Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume III, Part 82

Author: Bailey, Paul, 1885-1962, editor
Publication date: 1949
Publisher: New York, Lewis Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 922

USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume III > Part 82
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume III > Part 82

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With the coming of the depression in 1929, he suffered losses as did many, but gathered together his resources, financial and personal experience, and was ready to keep step with progress when the march once again started.

Down through those years, Emil R. Heger had become a banker as well as a financier of varied enter- prises, without intending to make this field his career. Back in the days when he was a Lynbrook hardware man, he had bought some local bank stock. In the 1920s he acquired stock in several neighboring town banks. He was an organizer and became a member of the board of directors of the Lynbrook Savings and Loan Association and owned stock in The Bank of Malverne. On January 1, 1931, Mr. Heger was made vice president in charge of finance with the Bank of Malverne; and during the bank failure period of the following year, he was persuaded to take over the institution "to work out a bad condition," accord- ing to the examiner's report. He did what was ex- pected of him and without compensation. Not even he cares to recall the difficulties overcome and the battles won with various agencies. Not even the presidency was worth the toil, but the present status and strength of the institution, and enjoyment of a task well done are sufficient reward. In January, 1940, Mr. Heger was elected to a second presidency, that of the Lynbrook Federal Savings and Loan Association, an organization then eighteen years old. He has been a director of the Nassau Clearing House, served as treasurer of the Grand Jurors Association of Nassau County, member of the New York City Chamber of Commerce, and is affiliated with the Massapequa Lodge, of the Free and Accepted Masons. He is a life member of the Federal Hall Memorial Associates, New York. He resides in Freeport, Long Island.

TERRY W. TUTHILL-There was a time when Terry W. Tuthill was famed as a semi-professional baseball player. Today he is equally well known as a banker. He is president of the Suffolk County Trust Company at Riverhead and is an active citizen of that community as well as of Mattituck where he makes his home.

Mr. Tuthill was born in the village of Mattituck on February 10, 1888, the son of Luther Goldsmith and Estelle (Robinson) Tuthill. His father, a native of Mattituck also, was a farmer and for twenty-six years held the office of assessor of the town of South- old. He died November, 1928. Mrs. Tuthill was a native of East Patchogue. She died June 8, 1946.

Terry Tuthill was educated in the grammar school of Mattituck and in the Riverhead High School. He

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Steel Engraving by MICann

Emil Pleger

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was seventeen years old when he entered the employ of the Mattituck Bank as assistant cashier in 1905. He remained with this bank until 1925. It was during this period that Mr. Tuthill gained his fame in semi- professional baseball. In 1925 he became secretary of the Suffolk County Trust Company, a position he held until 1928, when, on the death of Orvis H. Luce, he succeeded him as president. He had already been elected a director. Mr. Tuthill has been nationally prominent in the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. He is a past national representative and a past national deputy and has held the highest offices in his own lodge. He is also active in Masonry, being a member of Riverhead Lodge No. 645, Free and Accepted Masons; Greenport-Sithra Chapter No. 216, Royal Arch Masons, and Sunrise Commandery, Knights Templar, at Greenport. His church is the Presbyterian and he has served as an elder there. Fishing and hunting are his hobbies.

Mr. Tuthill married Hortense Foote, at Fairhaven, Vermont, on September 6, 1911. She was the daughter of the Reverend Albert E. and Nellie (Allen) Foote, both now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Tuthill have one son, Terry R. Tuthill, born in Mattituck on May 16, 1916, who is now New York State Treasurer of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, and trust officer of the Suffolk County Trust Company. He married Dorothy E. Phillips of Rockville Centre and they have two children, Georgia Ruth, born April 9, 1943, and Kerry Jeanne, born January II, 1946, also in Mattituck. Mrs. Terry R. Tuthill is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Phillips.

CHARLES N. WYSONG-An attorney for nearly forty-five years, of which close to forty years have been spent in Nassau County, Charles N. Wysong stands in the first ranks of the elder generation of lawyers practicing at the bar of that county.

A native of Forest Hill, Harford County, Maryland, where he was born on June 15, 1881, Mr. Wysong was brought to Long Island in childhood and attended the public school of Port Washington and the Friends' Academy before preparing, with a private tutor, to enter the Law School of Columbia University, where he studied until 1902. He graduated and re- ceived his degree of Bachelor of Laws, however, from the New York Law School. Admitted to the bar in 1903, he began his practice in New York City in association with Eastman and Eastman. Later he was associated with the Title Guarantee and Trust Company and with the New York Title Company in that same city. In the year 1905 Mr. Wysong joined the firm of Payne and Scudder of Mineola, Nassau County. Later he established his office in Port Washington, where he has continued in indepen- dent practice until the present time, representing many important clients.

