USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 15
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 15
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The Inner Mission, it may be said, is also an active institution among other Lutherans particularly the Germans. Emphasis was given to the protection of immigrants from swindles and persecution. Around eight immigrant houses were organized during the latter half of the 19th Century in the Greater New York area.
For the few Danes of Brooklyn there is a church on 9th Street. The Finns have two churches. One on 44th Street in Brooklyn was founded in 1890 and is a member of the Finnish Suomi Synod. The other on 42nd Street is called the Finnish Apostolic Church and has connection with that synod.
The turn of the century was full of promise for the Lutheran Church in America and the New York-Long Island area shared in the general advance. For one thing there was a movement toward closer unity and fellowship among the fragmentary branches of the church. In 1918, the General Council, General Synod and General Synod of the South united as the United Lutheran Churches of America. This group of which the New York Ministerium was a part is the largest Lutheran body. A further step toward unity came in 1930 when the Buffalo Synod already alluded to united with the Iowa and Ohio Synods to form the American Lutheran Church. This organization has four churches on Long Island: St. Paul's at Port Jefferson Station, St. John's-By-The-Sea at Long Beach, Church of the Incarnation at Cedarhurst and the Oceanside Church at Oceanside. Other less closely organized groups like the Synodical Conference and the National Lutheran Council provide a basis of cooperation among the more independent synods like Missouri and Augustana.
The twentieth century also saw the rapid advance of Lutheranism in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. St. Peter's Church at Huntington Station was founded as a mission in 1908 to serve the many Scandi- navian and German settlers in and around Huntington. One of its most able pastors, Rev. Paul Palmeyer, was instrumental in the building up of a fine Lutheran church, St. Paul's, in East Northport, which was organized in 1914 by a group of local Lutherans who met in the fire station until their church was built.
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In 1918, a small church, Our Redeemer, was founded at River- head, the county seat of Suffolk. Along the south shore of Suffolk County is the Christ Church of Islip Terrace which was founded in 1915. It is a member of the United Lutheran Church. At Bay Shore is St. Luke's which was founded in 1925. At Amityville is St. Paul's Church which was founded by a mission of the Missouri Synod in 1930. The congregation met in the Bank Building on the corner of Broadway and Green Avenue until the church was built. Islip is such an extensive field that Grace Church in Central Islip had to be built in 1943 to care for the overflow from Trinity Church of Islip. Both are of the Missouri Synod.
The growth of Lutheranism in Nassau County since 1900 has been amazingly rapid. During the early 1900s the United Church spread its influence in the founding of the Freeport church in 1909, St. Stephen's at Hicksville in 1910, St. Luke's at Farmingdale in 1911 and St. John's of Lynbrook in 1912. During the period immediately after the first World War others appeared like the church at Frank- lin Square in 1923, First Lutheran Church at Babylon in 1924, Christ's Church in Wantagh in 1926 and St. John's of Bellmore in 1928. More recent are such churches as the North Valley Stream Church of the Atonement which was founded in 1943.
Most of the Nassau County Lutheran churches of the Missouri Synod date from the period following the First World War. The Church of Our Saviour at Port Washington, for example, was organ- ized by a mission in 1920 and met first in a barrack moved over from Camp Mills. The church at Glen Cove was founded in the same year by a group of Swedish families who had moved to Glen Cove from New York. Services for them were conducted at first in Swedish. The church at Seaford was founded ten years later as a mission, there being a considerable number of Lutheran fishermen in the neighborhood. The most recent area of Lutheran advance has been New Hyde Park where a congregation was organized in 1942. It was founded to serve the spiritual needs of Lutherans settling in the newly converted housing area.
We have mentioned only some of the Lutheran churches which have been organized in eastern Long Island since the time of the First World War Enough have been mentioned, however, to give an indication of the extent to which Lutheranism has become a part of the Long Island scene. Both of the large branches of the Lutheran Church and the smaller synods too have shown amazing gains in the past two decades.
It is interesting to note that most of the churches of the Missouri Synod are to be found along the north shore and in the north cen- tral part of the island. As a matter of fact most of them follow the Long Island Rail Road in a roughly continuous line between Hicksville. and Riverhead. They are to be found in the neighborhood of the rich farming land of the northern part of the island. Most of their parishioners are farmers who till the soil and plant potatoes. They are of Swedish, Danish and Finnish descent as well as German for no longer can the Missouri Synod be considered German.
