USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 29
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 29
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Shortly thereafter the Court of Appeals sustained the Pauchogue Land Corporation and held that the first taking of the Taylor estate was invalid for lack of actually available funds but indicated that a reappropriation of the property when moneys were in hand would
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cure all defects. In the meantime an action to eject the Commission from the property was started and on the same day that the Court of Appeals handed down the above decision, Judge Selah B. Strong called the new action to trial at Riverhead although counsel for the Commission was busy at the time in another court. The President of the Commission was present to testify but the Commission could not go on with the trial in the absence of counsel and default judg- ments were entered against Robert Moses, President of the Park Commission, Judge Townsend Scudder and Clifford L. Jackson, the other Commissioners, individually for $22,000. The county sheriff acting on the judgment served papers on employees of the Commission who were on the property ordering them to vacate. The judgment was later stayed and on appeal was reversed by the Appellate Courts.
The taking of the property by appropriation for the second time with Mr. Heckscher's gift gave new impetus to the battle. The main trial, marked by intense interest and bitter feeling, was heard by Judge James Dunne at Riverhead. It lasted for three weeks and was made notable by the appearance as witnesses of such public figures as Governor Smith, August Heckscher, Commissioner Moses, Judge Scudder, Mr. Macy and others. Judge Dunne held that the State had good title to the property by reason of the second appropriation made after the receipt of the gift from August Heckscher and a jury awarded the Pauchogue Land Corporation the sum of six cents as damages suffered for the period between the first and second appropriation.
The land corporation contended that the award was insufficient and that both the Heckscher gift and the second appropriation of the property were invalid. On appeal, however, the judgment was affirmed in the Appellate Division and finally in the Court of Appeals on July 9, 1928.
A writ of error was immediately sought by the land corporation. This was denied by Chief Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo of the New York State Court of Appeals on September 1, 1928. An attempt was then made to bring the case to the Supreme Court of the United States on constitutional grounds. On January 21, 1929, this court handed down a decision in favor of the park commission and denied the application for a writ of certiorari made by the corporation.
The State Court of Claims then determined the amount which the state had to pay. Although the Pauchogue Land Corporation paid only $250,000 for the property in 1924, it alleged that the $262,000 contributed by Mr. Heckscher was grossly inadequate. In this new action it was claimed that the property in 1925 was worth $1,468.000. The Court of Claims made an award of $275,000, substantially agree- ing with contentions of the park commission.
During the years these legal fireworks were taking place and the consequent indecisive status of the new park, the Park Commission acquired Belmont Lake State Park and established its administration headquarters there with funds finally made available by the Legis- lature in 1926. These funds, incidentally, were appropriated as author- ized by the earlier Park Bond issue referendum and in the exact
Ceremonies held on June 2, 1929
Commissioner Robert Moses speaking from the porch of the Taylor Mansion at the Dedication
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manner that had been originally recommended by Governor Smith to the regular and special sessions of the 1925 legislature.
Formidable opposition was thus defeated but the battle had been a real one which had been closely followed by the press. Ever since his role in the Heckscher case, Mr. Macy showed generous coopera- tion and interest in plans for furthering the state park program on Long Island and especially the extension of the parkway system in Suffolk County.
On June 2, 1929, with the controversy over the acquisition of the Taylor estate closed, the name of the park was changed from Deer
The Taylor Mansion as it appeared prior to demolition in 1933
Range State Park to Heckscher State Park at appropriate ceremonies attended by August Heckscher, Lt .- Governor Herbert H. Lehman, ex-Governor Smith and other state and local officials.
The speeches made on this occasion were delivered from the front porch of George C. Taylor's mansion to an assembled crowd of several thousand people.
