Five Towns Local History

Long Island's Earthquakes and Hurricanes -: a historical perspective

2011-10-02T13:53:00.000-04:00

When the East Coast was rattled by an earthquake on August 23 and then buffeted by Hurricane Irene, later the same week, even notoriously unshakable New Yorkers noticed.

Ironically, it was not the first time that Long Island has felt the tremor of an earthquake followed by a hurricane. According to the United States Geological Survey’s website, a 5.6 quake centered in Messina, New York on September 4, 1944 was felt as far away as Wisconsin. It was followed ten days later by what is called the Great Atlantic Hurricane, which hit Long Island as a Category 3 storm.

The earliest official record of an earthquake affecting Long Island was recorded in 1737. In New York City, the epicenter, chimneys toppled and it was felt as far away as Boston and Philadelphia.

Last November 30 (2010), the U.S. Geological Survey measured a 3.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Southampton. If you missed that one, it was probably because the epicenter was about 4 miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

According to a spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey, the East Coast may be seismically active, but most tremors are not felt by humans unless they are over 3 on the Richter scale. The August 23rd quake, measuring 5.8 with its epicenter in Virginia, was felt as far south as North Carolina, as far north as Buffalo and Boston, and as far west as Detroit.

A similar effect happened on August 10, 1884 when (estimated to be 5.5 in the era before the Richter scale was developed) a severe earthquake was felt along the Atlantic Coast from sourthern Maine to central Virginia and westward to Cleveland, Ohio. According to the U.S.G.S.:

"Chimneys were knocked down and walls were cracked in several states, including Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. ..Property damage was severe at Amityville and Jamaica, New York, where several chimneys were "overturned" and large cracks formed in walls."

The New York Times reported On August 14, 1884:

"The Court House at Far Rockaway was shaken for several seconds, and the glasses and crockery on the hotel tables rattled and some fell over, causing the guests to start from their seats. ...A few minutes later the big hotel at Rockaway Beach was shaken, the doors and windows rattling loud enough to be heard at a considerable distance. "

Three years later, on March 4, 1887, the Times mentions a more subtle series of vibrations which were reported as far east as Babylon and rattled the Marine Observatory at Fire Island.

"The Postmaster at Far Rockaway says there were two separate shocks at that village. ..The only other place reported as feeling the shock is Rockaway Beach. Seperintendent (s9c) W.E. Burroughs of the New York, Woodhaven and Rockaway Beach Railroad says that he and others in the station noticed vibrations of the building and rattling of the windows, which lasted for several seconds..."

Two strong vibrations rocked Astoria in March of 1893 and were felt throughout the center of Long Island. While no damage was done during this midnight quake, residents of Long Island City through that an explosion at nearby oil refineries might have caused the tremor, which rattled window panes and broke crockery and glassware. (Brooklyn Eagle, March 8, 1893, p. 10.) Mr. Edmund J. Tinsdale, of New York City, recounted the effect the the earthquake had on his cat:

"Mr. Tinsdale was startled. His big black cat, which had been lying quietly on the floor, was also startled. She jumped up, with her hair standing on end and tail erect. Then she yowled loudly and executed a series of capers. Feeling no forther shook, Mr. Tinsdale got over being startled. But the cat was nervous for two hours." (The New York Times, March 9, 1893, p.8)

The Brooklyn Eagle of September 2, 1895, reads "Long Island Terrorized" as the Island was shaken in its sleep, with tremors felt from Delaware to Montauk.

(Next issue of the Blog -- Hurricanes and the Rockaways)

For more information:

The Woodsburgh Pavilion , 1870-1901

2011-07-02T17:54:00.002-04:00

In July of 1901, the Pavilion Hotel, which had been built by Samuel Wood in 1870 and attracted vacationers to Wood's hamlet of Woodsburgh for thirty years, was demolished. It had remained unoccupied for four years, and was to be replaced with a club house for the community's residents.

The Pavilion sat on an elevated area in the center of town, at the intersection of Woodmere Boulevard and Broadway. Built in the shape of a Greek cross, it was 175 feet long and 60 feet wide. It consisted of the four-storey main building and two three-storied wings, surrounded by a two-storied piazza. The first floor contained a drawing room, dining room and reading and smoking rooms as well as separate gentlemen’s and ladies sitting rooms adjacent to the hotel office. Smaller rooms for baggage, coat rooms and the barbershop as well as a few sleeping apartments completed the first floor. The second and third floors contained the 14’ x 17” guest rooms and “commodious” bath rooms. Two rooms on the fourth floor were occupied with immense water tanks, which provided running water to every room. The basement contained the billiard, laundry, provision and storage rooms, while a two-storied extension in the rear housed the kitchen and servants’ facilities. The gas and ice housed were located at the rear of the building, since it was expected that the building would be lit entirely by gas.

Four hundred guests could be accommodated in state-of-the art luxury. After a January 1870 gale blew down the first frame, the “handsomely ornamented” wooden building with its Mansard roof was built at a cost of $80,000. The smaller hotel across Broadway could accommodate about 100 guests. At least twenty 25’ x 40’ cottages would be built on either side of the grand Boulevard. A half mile long and eighty feet wide, with sidewalks and shade trees on both sides, the graded road was the first of many which would link the Rockaway villages and bring visitors to Mr. Wood’s new Paradise.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle describes the interior in detail:

The ladies’ parlor is fitted up in exquisite taste, and abounds in luxurious lounges and easy chairs; elegant velvet carpets deaden the footfall on the floor, and window hangings of green damask and lace “temper the glare of the sun.” The halls are carpeted in green with crimson borders. The reading room, off the office, is comfortably and elegantly furnished in Brussels, and oak and green leather furniture. The private supper room is more elegantly furnished, and the wine room (Mr. Stetson [the proprietor] will have no public bar in his house,) is in the same style. The dining room is furnished with a number of tables, accommodating eight or ten. The shelves of the china and silver room are loaded with handsome ware and everything taste or necessity could require. …The sleeping apartments are furnished in walnut [paneling] and Brussels [carpeting], and throughout everything is the most elegant style. The chandeliers are bronze and in exquisite taste. In short, the house is beautifully furnished throughout.”

In 1869, Samuel Wood, a wealthy businessman, had begun his acquisition of 400 acres of farmland in the area known as Browers’ Point in an effort to repay the home of his youth for his subsequent success. The community supported the endeavor and welcomed the project, which would become the driving force of Wood’s later life. The Daily Eagle chronicles the hiring of work teams to begin the layout of the Boulevard, which stretched from the main thoroughfare (Broadway) to the bay. One hundred and fifty men worked steadily through the winter of 1869-70 in the hope of opening the resort the following summer. The first structure to be built was the railroad depot, followed by the Grand Hotel or Pavilion, a smaller hotel (later called the Neptune), five cottages and the Boulevard, which extended in a straight line from the railroad tracks to the bay.

But by 1900, the Pavilion was dated and Woodsburgh's panache as a vacation spot had diminished. It was around this time that Robert Burton, a member of the Rockaway Hunt Club, bought the entire village from Samuel Wood's heirs with the intention of developing it for his private use. In the first decade of the new century, Burton demolished or moved all of Woodsburgh's existing structures and began the construction of his planned community, eventually named Woodmere, which would contain all the modern amenities and attract both vacationers and year 'round residents to a new Paradise in the country, just 40 minutes away from the hustle and bustle of New York City.

Further Reading:

“Woodsburgh: Later Improvements – How the New Watering Place Looks.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 27, 1870, p. 3.)

"Famous hotel demolished." Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 29, 1901, p. 8.

Horses in the Five Towns

2011-04-26T14:42:00.003-04:00

The farmland surrounding the Long Island Rail Road's Rockaway Branch was comprised of small homes and farms through the Nineteenth Century. In the years before World War I, the land increased in value and real estate development became a major project of businessmen who could afford to invest. Even so, developers like Robert L. Burton made an effort to maintain the rural flavor of the area, installing paved winding roads and transporting full-grown trees to decorate the park-like expanses of lawns. As late as the 1940's, horses were still a regular sight in the area and local riding stables were a major recreational venue for residents through the 1960s.

The Rockaway Hunt Club was founded in 1878 as a fox hunting organization. While tennis and golf eventually surpassed fox hunting in popularity, many members maintained their interest in equestrian activities and kept horses for polo and leisure riding at their country estates in Cedarhurst, Lawrence, Woodmere and Hewlett well into the Twentieth Century. One of the Club's members, Franklin Brooke Voss (1880 - 1953) of Hewlett, was a noted painter of equestrian scenes and became "almost an artist-in-residence to the Whitneys and the Vanderbilts." (Fairley, page 24.)

In 1902, Robert L. Burton, the developer of Woodmere, posted a sign on his property. At the time, his property included the entire village of Woodmere. At all of the entrances to the village bright red lettered signs, announced that automobiles would be barred from entering the property. According to an article in The Brooklyn Eagle (July 17, 1902), Burton was protecting his seasonal residents from

"the outrages perpetrated by automobilists, who run their machines at a high rate of speed and endanger the lives of drivers and pedestrians. The driveways through the Burton property are all eighteen feet wide and winding. Occupants of the cottages all have fine blooded stock, and as the animals become frightened at the puffing machines Mr. Burton has wisely made the ruling prohibiting their entering his grounds."

In addition to the main location of the Rockaway Hunting Club in Lawrence, a steeplechase course which bore the name Hewlett Bay Park, was created in 1913 on the current site of Hewlett High School. It is described as an "ideal" course.

"It is laid out over natural hunting country, and has two circuits, one of two miles, with brush and water jumps for steeplechase events and rail fences for the hunting races, and the other one mile on the flat. Both are in plain view of the stands and parking spaces, which are on a hillside overlooking not only the course, but Hewlett Bay and the ocean as well." (NY Times, May 3, 1914, p. X2.)

Russell Sage driving Meek and Humble at his Lawrence estate

Russell Sage, an avid horseman who relished his reputation as a ruthless financier and politician, would race his matched colts, Meek and Humble (above) on Central Avenue, scattering pedestrians. In an 1898 interview, Sage commented:

"You are quite right about my affection for animals and pets. Only an hour ago I was delivering a eulogy on a pet horse, and my wife said I could hardly keep house without my two pet Maltese cats. My horses are all very fond of me and know me well, and I always drive myself. I have two young colts I am especially fond of. I often pet them in the stable, and when they hear my voice they go crazy to get at me and rub their noses against my hand."

