USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 32
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 32
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Huntington Academy was established in 1793. This was a private institution, not under state supervision, that catered largely to a local
304
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
clientele. Nevertheless, the curriculum was liberal and varied, and many students attended the school in preparation for college. It, too, had a profitable career until about 1857 when it was torn down.
There were many others, not all of which were in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, but taken together reflect the educational trends during the century following the Revolutionary War. The marked interest in secondary schools was here to stay.
Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn had been granted its charter in 1787; Oyster Bay Academy, another private institution, opened in 1802; Christ Church Academy was established in Manhasset in 1818.
Until about 1800, the education of girls was considered unneces- sary beyond the very elementary level. Other feminine talents were to be cultivated in the home under the guidance of one's mother. The Quakers, however, believed that girls should have the same educa- tional opportunities as the boys. In 1799, a boarding school for young ladies was opened by Mrs. Lyman Beecher, the mother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her home at East Hampton. In 1834, a Female Seminary was established in Riverhead. In a slightly different direc- tion, and in an effort to further "elevate the scale of life", the state government in 1831 directed the Superintendent of Common Schools to pay out $80 per year to support a school among the "Shinecoc" Indians for the instruction of their children.
A high point in this period of educational development was reached with the founding of Hempstead Institute in 1857. The insti- tution, only twenty miles from New York, and "accessible several times daily by railroad", cost $12,000 to erect. Furnished with modern furniture and equipment, it afforded a pleasant home for its students, probably both boys and girls. Reverend J. Walker Macbeth was its principal and guiding light. It had a primary department, and func- tioned two terms of twenty-two weeks each per year. Not only was it a good school by its own admission, and because of its praiseworthy external features, but more so because of a fine faculty and an excel- lent, liberal, progressive curriculum. The latter included a study of Christianity on a non-sectarian basis, commercial, classical, and mathe- matical courses, study of four foreign languages: French, German, Spanish, and Italian, and an emphasis on music, drawing, and paint- ing. I do not know of a single high school in Nassau or Suffolk Coun- ties to this day that presents a study of Italian.
It seems paradoxical that while this progress was being made in higher learning, the common schools still continued, for some fifty years after the Revolution, to function changelessly in their original, primitive fashion. A detailed report of memories of school days in old Raynortown (now Freeport) as late as 1838 shows the little prog- ress that had been made. Throughout this period the academies flourished on private endowments and they catered only to a relatively select few who could afford to study. The elementary school, however, struggled along on poor taxpayers' money, and their perpetual grum- bling about "progressive" education and the additional expense of new texts and new courses beyond the four R's already discussed kept innovations to a minimum.
EDUCATION IN NASSAU AND SUFFOLK COUNTIES 305
Nevertheless, by 1840, certain new subjects and improved tech- niques were evolving. Blackboards were introduced about this time; some grammar, geography, natural philosophy, and advanced mathe-
(Courtesy of H. T. Weeks)
The John Jermain Memorial Library, Sag Harbor
matics wormed their way into the course of study. Teachers' salaries were steadily increasing; men teachers were making from $12 to $30 per month.
Moreover, in the early 1800s, the towns had divided into school districts, and a similar division and the numbering system used then, with occasional changes to meet growth demands, have persisted through the years. This gave a semblance of system and organization
L. I .- II-20
306
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
to the whole and helped to facilitate control, even though the men . who held the power were laymen who knew little of the job. In 1787, a law had been enacted incorporating the Regents of the University of New York State. Through the repeated efforts of several of the early governors of the state, to whose practical vision and determina- tion we owe much, the first common school system was adopted in 1812. Before this, in 1795, an appropriation of $50,000 annually for a five-year period was set up for the encouragement of schools.
(Photo by Hal B. Fullerton)
St. Paul's School, Garden City, 1899
In Suffolk County, a Teachers' Association of the Town of Islip took form in 1830, to became our first organized group of school teachers. Members met semi-monthly and operated successfully as a society for several years. Another similar organization, started in Huntington in 1842, was supervised by the Hon. Samuel A. Smith, and had ten or twelve years of profitable existence. Still another of these, the Suffolk County Teachers' Association, originated in River- head in 1852. All these organizations existed for the purpose of exchanging ideas and stimulating progress and interest in popular education, as well as to build a certain prestige for teachers as a professional group.
From the writings of Nathaniel R. Howell, one significant fact sums up this whole period of educational advancement. He has shown that "the cost [of instruction] of the pupil per year in 1835 averaged about $1.50, while in 1872 it was $7.00 per pupil."
