneers who cleared the land and built their homes here in 1668.
All but one of the beautiful mill ponds that once graced the valley are gone. The picturesque mills have fallen into disuse and dis- appeared. The great starch factory remains only in the memory of a few old timers and the palatial estates that graced the land along the shores of the Harbor and Sound are fast disappearing.
Like every community of its kind along the Atlantic seaboard the City of Glen Cove is entering a new era of growth and change. Its population today is approaching 15,000, some ten times that of the vear 1868-the bi-centennial. Hundreds of new names and strange faces are found in place of the old.
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STORY OF GLEN COVE
But this is the price that any community must pay for progress and it should be accepted with justifiable pride. Today the City of Glen Cove can boast of one of the finest beaches and parks any- where on the North Shore of Long Island. Morgan Memorial Park, embracing land once restricted to the few of wealth, may now be enjoyed by all who live within the City. There they may play in the shade of century-old oaks and beeches that were once the pride of the exclusive few.
Country Clubs, moving picture theatres, ball parks, good stores and dozens of other modern attractions are readily available.
While several of the great estates are gone there are still many beautiful homes along the shore and everywhere there are stately trees of which the inhabitants may be proud.
Yet, despite the many changes that have taken place and the inevitable passing of the old landmarks there still remains enough of the old time atmosphere to recall the days of long ago. The names of many of the early inhabitants, such as Carpenter, Coles, and Valentine live today on street signs in the City. And many other streets remind us of the past. There is "The Place" where the first settlers laid out their "Home Lotts"; "Town Path" is the highway leading to Oyster Bay as in the old times when inhabitants of Musketa Cove followed it to Town Meetings. There is also Mill Hill at the foot of which the first lumber mill was built in the early days of Glen Cove.
Some other names have changed. "Rattlesnake Hollow" has become "Pearsall Avenue", "Sheep Pen Point" has become "Garvies Point" and "Cape Breton Road" is now "Landing Road" although the steamboat landing has long since disappeared.
As we have previously mentioned, most of the first homesteads are also gone, and so far as we are aware, only one family still occupies the same land upon which its ancestors settled in the latter part of the Seventeenth Century. These are Sterling Mudge and his son William whose ancestor Moses Mudge settled here in 1674.
So far as the original Indian inhabitants are concerned there are none living here today who can rightfully claim descent from one of these. Nor, so far as we know, is there a marked grave within the limits of the City to show where they were laid to rest. But in the banks along the roads leading to Hempstead Harbor and on top of the sandbanks that line the shore are outcroppings of shells that show where these original lords of the soil enjoyed their bivalve feasts and where their wigwams stood in centuries gone by.
And of the trees that grow in the dooryards of the present city there are a few that can boast of having weathered the storms of two and some perhaps nearly three centuries. These are the great oaks and beeches. The locusts were introduced by the first settlers and now seedling offsprings of those first hoary giants reach to heaven in defiance of blizzard, hurricane and thunderbolt. These alone are the only living forms that have survived the flight of years. Among them are a few individual species that have witnessed the progress of the little settlement of cabins and its evolution into the city that now stands at the beginning of a new era-the Atomic Age.
CHAPTER XVII
The Nineteenth Century
T HE nineteenth century marked an era of continued growth for Long Island. The Revolution had left the nation torn with internal strife between Tories and Whigs. The War of 1812, however, brought these elements together to fight England shoulder to shoulder and the postwar period found Americans for the first time in more than a generation united in a common resolve to live peacefully together and together raise the American standard of living.
For a detailed picture of Long Island following the second war one must turn to other chapters, such as those on whaling, the churches and the individual towns. Now for the first time in the history of the island, the weight of population began to materialize at the westerly end. With this change came a shift in the relative importance of the island's three counties. In 1771 the population of the island, totalling 22,881 as compared to 18,726 for New York City, was divided as follows: Suffolk 11,676, Queens 8744, and Kings (future Brooklyn) only 2461. When the State of New York was created, Suffolk County was entitled to five delegates, Queens four and Kings but two. That was in 1777.