Cedarhurst resident and Rockaway Hunting Club member James R. Keene, a Wall Street stockbroker and owner of Castleton Farms in Kentucky, was an internationally recognized breeder of fine thoroughbred horses. In 1908, The London Sportsman wrote that Keene possessed "the greatest lot of race horses ever owned by one man." Castleton Farms produced six Belmont Cup winners before Keene retired from racing in 1910.

This unknown rider (note side-saddle) displays her talents at a local stable, c.1906

The 1913 Telephone Directory for the area lists the following Riding Academies and Livery stables:

Far Rockaway Riding Academy and Horse Exchange (Hewlett)
Cedarhurst Livery (Cedarhurst)
John Hanlon, Livery (Lawrence)
Thomas Heenan, Livery (Hewlett)
William D. Reilly, Livery (Cedarhurst)
John M. Ruhl, Livery, (Cedarhurst)
Henry F. Willis, Livery (Hewlett)

The telephone directory for 1926-1927 lists the following:

Cedarhurst Riding Academy (Fair Oaks Pl., Cedarhurst)
John Hanlon, Livery (Lawrence)
R. Montgomery Riding School (Willow Avenue, Cedarhurst)
Peninsula Riding Academy (Atlantic Avenue, Cedarhurst)
Peninsula Riding School (Woodmere)
Pursehouse riding Academy (Fair Oaks Place, Cedarhurst)
Sweet Meadow Farm, horses (Atlantic Avenue, Cedarhurst)
Lawrence R. Walton Horse Farm (Atlantic Avenue, Cedarhurst)
Burt Wood Riding Academy (Woodmere)

After World War II, the development of the Five Towns communities resulted in many large estates being subdivided. Most of the residents no longer kept their own stables, but recreational riding was still popular through the 1960's. Current residents remember being taken for pony rides at a stable on the Hewlett-Lynbrook border, the current location of a CVS pharmacy. Anyone who remembers the names of these establishments is invited to post a comment below.

Further information:

Local Street Names

2011-02-01T20:20:00.006-05:00

Every village has a main street. Some are actually called Main Street, some Broadway, others are completely different. According to the U.S. Postal Service (MailPro -- November/December 2010), the top five most common street names are Main, Maple, 2nd, Oak, and Park.

Residential builders commonly used names of trees or flowers, states, political figures and even family members as inspiration for the vast number of street names required to create communities. Many of the streets in the Five Towns were named for early residents of the communities which they helped to establish. Here are a few of the street names and their origins:

Albro Lane - The Albro Farm appears on the 1891 Wolverton map between the Rockaway Hunting Club and Woodsburgh. George Albro listed his profession as "Oysterman" in the 1880 census. His son Eugene is listed as an ice man on the 1900 census.
Auerbach Lane - Joseph Auerbach, (1875-1944) attorney for the Hewlett Bay Company and original owner of Seawane, now the clubhouse of the Seawane Club.
Brower Road, Brower's Point Branch - There were so many Browers in the mid-1800's that the area was known as "Brower's Point."
Burton Avenue - Robert L. Burton made his fortune in textiles. In 1901, he purchased the entire village of Woodsburgh from the estate of Samuel Wood and began the development of his planned community of Woodmere. He and his brother, John Howes Burton, were both members of the Rockaway Hunting Club and lived in Cedarhurst (later Lawrence).
Combs Avenue - The Combs Family has a long history in the area. Alexander Combs is a major property owner on the 1906 Belcher-Hyde map of Woodmere.
Conklin Avenue - Joseph Conklin's property is listed on the 1873 and 1891 maps of Woodsburgh.
Everit Avenue - Cousin and financial advisor of Carleton Macy, V. Everit Macy was a philanthropist and President of the Westchester Park Commission. He owned a home in Hewlett Bay Park.
Elinor Road - probably named for Elinor Stewart, wife of John Stewart, a Rockaway Hunting Club member and Hewlett Bay Park resident.
Finucane Place - Matthew Finucan owned the land on the 1873 Beers, Comstock and Cline map of Woodsburgh. Thomas Finucan owned local hotels at the turn-of-the century. He was a colorful character. Contemporary newspaper articles trace his numerous lawsuits and assault bookings.
Frost Lane - The Frost family owned land throughout the Branch. C (Carman) Frost, a bayman, is listed in the 1873 Beers, Comstock and Cline map of Hewletts as owning property on Broadway.
William Gibson lent his own name to the residential area that he started building in 1925. He named a series of streets after well-known liquor brands: Haig Road, Dubonnet Road, Carstairs Road, Gordon Road and Wilson Road.
Harris Avenue - Tracy Hyde Harris (c1864-1933), an attorney, lived in Hewlett Bay Park.
Grant Park - a residential area developed after the Civil War. Features streets named for Civil War Generals: Hancock Street, Slocum Street, Sheridan Avenue.
Hartwell Place - Dr. John D. Hartwell (d.1902) was a respected physician. He owned property next to Trinity Church on Broadway.
Ike Place - C. (Charles) Ike, a Woodsburgh property owner on the 1873 and 1891 maps, was a bayman, as were generations of his descendants.
Johnson Place - Abraham Johnson, a carpenter and his son,Thomas Johnson, had a farm on the site of the current Woodmere Educational Complex. Abraham Johnson helped to build the current Trinity-St. John's Church building. Both are buried in the churchyard.
Keene Lane - James Keene and his son, Foxhall, were stock brokers and members of the Rockaway Hunting Club. Foxhall Keene was an accomplished all-around sportsman.
Lefferts Road - named for Carleton Macy's wife, Helen Lefferts Macy.
Longworth Avenue - The Longworth Family have lived in the community for generations and had large amounts of land around Broadway in Hewlett at the turn of the 20th century. Daniel Longworth donated the land for the site of the first St. Joseph's Church.
Macy Drive - Carleton Macy was the President of the Queens Borough Gas and Electric Company, and later was the President of the Hewlett Bay Company, which developed Hewlett Bay Park. George's Creek (named for George Hewlett) was dredged to create Macy Channel in the hope of creating a direct waterway between Hewlett and Long Beach, deep enough to float large freighters." (Rockaway News, May 1910)
Meadowview Avenue - actually overlooked the meadows owned by the Hewlett family prior to the construction of the Hewlett Bay Company homes.
Neptune Avenue - The 1873 Beers, Comstock and; Cline map of Hewletts shows Neptune Avenue intersecting Broadway at the site of the Neptune Hotel.
Paine Road - led to the estate of Edward Paine, an investment banker and member of the Rockaway Hunting Club.
Porter Place - H. Hobart Porter (1866-1947), mining engineer. His large Tudor-style home, Lauderdale, still stands in Lawrence.
Sage Lane - led to the property of Mr. and Mrs. Russell Sage in back Lawrence.
Stevenson Road - Richard W. Stevenson was an attorney and developer of Hewlett Bay Park, He was a partner of Joseph Auerbach in the purchase of the Hewlett family lands and their transfer to the Hewlett Bay Company.
Veeder Lane - led to the estate of Paul Lansing Veeder (c1885-1942) Yale football star and coach.
Voss Avenue - William Voss, a stockbroker built his home, Merriefield, in Hewlett Bay Park. His sons were real estate brokers. Franklin Voss was also an artist, specializing in equestrian scenes, while his sister, Jessie Voss Lewis, was a portrait painter. The road to the homestead is now called Pleasant Place.
Ward Place -The 1906 Belcher-Hyde map of Woodmere shows Thomas Ward's property bordering the estate of Dr. Hartwell and the property belonging to Trinity Church.
White Lane- The White family made their fortune in recycling the carcasses of dead livestock from the streets of Brooklyn and transporting them to Barren Island for processing. They owned large tracts of property throughout Cedarhurst and Lawrence, but White Lane was the site of the family home.
Wood Lane - Samuel Wood (c1795-1878) grew up on his father's farm in what would become Woodsburgh. He and his brothers were liquor importers; four bachelors who each left their property to their remaining brothers. Samuel, the last remaining brother, used the money to buy up neighboring farms and build two hotels, the Woodsburgh Pavilion and the Neptune Hotel, and to establish the village of Woodsburgh as a resort community.

Old Fashioned Holidays

2010-12-23T13:05:00.003-05:00

Currier & Ives print "American Homestead Winter"

One hundred years ago, most of Long Island looked like this scene from a Currier and Ives print. The occasional "horseless carriage" was a bother for pedestrians and animals alike, but during the winter months most of the owners of these nuisances stayed in their city homes. Many of the seasonal vacation homes in The Branch (as the Five Towns were then known) were unheated and early Twentieth Century winters were long and cold -- , few paved roads, no snow blowers, wood and coal stoves...

The December 1910 issues of the Rockaway Journal list some of the holiday festivities for residents of The Branch.

Joseph Ueblacker of Lawrence offers a splendid large sleigh for hire for sleighing parties, two or four horses.
a Christmas Tree and Carol Festival at St. Johns Church, held for the scholars of the parish school
a musical recital by the pupils of Mr. Sigmund Herzog performed at the Olympia Athenaeum on Mott Avenue
three events hosted by The Woodmere Country Club, for the entertainment of the members:

an "Open House" on December 31st
a Bridge Tournament on January 14th
a "Stag" with beefsteak supper on January 28th

in addition, the grounds of the Club occupied by the tennis courts are being flooded each cold night to provide a skating rink.


Skaters on the pond, c1906. (Wallace Small, photographer; HWPL collection)

Skaters also practiced on Willow Pond, Birch Pond (on the grounds of the Whiton Estate -- now the Stella K. Abraham School), Sage Pond in Lawrence and even Woodmere Bay when it froze!

Nebenzahl's Department Store in Far Rockaway suggests last minute gifts in the December 23rd Rockaway Journal (see below). The first Jewish services in the area were conducted in a room above the store - later the congregation would become Temple Israel.

while their competitors, Mullen and Buckley touted their wares:

It seems that gift-giving was no less hectic a century ago. Advertisements directed at last-minute shoppers abound in the December 15, 1910 New York Times. Among these are the AutoStrop Safety Razor ("Economy Christmas Gift for Him"), The Coward Shoe ("a sensible Christmas Gift") and Macy's Toyland ("....delighting the hearts of thousands of children.....a Fairyland of Toys.") Macy's also featured "French Boudoir Novelties (Third Floor)", French Lingerie and Tea and Luncheon Baskets, while B. Altman and Co advertised "real lace pieces suitable for holiday gifts and "footwear for gift purposes" including "plain and embroidered silk hosiery in shades to match costumes and slippers."