EDUCATION IN NASSAU AND SUFFOLK COUNTIES 307
Slowly the strength of this surging tide was to rise to ever increasing heights in the next hundred years. Our progress in educa- tion, even today far from ideal, has been, like the proverbial snowball rolling down a slow incline, a continuously accumulative project- going ever forward.
Chaminade High School, Mineola
In quick review, then, it should be remembered that before 1845 there were no free public schools as we know them today; no teaching profession as such. Administration and supervision were carried on as part-time activities by farmers, lawyers, businessmen, ministers- laymen who knew little about the learning situation, in toto. Teaching was a poorly paid part-time job for men and women. Pensions and tenure were unheard of.
During these . last hundred years, that Dr. John W. Dodd of Freeport has chosen to call "a century of progress in New York State", educational advancement has truly been wearing its seven
308
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
league boots. With gigantic strides across this whole period, we may take note of several significant achievements.
In 1845, the New York State Teachers' Association was founded, dedicated to the purpose of service: to the public, to the teaching profession, and to the youth of New York State. Step by step since that time we have attained free compulsory education at the elemen- tary and secondary levels; substantial financial support of education by the state; professional state school administration; the unification of the public school system; the creation of a state department of education; the establishment of professional standards of teacher preparation, certification, and supervision; the guarantee of minimum salaries through state legislation; the establishment of the State Teachers' Retirement System; tenure and its extension to an ever larger number of teachers.
New York was the first state in the Union to levy a general tax for schools, to establish state supervision of elementary schools, to provide for the education of teachers, to provide district libraries, to organize a local association of school teachers, to have a state teach- ers' convention, and to publish a journal of educational progress, interests, and activities.
Particularly did the New York State Teachers' Association fight for free schools for all, to be supported by public and general expense. By 1849 some free schools had been established throughout the state. Those on Long Island were located in Brooklyn and Flushing.
The New York State school system is one of the very best in the whole United States. It exists today as a great monument to the governors, the legislators, and the many leaders of educational achievements throughout the state.
Obviously, Nassau and Suffolk Counties, along with other coun- ties in the state, have benefited by this progressiveness. For this reason, as well as the mushrooming growth of Nassau and Suffolk in the last thirty years, educational institutions have increased qualita- tively and quantitatively in size, number, and variety. Excellent schools of nursing, aviation, music, military science, and agriculture dot the whole island, in addition to the innumerable elementary and secondary schools of every community. The newest of these better schools is the Merchant Marine Academy established at Kings Point just four years ago.
The very peak of our present-day educational achievement is found in the two liberal arts colleges in Nassau County and a state school of agriculture at Farmingdale, just across the border in Suffolk . County.
The idea of a Long Island agricultural school which had simmered for some time in the minds of many people, rural and otherwise, finally materialized in 1916 on a site on the Nassau-Suffolk boundary line in Farmingdale.
Originally called the New York State School of Agriculture, the institution was to prepare students for agricultural occupations of their choosing and to advise farmers and people in related enter- prises with regard to the solving of their problems. Mr. Albert A.
Public Library, Babylon
Public Library, Port Washington
310
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
Johnson, the first director of the Institute, was responsible for much of its successful early planning and development. Extension service activities were under way even before students were admitted. Though buildings were not completed, the school accepted its first group of students, about sixty in number, in March, 1916.
In 1923 the school was brought under the jurisdiction of the State Board of Regents and the Commissioner of Education. In the same year, Mr. Johnson resigned the directorship, and Mr. Halsey B. Knapp, who had previously organized and developed the New York School of Agriculture at Cobleskill, replaced him.
Increasing public endorsement and more or less constant expansion in kind and amounts of service have character- ized Mr. Knapp's administration to the present day. The original physical plant has been enlarged to include a large dormitory, several classroom and laboratory buildings, as well as barns and greenhouses. A 740-acre farm was acquired in the Hudson Valley, near Beacon, New York, in 1942. In accord- ance with the Institute's philosophy of "learning by doing", large-scale farm- ing operations are conducted there as part of the students' training.
Areas of specialized study at the adelphi Institute include animal husbandry, vegetable production, dairying, rural (From an etching by George R. Avery) engineering, floriculture, nursery, and Entrance to Adelphi College, Garden City landscaping. The establishment of the Industrial-Technical Division in 1946 changed the school's name to the Long Island Agricultural and Technical Institute, and added to the curricu- lum courses in building construction, aircraft maintenance and opera- tion, radio, electronics, refrigeration and air-conditioning, mechanical design, and dental hygiene.