At the outbreak of the War of 1812 the population of Suffolk County had increased to 21,113, that of Queens to 19,336, and Kings to 8303. It is significant, however, that at this time the value of taxable property in Kings County had reached $2,456,061 as com- pared to Suffolk's $3,742,264, thus showing a per capita valuation in the future west-end city of $295 against Suffolk's $177, a differ- ence which reflected the approach of Brooklyn and its neighboring towns towards common cityhood and eventual absorption into a world metropolis.
The population of Suffolk County in 1810 was divided among its nine towns (Babylon was not created until 1872) as follows: Brook- haven 4176, East Hampton 1484, Huntington 4424, Islip 835, River- head 1711, Shelter Island 329, Smithtown 1592, Southampton 3899, and Southold 2613. That of Queens County was made up as follows : Flushing 2730, Jamaica 2110, Newtown 2437, Hempstead 5804, Oyster Bay 4725, and North Hempstead (created in 1784 from Hemp- stead) 2750. Thus the three latter towns which were . eighty-eight years later to comprise the County of Nassau contained in 1810 con- siderably more than half the total population of Queens.
Simply to here show the trend of the growth of population which set in immediately after the War of 1812 and which has continued in ever greater strides to the present day, the census figures of 1910, approximately a century later, are given as follows: Kings County 1,634,351, Queens County 284,041, Nassau County 83,930, and Suffolk County 96,138, a total population for the island in 1910 of 2,098,460.
L. I .- I-33
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
Brooklyn had grown from a ferry terminal into a thriving though still small community some years before the Revolution and was so far advanced by the year 1816 as to be incorporated as a village. To Fulton Ferry, the chief route for farmers and other Long Islanders traveling to and from New York, Brooklyn owed its early develop- ment. On May 10, 1814, one of America's first steam ferryboats, the Nassau, was installed here to handle the ever-increasing traffic across the East River. A few years thereafter other lines were opened.
A contributing factor to Brooklyn's rapid growth following the War of 1812 was its share of the maritime trade which during the first decade after the war gave New York permanent supremacy among American seaports for the first time in its history. As New York's commerce increased, finally exceeding that of the erstwhile leading port of Philadelphia, not alone Brooklyn but all Long Island although to a much lesser degree received direct benefit.
In Brooklyn were built docks and warehouses to handle the Long Island manufactured and grown products which were brought there for export. Here the government had purchased a large river-front tract in 1801 on which to establish a navy yard. It was not built, however, until some years later. Nevertheless, a number of large shipyards, some of them founded years before, soon became among the most active along the eastern coast. New homes were erected to house their employees. 'New stores were opened to serve them. With the increase in commerce came more industries and business houses associated. with ships and shipping.
Although the population of Kings County remained below that of either Queens or Suffolk County for some years, the relatively small area near Fulton Ferry which was the village of Brooklyn was perhaps even then more thickly settled than any other part of the island. Here at the corner of Concord and Adams streets in 1816 was opened the first elementary public school on Long Island. In 1823 the Apprentice Library, Brooklyn's first such institution, was founded. The following year was erected a building to house its books, to provide a lecture hall for the community and a meeting place for the village officers.
Brooklyn was chartered a city on April 10, 1834. From then on it became ever less a recognized part of Long Island and, finally, in 1898 was absorbed into Greater New York as the Borough of Kings. Similarly, Long Island City and surrounding territory, which had grown on a smaller scale in much the same way as its neighbor to the south, became the greater city's Borough of Queens. Since this annexation, contemporary with the creation of Nassau County from the easterly part of what had been Queens County, the two city boroughs have steadily become more metropolitan in character and interest although some communities therein, such as Flatlands in Kings and Flushing in Queens, have retained a certain traditional individuality.
George Townsend of Queens County, who had served one term as Long Island's representative in Congress, was re-elected in 1817 and with him Tredwell Scudder of Suffolk County. In 1819, Silas Wood,
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THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
the historian, a native of Huntington, was chosen as the island's sole representative and was re-elected four consecutive times thereafter, serving until 1829 when he was succeeded by James Lent of Queens County.