Scribner's advertisement for holiday gift books in includes the following titles:

African Game Trails by Theodore Roosevelt. According to official reports THE BEST SELLER of all non-fiction. Splendidly illustrated with photographs by Kermit Roosevelt and others, also with drawings. $4.00 net $4.33 postpaid.

Peter Pan by James M. Barrie. with 15 of Arthur Rackham's framous full color Pictures. A new edition of this classic for children, now famous for both text and illustrations at a moderate price. $1.50 net

The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, by Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton (his grandson) based chiefly on family letters, papers and documents never before published and giving views hitherto unobtainable of almost all famous men and women of Hamilton's day. 8 vols. $3.50 net. Postage extra.

"Memories of The Branch" Exhibit at H-WPL

2010-10-27T12:09:00.014-04:00

November 1 - December 12, 2010

Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library Art Gallery (Lower Level)

Selected photographs from the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library's Local History Collection and Treasures from some of our Talented Neighbors

For the first time in recent memory, the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library will be presenting a selection of photographs reproduced from those in our Local History Collection. In addition, a viola d'amore made by Woodmere luthier Edward Maday will also be on display. This intricately decorated stringed instrument was created from local wood and decorated with mother-of-pearl from Woodmere Bay shellfish. Also featured will be driftwood sculptures by Woodmere artist James Boosin which evoke the area's nautical heritage.

What is "The Branch"?

When the Long Island Rail Road was established in 1834 to create a route across Long Island, train travel shortened a three-day trip between Long Island City and Greenport to a mere five hours. In October 1867, the South Side Railroad began its route from Jamaica to Babylon. As one of several competing rail and trolley lines to the Rockaways, the South Side expanded its service and in 1869 established the Rockaway Branch to the popular resort area of Far Rockaway. The farm communities along the route of the Rockaway Branch soon became resort destinations as well. For generations, these communities had taken the names of major landowners or landmarks: Hewletts, Browers' Point, Jennings Corner, Ocean Point, Northwest Point were all communities in the area collectively known as The Rockaways. Far Rockaway was so-named because of it’s distance from the population center at Hempstead Village. The mill community to the northeast was referred to as Near Rockaway (today’s East Rockaway) since it was nearer to Hempstead.

The railroad brought land developers like the Lawrence Brothers and Samuel Wood, who created planned communities which they named after themselves. These communities, which grew with the development of the Rockaway Branch, became known as the Branch communities, or simply, The Branch. This name was used until 1931, when individual community chest groups combined under the banner of the Five Towns Community Chest. Since then Hewlett, Woodmere, Lawrence, Cedarhurst and Inwood have been referred to as “The Five Towns.”

Join us as the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library celebrates our history, with a special emphasis on Hewlett, Gibson and Woodmere.

Cedarhurst at 100!

2010-09-16T11:56:00.002-04:00

One hundred years ago, "The Branch" was a resort and entertainment center which attracted vacationers from all over the country. The newly formed Nassau County (est. 1899) provided some services in an area formerly part of Queens County, but some communities wanted local control of their civic development. Lawrence became an incorporated village in 1897 and, maintained it's own police and fire departments for many years. Cedarhurst followed in 1910 and Woodsburgh incorporated in 1912.

In the early years of the 20th century, Cedarhurst consisted of a hotel, three saloons, a blacksmith shop, two butcher shops, a barbershop, a couple of grocery stores, a funeral parlor, an insurance office -- and not much else. Cedarhurst's first major public works project was the paving of Central Avenue.

Developers created neighborhoods of wide, tree-lined streets where they situated homes in naturalistic settings, far from the noise and pollution of New York City.

The Long Island Rail Road, which had already existed for almost 80 years, made comfortable commutation to the City possible in under an hour.

Early Village Officers (Courtesy Nassau County DPRM)

Cedarhurst's first mayor, Horatio P. Vandewater, died after only one year in office. He was replaced by David Weyant. Village Trustees and officers shown above are: (From left to right) front row: Arthur M. Lockhart, Wavid H. Weyant and John McNicoll. second row: William D. Reilly, George W. Craft, Albert T. Moon, Lewis M. Raisig and Fred L. Gilbert.

As it developed, Cedarhurst attracted some of the most fashionable stores in the area and became the commercial center of the Five Towns. Even this 1915 view of Central Avenue at Cedarhurst Avenue shows the boutiques lining the main business intersection of town. By 1941, 200 stores were located in the business district's one-square-mile area.

Native Americans in the Rockaways

2010-07-06T16:06:00.004-04:00

Archeologists believe that indigenous people occupied the area of Southern New York from about 4600 B.C. From about 1000 B.C., the native people of this area demonstrated a tradition of farming, permanent or semi-permanent villages and the use of baked pottery vessels. The relatively warm, dry climate and the abundance of streams and tidal basins produced a variety of food sources. Woodlands were cleared for fields which were planted with corn and probably beans and squash. The archeological evidence shows that fishing and the harvesting of shellfish were important occupations. Around 1100 A.D., a new population, identified by archaeologists through their distinctive pottery, inhabited the area. These people, referred to by archaeologists as the East River Culture, inhabited the western part of Long Island and co-existed with the tribes which lived further to the North and East. It is thought that the East River Culture are the ancestors of the Algonkian-speaking people who inhabited the area at the time that the first European settlers arrived, in the Seventeenth Century.

The dome-shaped wigwam shown below (from the Library of Congress), is typical of the bark or thatch-covered single-family housing constructed on the East coast. The natives of Western Long Island also employed the Iroquois longhouse design, a rectangular shaped lodge covered with bark, which housed several families and were sometimes 100 feet long.

LANGUAGE
Munsee, the name scholars have given to the language spoken by the Rockaways is classified by linguists in the family of Algonkian languages. In the 18th century, speakers of Munsee and its dialects populated the area from the Delaware Water Gap and the Raritan River through southeastern New York State to Western Long Island. (HONAI, v.15, p.73)

COLONIAL ERA

From Henry Hudson's initial exploration of what would become New York harbor and the Hudson River until 1664, the Dutch, administered by a series of governors, negotiated with the sachems of the Algonkian-speaking tribes, for trade and use of the land of western Long Island. The early interactions between the Dutch West India Company and the local inhabitants were sometimes marked by conflict. While trade benefited both communities, individual disputes often led to clashes and some escalated into war. In 1645 the Recouwacky, (alternate spellings include Rechquaakie, Reckawachy, Reckonwacky) or Rockaway tribe signed a peace treaty with the Dutch governor, Willem Kieft, granting the Dutch the use of the area. According to author Richard Woods, Shellbank Place in Rockville Centre was the site of the Rockaways' village.

In their twenty years of occupation, the Dutch population of New Netherlands had not spread much past Brooklyn. In 1635, William Alexander, the British Earl of Stirling, had exercised rights granted to him by the council of Plymouth and laid claim to whole of Long Island, thus coming into conflict with, not only the Dutch, but with the tribes inhabiting the area. (Brodhead, p. 298). English settlement western Long Island began with a group of colonists from the area of Hemel-Hampstead, near London who had settled in Stamford, Connecticut. They named their settlement Hempstead.

This group was led by Rev. Robert Fordham and his son-in-law, John Carman, who, in 1643, negotiated a treaty with the sachems of the Reckouwacky, the Merockes, Matinecock, and Massapequas which eventually granted the English rights to use all the land from the East River to Martin Gerritsen's Bay (today's Oyster Bay Harbor) and including the area known as the area known as the Great Plains (later the Hempstead Plains) , south to the ocean. The Dutch, under Director General Willem Kieft, could tolerate the presence of fellow Protestants and in 1644 a patent was granted to the English settlers, on the condition that they would have to attract at least 100 families to Hempstead by 1649. Although the population of Hempstead was allowed to try their own criminal cases and appoint their own sheriff, they would ultimately be subject to Dutch laws and customs.

A series of treaties between the Dutch and the Indians, the Dutch and the English, and the English and the Indians followed. When the Dutch and English divided the ownship of Long Island in 1650, Tackapausha was elected sachem of the chieftaincies under the Dutch jurisdiction. This included tribes such as the Massapequas, the Merikokes, Canarsees, Secatogues, Rockaways and Mattinicocks. According to Benjamin Franklin Thompson, writing in 1843, (p.95), the Rockaways "were scattered over the southern area of the town of Hempstead, which, with a part of Jamaica and the whole of Newtown [today's Woodside, Corona, Maspeth] , constituted the bounds of their claim. Their main settlement was at Near Rockaway." [today's East Rockaway].

The origin of the name Rockaway may derive from both “Reckonwacky,” meaning “the place of our own people,” and “Reckanawahaha,” meaning “the place of laughing waters,” as the area’s indigenous names. Other interpretations include “lekau,” meaning sand, "regawthaki" meaning "sandy land" and “lechauwaak,” for fork or branch. A poem in the introduction of Bellot's History of the Rockaways translates it as "that lonely place" or "place of waters bright." The coastal Indians of Long Island manufactured wampum beads (photo at right from the Library of Congress collection) from the colored parts of shells. The people who had this skill became the minters of currency. This resulted in a trade triangle where the coastal Indians traded wampum to the Dutch for goods; the Dutch then had currency to trade for furs with the inland tribes.

The original colony of British settlers established their settlement in today's Hempstead village. By 1647, there were sixty-seven families living in the settlement and within five years, the required 100 families had been exceeded. The "mouseaten booK' which listed much of what we know about the original fifty Hempstead families, has been lost over time. Their surnames included Carman, Mott, Coe, Cornell, Pettit, Raynor and Hewlett -- names which would become interwoven into the fabric of Long Island over the next three hundred years. In 1685, virtually the entire Rockaway peninsula was purchased from the Rockaway tribe under Tackapausha by John Palmer for "the sume of One and Thirty Pounds and Tenns Shilling Lawfull money." Although Hempstead's town fathers contested the sale, Palmer sold the property in 1687 to Richard Cornwall of Flushing, who had prospered through trade with the native people.

