USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume III > Part 89
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume III > Part 89
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HARRISON B. WRIGHT-Born in Rockville Centre, Harrison B. Wright has practiced law in his native village for more than thirty-five years. While rising to a position of leadership and respect at the bar of Nassau County, Mr. Wright has taken a full part in the business, civic and social life of the com- munity, and has accepted the responsibilities of public office as well.
A son of Samuel O. Wright, who was a builder in New York City and who died in 1892, and of Maria (Macord) Wright, who is also deceased, Harrison B. Wright, who was born on August 24, 1888, attended the Rockville Centre public schools, being graduated from the South Side High School in 1904. He pre- pared himself for the law at the Brooklyn Law School of St. Lawrence University, in Brooklyn, where he obtained the Bachelor of Laws degree in 1910, and was admitted to the bar the following year. He first hung out his shingle in Rockville Centre in 1911, and here he has continued to practice his profession with great success to the present time. Mr. Wright is a member of the Nassau County Bar, the New York State Bar and the American Bar associations.
As a young man Harrison B. Wright served in the First World War as a member of the United States Army, attached to the intelligence service of the Head- quarters Detachment, 87th Division. One of his abid- ing organizational interests is his membership in the Rockville Centre Post, No. 303, of the American Le- gion, and he is no less interested in the affairs of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, of which he is also a member by virtue of his service overseas, during which he held the rank of sergeant.
Mr. Wright has long been an active force in the work of the Rockville Centre Chamber of Commerce to promote the business life and progress of that village, and is a member of the Chamber's board of directors. In the Kiwanis Club of Rockville Centre he has been no less to the fore, and his fame in Kiwanian circles extends far beyond his home com- munity, as shown by his election in 1945 to the office of lieutenant governor of the Ninth Division of the Kiwanis International, for the New York district. A Baptist in religion, Mr. Wright is one of the board of trustees of his church, and is an active member of the Men's League of the church. Fraternally he' is affiliated with Massapequa Lodge, Free and Ac- cepted Masons, and is a member of the Masonic Club of this lodge. Mr. Wright has two hobbies, both associated with outdoor life, tennis and saddle horses.
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Platter & Banken
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A Republican in politics, Mr. Wright was elected a police justice of the Village of Rockville Centre in 1913, serving to 1918. He is the attorney for the Rock- ville Centre School District; another of his public ser- vices is his work for the South Nassau Communities Hospital, of which he is president.
On November 10, 1924, Harrison B. Wright married Myra C. Symons, a native of Saginaw, Michigan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Symons. Mrs. Wright died in March, 1928.
LELAND YOUNG ROBINSON of Riverhead has successfully combined the careers of farmer, auto- mobile dealer, real estate broker, insurance agent and coal dealer, and although he retired from the automo- bile business on January 17, 1949 after engaging in it for thirty-four years, he still carries on all of the other pursuits. He has been a real estate broker, insurance agent and coal dealer for twenty-four years and has farmed for fifty-six years.
Mr. Robinson was born in Centerville, Town of Riverhead, on January 4, 1882, the son of Isaac Hulse and Ann Eliza (Young) Robinson. His father was a farmer and early gave the boy his start in what has proved to be a lifelong occupation. At the age of eleven he was initiated into farm work. Meantime he attended the Centerville district school, from which he was graduated in 1896. His varied pursuits have given Mr. Robinson a wide range of interests. In 1915 he became an automobile dealer and continued in this field until his recent retirement on January 17, 1949. He has been a real estate broker and insurance agent since 1925 and has been in the coal business since the same year. Mr. Robinson has been a mem- ber of the Riverhead Rotary Club since 1934 and served as its president in 1944. Fraternally he is affiliated with Roanoke Lodge No. 462, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he has been a member for twenty-eight years, and in 1945 he served as noble grand. He is also identified with Sound Avenue Grange No. 1277, of which he is a charter member and at one time served as master. Mr. Robinson is a Re- publican and a member of the Baiting Hollow Con- gregational Church of Calverton.
Leland Young Robinson married on April 27, 1904, at Manhasset, New York, Eloise Freeman Brinkerhoff, the daughter of Isaac E. and Agnes L. (Woodhull) Brinkerhoff. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson became the parents of two children: I. Myra Brinkerhoff Robin- son, born October 27, 1906. 2. Leland Russell Robin- son, born October 19, 1908, died January 20, 1942.