No resident of Kings County was elected to this office until 1831 when John T. Bergen was chosen to serve with Lent. Abel Hunting- ton of Suffolk succeeded them in 1833 and was re-elected two years later. Elected in 1837 and again in 1839 was Thomas B. Jackson of Queens who in 1841 was succeeded by Charles A. Floyd of. Suffolk. Selah B. Strong of Suffolk and Henry C. Murphy of Kings (future mayor and also a renowned historian) were elected representatives in 1843 and John W. Lawrence of Queens in 1845, to be succeeded in 1847 by Frederick W. Lord of Suffolk County and Henry C. Murphy of Kings. In 1849 John A. King of Queens and David A. Bokee of Kings were elected.
A new State constitution was framed at a convention which con- vened November 10, 1821, the Long Island delegates being: from Suffolk, Usher H. Moore, Ebenezer Sage and Joshua Smith; from Queens, Rufus King, Nathaniel Seaman and Elbert H. Jones, and from Kings, John Lefferts.
As the Brooklyn and other communities on the East River assumed greater importance in commerce and industry, a less con- centrated growth in farming, whaling and manufacture was expe- rienced in other parts of Long Island. Sag Harbor at the east end had taken the lead as a port of entry principally because of her expanding whaling interests. At the same time shipyards increased in number and capacity especially along the north shore. Sag Harbor, Port Jefferson, Setauket, Northport, Huntington, Cold Spring Harbor (then known as Coldspring), Oyster Bay, Port Washington and Flush- ing were active in this field.
In many villages various lines of manufacture were inaugurated. Riverhead had its iron foundry. Paper mills were established here and there about the island. Roslyn had one of the very earliest in America. Fulling mills to process the wool which came from Long Island sheep were common in both Queens and Suffolk Counties. Numerous other small plants produced a varied assortment of articles and wares for both domestic consumption and export. Planing and moulding mills which specialized in various items of wooden ware were located from one end of the island to the other.
At the same time agriculture experienced a tremendous expan- sion. The leading crops were for many years Indian corn, oats and wheat in that order. Rye and buckwheat were grown in lesser quan- tities as also were potatoes. In 1840 potatoes to the extent of 480,162 bushels were raised on the island, according to United States census figures which showed Queens County leading with 214,121 bushels, Suffolk 170,236 and Kings 95,805.
Other statistics for this year, taken from the same source, show that Kings County had by then surpassed the other counties in popu- lation, the figures being: Kings 47,613, Suffolk 32,469 and Queens 30,324, giving the island a total population of 110,406. Suffolk, how-
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ever, had 7959 farmers, Queens had 6138 and Kings but 3324. In manufactures and trades Kings led with 6160 as against 1612 for Queens and 1127 for Suffolk. Here are some other figures for the same year :
Suffolk
Queens
King's
Total
Horses and mules
5,473
6,517
3,019
15,009
Neat cattle
22,236
14,181
5,978
42,395
Sheep
46,751
26,477
48
73,326
Swine
20,534
21,518
8,360
50,412
Wheat, bushels
105,778
97,741
24,964
228,483
Oats, bushels
258,218
348,447
72,460
679,125
Rye, bushels
79,023
105,399
8,537
192,959
Buckwheat, bushels ..
42,707
64,027
3,933
110,667
Indian Corn, bushels. 355,314
336,401
81,824
773,549
Wool, pounds
84,008
43,200
150
127,358
Potatoes, bushels
170,236
214,121
95,805
480,162
Hay, tons
42,891
31,437
5,437
79,765
Wood, cords sold
66,023
9,787
75,810
Five years later, in 1845, the population of Suffolk County had increased to 34,579 which was still in excess of Queens' population which stood at 31,849, but that of Kings had jumped to 78,691, giving the island a total population of 144,119 which by 1880 had increased to 743,957 divided as follows: Kings 509,495, Queens 90,574, and Suf- folk 53,888. The census of 1890 for the first time placed the island's population at more than a million, the figure being 1,029,097, of which Kings now had 838,547, Queens 128,059, and Suffolk 62,491.