In addition to this instructional program for students, a larger clientele-the rural people of the Hudson Valley and Long Island- have been served through regular extension work and evening courses presented by the school.
In January, 1947, 679 students were enrolled of which 513 were war veterans. When the present plans for expansion are brought to completion, the Institute will be equipped to care for at least fifteen hundred students.
Adelphi College celebrated its fiftieth birthday only last year. Originally founded in Brooklyn in 1896, in response to the need for such a college, its work and activities progressed successfully under the careful guidance of its distinguished first president, Dr. Charles H. Levermore, and a fine faculty.
EDUCATION IN NASSAU AND SUFFOLK COUNTIES 311
From the first, ideals of sound scholarship and broad humani- tarianism have been a paramount characteristic of the institution. Liberalism became an integral part of the school's tradition under the temporary administration of the Reverend S. Parkes Cadman, beloved clergyman, noted author, and forum leader, who was ap- pointed Acting President in 1912.
Aerial View of Hofstra College
After the successful completion of a million-dollar campaign started in 1924-25, the college moved to a sixty-eight acre campus in the suburban, residential section of Garden City, Long Island, in order that expansion might be uninterrupted and more adequate housing facilities provided for students in pleasurable country surroundings.
Since 1937 the school's activities have been directed by President Paul Dawson Eddy, who is extremely popular with both students and faculty. Under his far-sighted leadership the college has grown rapidly both educationally and materially. Home Economics and Nursing Departments have been added. The liberal arts and profes- sional curricula have been brought closer together. The Division of
312
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
the Arts has been greatly enriched and now includes the services of internationally known artists.
Although founded on a co-educational basis, Adelphi abandoned this policy in 1915 to become exclusively a woman's college. Only in the fall of 1946, with the nation-wide problem of finding sufficient school room to care for the collective educational needs of returning service men plus the normal percentage of incoming, recently gradu- ateed high school students, has Adelphi once more returned to its original co-educational plan. Approximately 850 male veterans were admitted at this time to bring registration up to 1900 students from all parts of the world.
Hofstra College (originally Nassau College, Hofstra Memorial of New York University) was founded in 1935 by the executors of the estate of the late William S. Hofstra, a lumber merchant of Dutch parentage, who lived in Hempstead. The school started under the academic supervision of New York University, but terminated its contract with the latter in July, 1939, and was granted an Absolute Charter, authorizing the conferment of baccalaureate degrees, by the Regents of the University of the State of New York, in February, 1940.
Hofstra is a non-sectarian liberal arts college devoted primarily to the educational needs of the young men and women of Long Island. Besides the liberal arts program, it provides all the indispensable courses leading to the study of medicine, dentistry, law, education, and other professional subjects. It offers, also, extensive programs in the major subjects of business administration.
The college is located about one mile east of the center of the town of Hempstead on a small but beautiful campus of twenty-six acres. At the present time, adjoining property is being added to this original plot of ground to make room for Hofstra's ever increasing enrollment and diversified academic activities - at the moment, swollen, as in all other educational institutions, to the breaking point.
Hofstra College is in its twelfth year of life. Those twelve years have been unique. The earth-shaking events of that period changed a rapidly changing world even more rapidly. Hofstra was able to meet these situations with the flexible adaptability of a youthful insti- tution. Originally conceived in a great depression, the school was successfully encouraged through those precarious years of infancy by its first president, Dr. Truesdale Peck Calkins, only to find itself faced with World War II. Today, in a new era dedicated to the revival of peace and prosperity, Hofstra College embarks on its adult career with every reason for healthful survival and continued success under the guiding genius of its youthful new head, Dr. John Cranford Adams, an astute administration, and a select faculty.
Nassau and Suffolk Counties have kept in step with the leaders in the educational field. Both counties benefit from the progressive- ness of New York State, the proximity of New York City. Both are aware of their innumerable shortcomings as well as the ideals for which they strive. Both are awake and active toward the ever increas- ing necessity for more and better schools. So long as these condi- tions prevail, we may face the future hopefully.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Long Island Census of 1781 OSCAR G. DARLINGTON Professor of History, Hofstra College
T HE YOUNGS PAPERS in the archives of the Nassau County Historical and Genealogical Society contain three census lists for the area around Oyster Bay and Jericho, all that remain of an island-wide detailed survey of population and economic resources conducted by the British Army during February, 1781. Also included in these papers is the original Order Book of Captain Daniel Youngs of the Queens County Militia, which supplements the census lists and sheds new light upon the unhappy history of Long Island during the American Revolution.