By the 19th Century, most Rockaway Indians had left Long Island or had intermarried generations before. Culluloo Telewana, whom Abraham Hewlett believed to be the last of the Rockaways, instructed young boys like Hewlett in forest lore, woodcraft and fishing. Whether Culluloo was truly the last of the Rockaways or an escaped slave, is a subject for debate among historians. Late in life, Hewlett remembered

"Culluloo, the Indian, whom I saw mornings and evenings when he went to and returned from work, that he was very kind ... "(Bellot, p.69)

Hewlett recounted that when he died, Culluloo was buried in an unmarked grave in the woods. When he became a successful businessman, Abraham Hewlett resolved that he would erect a monument to his boyhood friend, who died in 1818. The monument, built on Broadway at Linden Street in Woodmere, on Hewlett's property, was finished on October 17, 1888 - the day Hewlett died. In 1901, the property was purchased by Robert L. Burton, a land developer, who removed the monument. Local historian William S. Pettit convinced Burton's brother, John Howes Burton, to rescue the granite obelisk from oblivion and create a small triangle of land on Wood Lane, where it is still located. The monument reads:

"Here lived and died Culluloo Telewana, A.D, 1818,
The last of the
Rockaway Iroquois Indians, who was personally known to me in my boyhood. I, owning the land, have erected this monument to him and his tribe.

Further Information:

Bellot, Alfred H. History of the Rockaways. Far Rockaway, NY : Bellot Histories, 1918.
Brodhead, John Romeyn. History of the State of New York. New York : Harper Brothers, 1853-71.
Cantwell, Anne-Marie and Wall, Diana diZarega. Unearthing Gotham. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Coles, Robert R. The Long Island Indian. Glen Cove, NY: The Little Museum, 1954.
Garvies Point Museum & Preserve: Indian Archaeology on Long Island
Handbook of North American Indians (HONAI), volume 15: Northeast. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Insitution, 1978.
History of the Town of Hempstead (townofhempstead.org)
Jackson, Birdsall. Stories of Old Long Island. Rockville Centre: Paumanok Press, c1934.
"Last of the Rockaways," The New York Times. December 15, 1895, p. 17.
Long Island Forum: citations using "Indians" as a subject (Locations of L.I. Forum at Nassau Libraries)
MacKay, Robert B. et al. (eds.) Between Ocean and Empire: an Illustrated History of Long Island. Northridge, CA : Windsor Publications, 1986.
Prime, Nathaniel Scudder. A history of Long Island: from its first settlement by Europeans to the year 1845... New York : Robert Carter, 1845.
Rockaway Memories: The Dean Georges Collection. A very short history of Far Rockaway
Smithsonian Institution. Art Inventories Catalog. The Culluloo Monument, (sculpture).
Strong, John A. The Algonquian Peoples of Long Island from Earliest Times to 1700. Interlaken, NY: Empire State Books, 1997.
Strong, John A. "We are still here!": the Algonquian Peoples of Long Island Today. Interlaken, NY : Empire State Books, 1996
Thompson, Benjamin. History of Long Island, 2nd ed. New York: Gould, Banks & Co., 1843.
New York City Dept. of Parks and Recreation : Rockaway Boardwalk
Woods, Richard. Oceanside (Images of America Series). Charleston, SC : Arcadia, 2004.

Project Bulldog

2010-05-22T16:11:00.004-04:00

2010 may be the year of the Tiger on the Chinese calendar, but in Hewlett and Woodmere, it is the Year of the Bulldog.

In recent years, many cities have featured public art exhibitions such as the "Cow Parade" and "Painted Ponies" (Providence, Rhode Island used Mr. Potato Head) to showcase local art while raising money for charity. The idea of using the Hewlett High School bulldog mascot to create similar excitement is the brainchild of Ira Friedman, a longtime area resident and Hewlett High School graduate. When Mr. Friedman joined forces with Jessica Bayer, the Hewlett-Woodmere School District 14 Art Chairperson, it was the birth of Project Bulldog. Since last summer's construction of the template bulldog, students, community artists, art faculty and famous alumni of Hewlett High School have created a magical pack of jowly composite canines. Sponsors contributed $250 to the project. Profits went to the Hewlett-Woodmere Endowment Fund, earmarked for art department needs and initiatives.

"The excitement and energy is contagious," said Jessica Bayer in a November 2009 interview with the Nassau Herald. "The real learning going on is apparent in the generation of ideas, the rich dialogue about technique, and the remarkable artwork being created."

Some of the more famous participants include fashion designer Donna Karan ('66), contemporary artist Ross Bleckner ('67), architect Wendy Evans Joseph ('73).While all have the same basic shape, they are as unique as the imaginations of their creators.

Some are decorated in paint, some are mosaics, others feature feathers, jewels, pencils and some materials which defy description. They all have personalities of their own and, while displayed in public spaces and stores throughout the village during the Spring, became favorites wherever they appeared.

The main event of Project Bulldog will be a barbeque and auction at the Seawane Club, to be held on Thursday, June 17th at 6:30 p.m. A $65 ticket entitles the bearer to cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, a gourmet barbeque, and dessert. Proceeds from ticket sales and from the auction will benefit the Hewlett High School Art Department.

The bulldogs are currently all assembled at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library in anticipation of their special day. Stop by and pick your favorite. The Library is open Monday through Thursday 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Friday 9 a.m.-6 p.m. ; Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday 12:30 p.m.-5 p.m. during the exhibit. Please check details on the Library's web site.

In the words of Superintendent of Schools Les Omotani:

This unique collaboration benefits the arts, our students, local merchants, residents and the community as a whole... I love the Project Bulldog concept, applaude its initiative and look forward to the positive impact it is poised to generate.

(Nassau Herald, November 19, 2009)

More Information:

Libraries in the Five Towns

2010-04-12T18:39:00.005-04:00

The celebration of National Library Week (April 11-17) provides us with an opportunity to look at the beginnings of library service in the Five Towns.

The public library, open to all, is a relatively new concept, though centers for written knowledge existed as far back as 6,000 years ago in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Written works were reserved for universities and governmental or religious institutions or private collections owned by individuals wealthy enough to afford them.

As scientific and recreational reading became a popular diversions in the United States, private subscription libraries were created as means of sharing the substantial cost of books. Benjamin Franklin is generally credited with establishing the first of America's public libraries in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1731. Funded privately, these voluntary libraries were dependent on good economic climates in order to thrive. Proponents of public libraries realized that a stable economic base (i.e., tax-funded) was necessary in order to ensure that these institutions could continue in good times and bad. The movement grew in popularity throughout the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, as books became more affordable and education became a path to self-improvement and advancement.

The growth of public education in the early 20th Century combined with the growth of publishing in America to create an environment conducive to the establishment of public libraries. It was in this environment that the Peninsula Community Library opened its doors at 493 Central Avenue in Cedarhurst on April 23, 1930.

At the time, Queens Borough Public Library's Far Rockaway branch was the only library open to the community. Two years prior, a referendum of School District 14 voters had rejected an article in the school budget which appropriated tax money to establish a free public library in the District.

A small committee of determined women visited area libraries and explored possibilities for funding a library. Their study showed that although the cost of founding and maintaining a library for the entire Five Towns population was prohibitive, the alternative of a children's library funded by subscription, was well within the reach of the community. In 1930, attorney Cornelius Wickersham filed the papers for the registration of The Peninsula Community Library with the State of New York as a joint stock association, assuring that gifts to it would be tax free.

The Community Council of Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Inwood, Woodmere and Hewlett, headed by Mrs. F. Abbot Goodhue, was a local organization which promoted educational and character-building opportunities for the area's children. It seemed a natural extension for the organization to lend its support to this project.

Books were purchased using funds from the memorial fund established in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Butler Olney, and enhanced by donations of money and goods from the community. Subsequent funding from the Community Chest of the Five Towns supplemented the other gifts, membership fees, book rentals, and fines which the library generated.

Once community support and basic funding was assured, the committee looked for a librarian to develop the community's vision. Miss Miriam Rowe, an experienced librarian from Massachusetts, agreed to relocate in Cedarhurst. For the next twenty years, she was the guiding spirit behind the Peninsula Community Library.

A room was rented in a block of stores at 493 Central Avenue. Enhanced by handmade bookshelves and tables fabricated in Woodmere High School's wood shop, the library opened for business. The charge for withdrawing a book was five cents for two weeks (later increased to ten cents), and overdue books incurred a fine. The first book taken out of the collection was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. By the end of the first month, the new collection totalled 2,253 titles and 300 children and young adults had received library cards.

In 1936, sisters Florence, Grace and Maude White offered the Library a building on Cedarhurst Avenue as a new location. They agreed to a rent of $65.00 per month but, more importantly, agreed to have it remodeled to the Directors' specifications. Donations of landscaping by Allan Dalsimer and moving services from William Reilly kept the costs down. Fred Rivera allowed the Library rent-free use of one of his stores on Broadway in Hewlett for a branch library which served the populations of Hewlett and Gibson.

Mrs. H. Hobart Porter contributed an "ancient" station wagon, which made weekly trips to inaccessible parts of Hewlett and Gibson and later served Cedarhurst and Woodmere areas as well. Story hours at the library and the playground of the Number 2 School in Inwood attracted the younger population, while the Library Legionnaires, a service group of older students helped with maintenance and shelving. In the next few years The Reading Club, The Garden Clubs, The Woodmere Music Club became active users of the Library's facilities.

In 1947, the voters of School District 14 once again voted on the establishment of a free library, The project was approved and the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library opened, first in the Woodmere School and then in a house purchased from the Pearsall family on the current site of the Library. Three years later, the voters of School District 15 also approved the establishment of a tax-based free library, and the Peninsula Public Library opened in 1951.

The assets of the Peninsula Community Library were distributed between the two collections and by August 1950, the legal process of dissolution of the community library had taken place.

The founding of the Nassau Library System in 1959 created a powerful information network which maximizes the effectiveness of each of the member libraries. The popularity of the Hewlett-Woodmere and the Peninsula Public Libraries and the demand for their services has resulted in several expansions and renovations over the years. As we celebrate National Library Week, those of us in the library community thank our patrons for their continued support and look forward to a bright future of collaboration between the libraries and the communities that they serve.