An important industry on Long Island during most of the nine- teenth century was that of cutting and shipping cordwood. Thousands of residents of the island, especially in Suffolk County, found part- time employment cutting firewood for New York and other markets. Farmers' teams and wagons were kept busy for several months each winter carting cordwood to landings along the Sound shore. A large fleet of coastwise sloops and schooners were engaged during part of each year transporting the cordwood from these landings to New York and other points where it was used as fuel. The brickyards up the Hudson River used great quantities of this wood for baking bricks. For the year 1840, as shown in the above table, Suffolk County alone sold 66,023 cords.
Long Island's cordwood industry had its beginning in the very earliest colonial days. It grew in importance with the growth of New York and was still a thriving industry during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Over a period of more than two hundred years it provided employment for a considerable part of the island's male population. It was by no means confined to any one section of the island. Farmers and boat-owners along the south shore shared in the business.
Another industry which came naturally to Long Island and which reached a new high point during the past century was commercial fishing. Excepting neither cordwood nor whales, salt-water fish have
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THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
brought greater financial returns to Long Island over a longer period than any other natural product. Unlike the cordwood and whaling industries, commercial fishing, including that of shellfish, has con- tinued to increase in importance to the present and today represents an investment running into millions of dollars.
Like this industry, agriculture which had an equally early begin- ning on the island, has continued to increase and to thrive to the present day and in Suffolk County as well as in parts of Nassau it is still among the most important industries. It has gradually how- ever become more specialized, the island's two leading crops now being the famous Long Island potato and cauliflower. In other chapters these industries are dealt with in greater detail.
But it was not alone in population and industry that Long Island showed marked advances during the nineteenth century. As American culture began to grow from long dormant roots, Long Island made its contribution in native-born scholars, poets and artists. East Hampton in 1784 gave the State its first academy. This was Clinton Academy, named for the State's first governor. Erasmus Hall Academy in Brooklyn was established three years later and at Jamaica in 1790 was founded Union Hall Academy which, however, survived only a few years. Oyster Bay established an academy in 1802, while Huntington did so a short time later. It is noteworthy that a number of these institutions were being successfully operated on the island before the State created common school districts in 1813.
Long Island's first newspaper, the Long Island Herald, was founded at Sag Harbor by David Frothingham in 1791. That same year marked the birth of John Howard Payne, whose childhood home which inspired his writing "Home, Sweet Home" still stands at East Hampton. Payne's father was a teacher at Clinton Academy. Here at East Hampton a boarding school for young ladies was operated by the wife of Rev. Lyman Beecher, pastor of the Presbyterian Church. The Beechers were the parents of Harriet Beecher Stowe who was to become famous as the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and of Henry Ward Beecher who became one of America's leading clergymen. Contemporary with the Beechers' residence at East Hamp- ton, Nathaniel Dominy was there making clocks which are today con- sidered among the finest of that period.
At Huntington in 1795 was born John Bloodfield Jervis who was to build the Erie Canal and the first railroad bridge in America. The same year at South Haven was born William Edward Woodruff who was to become one of the Middle West's pioneer journalists and founder of The Arkansas Gazette. In 1819 at West Hills, south of Huntington, Walt Whitman first saw the light of day in his parents' farmhouse which is still standing. As he grew up, a few miles to the east at Setauket the Mount brothers, Shepard and William, per- haps unbeknown to the future world poet of West Hills, were already painting landscapes near their north shore birthplace. Their uncle, Micah Hawkins, who kept a store at Setauket, wrote America's first opera, The Saw Mill, which was produced at Wallack's Chatham Square Theatre in New York in 1824. Across the Sound at Litch-
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
field, Connecticut, Tapping Reeve, a native of South Haven, Long Island, was teaching law at America's first law school which he had founded in 1784. Reeve also served as chief justice of the State of Connecticut.
The Smithtown Public Library was founded in 1828 and here, a few years later, was established a debating society of which Walt Whitman, then teaching school at Smithtown, was secretary. After leaving Smithtown Whitman founded The Long Islander in his native town of Huntington. At this time William Cobbett, famous English author, who wrote under the name of Peter Porcupine, was living in the former Governor Dongan homestead at what is now New Hyde Park in Nassau County. In 1825 Long Island's first magazine, The Journal of Philosophy, was founded at Huntington. On April 19, 1831, Mary Louise Bootlı, daughter of the village miller, was born at Yaphank. She was to become the first editor of Harper's Bazaar in 1867 but before that her fame as a writer and scholar was to be world wide.