Mr. Wysong, a Democrat in politics, has twice held public office, first as a justice of the peace of the town of North Hempstead, and later, from 1910 to 1913, as district attorney of Nassau County, an office of great responsibility. He is a member of the Nassau County Bar Association and of the New York State Bar Association. He is a director of Port Washington National Bank and Trust Company and vice president and trustee of Roslyn Savings Bank. His clubs are the Columbia University Club of New York City and the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club. Mr. Wysong is an ardent Mason, a member of Lodge No. 1010 of Port Washington, Free and Accepted Masons, of the Consistory, and of Kismet

Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, located in the borough of Brook- lyn, New York City. A Protestant Episcopalian in religion, Mr. Wysong holds the office of senior warden of St. Stephen's Church.

On June 2, 1909, Charles N. Wysong was married to Eleanor McCurdy Wysong. Of this union there are two children: I. Charles, Jr. 2. Betty Forrest.

SETH R. JAGGER, M.D .- Although he was born in Flushing, Queens County, subsequent to the incor- poration of that ancient village in the City of Greater New York, Dr. Seth R. Jagger in moving his prac- tice to Westhampton Beach, was returning to the country of his forbears, since the Jagger family has been associated with the Hamptons for nearly three centuries. It was in 1666 that John Jagger, the first of the line to come to America, settled in Southamp- ton. In every generation since then, members of the Jagger family have been prominently identified with the life and progress of Suffolk County and Long Island in general.

The late Dr. Archer W. Jagger was a native of Westhampton, who graduated from New York Uni- versity and Bellevue Medical College in the City of New York, where he received his degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1894. Opening his office in the growing community of Flushing, he practiced there for about a quarter of a century, highly successful and much esteemed by his numerous patients and by his col- leagues in the medical profession to the time of his death in 1933. Dr. Archer W. Jagger married Mary Townsend, a native of Glen Head in Nassau County, who survives her husband and now resides in West- hampton, Suffolk County. Of this marriage Seth R. Jagger was born at Flushing on February 25, 1899.

His elementary education was had in his birth place, and he graduated from the Flushing High School with the class of 1917. Choosing Cornell University at Ithaca, New York, for his collegiate studies, he received his degree of Bachelor of Arts from that institution in 1921. Probably there was never any doubt in the young Seth R. Jagger's thoughts concern- ing the choice of a career. With his father's eminent example before him, he took up the study of medicine at Cornell Medical College, and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1924.

Dr. Jagger divided his internship between the New York Hospital and the Lying-In Hospital, both in New York City. In 1927 he established himself in the general practice of medicine and surgery in Flushing, and there continued with great success until 1933. It was in the latter year that he removed his practice to the pleasant and fashionable Suffolk County village of Westhampton Beach, where he has continued to the present time. Dr. Jagger is chief of obstetrics at the Southampton Hospital in the village of Southampton, and is counted one of the eminent physicians of Suffolk County not only in that special branch, but in general medicine and surgery.

During the first World War Dr. Jagger was a member of the Students Army Training Corps at Cornell University, and from 1929 to 1932 he held the rank of lieutenant, junior grade, in the United States Navy Medical Reserve Corps. With the entrance of this country into World War II, he was appointed a flight surgeon attached to the Civil Air Patrol, and discharged the duties of this service through 1942 and 1943. Since 1942 he has been a member of the staff of the allergy clinic at the New York Hospital and at Cornell. Dr. Jagger holds membership in the Suffolk County Medical Society, in the New York

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State Medical Society, and in the American Medical Association.

Affiliated with Nu Sigma Nu, a medical fraternity of national scope, Dr. Jagger has also belonged to the Phi Delta Sigma fraternity since his college days at Cornell. He is interested in Masonry and is a member of the Potunk Lodge No. 1071 of the Free and Accepted Masons. He also belongs to the Ketcha- boneck Club, Inc., of Westhampton Beach. A Presby- terian in religion, he serves on the board of trustees of the Westhampton Presbyterian Church. In politics, he adheres to the Republican party.