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The religion of these people is orthodox. They adhere strictly to the fundamental principles of the Christian Religion as expressed in the Augsburg Confession and as interpreted by Luther. They are particularly concerned with the religious education of their children and maintain a parochial school at Mineola to contribute to that end. Their churches have the usual activities-ladies' aid societies, men's Bible classes, and young people's fellowships. Services are well attended and have a beautiful liturgy which reminds one of Episcopal worship.
The United Lutheran Church is larger. It has some ninety-four churches on Long Island including Queens and Brooklyn. In 1929, a Long Island Conference was organized and the Lutheran churches of the United Church are members of it. In general, the churches of this synod are concentrated along the south shore in the more or less urbanized resort towns there. Their congregations are also mixed, being of Scandinavian and German parishioners alike.
There is little difference any more between the churches of the Missouri Synod and those of the United Lutheran Church. Both agree on the same basic principles in theology and differ only in intensification. In polity all Lutheran churches are for most prac- tical purposes congregational. Many congregations whose pastors are of the Missouri Synod are not even aware of the fact. In the United Lutheran Church the relationship between congregation and synod is a little more close. Lutheran pastors have complete freedom of the pulpit and their characteristic preference for conservative doctrine is entirely their own choice. The pastor is ordained by the synod but his being received in the church and his tenure there is a matter between himself and the congregation.
Lutherans may feel justly proud of their denomination's progress on Long Island. Considering the relatively short time it has been in existence on Long Island, its advance has been amazing. The progress of one hundred years-from the founding of St. John's on Schermer- horn Street in 1844 until the present when there are over one hun- dred churches on Long Island-has been remarkable to say the least. There is now scarcely a town on Long Island but which has a Lu- theran Church. The progressive decentralization of New York City with the accompanying spread of urban residential districts further and further east on Long Island is opening new fields of advance for the Lutheran Church. Its future indeed looks promising.
CHAPTER XXVII The Flora of Long Island* GEORGE H. PETERS
ORIGIN AND RELATION TO GEOLOGICAL HISTORY
F ORTY thousand years or so ago, a great mass of ice, in places thousands of feet thick, lay along the north shore of Long Island from the Brooklyn Narrows to Orient Point. This was the Great Ice Sheet of the Wisconsin Glacial Age which had reached its south- erly limit where the warm air currents from the sea gnawed off the face of the ice front as fast as the glacier moved down from the north. Year after year the struggle between the forces of cold and warmth continued along this line. And as on any battlefield, it was a scene of intense desolation and chaos. Great towering icefalls, deep cre- vasses, subglacial rivers, huge detached masses of intermingled ice, boulders and rock debris, and tremendous torrents of ice water laden with gravel and sand twisting erratically across the changing land surface toward the sea-all set the stage for this wild play. As here and there a gravel island reared itself above the swirling glacial streams, the first plant pioneers undoubtedly established themselves, only after years of apparent success perhaps to be swept away again in some new cataclysmic interplay of nature's struggling forces. But as the ice gradually receded, the ever prolific plant legions still cover- ing the unglaciated lands to the south and each year broadcasting their seeds via bird, animal, wind and ocean currents, succeeded in settling their first permanent plant colony on Long Island's shores. Perhaps it was a grass, or a willow or some other bit of Arctic flora that came in as forerunner of our modern flora, but it is certain that as soon as the outwash plains of the south shore became partly stabilized. the plant invaders took over and followed the retreating glaciers step by step.
During the ages that followed the recession of this Pleistocene Ice Sheet from Long Island, the climate has changed from Arctic to temperate which in turn has caused a succession of the initial northern plants by encroaching southern species. This process has by no means been uninterrupted in this post-glacial age because there have been intermediate warmer and colder periods during which conditions varied considerably for the perpetuation and extension of certain plants. However, the general trend was a progressive movement of plant societies from south to north. The sparse vegetation of the bleak Arctic tundra gave way to the mossy fir and spruce forests which were subsequently crowded out by the more aggressive hardwood species following on their heels. This transformation of plant types due to chmatological changes was quite general throughout Long
* An outline of its origin, composition and relation to human progress.