REV. JOHN K. SHARP, pastor of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Manhasset, has for over thirty years rendered distinguished service to the con- gregations to which he has been called. He is also recognized among the Catholic clergy and laity as an author, having written a number of books and contributed extensively to periodicals.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1892, Father Sharp was ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic Church by Cardinal Gibbons at the Baltimore Cathedral in 1918, for the Diocese of Brooklyn. He served in that diocese on the mission, and in teaching capacities for a period of two decades. Since 1939, he has been pastor of St. Mary's Church in Manhasset. Father Sharp is the author of seven books, one of which is "A History of the Catholic Church on Long Island."
JOHN PLATT HUBBELL-Political activity in behalf of their home town, Garden City, Long Island,
is characteristic of the Hubbell family. Like his fath- er, John Platt Hubbell has taken an active interest in community affairs, and has served as mayor, police commissioner for several terms, and as commissioner of public works. Since 1934, Mr. Hubbell has been a trustee of the village of Garden City. Mr. Hubbell's tather, George Loring Hubbell, is remembered for his service of thirty-one years as president of the Garden City School Board, and as mayor for five terms.
John Platt Hubbell was born in Garden City in 1893, the son of George L. and Eliza Strong Platt Hubbell. After his preparatory school training in Garden City's St. Paul School, Mr. Hubbell enrolled at Williams College in Massachusetts, his father's alma mater, and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1913. Then he attended Columbia University where he was awarded a degree in chemical engineering in 1916.
Shortly after his graduation, Mr. Hubbell secured a position with the General Chemical Company as chemist and plant foreman, putting to practice for two years the theory and information he had learned as a student.
His professional life was interrupted by the out- break of World War I, and he enlisted in the United States Army. He was appointed second lieutenant of the Gas Defense Division, C.W.S., from 1918 to 1919.
After the Armistice, Mr. Hubbell became an em- ployee of the New York Zinc Company, serving as assistant chief of research, from 1919 to 1928. Branch- ing out for himself in 1928, John Platt Hubbell became associated with the firm of Singmaster and Brayer, and has remained with this concern to the present time as a member of the firm.
His engineering activities have brought him in contact with neighboring states, and he is now a li- censed professional engineer in New Jersey, Con- necticut, Pennsylvania and Ohio in addition to the State of New York. His professional affiliations in- clude the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Institute of Construction Engineers, the American Institute of Chemists, and the Ameri- can Chemical Society. Numbered among his clubs are the Cherry Valley Golf Club and the Chemist Club.
By faith he is an Episcopalian and worships in the Gothic-inspired Cathedral of the Incarnation.
In 1917 he was married to Dorothy Peters at Gar- den City. His wife is the daughter of Ralph and Eli- nor H. Peters. Their five children are: I. Dorothy P., born in 1918. 2. John Platt, Jr., born in 1919. 3. Ralph P., born in 1921. 4. Roger W., born in 1923. 5. Rich- ard G., born in 1926.
WALTER G. BARKER-A native Long Islander by virtue of having been born in the borough of Brooklyn, Walter G. Barker, having at an early age fixed his ambition upon a career in the field of bank- ing, chose Nassau County as the scene of his activities, and by his ability and industry has achieved such notable success that at an unusually young age, as those things are counted in such a tradition-bound business, he became the president of one of the old- est and most substantial banking institutions in that county, the Hempstead Bank in the village of that name.
Walter G. Barker is the son of Oakley M. Barker, a native of Brooklyn, in the days when it was an inde- pendent city, and of his wife Louise (Kraus) Barker, who was born in Germany. Oakley M. Barker is now retired. The son whom this couple named Walter G. was born on November 12, 1910. His schooling began in the public schools of his native
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Brooklyn, but the family moving to Hempstead, he graduated from the high school there in 1928. Later he attended the School of Banking at Rutgers Uni- versity, New Brunswick, New Jersey, from which he graduated with the class of 1942. He also attended the American Institute of Banking and studied at the New York School of Commerce.