At Flushing, Borough of Queens, New York City, on May 5, 1930, Seth R. Jagger was joined in mar- riage with Beulah Schreiner, a daughter of Matthias and Mary Chresteson. Mrs. Jagger died on October 24, 1946. Of this marriage there are two children: I. Beulah Mary, who was born in New York State in July, 1931, and is now a student at the Emma Willard School in Troy, Rensselaer County, New York. 2. Seth, Jr., born in New York City in August, 1932. He is at this writing a student in the South Kent School, South Kent, Connecticut. Dr. Jagger married second, on November 1, 1947, Miss June Cushing, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. Vivian Cushing of Huntington, New York.

HENRY MERKEL, founder of the meat business of Merkel, Inc. (q.v.) of Jamaica, and now chairman of its board of directors, was born in Heidelberg, Germany, September 6, 1879, the son of Ludwig and Elizabeth (Fath) Merkel.

Mr. Merkel was educated in the schools of his native Germany, and had no opportunity for further formal education after he came to the United States in 1894, as a boy of fifteen, for he went to work at once in a butcher shop, where he was to acquire a working knowledge of English and experience in the business that was to be his life work. As he worked he studied the conditions of the trade, and as he earned, he put aside for future use, so that by 1902 he had acquired enough capital to start in business for himself. He opened a meat shop in Ridgewood, and operated it until 1912, when because of poor health, he was forced to retire from active business life for a time. Fortun- ately, however, he regained his health, and in 1915 he resumed business in Jamaica, opening up a shop and meat processing establishment with his two brothers, William and George (now deceased). This business expanded and became the prosperous Merkel, Inc. of the present day. Henry Merkel, although leaving all detailed responsibilities to his son, Albert H. Merkel, now president of Merkel, Inc., is still actively engaged in supervision of this business as chairman of the board of directors. Mr. Merkel is a member of the Lutheran Church. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and the Benevo- lent and Protective Order of Elks. He is a member of the North Hills Golf Club.

Henry Merkel married on November 22, 1903, in Queens County, Catherine Voltz, the daughter of Albert G. and Catherine (Burckle) Voltz. They are the parents of one son, Albert Henry Merkel, (q.v.).

ALBERT HENRY MERKEL, president of Jam- aica's large meat-processing business of Merkel, Inc. on Sutphin Boulevard, with forty-three retail units, was born in Ridgewood, September II, 1904, the son of Henry (q.v.) and Catherine (Voltz) Merkel.

Albert Henry Merkel attended the public schools of Jamaica. After leaving Jamaica High School, he be-

came associated with his father in the meat business. Starting in 1920, he learned all phases of the enter- prise and when his father began to relinquish active management in 1935, he took over much of the detailed responsibility, serving as vice president until 1942, when he became president of the corporation. Under his administration Merkel, Inc. has practically dou- bled its volume of business.

Albert Henry Merkel is a member of the New York Athletic Club and the North Hills Golf Club, and fraternally is affiliated with the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He belongs to the Lutheran Church.

He married on November 6, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, Freda Bonck, daughter of William and Her- mine (Ehlers) Bonck. They have two children. I. Albert Henry Merkel, Jr., born June 7, 1929. 2. Ken- neth George Merkel, born January 5, 1934.

MERKEL, INC .- From small beginnings, the Jamaica meat business now known as Merkel, Inc. has grown into a large meat-processing plant at 94-II Sutphin Boulevard, with forty-three retail units to handle its retail trade. Its founder, Henry Merkel, now chairman of the board of directors, owes his success to the fact that he realized early in his busi- ness career the deficiencies then existing in the meat packing industry and decided that all of his, future policies would be predicated on the premise that "all meats must be fresh and of the finest quality obtain- able, all processing to be under government super- vision, all selling under conditions of impeccable cleanliness, with prices well within the limits of every wage earner."