In 1933 the old mansion was demolished. No longer needed as an administration office, its huge rooms with wood carvings, gas light chandeliers and statues were found useless for park purposes and too costly to maintain. On its site is a large boulder with a bronze plaque reading :
HECKSCHER STATE PARK A GIFT FROM AUGUST HECKSCHER TO THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Many other changes have been made since the estate was last used by George Taylor. The bicycle house where his young daughter first met her bicycle instructor was moved to the bay front and has
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been used for the past fifteen years as a refreshment stand at the west beach area. Likewise the present bathhouse at this area which will soon be replaced by a modern building was originally a boat house on the canal. A new modern bathhouse was constructed in 1931 at the east beach area with accommodations for 1700 bathers. The log cabin used for liquor storage and "nights out" by old George remains in the park. His main carriage barn has been converted into a recreation hall for outing picnic groups. The pony barns at the pony ring were part of the original pig pen. The old dairy barns are
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Airview of the East Beach area at Heckscher State Park showing modern bathhouse and game area adjacent to parking field
now used as a garage and machine shop. The Taylor stables still house horses which may be hired for riding on extensive bridle paths throughout the park.
The elk are gone but many of the 325,000 persons who visit the park each year to enjoy bathing, picnicking, riding, hiking, or games have seen quail, pheasants, ducks, some of the herd of 200 wild deer and other game that live a sheltered life within this 1500 acre park.
August Heckscher died on April 26, 1941, at the age of 92. In the words of former Governor Smith "Heckscher State Park will remain as a monument to his public spirit and generosity as long as the State endures."
Upon Mr. Heckscher's death the Long Island State Park Com- mission consisting of Robert Moses, Clifford L. Jackson and Herbert Bayard Swope, adopted the following resolution :
WHEREAS, August Heckscher courageously intervened in a suit against the State by selfish private interests and by a
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generous and timely gift of $262,000 made possible the estab- lishment of Heckscher State Park at East Islip, Long Island, and
WHEREAS, August Heckscher's death on April 26, 1941 terminated a long career distinguished by this and many other beneficences and countless evidences of public spirit,
Now, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Long Island State Park Commission hereby expresses to Mrs. Heckscher its profound sympathy and renews its assurance of the lasting gratitude of the People of the State of New York for August Heckscher's contributions to their welfare.
In 1936 the Commission accepted on behalf of the State of New York a deed of gift of approximately 200 acres of property near the northeasterly boundary of Heckscher State Park to be used as an arboretum or park for the culture of trees and shrubs. This gift was made by Mrs. Bayard James in memory of her father, W. Bayard Cutting, and the property is to be called the "Bayard Cutting Arbore- tum". Two years later Mrs. James donated an additional 382 acres so that the entire area now consists of 582 acres. As expressed in the deeds the purposes are to provide an oasis of beauty and of quiet for the pleasure, rest and refreshment of those who delight in out- door beanty, and to bring about a greater appreciation and under- standing of the value and importance of informal planting.
The State has not as yet taken actual possession. Mrs. James and her mother, Mrs. Cutting, still reside on the property and Mrs. James has reserved the full use and benefit of the property so long as she or her mother is living. Local property taxes continue to be paid until the State takes possession.
In connection with the gift of the property and in order to pro- vide for its minimum maintenance requirements, Mrs. Cutting has established a trust fund with Bank of New York and Trust Company as financial trustee. After the State takes possession of the prop- erty, the income from this fund will be controlled by a Board of Trustees, and will be paid to the State so long as the property is administered for the purposes set forth in the deed. The Trustees are the Hon. Lady Lindsay (American born wife of a former British Ambassador to the United States) ; Gilmore D. Clark, Consulting Landscape Architect for various park commissions and other agen- cies; Henry V. Hubbard of the firm of Olmsted Brothers of Boston, and also President, American Society Landscape Architects; Barklie Henry and Grenville Clark of New York. They are to select their own successors.
The property is part of the country estate called "Westbrook". the development of which was started by W. Bayard Cutting in 1887, with the assistance of the late Frederick Law Olmsted. Mr. Cutting was deeply interested in preserving and developing the natural beauty of the place and also in bringing to this country fine specimens of coniferous evergreens from all parts of the world. Today this prop- erty is not only beautiful but of great interest to all students of
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arboriculture and landscape design. Above all it is an outstanding demonstration of what can be done with native landscape and indigenous plants.