For further information:

Margaret Slocum Sage

2010-03-09T18:19:00.003-05:00

There is a winding road called Sage Avenue which meanders through Back Lawrence. It crosses a body of water that has been known both as Sage Pond and Dixon Pond. Nearby, the large gray house that occupies a prominent spot overlooking the bay was for many years the vacation home of financier Russell Sage and his second wife, Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage.

Russell Sage, who began his career as a grocer in Troy, New York, was one of the financial powers of the Gilded Age. After holding a series of small public offices, he served in Congress between 1835 and 1857. When he left Washington, D.C., he became a financial broker in New York City and eventually bought a seat on the stock exchange. He was known as a ruthless and manipulative businessman. When he married Olivia Slocum in 1869 after the death of his first wife, it was in part to improve his image.

Born in 1828, Olivia lived in a world where men controlled the nation's finances. A descendant of Pilgrim Miles Standish, her affluent family was able to send her to the Troy Female Seminary (later the Emma Willard School). She became a teacher, devoted to educational reform and cared for her ailing mother. She was over forty when she married Sage, who had already made a fortune on Wall Street and had interests in over 20 railroads. Closely associated with Jay Gould, Sage was one of the "robber barons" who was reviled by the press for making his fortune at the expense of others. For over 37 years she lived her husband's shadow in what has been chronicled as a loveless marriage.

During this time, the Sages summered at Cedar Croft, their home in Lawrence. Built in 1888 for H.T. Palmer, a retired British naval officer, the home was acquired by Russell and Olivia Sage around 1886. Anecdotes of Russell Sage racing his matched colts, Meek and Humble, down Central Avenue show a very different side of the dour financier. Though he cultivated his reputation as a skinflint, he actually contributed generously to charities. During his last days, Sage enjoyed sitting on the wrap-around porch of Cedar Croft, shielded from the wind, watching the ships pass on the bay beyond his beach..

When Sage died in 1906, he left an estate of almost $70 million to his wife. Olivia, who throughout her life preferred to known as "Mrs. Russell Sage," started putting the money to work "for the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States of America." To this end, in 1907, she established the Russell Sage Foundation with an initial gift of $10 million. The Russell Sage Foundation is today one of the world's preeminent philanthropic organizations. According to its website:

In its early years, the Foundation played a pioneering role in dealing with problems of the poor and the elderly, in efforts to improve hospital and prison conditions, and in the development of social work as a profession. The Foundation was also responsible for early reforms in health care, city planning, consumer credit, labor legislations, the training of nurses, and social security programs. Since World War II, the Foundation has devoted its efforts to strengthening the social sciences as a means of achieving more informed and rational social policy.

In her 80's and assisted by her attorney, Robert W De Forest, Mrs. Sage invested in the planned community of Forest Hills Gardens. Intended as affordable working-class housing, its costs soon made it beyond the reach of its intended constituency. Her support of women's health and education was demonstrated through sizable bequests to existing women's colleges and the establishment of Russell Sage College for Women in Troy, NY. The Emma Willard School, the New York Women's Hospital and the Childrens' Aid Society. Harvard, Yale, Syracuse and New York Universities were all recipients of Sage funding.

In the Five Towns, then known as The Branch, Mrs. Sage established the Sage Industrial School in 1907. Located in Inwood, the school was geared to the needs of the area's growing immigrant community. Classes which taught English language skills were included with vocational instruction: sewing, laundry work, basketry and cooking for the girls; carpentry, masonry and plumbing for the boys. Both parents and children could take advantage of the facilities provided for hygiene and recreation. In 1911, the name was changed to the Nassau Industrial School and in the 1930s was included in the Five Towns Community Chest organizations. From the Depression years onward, and expanded its focus from a school to a clearing house for social services and meeting place for community groups. In 1942, the name was changed to the Five Towns Community House. In the 1960's Nassau County funding expanded the organizations services and today the Five Towns Community Center in Lawrence provides a variety of health and educational programs for its participants.

Further reading:

Online links

Cedarhurst Municipal Stadium

2010-01-21T16:25:00.002-05:00

Hewlett Harbor author Murray Greenberg's 2008 book The Passing Game highlighted the career of football player Benny Friedman (1905-1982), an All-American quarterback with a distinguished professional career. In 1928 Tim Mara, owner of the New York Giants, purchased the entire Detroit Wolverines franchise to acquire the rights to Friedman, its quarterback. After a knee injury limited Friedman's career, he was a player-coach for the Brooklyn football Dodgers and later in life coached for Yale and Brandeis Universities. While he was coaching at City College, the 34-year old Friedman became the coach and quarterback of the Cedarhurst Wolverines, a semi-professional team based at the Cedarhurst Municipal Stadium.

The Stadium was located near the intersection of Peninsula Boulevard and Rockaway Turnpike, on the site of today's Lawrence Senior High School. It was built by the Village of Cedarhurst with workers furnished by the WPA in 1937. Between 1937 and 1941, it hosted minor league and semi-professional football teams with names like the Cedarhurst Giants, Wolverines (a nod to Friedman's former team), All-Stars, Gaels and Spartans. They played the New York Football Yankees and an all-black team, the Brown Bombers as well as teams from Valley Stream, Hicksville, Queens, Brooklyn, Connecticut, New Jersey and beyond.

In addition, semi-professional Metropolitan Baseball League teams, including the New York Black Yankees and the Brooklyn Royal Giants of the Negro National League. Negro League baseball stars like Marion "Sugar" Caine and Barney Brown played at Cedarhurst during the 1939 season.

As a young man, Bert Moser played in the minor leagues for a short time.

"Born on August 6, 1918 in Cedarhurst, he spent his early years watching the teams at Cedarhurst Stadium. According to Bert, they played some of the best teams in their class such as the Bushwicks, House of David, Detroit Clowns, Black Yankees or Giants, Cuban All Stars and Springfield Grays. He would stand out there with a little mitt on Sunday afternoon catching balls, and when the game started sneak up into the stands or sell peanuts." (Interview with Bert Moser, Society for American Baseball Research website)

Between May 1938 and September 1941, Cedarhurst Stadium also maintained a quarter-mile racing track for midget racing: small race cars with a very high power-to-weight ratio which typically use four-cylinder engines. Drivers like Ed "Dutch" Schaefer, Tony Bonadies, Bill Schindler and "Honey" Purick competed in 75-lap heats. To increase interest, promoter Walter Stebbins offered $75.00 to the attending fan who held the ticket stubs on the winning car in the "Races for Riches" heat. The first American Racing Drivers' Club (ARDC) race was held on May 15, 1940 at Cedarhurst. Unfortunately, the deaths of drivers Brad Stillwagon and Andrew "Honey" Purick at the Cedarhurst track in June and July 1940 contributed to the end of midget racing at Cedarhurst.

The beginning of World War II effectively ended other sports activities at Cedarhurst. Although some events were held at the stadium after the War, it never regained the momentum of its pre-war days. When Lawrence High School relocated to Reilly Road, the last remnants of the Cedarhurst Municipal Stadium were consigned to Memory.

Further Information

The Branch gets its Name (Part II)

2009-12-12T11:25:00.002-05:00

Early Long Island was linked by Indian trails, which existed long before European settlers moved to the area. In the Five Towns area, Broadway and Rockaway Turnpike follow those routes. When the railroad laid track through the Long Island communities, many areas were named for the families who had owned the land. In the southern part of the Town of Hempstead Foster's Meadow, Pearsall's Corners, Jennings Corners, Brower's Point and Hewletts were the first names of the communities of and near the Rockaway Peninsula (click for map).

Throughout the United States, the birth of the railroads saw a boom in railroad stocks and real estate values as railroads made long distance commutation a reality. As early as 1855 brothers Alfred, George and Newbold Lawrence invested in large tracts of farmland in the area called Rockaway Neck. I n 1870, when the Lawrence brothers donated land for the South Side Rail Road station, the name was changed officially to Lawrence. Their planned resort community grew around the station and, after the establishment of the Rockaway Hunt Club in 1884, attracted many of its members.

In 1869, Thomas and Samuel Marsh, who made their fortune in the grain business, bought most of the farmland between Woodsburgh and the property held by the Lawrence Brothers to the West. The land they donated to the railroad became the Ocean Point station. When a post office was established on the grounds of the Rockaway Hunt Club, it was given the name of Cedarhurst, for the grove of cedars which surrounded it.

In the 1870s, Samuel Wood began to purchase property for the development of an exclusive vacation community. He named the community Woodsburgh, after his family. Wood opened the Woodsburgh Pavilion, a luxury hotel on Woodsburgh Boulevard and Broadway and attracted wealthy vacationers to the resort by the bay. Thirty years later, Robert Burton bought the Wood properties from Samuel Wood's heirs. He then proceeded to demolish most of the existing structures and create his vision of a modern, affluent residential community. When a post office was established, the authorities rejected the name of Woodsburgh as being too similar to Woodbury, another Long Island community. "Woodmere" was chosen as an alternative. This evidently was no longer a problem in 1912, when the incorporated village of Woodsburgh was created.

The South Side Rail Road, an early competitor subsequently absorbed by the Long Island Rail Road, established the rights to cross existing property lines and to establish stations. Land speculators like Samuel Wood, the Lawrence brothers and the Marsh brothers donated land for railway stations in the hope of attracting potential investors to the area.

When the railroad came to the area known as Hewletts, they established a station and, for about three months in 1869, it was named Cedar Grove. In October 1869, the name Hewletts appeared on the Rockaway Branch timetable and remained until the 1890's when it was replaced by the name "Fenhurst." A "fen" is a term for a marsh or a swamp, and local residents were unhappy with that connotation. In 1893, Augustus J. Hewlett, a descendent of George Hewlett, who established 17th Century settlement, donated land to build a station, with the codicil that the Hewlett name be re-established.

The 1870 station house still functions as the Hewlett station. The oldest of the LIRR's station houses and the only one to be erected by a predecessor of the LIRR, it has been restored and renovated and retains much of its original charm.

Inwood, which shares its name with a neighborhood in northern Manhattan, was originally known as North West Point. A fishing community from its early Nineteenth Century origins, it was name for its location on the Rockaway Peninsula. As the population expanded after the Civil War, the area became known as Westville. In 1888, when it was decided to apply for a post office, Westville suffered the same fate as Woodsburgh -- another community had taken the name. The residents then decided on "Inwood," and so it is known today.