Prior to the British Army survey, eleven census surveys are recorded for Long Island taken in the years 1698, 1703, 1723, 1731, 1737, 1746, 1749, 1756, 1771 and 1776. Most of these were island-wide, but none was as detailed as the Youngs census lists of 1781. In its careful tabulation of every farm animal, woodland and acre of culti- vated land as well as the usual population figures, the census of 1781 resembles the famous Domesday survey of early English history. The earlier census figures for Queens (which included Nassau until 1898) and Suffolk Counties are listed below, together with the returns from the complete island (Kings, Queens and Suffolk Counties) in the United States census of 1790, for purposes of comparison and to make the information contained in the 1781 census significant. These charts have been compiled for the present study from the individual census reports as printed in O'Callaghan, Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York (Albany, 1857), Volume I, pages 473 and 474, and Greene and Harrington, American Popula- tion Before the Census of 1790 (New York, 1936), pages 92 to 95.
Immediately after the Revolutionary War in 1783, the Conti- nental Congress ordered that the several colonies take a census giv- ing very complete information. It was to record, besides the number of inhabitants of each county, those "killed and captivated in the war", and "those who joined the enemy." It asked for a complete return concerning buildings and their estimated value, under the following headings : Occupants' names : dwelling houses : brick, stone, frame, log; barns and other outhouses; mills: grist, saw, fulling, powder, paper or oil; distilleries; furnaces; forges; value of the buildings; acres of land, both improved and unimproved; value of the land. This would have been a most significant census had it been completed at that time.
QUEENS COUNTY
WHITE
MEN
WOMEN
CHILDREN
Total
Census of
Males over 10
Males over 16
Males 16-60
Males over 60
Men
Women
Females over 10
Females over 16
Chil- dren
Male Chil- dren
Males under 10
Males under 16
Chil- dren
Female Females Females under 10
under 16
1698
1,465
1,350
551
3,366
1703
952
753
1,093
1,170
3,968
1723
1,568
1,599
1,530
1,371
6,068
1731
2,239
2,175
1,178
,139
6,731
1737
2,407
2,290
1,935
1,656
8,688
1746
1,826
233
1,914
1,946
2,077
7,996
1749
1,508
151
1,778
1,630
1,550
6,617
1756
2,147
253
2,365
1,960
1,892
8,617
1771
2,083
950
2,332
1,253
2,126
8,744
1781
1790
3,554
6,480
2,863
12,897
314
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
QUEENS COUNTY
BLACK
Census of
Males over 10
Free
Males 16-60
Males over 60
Men
Women
Females over 10
Females over 16
Slaves
Male Chil- dren
Males under 10
Males under 16
Chil- dren
under 16 Female Females Females under 10
Total Negroes
1698
199
1703
117
114
98
95
424
1723
393
294
228
208
1,123
1731
476
363
226
199
1,264
1737
460
370
254
227
1,311
1746
466
61
361
365
391
1,644
1749
386
13
349
300
245
1,326
1756
563
55
170
581
500
2,169
1771
511
271
534
374
546
2,236
1781
1790
808
2,309
3,117
LONG ISLAND CENSUS OF 1781
315
SUFFOLK COUNTY WHITE
MEN
WOMEN
CHILDREN
Total
Census of
Males over 10
Males over 16
Males 16-60
Males over 60
Men
Women
Females |Females over 10 over 16
Chil- dren
Male Chil- dren
Males under 10
Males under 16
under 16 Female Females Females Chil- dren under 10
1698
973
1,024
124
2,121
1703
787
756
818
797
3,158
1723
1,441
1,348
1,321
1,156
5,266
1731
2,144
1,130
2,845
955
7,074
1737
2,297
2,353
,175
1,008
6,833
1746
1,835
226
2,016
1,887
1,891
7,855
1749
1,863
248
1,969
2,058
1,960
8,098
1756
2,141
221
2,335
2,283
2,265
9,245
1771
2,834
347
3,103
2,731
2,658
11,673
1781
1790
3,756
7,187
3,273
14,216
316
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
SUFFOLK COUNTY BLACK
Census of
Males over 10
Free
Males 16-60
Males over 60
Men
Women
Females over 10
Females over 16
Slaves
Male Chil- dren
Males under 10
Males under 16
Chil- dren
under 16 Female Females Females under 10
Total Negroes
1698
558
1703
60
52
38
38
188
1723
357
367
197
54
975
1731
239
83
196
83
601
1737
393
307
203
187
1,090
1746
393
52
310
329
315
1,399
1749
355
41
293
305
292
1,286
1756
297
40
236
278
194
1,045
1771
389
59
334
· 350
320
1,452
1781
1790
1,126
1,098
2,224
LONG ISLAND CENSUS OF 1781
317
318
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
U. S. CENSUS OF 1790 AS IT APPLIES TO LONG ISLAND
County
Town
Free White over 16
Free White Males under 16
Free White Females
All Other Free Persons
Slaves
Aggre- gate Total
More Females than Males
More Males than Females
Brooklyn.