The January, 1934, issue of Country Life contained an illustrated article on the pinetum at "Westbrook" in which it was stated that no positive records of the exact size of the trees set out by Mr. Cutting in 1887 is known, but it is believed they were of average nursery size, or about three to five feet tall. The largest specimen now at "West- brook" is a Cilician Fir (Abies Cilicica), which is over seventy-five feet in height. There are many other foreign fir and spruce trees of great size. Some which have found a congenial home at "Westbrook", can only be found elsewhere in Pacific Slope regions. Apart from the collection of evergreens, the educational and artistic value of "West- brook" depends chiefly upon the natural beauty of the landscape and intelligent use and care of native American plants:
After Mr. Cutting's death, Mrs. Cutting and their daughter, Mrs. James, desired to carry on the ideas of Mr. Cutting and to preserve the place as a haven of beauty and for the study of arboriculture. Mrs. James selected the Long Island State Park Commission as the body best able to carry on the ideas of her father, her mother and herself.
This will be one of the few arboretums in this part of the North- eastern States. The Arnold Arboretum, maintained under the super- vision of Harvard University, is the finest in the country. Professor Charles S. Sargent, head of that arboretum for many years, took great interest in "Westbrook" and visited it frequently. The present beauty and scientific interest of the Cutting Estate testify to the foresight, study and knowledge which went into its creation and which have been continuously expended on it for the past fifty years.
The Long Island State Park Commission believes that the preser- vation of the property for these purposes will ultimately be of great benefit to the public. A spur of the Southern State Parkway will run alongside of the Arboretum into Heckscher State Park where seekers of more active recreation can find ample accommodations.
VALLEY STREAM, HEMPSTEAD LAKE AND MASSAPEQUA STATE PARKS
When Commissioner Moses persuaded the City of New York in 1925 to dedicate 2200 acres of city water supply areas in Nassau County for state park and parkway purposes, the most valuable single addition to the Long Island State Park and Parkway System was obtained. These areas furnished the backbone of the Southern State Parkway, the Meadowbrook State Parkway, the Wantagh State Park- way and the Bethpage State Parkway, established Valley Stream, Hempstead Lake and Massapequa State Parks and protected for all time five of the most important fresh water streams in Nassau County.
Prior to the acquisition of these streams, swamp lands and adjacent areas by the old City of Brooklyn in 1874 for the develop- ment of a water supply, they had remained for the most part wild and inaccessible for centuries. Kenneth Roberts in his popular his- torical novel Oliver Wiswell, a story of the Loyalists during the
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Revolutionary War, vividly describes these same areas as impene- trable, mosquito-infested swamps and inland waterways surrounded by dense thickets where hundreds of Loyalists lived in huts made of brush and leaves and hid from the rebels while awaiting a British victory by General Howe. The entrances to the swampland hideouts were watched by unsuspected loyal mill owners and intruders were quickly ambushed. Even organized militiamen under Colonel Bird- sall were unsuccessful in routing the Loyalists from the Hempstead swamps according to the following quotations from the book:
Around three o'clock a sonorous croaking of frogs told us we had reached Demott's Mill Pond; and there we waited in the bushes, fighting mosquitoes, until the east grew pale and the blackbirds in the brush along the pond, coming to life with weak chirpings, clambered clumsily up and down the marsh grass as if stricken with rheumatic pains.
Approaching us through a haze of dust that overhung the road was a long column of men-a slovenly column that marched irregularly and out of step, so that it had the look of a gigantic centipede whose feet hurt.
I lowered myself against the wall of the mill in a sunny spot and spread the blanket over my legs.
The column drew closer and closer, and from it rose a sound of babbling, a kind of chattering such as might come from a cage of animals. At the head of the column, on a sway-backed cart horse with shaggy fetlocks and droopy head, rode a paunchy, red-faced man. He had an upturned nose and little eyes that peered out from between fat lids, and looked surprisingly like a pig on horseback.