Mr. Barker's first employment was with the Bank of New Hyde Park, Nassau County, which he joined in 1928, remaining until 1936. In the latter year he first became associated with the Hempstead Bank as a clerk. Within three months he had been promoted to assistant cashier, and in January, 1940, he was made cashier of this financial institution, which was founded in 1887-incorporated on September 26 and opened for business on October I of that year, as shown by an advertisement carefully preserved among the bank's records, and reproduced in a brochure pub- lished in 1937, entitled "Fifty Golden Years." Such, indeed, they have been for this sound and well- managed bank, whose original officers were Martin V. Wood, president; Edward Cooper, vice president; and Carroll F. Norton, cashier, while the original board of directors consisted of Martin V. Wood, Edward Cooper, Seaman L. Pettit, Richard Ingra- ham, John Covert, James S. Allen, Willis Young, George W. Bergen, Carroll F. Norton, Joseph E. Firth and Gerritt D. Van Vranken.
"Hempstead cherishes its traditions of Long Island Colonial days," says the brochure mentioned above, "while it forges ahead in step with modern progress," and this regard for tradition combined with a resolute determination on progress has characterized the growth of the Hempstead Bank. From the handful of settlers who bought from the Indians the tract then known as Great Plains in 1644, Hempstead has grown to a busy village which used to double its population every twenty years, and then took to doubling it in every decade. Today it is recognized as the commercial hub of Nassau County. In 1937 the village numbered twenty thousand citizens, its property had an assessed valuation of about $43,000,- 000, its school system serving more than five thousand pupils was valued at more than $3,000,000, and its three hundred stores showed annual sales of more than $12,500,000. All of these figures are appreciably larger today. The first impulse to the growth of the community came in 1839 when the Long Island Rail Road reached Hempstead. In 1902 the trolley car system entered the village and its modern growth began, greatly accelerated by the electrification of the Long Island Rail Road in 1908.
When the Hempstead Bank was founded, Hemp- stead had no water system, no sewer system, no telephone service nor electric light, and not a single paved street. The bank began business with a capital of $30,000; on its opening day it employed one clerk in its rented premises in the Seabury Building on the southwest corner of Main and Fulton streets, where thirty-eight depositors entrusted it with ap- proximately $18,000 of their money. By 1937 the Hempstead bank had increased its capital structure to more than $375,000 out of its earnings, boasted eleven thousand, one hundred and sixty-one deposi- tors, occupied its own imposing and ornamental three-story building, and had a record of having paid regular dividends to its stockholders without interruption since 1889. "We value the record," says the brochure, "of having kept the organization sound and strong through four major depressions." This record was achieved, certainly, in large measure
because the management was guided by a "firm be- lief that a banking institution can take a vital part in the life of nearly everyone within its sphere of influence," and by its policy of "reaching and welcoming many who have never before taken ad- vantage of the benefits of modern banking facilities." Services offered by the bank include personal loans, auto loans, commercial loans, collateral loans, col- lections, check master accounts, special interest ac- counts, safe deposit accounts, travelers' checks and foreign drafts.
At the close of business on September 30, 1937, after exactly fifty years of operation, the Hempstead Bank showed total assets of $4,762,642.77, including $1,087,3II.21 of cash on hand and in reserve deposi- tories, government and municipal bonds of a value of $1,154,292.65, corporate bonds held at $186,112.00, bonds and mortgages in the amount of $882,919.31, and loans of various sorts totalling over $1,200,000.00. Among other assets, the value of the building housing the bank was given as $163,123.77. Included in the liabilities totalling $4,762,642.77 were capital stock to the amount of $150,000.00, surplus of $150,000.00, un- divided profits of $76,786.32, and reserves of $45,- 504.71. Figures as of June 30, 1946, show total resources of over $14,000,000.
The first president of the Hempstead Bank, Martin V. Wood, held office from 1887 to 1911, when he was succeeded by Edward Cooper. Mr. Cooper held the presidency until 1920, when William S. Hall was elected to the office, to be succeeded in 1921 by Martin V. W. Hall.
Walter G. Barker held the post of cashier of the Hempstead Bank from January, 1940, to January, 1946, when he became vice president while still re- maining cashier. In April of the same year he was elected to the presidency of the institution which he had joined only ten years earlier as a clerk. Since July, 1945, Mr. Barker has been a member of the board of directors.
Keenly interested in every aspect of the business and civic life of Hempstead, Mr. Barker is an enthusi- astic member of the Hempstead Kiwanis Club, which he has served in the past as president. He also be- longs to the Hempstead Chamber of Commerce. Dur- ing the second World War, he was chairman of the various war loan drives in the village of Hempstead, and he is at this time treasurer of the China Relief. Another cause dear to his heart is the fight against the plague of infantile paralysis, and in the past he has acted as treasurer of the fund raised for this purpose. He is also a member of the Boy Scouts of America. In politics he is a member of the Re- publican party. A Roman Catholic in religion, he is a communicant of the Church of Our Lady of Loretto of that denomination. He is a member of the Hemp- stead Country Club, and his hobbies are fishing, golf and soft ball.