The Branch Gets its Name

2009-11-10T19:31:00.030-05:00

When the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad Company was incorporated in 1832, Long Island was sparsely populated farmland and forest. The occasional settlements were connected by dirt trails originally cut through the woodlands and over the plains by generations of Native Americans and the settlers who came after. Horses and stage coaches were the main forms of long-distance transportation during the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries. Many people either walked or stayed home.

Stage coach routes stopped at Jennings Corners (Broadway and Rockaway Turnpike in today's Lawrence) and at the Weyant General Store and post office (pictured above*-- located near the Broadway and Franklin Avenue intersection in today's Hewlett) on the route from Far Rockaway to Hempstead. Individual settlements were known by family names (Hewletts, Jennings Corners) or by identifying land elements (North West Point, Ocean Point, Hewlett Neck, Rockaway Neck). The area between Far Rockaway and Near Rockaway (named for their proximity or distance from Hempstead village) was simply known as the Rockaway Peninsula or the Rockaways.

The Long Island Rail Road, which was incorporated in 1834, expanded the Brooklyn and Jamaica line and began a route which was intended to connect New York and Boston. The track was to stretch to Greenport, where a ferry would connect with Stonington, Connecticut. Passengers would then continue on by rail to Providence and Boston. In 1844, when the route was completed, trains completed what had previously been a three-day journey from Brooklyn to Greenport in less than five hours!
In September 1860, the South Side Rail Road was established to bring rail transport to Long Island's South Shore. During the Civil War years, an uncertain financial climate forced several delays in the company's establishment. With the war's end in 1865 stocks and bonds were offered for public sale and the building of a south shore rail route from Brooklyn to Patchogue began.

The beaches of Far Rockaway had attracted summer vacationers since the 1830's. The end of the war brought a renewed interest in the area and the directors of the South Side Rail Road saw an opportunity to provide transporation to the area. The Far Rockaway Branch Rail Road was incorporated in July 1869, connecting Valley Stream with Far Rockaway. As a result, the Long Island Rail Road offered a competiing line with the founding of the New York and Rockaway Railroad Company in 1870, to provide service between Jamaica and Far Rockaway.

*from the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library Local History collection
Railroad illustrations courtesy of Art Huneke at ArrtsArchives.com

Further information:

Books about the Long Island Rail Road at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library (ALIScat)

Web sites

Online Databases (requires H-WPL library card login)

Marshing Season

2009-08-20T12:34:00.022-04:00

The early settlers of the Town of Hempstead were primarily farmers and tradesmen. Like the native American tribes who inhabited the land, the European settlers of Seventeenth Century Hempstead found the area well-suited to the cultivation of corn and beans. They added other grains and found they still had plenty of area to graze cattle and sheep on the open grasslands of the Hempstead Plain.

The vast marshlands of the South Shore were held as common land by the Hempstead townsmen. Natural sources of salt hay --dried wild marsh grasses like sedge and cordgrass -- the marshes required no cultivation and provided a rich winter fodder for the animals as well as mulch for crops. It was also used for mattress stuffing and in the making of paper. As early as 1667, the Hempstead townsmen protected this natural resource by regulating the cutting of the common marshes and imposing fines on anyone who began the harvest before the approved date, usually the second Tuesday in September -- the beginning of Marshing Season.

This process turned into an eagerly anticipated annual event, as the Town's male population -- and sometimes complete families -- headed south to camp out on the marshes for what amounted to a working holiday. Daniel Tredwell (1826-1921) remembers with humor and great detail the nine-day stay in the marshing camp "during which period we slept on the marsh, ate eel and clam chowder and smothered flounders, or fluke, with the mess."

His diary entries of September 1842 recall how the first to arrive would set up a rake, pitchfork, grindstone or other device to stake his claim to the area, which was honored by those who followed. No sedge could be cut on Monday, so the time was devoted to construction of shelters and preparation for the next day's work.

As the sun rose on Tuesday, another delay was caused by the native snail population. As the snails climbed the sedge stalks to collect a drop of fresh water, their hard shells and great numbers made it impossible to cut the grass without damaging the scythes. Two hours later, the snails had abandoned the tall grass and the harvest could progress unimpaired. Tredwell writes that by 9:30 a.m. their first freight had been loaded and was being transported to the landing.

In the early days, the hay was cut by hand, but horse teams were also employed, as in this illustration from Sand Dunes and Salt Marshes, by Charles W. Townsend (Estes, 1913).

The photograph on the right, by Brookhaven artist Frederick W. Kost (1861-1923) (Courtesy of the Post Morrow Foundation) , demonstrates how the hay was transported in scows which could carry ten ordinary boat loads. Towed or poled, they were used to ferry the hay to the mainland, where it was cured and stacked. Most of the hay was consumed by the local cattle, but for those who could transport it there, the Hay Market Exchange in Brooklyn was an additional source of revenue for the Long Island farmer.

Further research:

"The Marsh Hay Industry," Brooklyn Eagle, December 26, 1897, p. 10
"Marshing and Salt Hay": Reminiscences from Henry Bowen (1874-1961) of Ipswich, Massachusetts
Townsend, Charles Wendell. Sand Dunes and Salt Marshes. Boston: Dana Estes & Co., 1913.
Hay in Art: a collection of great works of hay - website by Alan Ritch
Schultz, Bernice. "The Pastoral period of Western Long Island." New York History, January 1940, pp.54-62.
Tredwell, Daniel. Personal Reminiscences of Men and Things on Long Island. Brooklyn : C.A. Ditmas, 1912. (Reproduced in the HeritageQuest Online Database. - requires library card login)

New York World's Fair 1939-40

2009-07-19T21:36:00.025-04:00

The theme was "Building the World of Tomorrow". For New Yorkers in the late 1930's, the Great Depression had severely impacted most families and war in Europe was already a very real possibility for the U.S.

These photographs from the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library collection, were photographed by Gibson resident Max Hubacher.

When the New York World's Fair opened at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park on a hot April day in 1939, it was the largest exposition of its kind ever planned. It's modernistic sculptures, the Trylon and Perisphere symbolised the brave new world where industrial design would improve everyone's lives. The Fair showcased Corporate America's innovations for the future: improved methods of transportation, medicine, farming and food production, advancements in communication -- the spectacular introduction of television!

Four years earlier, a group of retired policemen came up with the idea to promote commerce and good will in a recovering nation and to give people a reason to rejoice. Former Chief of Police Grover Whalen was elected President of The New York World's Fair Corporation, which brought titans of commerce and industry into the enterprise, and included Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Park Commissioner Robert Moses to organize and run the exposition. The corporation paid for the renovation of the Flushing Meadow area, which was at the time a dumping ground, and arranged that it would become a city park after the Fair.

While the event was a commercial showcase, it was also a diplomatic event, structured to present the benefits of the American way of life as the pathway to personal freedom and economic success.

Hitler's Germany did not participate in the Fair. By the time the Polish and Czech pavilions were completed, their countries had been invaded by Germany and, effectively, no longer existed. The Soviet presence at the Fair already portended the tension of the Cold War; the U.S.S.R. pavilion was razed and replaced in the 1940 season by an open plaza called the "American Common." By the summer of 1940, France had fallen, Italy had invaded Ethopia and Britain had declared war on Germany.

Over 200,000 people attended the April 30th grand opening. The admission fee, which was considered expensive at the time, was seventy-five cents for adults and twenty-five cents for children. (A subway ride was five cents). Over 44 million people had visited the exhibits by the end of the second season. Yet, the Fair did not make a profit.

For further Inofrmation:
Search for information about the Fair in the ALISweb Catalog

Memorial Day

2009-05-21T16:14:00.015-04:00

Decoration Day was first observed after the Civil War as an opportunity to decorate the graves of soldiers who died in the war. New York officially recognized the holiday in 1873, but it was not a national holiday until 1971. In fact, it was only after World War I that the ceremonies honored those who have died in all American wars.

We walk and drive past it every day and may not even know it's there. Once a year, maybe twice, we notice the red, white and blue decorations which have been placed there. The granite memorial on the corner of Broadway and Conklin Avenue in Woodmere was dedicated on Memorial Day (May 31) 1948 to the

sacred memory of those from Woodmere and Hewlett who gave their lives to defend and preserve this nation

The old Rockaway Journal articles recount that the weather was not pleasant on that Memorial Day. Yet, a crowd of 1,500 gathered in a parade, half of which began at the Lawrence Station progressing towards Woodmere Boulevard.

Veteran and civic groups, members of houses of worship, Boy and Girl Scouts and fire companies from Lawrence, Cedarhurst and Inwood joined a their counterparts from Hewlett and Woodmere, which marched down Broadway from Prospect Avenue.

Clergy from the local churches and synagogues delivered the Benediction and Invocation. Featured speakers included Charles Hewlett, Chairman of the Dedication, Chauncey Ogden, Superintendent of Schools, and Brigadier General Cornelius Wickersham, a prominent attorney with a distinguished military career. His father had been Attorney General under President William Howard Taft.

Members of the Woodmere-Hewlett Exchange Club, 1942
(left to right: George Hewlett, Chauncey Ogden, Gaylord Healy, President; Harry Pearlstein, Wallace Small, Rev. Leon Kofod, Charles Hewlett)

The memorial to those lost in the two World Wars was purchased with donations from the community, most of them $2 and $5 and organized by the Woodmere-Hewlett Exchange Club, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

H.K. Peacock Memorials in New York City created the monument, which replaced a temporary honor roll listing local servicemen and women.

Landscaped by Dalisimer Inc., the permanent memorial was on the grounds of Woodmere High School. Just a few years before, most of those listed on the granite were students there. Below are archival photographs of some of the memorialized servicemen. They were brothers, husbands, and sons and they lived in the neighborhoods of your home town.

So the next time you walk down Broadway, or are stuck in traffic in front of Woodmere Bicycle shop, take a moment and recall the sacrifice of these servicemen and their brothers and sisters whom we honor this Memorial Day.

Memorial Day ceremonies, 1992

Gardens in the Five Towns

2009-03-23T11:42:00.037-04:00

At the first sign of daffodils, many Long Islanders head straight to the beautiful gardens of estates that once housed the rich and powerful. Old Westbury Gardens, Planting Fields and Bayard Cutting Arboreteum were made available to the public when the costs of maintaining them became prohibitive for their owners or their heirs. Although most of the Five Towns estates were sold and subdivided when the postwar exodus to the suburbs made housing a priority, the Five Towns at the turn-of-the-century was home to many who shared the society pages with Astors and Rockefellers.