At a bellowed order from this porcine leader, the long line of men halted and shuffled their feet in the dusty road. There may have been five hundred of them, and they were as scurvy- looking as those citizen soldiers who had stared surlily at my father and me on the night we were driven out of Milton. For the most part they were pockmarked; their hair hung lankily from under sweat-stained hats; many were stocking- less; and their coats were patched and foul. Even from where I lay I could hear them cursing purposelessly.
As the pig-eyed leader rode into the mill yard, Demott appeared in the doorway. He seemed pleased at the sight of the paunchy rider, and greeted him heartily as Colonel Bird- sall. "What brings you here at this time of day, Colonel?" he asked.
"You know damned well," Birdsall said. His voice had a squealing resonance something like that of a sow impatiently crying out for food. "I'm after the damned Tories hiding in this swamp; and I think you know a good way in, Demott !"
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Demott was indignant. "I'm a law-abiding citizen, Colonel ! You've never had trouble with me, and you never will! It'd be as much as my life is worth to do anything for a Tory. No, Colonel, I'm hiding no Tories!"
Birdsall yelped contemptuously. "Pah! You can't live on the edge of this swamp and not know what goes on in it! Do you deny there's Loyalists hiding in here?"
From a distance we watched Birdsall send flanking parties of militiamen around the swamp; faintly heard his bellowing voice ordering other parties to go straight in.
"Dead or alive!" we heard him shouting. "Drive 'em out dead or alive! * Dead or alive!"
All through the morning and the early afternoon we heard far-off shouts and shots-single detonations; ripples of musketry fire; then long silences, during which I pictured sullen, sunken-cheeked militiamen prowling from bush to bush in that dark and watery swamp, to stalk fellow countrymen as they'd have stalked wild animals.
Toward sundown they came out again, hallooing and cursing, splashed with mud and scratched with brambles from head to foot. They had, they told Demott exultantly, killed one and taken three prisoners. The hunted Loyalists, they said, had run from them like water rats; but how many there were, or why the rest had escaped, they were unable to say.
Before that night was over we found out for ourselves.
Demott's Mill was located on a mill pond now covered by the Hempstead storage reservoir in Hempstead Lake State Park. Two other mills, known as Oliver's Mill and Nichols' Mill, where later located on other ponds established by permits granted by the Town Council of Hempstead. The Hempstead storage reservoir was designed to hold one billion gallons of water but due to the fact that excavation work was never completed, leaving an island in the north- erly section, this capacity was reduced to 880 million gallons. It is. however, the second largest body of fresh water on Long Island. At the present time all of the water stored in the reservoir comes from springs. The flow from Horse Brook, which comes through the Village of Hempstead, is all by-passed around the settling basin in a 36-inch main to Mill River.
The water supply area at Valley Stream was also a wild and swampy area but much narrower and more accessible. Because of this it was the first of these streams to lose its original character by the encroachment of built-up areas. The Massapequa water shed also served the Loyalist cause. "From Demott's we bore off to the east- ward, through the great plains to Massapequa, where other hundreds of Loyalists were congregated in the tortuous waterways that empty into Massapequa Creek," continues the story of Oliver Wiswell.
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After the dedications of these water supply areas the Park Com- mission immediately started improvements for park and parkway purposes. At Valley Stream the City discontinued the use of the area for water supply purposes except in emergency. A bathhouse was constructed, the lake cleaned out and clean white sand imported. A system of perforated pipelines was laid in the lake bottom through which a solution of chlorine is pumped to keep the water pure during intensive usage. The purity of the water was further protected by the acquisition of additional lands along the streams several miles north of the lake. In clearing out the stream, automobile tires, bed springs, tin cans and all kinds of other discarded odds and ends were removed. Along the stream, foot paths were provided connecting the south area of the park with the north picnic area on the Southern State Parkway. From 1926 to 1948 the lake in the southerly portion of Valley Stream State Park was operated as a fresh water bathing area equipped with diving platforms and water slides. During this period park attendance was nearly 600,000 each year, making it one of the most intensively used park areas on Long Island.