Henry Merkel, who was born in Heidelberg, Ger- many, came to the United States in 1894 as a boy of fifteen. He at once found employment in the meat business and worked for various meat merchants in Brooklyn until 1902, by which time he had acquired a sufficient amount of capital to open a retail shop of his own. In the meantime he had been acquiring experience and had formulated definite ideas that he wished to put into practice, based on his own acute observation of conditions in the trade. In 1902 he started in the meat business in Ridgewood, Long Island, and operated a meat shop there until 1912, when because of ill health he was forced to retire. Regaining his health, he with two brothers, William and George Merkel, both now deceased, in 1915 or- ganized Merkel Brothers, Inc. and operated one shop and meat-processing establishment located at 476 Fulton Street, now Jamaica Avenue. The business grew rapidly and in 1919 the land on Sutphin Boule- vard at 95th Street, where the present plant stands, was purchased. The plant was erected in 1920, and since that time six additional units have been con- structed to fill the demand for Merkel products. Forty-three units now handle the retail business. The. concern was completely reorganized in 1928, at which time its name was changed to Merkel, Inc. Merkel, Inc. has kept pace with all advancements and im- provements in the meat industry, both in meat pack- ing and in retailing, and its plant for processing meat products is among the most modern in the East, as are its retail units.

Henry Merkel has gradually relinquished active mnagement of the business, and since 1942 has left the responsibility for detailed management to his son, Albert H. Merkel, and has confined his own activities to general supervision, holding office as chairman of

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the board of directors since that date. Albert H. Merkel, who has been associated with Merkel, Inc. since 1920, became president in 1942.

COUNCILMAN CHARLES A. HEWLETT, of Woodmere in the Town of Hempstead, has long been a successful attorney in his native locality of Long Island, and is held in high esteem for the unusually active part he has played in its affairs. This is in accord with the traditions of his family, for Hewlett is one of the island's old and honored names, and Charles A. Hewlett is of the third generation of his family to sit on the town board of Hempstead in the last century.

A native of that town, Mr. Hewlett is a graduate of Brooklyn Polytechnic Preparatory School and of New York University. Returning to Woodmere on the completion of his legal education, he has built up a wide practice as attorney. To his professional activi- ties was early added the honor of civic responsibility. In addition to his councilmanic post, Mr. Hewlett served as chairman of the Tercentenary Committee for the towns of Hempstead and North Hempstead. He has also served faithfully for many years on the Hempstead Board of Zoning Appeals, and was chair- man of the planning board.

Vitally interested in the program of the Boy Scouts of America, Mr. Hewlett served as scoutmaster of Troop 21 for thirty-one consecutive years, which is the longest record known of one man's leading one troop. He retired as scoutmaster in 1948, to become chairman of the troop committee. He has been recog- nized by four Presidents of the United States for his services to the scouting organization. He has been an educator for the National Council, and filled many assignments abroad. Quite naturally, Mr. Hewlett maintains a great interest, too, in the historic back- ground of his locality, and is a member of the Nassau County Historical and Genealogical Society. He has recently become president of the board of trustees of the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library.

During World War I, Charles A. Hewlett served in the United States Army Air Corps, and he is a director of the DeMott-Carman Post of the American Legion.

Mr. Hewlett and his family reside in Woodmere. It is of interest that he is a lineal descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins of the "Mayflower," as well as of John Carman and the Rev. Robert Ford- ham, the two grantees of the Indian deed to the Town of Hempstead. It has been said of him by his fellow townsmen: "He has pride in his town and its people, feels that he never can do enough to advance their future or to preserve the historic glories of their past."

Charles A. Hewlett married Dorothee Williamson, who is seventh in line of descent from the original William Williamson. They are the parents of three children: I. Sarah Jane. 2. John Alden. 3. William Williamson.

HENRY HICKS -Long Island, the land of cen- turies-old farms, of great estates, and in more recent years of thousands of suburban homes, has long been an especially lucrative field of business for the nur- seryman and the skilled landscape gardener. The Hicks Nurseries, famous not only throughout Long Island but also far beyond its borders, were estab- lished in 1853 by Isaac Hicks, and carried on by his

son Edward for many decades. Now associated with the business are Henry Hicks, his cousin Ralph Hicks, and Henry's son Edwin W. Hicks, who rep- resents the fourth generation.

During the early years of this century, prior to World War I, many large estates were assembled and improved throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties. The growing, moving and transplanting of large trees for these estates became a specialty of the Hicks Nurseries, and their services were in demand not only on Long Island but from New England to Virginia and west to Detroit. The Hickses also undertook all phases of landscaping, and there are many of the older and larger Long Island estates which availed themselves of their skill. The business operated until 1932 under the name of Isaac Hicks and Sons, and in that year it was incorporated under the title of Hicks Nurseries, Inc.