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Island because of its generally flat topography, uniformity of eleva- tion and even climate. However, because of slight variations in sur- face exposure, soil fertility and moisture, conditions favorable for the survival of individual plants or colonies of northern species occur occasionally.
Interesting records of apparent relict or "left over" northern plants on Long Island are the occurrence of the twin flower (Linnaea borealis var. americana) at Babylon in 1871, the existence up to recent years of a patch of northern crowberry (Empetrum migrum) at Mon- tauk and in the same vicinity the only record of native red spruce on Long Island. 'These northern plants have apparently disappeared from Long Island but recent botanical collections still bring to light similar lingering rear-guards of the one-time widespread boreal flora, as witnessed by records of specimens of the northern white bog orchid (Habenaria dilatata) at such widely separated stations as Montauk and Smithtown, and the recent discovery of an "island" of northern species at Wyandanch, including such unusual items as the paper birch (Betula papyrifera), Goldie's fern (Dryopteris goldiana) and round-leaved orchid (Habenaria orbiculata).
Likewise, instances of isolated specimens or rare colonies of typically southern plants seem to indicate that they are outposts of those plant species whose northward advance has barely reached this region. Random examples of such plants are the crested yellow orchid (Habenaria cristata) ranging from New Jersey to Florida but well established at Montauk; shrubby St. John's wort (Hypericum densiflorum) found in the pine barrens of New Jersey and southward but colonized extensively at Massapequa; fly poison (Amianthium muscaetoxicum), a liliaceous plant which reaches its farthest north- easterly limit in the low woods of Valley Stream; also a number of other southern species that were originally found in western Long Island but have been since exterminated, such as the willow oak (Quercus phellos), the silky leather-flower (Clematis ochroleuca) and great rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum).
Another post-glacial factor in determining the extent and com- position of the present day flora of Long Island in addition to that of climatological change was that of land elevation and subsidence. The past history and present tendency of such earth movements are a matter of geological question, but it appears evident that in the post- glacial period the shore line of the North Atlantic coast extended considerably east of its present location and that a "land bridge" existed along the shore between New England and New Jersey. The similarity of the pine barrens of Nova Scotia, Cape Cod, Long Island and New Jersey, points to some prehistoric continuous link which has been interrupted and whose component parts have been isolated by the subsidence of the coast.
PLANT LIFE ZONES
At the dawn of the modern period when the land surface of Long Island had become stabilized in approximately its present form, we find that the vegetative cover, broadly speaking, had adjusted itself
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to a mild climate, typified by no great extremes in either heat or cold. In accordance with Dr. C. Hart Merriam's classification of North American life zones by the laws of temperature control, the climate of Long Island has been considered as being intermediate between the Carolinian (Upper Austral) and the Alleghanian (Transition) Life Zones. The northern limit of the Carolinian Zone is defined as including the area where the "sum of the mean daily temperatures above 43º F. annually reaches a total of 11,500°." By this definition, this area in New York State includes Staten Island, the Hudson Valley north to Saratoga and the principal portion of Long Island. Conse- quently, representative species of the Carolinian Life Zone are found invading Long Island from its western end and extending irregularly eastward towards Montauk Point. Among such typical southern plants are the tulip tree, hackberry, sour gum, sycamore, red gum, persimmon, downy poplar and swamp magnolia.
According to Dr. Merriam, the Alleghanian or Transition Life Zone maintains its southern limit where the isotherm for the six hottest weeks is estimated to be 71.6º F. In western Long Island the average temperature of the hottest six weeks of summer is between 72° and 73.5º F. and in eastern Long Island it varies between 71° and 72.4°. These temperature ranges indicate that the Alleghanian Zone barely reaches eastern Long Island but since the boundaries of these zones must be very elastic, it is to be expected that character- istic Alleghanian Zone plant associations are found locally in cooler situations throughout Long Island. Typical forest trees of this plant zone are the hemlock, beech, gray birch, sugar maple and white pine which are found locally scattered in the mixed stands of the southern chestnut, walnut, oaks and hickories. Thus Long Island, lying almost east and west along a parallel of latitude, forms a connecting bridge between the Carolinian and Alleghanian life zones and so exhibits all the richness and confused mixtures of meeting and overlapping floral and faunal groups.