On June 3, 1939, Walter G. Barker was married to Rose-Marie Mooney, a native of Roosevelt, Long Island, and a daughter of Francis X. and Rose M. (Killian) Mooney. This marriage has been blessed with three children: I. Walter G., Jr., who was born on October 21, 1940. 2. Diane Merle, born on October 21, 1941. 3. Robert Joseph, born on December II, 1944.
FRANK J. McMANN-A native son of Suffolk County who returned to his home town to reside and to round out a professional career in which he had
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already made his mark in New York City, is Frank J. McMann of Greenport.
Born in that lovely and historic village which looks across the waters to Shelter Island, on November 1, 1889, Mr. McMann attended the public grade and high schools of Greenport, then went to Syracuse University at Syracuse, New York, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Laws upon gradu- ating with the class of 1913. Admitted to the bar of the State of New York in the following year, he began his professional practice in New York City, where he continued until 1924. It was in the latter year that Mr. McMann returned to Greenport, where he con- tinues in active practice to the present time. Mr. McMann is a member of the board of directors of the First National Bank of Greenport and also of the New York State and Suffolk County bar associations. During World War I, Mr. McMann enlisted in the United States Navy and was a chief petty officer.
On July 14, 1923, Frank J. McMann married Roberta A. Krancher.
F. KENNETH HARDER-A combination of fore- sight, organizing ability, business acumen and hard work has gone to the building up of the Harder Extermination Service, Inc., into one of the notably successful enterprises in suburban Nassau County. F. Kenneth Harder, who founded and manages this company, has also in the quarter of a century since he took up his residence and opened his office in Hempstead, become one of the most active and most popular citizens of his adopted community in civic and social matters.
Mr. Harder is a son of the late Bertrand James Harder, a native of Philmont, Columbia County, New York, who became a knit goods mill agent in New York City. He married Iola Wymbs of Glenham in Dutchess County, New York, who is still living. Of this marriage F. Kenneth Harder was born at Philmont, in the pleasant hill country between the Hudson River and the Berkshire Hills, on February 25, 1896. As a child he was brought to Mount Vernon in Westchester County, New York, where he grew up attending the public grade and high schools, graduat- ing from high school in 1914. For his collegiate studies he entered Lehigh University at Bethlehem, Pennsyl- vania, with the class of 1919. Meanwhile the first World War had intervened, and F. Kenneth Harder enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve Force at the end of his sophomore year. He saw two years of service, holding the rank of an ensign in the naval reserve forces.
War and college both behind him, in 1921 Mr. Harder established the Harder Extermination Service, Inc., at Hempstead. Efficient extermination services were often very profitable businesses in great cities, and the vast increase in construction then in full swing in Nassau County, opened a new territory and offered an opportunity which Mr. Harder cor- rectly appraised. Under his direct management since its inception, the Harder Extermination Service has prospered and grown and now employs approximately fifty people. The main office and plant are located at 89 Jerusalem Avenue, Hempstead, and other offices are maintained in various suburban areas around metropolitan New York. In addition to F. Kenneth Harder, president, the officers of the corporation are H. T. Harder, vice president and secretary, and John F. Gorman, treasurer.
During the second World War F. Kenneth Harder
served on the scientific staff of the United States Navy underwater sound laboratory at New London, Connecticut, a Columbia University project under the direction of the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
Active in business and civic affairs from the earli- est days of his residence in Nassau County, Mr. Harder was one of the organizers, and served as the first president, of the Hempstead Rotary Club. In the fraternal field, he is a member of Glen Cove Lodge, No. 580, of the Free and Accepted Masons; of the Consistory, in which he holds the Thirty- second Degree; of Sphinx Temple, Hartford, Con- necticut, of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine; and of Lodge, No. 1485, of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. By virtue of his ancestry Mr. Harder holds membership in the Empire State Society of Sons of the American Revo- lution, and by right of his own services in two wars he is a member of American Legion Post, No. 390, and of the Military Order of World Wars. He belongs to the New York Athletic Club of New York City, and to the Hempstead Golf Club.
Mr. Harder is a member and an elder of Christ's First Presbyterian Church, and active in its affairs. In' politics he is a member of the Republican party. He has been a member of the Hempstead board of education, serving on that body for five years, during part of which time he was its president. Mr. Harder's hobby is the collecting of early American antiques.