Edward Hicks conducted general farming opera- tions in addition to the nursery business. He also in 1885 established a local coal business under the name of the Westbury Coal Yard, which is still owned and managed by the family, Edwin W. Hicks, being presi- dent of the corporation. Edward Hicks was a leading citizen of Westbury, and established a record of con- scientious and useful public service in serving as a member of the school board for over half a century. He married Emma E. Jarvis, and to them the son they named Henry was born at Westbury on December 26, 1870. Henry attended the Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn, New York, in the days when that borough was an independent city, and graduated with the class of 1888. Seeking no other career than that in which his father had found success and satisfaction, he pre- pared himself by study at the College of Agriculture of Cornell University at Ithaca, New York, from which he graduated in 1892. Immediately upon leav- ing college, Henry Hicks became actively associated with the nursery business.

Estate landscaping on the scale that was common- place thirty and forty years ago is now largely a thing of the past, but thousands of fine homesteads in the suburban areas of Nassau and the more open and rural stretches of Suffolk County, still call for large quantities of nursery stock. Henry Hicks is well known for his introduction of many new plants to the nursery trade, the most famous being the Ja- panese Yew, of which a variety known as the Hicks Yew is one of the most popular of hedge plants. At present the Hicks Nurseries, Inc., cover about three hundred and fifty acres.

Like his father before him, Henry Hicks has given freely of his time to serving on the Westbury board of education, retiring in 1948 at the close of one hun- dred years of service as trustees by three generations. He was succeeded by Edwin W. Hicks. Henry Hicks holds membership in the Nassau County Historical Society, the Long Island Historical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Sci- ence, the American Geographical Society, the Eco- logical Society of America, the Botanical Society of America, the New York Botanical Society, the Brook- lyn Botanic Society, honorary life member, and the Long Island Biological Association, Cold Spring; Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; the National Nurserymens Association; the New York State Nur- serymens Association; and the Long Island Nursery- mens Association. He is on the National Arboretum Committee of the National Nurserymens Association. Mr. Hicks is also a member of the Young Men's

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Christian Association, School of Agriculture at Farm- ingdale, Long Island, and is a director of the Bank of Westbury Trust Company and a director of the Westbury Savings and Loan Association. He is a mem- ber of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers.

At Jericho, Long Island, Henry Hicks married Caroline U. Jackson, a daughter of Solomon S. and Esther L. (Post) Jackson. Of this marriage there have been three children: 1. Esther H., who was born on November 5, 1.902, and is now Mrs. John M. G. Emory. 2. Edwin W., born December 17, 1906. 3. William P., born on November 30, 1910. Like his brother Edwin, William P. Hicks became associated with Hicks Nurseries, Inc. His career was interrupted by the call to the colors in World War II. He joined the United States Army and gave his life to his coun- try, being killed on January 8, 1945, in Luxembourg.

ROBERT H. BAILEY-Since 1939 Robert H. Bailey has been engaged in the building of homes in the eastern part of the United States, with his head- quarters at Amityville. He has built no less than twenty-four hundred homes in addition to the govern- ment housing he constructed during World War II.

Robert H. Bailey was born February 12, 1903, in Syracuse, New York, the son of Dr. Maurice and Sally (Rittenhouse) Bailey. His father, who is now deceased, was a physician in Syracuse.

Mr. Bailey received his education in St. John's School at Manlius and at Syracuse University, from which he graduated in the class of 1924. For five years he was a designer of jewelry for the motion picture industry in Hollywood, and for ten years he wrote advertising copy for sales promotion with head- quarters in New York City.

With this varied experience, and the knowledge he had gained as a craftsman and promoter, to draw upon, Mr. Bailey determined to put his talents to use in an entirely different field, but one that would benefit by both fine craftsmanship and skillful pro- motion. In 1939 he came to Amityville, where he has since made his home, and began to engage in the building of fine homes. During World War II he was called upon to construct government housing; but notwithstanding the fact that he was very active in this field, he has built no less than eight hundred homes in the East in recent years. Mr. Bailey does business under his own name and has built up an enviable reputation in his field. In 1944 Mr. Bailey became a principal stockholder and director of the First National Bank of Farmingdale. He is a Re- publican, and a member of the Lutheran Church of Amityville. His favorite leisure-time activity is golf, and he is a member of the Huntington Crescent Club.

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Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume III, Part 82

Author: Bailey, Paul, 1885-1962, editor Publication date: 1949 Publisher: New York, Lewis Historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 922

Author: Bailey, Paul, 1885-1962, editor
Publication date: 1949
Publisher: New York, Lewis Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 922