PLANT DISTRIBUTION AND ECOLOGICAL TYPES
Because of the general uniformity of Long Island's climate and elevation, the distribution of plants is regulated largely by moisture, soil diversity and slope exposure. The two north shore moraines of rolling hills, the flat central sandy outwash plains and the beaches and marshes of the south shore roughly determine the great subdivi- sions of plant types on Long Island. Within these three broad geo- graphical divisions, a number of distinct types may be distinguished by classifying the plant communities in relation to the environment in which they are found. These ecological types are the mixed decid- uous forest, fresh water marsh, salt water marsh, sand dune-beach, prairie, oak brush plains, pine barrens and moor. These eight readily recognizable plant associations can be further subdivided according to local varying conditions, and many intermediate and transition types may be recognized, but those listed dominate the vegetative landscape of Long Island.
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Mixed Deciduous Forest
The mixed deciduous forest type is by far the most important and as indicated by its name, the most diverse ecological group. It was originally found wherever rich, moist soils predominate and was composed of a wide variety of plant species. When the white man first set foot on Long Island, a heavy stand of large trees practically covered all of the western portion of the island and extended far out to the east along the hilly terminal moraine. These were the "Great
(Courtesy of Brooklyn Botanic Garden)
Giant White Oak at Locust Valley Over 17 Feet in Girth, 45 Feet Above Ground
Woods" that drew such excited praise from our first settlers. Daniel Denton writing in 1670 exclaims, "The greatest part of the Island is very full of timber, as oaks white and red, walnut trees, chestnut trees which yield store of mast for swine, also red maples, cedars, sarsifrage [sassafras?], Beach, Holly, Hazel with many more * *
* one may drive for hours through embowered lanes, between thickets of alder and sumach, overhung with chestnut and oak and pine, or through groves gleaming in spring with the white bloom of the dog- wood, glowing in fall with liquidamber and pepperidge, with sassafras, and the yellow light of the smooth shafted tulip tree."
Denton's lyrical description of the original virgin forests of Long Island does not exaggerate the richness of plant variety and mag- nificent growth that characterized these forests. Besides the most common trees mentioned by him, other tree species such as cherry birch, black cherry, mockernut hickory, sycamore, white ash, elm, scarlet
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oak, basswood and mulberry were also found in rich flats or uplands. Beneath this lofty green roof, a wealth of undergrowth flourished. Flowering dogwood, black haw, blue beech, witch hazel, maple-leaved arrow-wood (Viburnum acerifolium), fox grape, woodbine, bitter- sweet and mountain laurel were prominent among those species which formed the second story of low trees, vines and shrubs. On the ground surface, the mixed forest of the uplands supported a large number of flowering plants and ferns which exhibited a very close relationship to the rich forests of the Hudson Valley and Connecticut. In the spring the hills of western Long Island where this forest type reached its maximum development were carpeted with color and luxuriant vege- tation. Splendid beds of white-starred bloodroot, yellow dog-tooth violet, delicate rue anemone, violet wood sorrel, blue-white hepatica, fragrant trailing arbutus, nodding bellworts, violets and many other species of flowers and ferns were common. Today the growing metropolis has nearly obliterated these fine stands and only in obscure corners along the state parkways or on large estates do we find a few lingering remnants of this ancient woodland flora.
The fertile upland flats and gently rolling hills have particularly suffered the encroachment of civilization since these areas were most desirable for cultivation and home construction. On the other hand, the wet woods and swamps along the streams and around the kettle- hole ponds were the last to feel man's transforming hand. In these situations are still found tracts of the primitive woods containing fine specimens of white oak, red gum, tulip tree, swamp maple, beech, sour gum and red oak with a shrub understory of spice bush, sweet pepperbush, swamp white azalea, poison sumach, shadbush ( Amelan- chier oblongifolia), witch hazel, high bush blueberry, winterberry (Ilex verticillata and laevigata) and nanny berry (Viburnum cassin- oides). Protected from strong winds and glaring sun, and always assured of cool wet roots, certain plants cover the swamp forest floor with almost tropical luxuriance. Here reign the piquant skunk cab- bage, the fuzzy-stemmed cinnamon fern, the diminutive wild lily-of- the-valley, the trailing swamp blackberry (Rubus hispidus), the edible Indian cucumber-root (Medeola virginiana), the acrid-rooted Indian turnip, the dainty wood anemone, the five-finger-leaved Virginia creeper, the drab bugle weed (Lycopus uniflorus), various violets, and a vast profusion of ferns, among which are commonly found the royal, sensitive, Massachusetts, New York, marsh, American shield, Virginia chain and lesser chain ferns.