When plans were first announced for the use of the Valley Stream Reservoir for swimming, local officials were somewhat alarmed over the prospects of bathers overrunning the village in bathing suits and committing nuisances. The lake soon became popular as a con- venient swimming area for local residents and on December 29, 1927, the Village Board of Valley Stream unanimously adopted the follow- ing resolution :
RESOLVED, that we express our great appreciation of the work done by the Long Island State Park Commission throughout Long Island, in the development of areas of great natural beauty, to which the population of the Empire State and our visitors may at all times profitably repair for recrea- tion and rest, and
THAT WE especially and most heartily commend the vision of the Honorable Alfred E. Smith, Governor of New York State and his untiring application to the great responsi- bilities of such a splendid and beneficial measure, conducive to the better health and greater enjoyment of the citizens of this State, and
THAT WE thank the members of the Long Island State Park Commission, the Honorable Robert Moses, President of this body, and Mr. Arthur E. Howland, Chief Engineer, for their immediate development of the reservation owned by the State in this Village, and known as the Valley Stream State Park, and
THAT WE record this assurance to them of our apprecia- tion and support, and
THAT IT Is our conviction that we speak for Valley Stream, and that the future years will unquestionably prove that all engaged in the work of providing these recreational areas have done wisely and well.
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In recent years Valley Stream Lake became so heavily used that the bathing area was closed when the attendance reached 12,000 persons. Water conditions were constantly watched. The encroach- ing population of the area around the lake and streams feeding into it and extremely heavy usage have made it impossible to maintain satisfactory conditions. Starting with the 1948 season swimming was permanently discontinued and the. lake used for boating, fishing and skating.
The dedication of the Long Island water supply areas was in the form of a permanent surface easement for state park and parkway purposes. The City of New York reserved the right to continue to pump water where and when needed for city water supply purposes and required that the used water areas be protected. The city con- tinues to pay local taxes on these areas. The main lake, settling basin and ponds to the south in Hempstead Lake State Park are still used for city water supply purposes and cannot be used for active recrea- tion. The surrounding upland in this 903 acre park is, however, extensively used. Hempstead Lake State Park contains four picnic areas, model yacht basin, five miles of bridle paths around the lake, seventeen tennis courts, five playgrounds, archery range, baseball field, softball field, and incidental game facilities such as paddle tennis and horseshoe-pitching courts. In the main picnic area is located the only mechanical amusement device to be found in any of the state parks on Long Island, a children's carousel which was a gift of August Heckscher.
The Southern State Parkway passes through the park in a loop around the south end of the lake across the reservoir dam and north- erly along the easterly shore. The construction of a causeway was started in December, 1945, across the north end of the lake to furnish a direct and shorter parkway route and to eliminate dangerous curves on the original route across the dam. The new cutoff follows the route of old Eagle Avenue as it existed prior to 1874 when the area was cleaned out for the reservoir.
The stream areas along the Meadow Brook, east of Freeport and along Jackson's Creek at Wantagh have been developed for the Meadowbrook and Wantagh State Parkways. Massapequa State Park consisting of 595 acres is undeveloped except for a bridle path and lawn bowling green. Part of this area is also used for the right of way of the Southern State Parkway and Bethpage State Parkway.
ORIENT BEACH STATE PARK
As early as 1640 the settlers of the Town of Southold on the northerly fluke of eastern Long Island obtained grants of lands from the Corchaug Indians which were later confirmed by Royal Patent from the English Crown. In subsequent town meetings certain of these lands were allotted to the residents of various sections. One of these allotments of land, known as Long Beach at Orient Point, went to the inhabitants of the Parish of Oyster Ponds which is now the unincorporated Village of Orient. In 1774, the then residents of this district claiming to be all the owners of these lands entered into a
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written agreement providing that Long Beach should be forever reserved for common use, protection and improvement according to the judgment of the majority of such local property owners. In 1807 a law was enacted by the State Legislature authorizing the male inhabitants of Orient, being taxpayers qualified to vote at town meet- ings, to elect trustees of their common lands. This law applied to Long Beach, a narrow peninsula of land connected to the mainland near Orient Point and running westerly into Gardiner's Bay. It consisted of 342 acres of land with 45,000 feet of bay frontage.
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