According to Weidman and Martin in their book Nassau County Long Island in Early Photographs, 1869-1940 (Dover, 1981):
"Founded in 1902 at Railroad Avenue and Irving Place, Woodmere, by Whitfield and Divine Hewlett, this company originally distributed hay, chicken feed and grain bought from the Pratt Food company in Buffalo, New York. As its South Shore customers increased in number, the Hewlett Brothers expanded their line of products to include anthracite coal from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. ...The Hewletts also handled Long Island and Maine potatoes, lumber and building products and Atlas Cement, famous for its use in the construction of the Panama Canal."
"Joseph and Herbert Hewlett [were] the owners of a thriving business [by 1915]. ...members of a Long Island family whose ancestry in America dated back to 1649... [t]heir progenitor was one of the judges who signed the death warrant for Charles I. The family name was sometimes spelled "Hulit" or "Owlett," showing the influence of its Yorkshire origin. The "Owlett" spelling also influenced the Hewlett coat-of-arms, composed of two owls on a shield, with a motto appropriate to this enterprising family: "By courage, not by craft." For more than 300 years Hewletts have been outstanding farmers and businessmen. The buildings of their Woodmere distributing company stood until the late 1960s, when they were demolished for a shopping center."
In 1914, Hewlett Brothers lumber yard was the site of an attempted robbery, featured in an article in The New York Times entitled "Brothers, Thieves, in duel with Police."