362
257
565
14
405
1,603
54
Flatbush.
160
153
238
12
378
941
75
KINGS
New Utrecht. .
98
81
167
10
206
562
12
COUNTY
Gravesend .
88
69
129
5
135
426
28
Flatlands.
72
71
143
137
423
Bushwick.
123
69
172
5
171
540
20
Total.
903
700
1,414
46
1,432
4,494
189
Newtown
420
353
753
52
533
2,111
20
Jamaica
397
294
697
65
222
1,675
6
Flushing.
325
229
590
123
340
1.607
36
QUEENS COUNTY
N. Hempstead ..
550
442
1.026
171
507
2,696
34
Oyster Bay .
949
756
1,709
302
381
4,097
4
S. Hempstead. .
913
789
1,705
95
326
3,828
3
Total
3,554
2,863
6,480
808
2,309
16,014
83
20
Huntington
763
742
1,468
74
213
3,260
37
Islip.
132
126
248
68
35
609
10
Smith Town.
695
179
369
113
166
1,022
5
Brookhaven. .
727
617
1,372
275
233
3,224
28
SUFFOLK COUNTY
Shelter Island. .
39
38
77
23
24
201
Smithhold .
765
646
1,436
190
182
3,219
25
S. Hampton .
781
653
1,544
284
146
3,408
110
E. Hampton .
354
272
673
99
99
1,497
47
Total
3,756
3,273
7,187
1,126
1,098
16.440
210
52
GRAND TOTALS.
8,213
6,836
15,081
1,970
4,839
36,948
Compiled from Return of the Whole Number of Persons within the Several Districts of the United States (1st Census, 1790), published in New York, 1791.
In passing, several important trends are worth noting from these statistics. They indicate the slow growth of population in, the last century of the colonial era. In the three-year period from 1746 to 1749, the population actually decreased by almost 15%. From 1756 to 1771, a sharp decline is noticeable in the number of children and a sharp increase in the number of old men. In 1698, the population
319
LONG ISLAND CENSUS OF 1781
of Queens County was larger by 33% than that of Suffolk, despite the fact that Suffolk was founded earlier. In 1723, Suffolk forged ahead, to lose its lead again in the 1737 census. In 1749, Suffolk was leading, this time to hold its position throughout the remainder of the colonial era. In 1790, Suffolk led in population, with Queens County a close second and Kings County running a very poor third with less than five thousand persons, one-fourth the population of Queens County.
During the Revolution the largest population on the Island was centered in · what at present constitutes Nassau County. In the census of 1790, the largest town anywhere on Long Island was Oyster Bay. These facts give added significance to the Youngs census lists, which reveal details of the most important population and farming area on Long Island at the time.
The specific purpose of the Army census of 1781, was to deter- mine exactly the resources of each homestead, so as to place upon a scientific and equitable basis the requisition of materials essential for the maintenance of the British Army in New York.
It took the British five years of blundering on Long Island to evolve this policy of requisition based upon a careful census. At first, after the Battle of Long Island, in 1776, which placed the island in the role of an "occupied country" until the end of the war and withdrawal of the troops in 1782, there was no law but the will or the whim of the soldiery, consisting of British regulars, the Queens County Militia composed of native loyalists, and the Hessians so dreaded by the populace. Long Island was regarded by the British as a convenient source of supplies not only for the army itself but also for the occupied city of New York. These supplies consisted largely of cordwood, grain, foodstuffs, lumber, horses and wagons. The inhabitants were scared into cutting and carting wood, into thrashing and delivering grain, into giving up horses and carts; but it soon turned into a game as to how little the inhabitants could give and how much foraging parties of the conquerors could get.
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