Fresh Water Marsh
The fresh water marsh type is found throughout Long Island in varying extent along lake shores, bordering open streams and in wet depressions. The very flat topography, "kettle holes" and sluggish streams on the island are naturally conducive to forming marshes and bogs. However, the marsh type is not as extensive as might be expected, not only because of the general prevalence of porous sub- soils but also because the marsh frequently takes only temporary possession of wet situations and is later displaced by the climax
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wooded swamp. The marsh has attained its best development where the water courses sloping down from the hills encounter large flat areas along the bays of the south shore. Here, the tendency of incoming tides is to retard the outflow of fresh water and thus create a wide belt of fresh water marsh just above high tide mark.
In the warm sunlight and constant water supply of the fresh water marsh, optimum conditions occur for the profuse growth of grasses, sedges, rushes, ferns and herbaceous plants. Trees are found only as scattered individuals on knolls of higher ground or as advance members of the encroaching forest type. However, a number of shrubs are characteristic of the marsh and in certain localities domi- nate the vegetation. Among these are the arrow-wood, leather leaf, button-ball bush, steeple bush, smooth alder, swamp rose, inkberry (Ilex glabra), sweet gale (Myrica Gale), male berry (Lyonia ligus- trina) and fetter-bush (Leucothoë racemosa). The list of herbaceous marsh plants is a long one, but only a few of the most common and conspicuous ones can be mentioned here; the splendid Turk's cap lily, the slender and larger blue flags, the narrow-leaved and broad- leaved cat-tails, the yellow and white fringed orchids, the narrow- leaved sunflower, the poisonous water hemlock, the purple Joe-Pye weed, the white turtlehead, the vivid cardinal flower, the blue skull- cap, the explosive-fruited touch-me-not, the swamp milkweed, the tall meadow rue and the flamboyant pink marsh mallow. In wet sandy spots and along shore lines, where sphagnum moss flourishes, interest- ing plants found are the fly-catching sundews (Drosera rotundifolia and longifolia), showy meadow beauty, yellow-eyed grass, Calopogon orchid, yellow hedge-hyssop, fragrant ladies tresses (Spiranthes cernua) and the small and large cranberries. In eastern Long Island the large cranberry covers extensive boggy areas forming a distinc- tive and commercially important form of the marsh type.
Before leaving consideration of the fresh marsh vegetation, men- tion must be made of the closely associated aquatic plants. Since Long Island has few lakes and only minor short streams, water plants are confined to only a few species. The white water lily and the yellow cow lily are common, and to a less conspicuous extent, species of pondweed, duckweed, arrow-head, bladderwort, water-milfoil, bur- reed, pipe-wort, water-plantain and water-starwort are of frequent occurrence.
Salt Water Marsh
Five per cent of the land area of Long Island, or approximately 38,000 acres, is occupied by tidal salt marsh located principally in the chain of quiet bays between the barrier beach and the mainland of the south shore. These grassy meadows are only a few feet above mean sea level and are subject to complete inundation during periods of extreme high tide. The resulting salinity of the peaty and mucky soil restricts the vegetative cover to a comparatively few but wide- spread species of plants. The two shrubs which are commonly found along the many channels and ditches that network these marshes are the spicy scented marsh elder (Iva oraria) and the white tasselled
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groundsel tree (Baccharis halimifolia). However, it is the grasses and sedges that form the distinctive vegetation, composed principally of the three species of salt marsh grass (Spartina cynosuroides, patens and stricta), the "black grass" of salt hay fame (Juncus Gerardi), the spike grass (Distichlis spicata) and the salt marsh bulrush (Scirpus robustus). On protected saline mud flats is found a peculiar group of succulent plants with aborted or minute leaves. These include the sea blite, the saltwort and the glassworts, which in the fall turn a gay red and give a touch of color to the otherwise drab inarshes.
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