George Woodward Wickersham (1858-1936), Attorney General under William Howard Taft, was a prominent New York corporate lawyer. Marshfield, his summer home, is described in a 1928 article in the New York Times as being:

"...filled with many varieties of roses. The entire garden is
surrounded by on [sic] ivy covered brick wall. In the midstof the flowers are a picturesque fountain and several bird baths."

Marshfield, located in what is now Lawrence was designed by the architecture firm of Foster, Gade and Graham. A small, Shingle Style house, it nevertheless sat on extensive grounds which included a pond. Landscape architect Mary Rutherfurd Jay (1872-1953) worked with Mildred Wickersham and in 1914 created a Japanese garden, adding man-made islands to the existing one, and planting evergreens, rhododendrons, bamboo, and azaleas. The Wickershams were among several families who annually opened their gardens for fundraising activities.

William Fox (1879-1952) the founder of the Fox Film Corporation, built his estate, Fox Hall, in Woodmere in the 1920s. The Rose Garden was one of several gardens on the property, which included a boat house and a 125-seat movie theatre. Fox, who made his fortune in a true American immigrant rags to riches story, was one of the pioneers of the film industry. He lost his fortune after the 1929 stock market crash and, after a series of law suits and questionable business dealings, he declared bankrupcy in 1936.

Isaac D. Levy, president of Oppenheim, Collins and Co., made his fortune in New York's garment industry. Roselle Manor, his Cedarhurst summer home, was built in the early 1900s in the style of an English Renaissance manor house. Designed by the architects Buchman and Fox, it was landscaped by the firm of Lord and Burnham, who designed the conservatory for the property.

In the early part of the 20th century, Joseph Auerbach, the attorney for the Hewlett Bay Company, owned vast tracts of land in the Five Towns. His own home, Seawane, was to become the clubhouse for the Sewane Club, a country club on over 35 acres in Hewlett Harbor, which has been in existence since 1927.

Five Oaks was the estate of William H. Erhart (d.1940), Chairman of the Board of the Pfizer Company. Another of the homes which was open to the public for charity benefits, a 1928 article in the New York Times describes the property:

"The estate has an enchanting rose garden with a novel

and effective background of rambler roses combined with apple trees.

Hundreds of heliotropes are in full bloom in the formal garden."

For more information:

Books:

Articles:

"Private Gardens on Public View", The New York Times, June 3, 1928, p. X10.
Gardens to be on View, The New York Times, July 17, 1928, p. 13

Fred Ward's Bicycle Shop

2009-01-31T14:44:00.035-05:00

Lance Armstrong would have felt right at home in 1890's Long Island. Before automobiles became a practical alternative, the bicycle had a bloom of popularity which owed its success to the mechanical improvements of the Industrial age. In the early 1800s, the gearless "hobby horse" and the big-wheeled "bone crusher" (shown at the left in an illustration from Harper's Weekly ) evolved into the more familiar "safety bicycle" design which sported gears and brakes.

In 1880, the League of American Wheelmen was formed to promote bicyclists' interests. Over the next decade, local clubs of cyclists or "wheelmen" formed throughout the country. While many engaged in bicycle racing, most were formed as social clubs, with dining and drinking almost as important as riding. The Long Island Wheelmen, The Brooklyn Wheelmen, The Century Wheelmen, The Nassau Wheelmen, the Dean's Cycle Club, the Riverside Wheelmen, the Greenwich Wheelmen, Manhasset Cyclers, the Lexington Wheelmen are just a few of the local groups represented in articles about the popularity of cycling. By 1898, according to the League of American Bicyclists' web site, the League had more than 102,000 members, including the Wright Brothers, Diamond Jim Brady and John D. Rockefeller. Many clubs had meeting halls and admitted women as well as men.

Susan B. Anthony (in a February 2, 1896 interview with The New York World) said:

"Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammelled womanhood."

In 1880, part of New York City's Washington's Birthday celebration featured a rallye of all the bicycle clubs from the New York area and from as far away as Hartford, Boston, Trenton and Philadelphia. The route stretched from Third Avenue in New York City to Tarrytown, NY, where the participants would dine and then return to the City (a round trip of at least 50 miles.)

An article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (7/22/1895) details another ride which passed through Freeport on the way to Patchogue. Among the names listed in the article is one Fred Ward, whose bicycle shop is pictured below.

Note the motors on some of the bicycles. Beginning with early models in the 1860's, motorized bikes like those designed by French and German inventors (most notably Gottlieb Daimler in 1885) entered the market and in 1895, the DeDion-Buton company of France designed a lightweight, 4-stroke combustion engine which allowed the mass production of motorcycles. This was rapidly copied by Harley-Davidson and Indian and American motorcycle companies quickly made up for lost time.

Anyone with information about Mr. Ward and/or the location of his shop is invited to contact the Library.

Further reading in the Hewlett-Woodmere collection:

From our Historic newspapers: (New York Times requires ProQuest login):

From other Internet sources:

Woodmere Woods

2008-11-29T09:52:00.020-05:00

Photo: Max Hubacher (from the H-WPL collection)

In 1956, as the need for housing transformed Nassau County's landscape, the last remaining area of natural woodland in southwest Nassau was the subject of a tug-of-war between residents, conservation groups and land developers.

Woodmere Woods, over 100 acres of woodland bordered by Peninsula Boulevard and Mill Road, was originally part of the Long Island Water Corporation's watershed property. a much larger tract that

"extended from just a few blocks north of the railroad line in Hewlett and Woodmere, straight across woodland and marsh, field and farm, to Rosedale. There was one cinder road that wound through a fine woodland; beyond the waterworks what is now Hungry Harbor Road was a dusty track between farmlands." (-- Robert S. Arbib, Jr.)

Though generations of residents had used the area for camping, hiking, bird-watching and horseback riding, in 1956 it was discovered that Lawrence Lever of Rockville Centre had the option to buy the property and develop it for housing, apartments and a shopping center. A local group, the Woodmere Woods Conservation Committee, organized to petition the Town of Hempstead to purchase the property and turn it into a park.

Photo: Ethel Dubois (from the H-WPL collection)

Two years later, an article in The New York Times highlighted the housing development and its 318 homes, Hewlett Park. The Peninsula Shopping Center now stands on the site where Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts once had camping weekends and the Linnean Society sponsored nature walks.

In an article in Newsday, film maker Jonathan Demme remembered the Woodmere Woods of his youth:

`It characterized the Long Island I knew growing up - vast tracts of nature you just walked into and maybe never encountered anybody while you were bird-watching or pretending to be an Indian. ... I would love to find it again. But I'm afraid to look, because there are probably houses where Woodmere Woods stood when I was a boy more than 40 years ago.''

Further information:
Arbib, Robert. The Lord's Woods: the passing of an American woodland. New York : W.W. Norton, 1971.

By BYRON PORTERFIELD Special to The New York Times. "L.I. GROUP SET UP TO SAVE A WOOD :Park District Proposed for 118-Acre Woodmere Area in Southwest Nassau Residents Form Committee Petitions the First Step." New York Times (1857-Current file), December 10, 1956,

"Modern Sunroom Adjoins Bedrooms :Sun Room Creates Informal Living Area in Long Island Split-Level." New York Times (1857-Current file), August 17, 1958, http://www.proquest.com/

NATALIE G. RESSNER "OPINION :High in the Saddle, High on Life." New York Times (1857-Current file), July 22, 2001, http://www.proquest.com/

Joseph Gelmis, "Jonathan Demme" in Long Island: Our Town, Newsday.com

"FADS IN HOUSES GO ABOUT IN CIRCLES :Cape Cod Capitulates to the Split-Level, Which Bows to the Colonial, Etc.." New York Times (1857-Current File), May 31, 1959, http://www.proquest.com/

The Election of 1952

2008-10-10T10:09:00.022-04:00

As the presidential election of 1952 approached, the Cold War was a grave concern for Americans. U.S. troops were engaged in a bloody conflict in Korea; Egypt's King Farouk was ousted by a military coup. King George VI had died, leaving his 25-year old daughter as Queen of England. Senator Joseph McCarthy had been conducting his infamous hearings on Communists in the United States.

Eisenhower campaign button
(from the Hudson (OH) Library & Historical Society)

The incumbent president, Harry S. Truman, declined to run for another term. The Democratic party then chose Adlai Stevenson, the intellectual, moderate governor of Illinois to lead its ticket and Sen. John Sparkman of Alabama, a conservative segregationist for its Vice Presidential candidate.

World War II hero, General Dwight David Eisenhower, after being courted by both parties, agreed to run on the Republican ticket, with Richard Nixon as his running mate. Nixon was almost dropped from the ticket, amid allegations of financial misconduct. He attempted to ingratiate himself to the fledgling television audience with his "Checkers" speech and remained on the ticket. Eisenhower, shown here on October 28, 1952 in Lynbrook during a campaign sweep of Nassau County, carried 39 of the 48 states in a landslide victory.

Photo: Max Hubacher (from the H-WPL Local History Collection)

1952 Facts

World series: NY Yankees defeated Brooklyn Dodgers (4-3)
NBA Championship: Minneapolis Lakers defeated New York Knickerbockers (4-3)

The Today Show debuted on NBC with it's host, Dave Garroway

Movies: Singin' in the Rain, High Noon, The Greatest Show on Earth, Moulin Rouge, The African Queen
Books: Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man; Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea; Bernard Malamud: The Natural; Flannery O'Connor: Wise Blood

Pulitzer prizes: Fiction: Herman Wouk: The Caine Mutiny; Music: Gail Kubik: Symphony Concertante; Drama: Joseph Kramm: The Shrike

Academy award, Best Picture: An American in Paris
Nobel Peace Prize: Albert Schweitzer
Economics:

1st Class stamp: $.03
Federal debt: $259.1 billion
Unemployment: 3.3%
Average annual salary: $3515
Cost of a gallon of gas: $.20
Average cost of a house: $9,050
Average cost of a car: $1,700

Further Information:

Books of interest at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library

From our Online Databases: (requires login)

Mayer, George H. "Eisenhower, Dwight David." Encyclopedia Americana. 2008. Grolier Online. 11 Oct. 2008

http://ea.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=0139680-00

Kirkendall, Richard S. "Stevenson, Adlai Ewing ." Encyclopedia Americana. 2008. Grolier Online. 11 Oct. 2008 http://ea.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=0370270-00

"The Campaign" The New York Times, November 2, 1952, p. E1.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=93588127&sid=1&Fmt=10&clientId=13364&RQT=309&VName=HNP

Web Sites

The People History: 1952
Fifties Web: 1952
Wikipedia article on the election of 1952

The Holly Arms Inn, Hewlett, NY

2008-08-20T14:59:00.016-04:00

Long Island has always been known as a summer recreational area for New Yorkers. The 80-room Woodsburg Pavilion, built by Samuel Wood in 1870 quickly expanded to 250 rooms and attracted wealthy vacationers to the area for its proximity to ocean and bay swimming and sailing, the Rockaway Hunt Club, local yacht clubs and theatre. The success of the Pavilion encouraged the development of the Hewlett and Woodsburgh areas (it was not to become "Woodmere" until 1890).