On June 26, 1926, F. Kenneth Harder was married to Helen G. Thomas of Cooperstown, New York, a niece of William P. Doubleday of that city and of the Doubleday family immortally associated in American annals with the beginnings of the national sport of baseball. They have two children: I. Jane Towlson, now Mrs. Kenneth Rushlow, who was a student at the Geneseo State College in Geneseo, New York. 2. F. Kenneth, Jr., who was born on February 28, 1929, at this writing is in attendance at the Manlius Mili- tary School in Manlius, New York, and enters Purdue University soon to take up his studies, preparatory to entering his father's company and eventually to head the corporation.
FRED ELDEAN, whose home is at Amityville, heads an organization bearing his own name, dealing in public relations. A successful and growing concern, Fred Eldean Organization, Inc., has offices in New York City, and other major cities. Mr. Eldean's ex- perience in his field is full, and his counsel has proved valuable to a great number of business enterprises.
Son of John A. and Emma (Olson) Eldean, Fred Eldean is a native of Moline, Illinois, born March 8, 1899. On completion of his secondary education, he entered the University of Missouri, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1921. Having de- termined on a career in the law, he continued his legal studies at that university, taking the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1923.
Previous to his college years, Mr. Eldean had been on the staff of the "Daily Times," in Moline, Illinois, from 1915 to 1917. His professional career began, however, when he opened a law practice in Colum- bus, Indiana, in the year of his graduation from law school, continuing until 1926. He was associated with the West Publishing Company in St. Paul, Minne- sota, from 1926 to 1932; and in 1933 joined the Na- tional Highway Users Conference, with offices in Washington, D. C., with which organization he was connected from 1933 to 1935. In the latter year, Mr.
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Eldean became assistant to the president of the American Petroleum Institute in New York, which position he likewise held for a period of two years. From 1938 to 1942, he was executive director of the Tax Foundation, Incorporated, of New York. He became associated with General Motors Corporation in New York in 1942, and continued in the office of assistant director of public relations of that great organization until 1944.
In April of 1944, Mr. Eldean founded the firm of Fred Eldean Organization, Inc., Public Relations Counsel, and has continued at its head to the present time. This enterprise has offices in major cities, as well as in New York City. Mr. Eldean also has other investment interests.
Mr. Eldean served in the Field Artillery during World War I, taking officers' training. He is a mem- ber of University Club in New York. His interest in the study of law has continued; and he is the author of a book, "How to Find the Law," published 111 1931.
On June 15, 1935, Fred Eldean married Margaret Richmond, daughter of J. Wood and Ann (Dawson) Richmond. Mr. and Mrs. Eldean have two children: I. Frederick Richmond, born August 19, 1936. 2. John Dawson, born October 10, 1938. Mr. Eldean's office is that of the Fred Eldean Organization, at 670 Fifth Avenue, New York 19, New York. His sum- mer home is at 42 Bennett Place, Amityville, and his winter home in Phoenix, Arizona.
EDWARD F. WOOD, JR .- Luyster Motors, Inc., is the well known Chevrolet automobile sales con- cern in Glen Cove-at 244 Glen Cove Avenue. Its president is Edward F. Wood, Jr.
Mr. Wood was born in Locust Valley on May 7, 1905, the son of Edward F. and Mary Emma (South- ard) Wood. The elder Mr. Wood, born in Locust Valley on April 22, 1874, was a horticulturist. He died on June 29, 1945. Mary Emma Wood, born in' Lattingtown, May 9, 1876, makes her home in Locust Valley.
Edward F. Wood, Jr., first attended the public schools of Locust Valley. In 1924 he was graduated from the Friends' Academy in his native community, after which he spent one year at Lehigh University. On leaving the university he went to work for the Tubize Artificial Silk Company in New York City. In 1932 Mr. Wood launched his automobile business in Locust Valley, under the name of Luyster Motors, Inc. In 1933, the business was moved to its present location in Glen Cove. The business, prospering, has grown year by year. It now employs an average of twenty-five persons. Mr. Wood is a member and director of the Rotary Club of Glen Cove, a member of the Glen Cove Lodge, No. 580, Free and Accepted Masons, and of the United States Coast Guard Auxi- liary. He is a Republican and attends the Dutch Re- formed Church of Brookville. His hobby is fishing.
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