The period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War was one of high attainment in many fields for Long Islanders, native born as well as those who had chosen the island as their home. William Cullen Bryant purchased an estate at Roslyn in 1844, named it Cedar- mere and here wrote many of his most famous poems. James Feni- more Cooper became a resident of Sag Harbor, invested in whaling and here wrote several of his famous adventure stories. Margaret Fuller, among America's leading writers of her day, was a frequent visitor at the Bryant home in Roslyn. She, her husband and child lost their lives at Fire Island in 1850 when the ship on which they were returning from Europe was wrecked.
The history of Long Island during most of the nineteenth century is to a great extent the story of ships and sailors. There is no record of a single clipper ship ever having been built here, due mainly to lack of deep-water harbors and to a scarcity of timber trees which had once been common to the area. But the island won fame for its schooners, barks, barkentines, brigs, brigantines, sloops and cat- boats. Roslyn became renowned for producing a racing craft known as the Roslyn yawl. In smaller designs was the famous Seaford skiff, built at Seaford on the south shore of Nassau County.
During the California Gold Rush, many a Long Island ship, built for whaling, was used to transport prospectors around Cape Horn or to the Isthmus of Panama where its passengers traveled overland to the Pacific and up the west coast to San Francisco. More than one ship which rounded the Horn to finally reach 'Frisco Bay was there abandoned to rot away. Thus Long Island timber gradually blended with the soil of the western seaport just as many Long Islanders themselves joined with the people of other states to take root and help create the white population of California. Today many old Long Island family names are found among the people of that State.
The island has been associated with yacht racing from the earliest years. When the New York Yacht Club, the oldest surviving such
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THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
institution in America, was organized in 1844, Long Islanders were among the charter members. Although from the start this club used the Long Island Sound for its squadron runs and regattas, some of its members, going in for smaller craft such as sloops and catboats, established racing quarters on Great South and other bays which indent the island's shores. Islip became the center of small boat racing for the south shore. Greenport was the capital for similar racing on Peconic Bay. While north shore boat builders continued to launch larger craft, on Great South Bay from Babylon to Bellport small shipyards began turning out light draught sailboats suitable for the shallow waters of the bays.
An entry in the diary of Daniel M. Tredwell of Hempstead for Saturday, July 7, 1840, reads: "The Fourth of July was uneventful. Went to White Hill to see boat race between Dr. Richard Udall's yacht of Babylon and Tom Raynor's sloop. They sailed from White Hill to. Fire Island Inlet. Raynor was the winner.". It is possible that Raynor's sloop was a product of "Uncle" Daniel Smith's Free- port yard which was then turning out speedy single-stickers. That Smith's boats were durable as well as fast is a matter of record for in 1840 he launched the sea-going sloop Plough Boy of which Tredwell wrote in 1904: "The old Plough Boy is still doing service as an oyster boat."
Some of the New York Yacht Club's earliest racing vessels were produced at Long Island shipyards, including the speedy single-sticker Irene, built for Colonial John D. Johnson of Islip by W. J. Rowland at Port Jefferson. Near this yard had been established in 1837 the sail-loft of R. H. Wilson whose sails were destined to become famous and were to be used by more than one American defender in the international yacht races. The first of these racers to participate in the international matches, the America, used Wilson's sails.
The America itself was the product of a Long Island ship designer, George Steers of Williamsburgh, in what is now Brooklyn. She was built, however, across the East River on lower Manhattan Island where it was more convenient for her owners, a group of New York businessmen, to watch her take form. The America, a ninety-five foot two-masted schooner, was fashioned after the sea- worthy, speedy pilot-boats which Steers had specialized in. Wilson's sails were revolutionary in their shape and size. Incidentally, the patterns for the America's sails are still sacredly preserved on the wallboards of Wilson's little shop at Port Jefferson.
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