In 1890, Frank G. Holly and his wife, Margaret, opened the Holly Arms Hotel. Located on the corner of Broadway and West Broadway in Hewlett the hotel, which burned down in 1926, attracted such notables as Theodore Roosevelt, singer/actress Lillian Russell, and Diamond Jim Brady.

Diamond Jim Brady

Lillian Russell (courtesy of the Library of Congress)

A 1911 article in The New York Times (August 28, page 1) details a raid on a gambling ring operating out of one of the Holly Arms' guest cottages. While over 300 formally-attired guests attended a dance at the Holly Arms, county detectives carted gambling paraphernalia, including two roulette tables and apparatus for playing craps and faro.

Frank Holly turned the Holly Arms into "one of the largest roadhouses in the country", according to an obituary in the Times of April 25, 1939. The article also states that Holly's influence caused the Pipe Line Boulevard to be named Sunrise Highway, a move which earned Holly the nickname "Sunrise". A self-proclaimed "Long Island ambassador of goodwill", Holly sailed to Florida on his boat Holly III each year and distributed literature advertising Long Island.

Local Fire Departments

2008-06-20T15:57:00.008-04:00

Local volunteer fire departments have always been a mainstay of Long Island communities. The Hewlett Fire Department has provided volunteer service to the community since 1891. The picture below shows Empire Hook and Ladder Company No. 1 of Woodmere, about 1905. The Nassau County Firemen's Association was founded in 1903 and since then Nassau County summers have been punctuated with parades and tournaments which spotlight the friendly competition between neighboring fire departments.

A 1909 article in The New York Times recounts how 20,000 people assembled to view a parade of 4,000 firemen to the Fulton Field area of Hempstead (near Hempstead Town Hall).

The accompanying picture was taken June 19, 1950 at the 40th Annual Nassau County Firemen's Association Tournament, held on the tournament grounds at Prospect and Union Avenues. An article in the June 16th issue of the Nassau Herald portrays the expected festivities:

"Some 45 departments will be represented in line of march together with 40 bands and a total of over 3300 men and women and 175 fire engines. The marchers will assemble on the corner of Prospect Ave. and Broadway. Grant Park, Hewlett and will parade on Broadway to Franklin Place, Woodmere, pass a reviewing stand at the corner of Hartwell Place and Broadway and return to the tournament grounds ..."

Attending dignitaries included Grand Marshall George Metzler, former chief of the Hewlett Fire Department; Superintendent of School District 14 Chauncey Ogden; County Executive J. Russel Sprague, and local clergy.

Links

Hewlett Fire Department

Woodmere Fire Department

Nassau County Firemen's Association

Let's Take Mom out for a Ride!

2008-05-10T15:52:00.002-04:00

This charming picture of an unknown family was taken along East Broadway in Hewlett around 1915.

An Ode to Dashing Dan

2008-04-07T11:24:00.021-04:00

The article reads "Long Island Railroad: Complaints of the public -- fewer trains and higher fares." Taken from today's headlines? Alas, this article appeared in The New York Times on January 27, 1881!

Photograph by Max Hubacher from the H-WPL collection

Last month, the MTA once again increased its fares, leaving commuters wondering where it will all end. For better of for worse, this lament is not unique to Long Island and has been the refrain of commuters since the railroad's earliest days.

The Long Island is the country's oldest continuous operated rail line. Incorporated in 1834, it eventually merged with several of its competitors. The first train ran on April 18, 1836.

In 1868, Conrad Poppenhusen, who made his fortune in rubber manufacturing, opened the Flushing and North Side Railroad. He invested between $3 and $6 million to consolidate several existing lines into the Long Island Railroad, a move which eventually cost him much of his wealth.

A letter to the editor of The Times, entitled "The Wail of the Long Island Railroad Commuter" (January 28, 1881, p. 5) bemoans the increase in fares which will bring an annual expense of $40 for travel from Flushing to Long Island City and then $2.50 per month for the ferry ride to Manhattan! In addition to this outrage, the long lines for punching of tickets before entering the train result in substantial delays. Because of this, the author complains, the 7 1/2 mile trip takes 35 minutes.

More information:

Books (with links to the ALIS catalog):

Web Sites

First Day of Spring 1958

2008-03-17T16:35:00.004-04:00

We couldn't resist one more snow scene from our historical collection.

This photograph, taken by Max Hubacher on Friday, March 21, 1958, shows the Gibson Long Island Railroad station after a record snowfall.

As the blizzard paralyzed the Eastern Seaboard, The New York Times reported that the snow was responsible for loss of power to over 150,000 homes on Long Island. At Idlewild Airport, two planes skidded on the runway, collapsing their nose wheels, but without injury.

According to Bosley Crowther's review, the storm marred the opening of Danny Kaye's new movie , "Merry Andrew" and the Easter Show at Radio City Music Hall.

The #1 novel on the Times best-seller list was Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver.
Please Don't Eat the Daisies by Jean Kerr, Art Linkletter's Kid's Say the Darndest Things and Bernard Baruch's My Own Story topped the non-fiction list.
A postage stamp cost 3 cents (in August it would go up to 4 cents!!)
Billboard magazine hadn't yet produced it's first Top 100 list of popular songs, (That, too, would come in August.)

Last, but not least, Elvis Presley had just a few more days of civilian life to enjoy before being inducted into the Army, on March 24, 1958.

It all happened fifty years ago this week!

Hewlett Brothers Coal & Feed, c1910

2008-02-12T18:33:00.003-05:00

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."

Anniversary of the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library

2008-01-09T11:38:00.001-05:00

On January 28, 1973, the Library celebrated its 25th anniversary with a gala Silver Anniversary celebration.

According to F.B. Schwartzberg in South Shore Record (2/8/1973),

"In 1947, the country was trying to forget World War II. In the Five towns, a committee of the Woodmere-Hewlett Exchange Club, chaired by Dr. Joseph Rudnick, set out to build a library as a permanent, vital memorial to the war dead. A board, headed by Charles A. Hewlett, was formed. Edythe Brenner was vice president; the other trustees were William S. Pettit, Dr. Rudnick and Albert B. Schultz. They began to search for a director. Mrs. Brenner via the library system in Albany, wrote to a young librarian named Elizabeth Thomson in Cleveland."

Mrs. Thomson became the Library's first Director and remained until her retirement in 1973.

For the anniversary celebration, the lobby was transformed into a replica of the Library's original location, an 18' X 18' room in a clapboard house.

Retrospective exhibits were presented by artists and collectors whose exhibits enhanced the early library and celebratory programs were part of the events. Sallee Hewlett Kahler loaned her doll collection to the Library for the event, while Rev. Leon V. Kofod reassembled his collection of shoes from around the world!

The afternoon programs in the old Meeting Room featured a slide and tape presentation "To See Ourselves: a retrospective look at the Library" and "A Sentimental Journey", a musical revue of highlights of the Library's history, performed by Hewlett High School students under the direction of Lee Jeske. It featured lyrics by Mrs. Thomson set to original music by Rose Lazarus.

According to the South Shore Record article of January 18, 1973, contests included a "Photo Guessing Contest" identifying people and places in the displays and Puzzle Contests for all age levels. In addition, prizes were given to anyone who could document that they were born on January 28, 1948 as well as to the first 500 borrowers who were still library patrons.

At formal ceremonies in the afternoon, dignitaries assembled with local residents to commemorate the past and celebrate the future of the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library, which became and has continued to be such an important part of the community.

1973 Library Board & VIPs

Standing (L to R): Stuart Prall (President of the Friends of the Library), Trustees: Alvin Boretz, Fred Bruell & Laurence Rosenthal, Paul Kantrowitz (Treasurer), Peter Kolbrenner (Trustee); Seated: Dr. Michael Santapolo (Superintendent of Schools for Hewlett-Woodmere), Edythe Brenner (Past President and member of the original Library Board), Helen Walling (Library Board President), Elizabeth Thomson (Director).

The Blizzard of '47

2007-12-13T17:11:00.001-05:00

Sixty years ago this month, The New York Times headlines read "CITY IS MASTERING RECORD SNOW; BUSES STILL OUT, RAIL LINES GAIN; SUBURBS HARD HIT; 55 DEAD IN EAST".

A major snowstorm hit New York on Friday, December 26, 1947, crippling the metropolitan area for days and eclipsing the "Blizzard of '88". On March 11, 1888, 16.5 inches of snow fell in a 24-hour period, setting a record, and by the time the storm ended, there were 20.9 inches of snow and drifts of up to fifteen feet.

The 1888 mark was surpassed in the first twelve hours of the 1947 storm, and the final total was 26.4 inches. At times, three to four inches fell in an hour in a surprisingly windless sky. In Westchester County, reports the Times, sled caravans in long, winding columns, became the only way that families could shop for food. The roads and public transportation were not available for several days in the pre-Peapod era.

The record remained intact until February 12, 2006, when Central Park recorded a total of almost 27 inches.

The accompanying photo, taken by Max Hubacher, shows the Gibson LIRR station, two days after the storm.

Further information (may require login to Proquest databases)

"Blizzard of '47", The New York Times, December 28, 1947, p. 1.

"Record snowfall buries New York City", CNN.com, February 12, 2006.

"New York City buried under record Snowfall...", Wall Street Journal, December 27, 1947, p. 2.

Gibson, NY

2007-11-13T17:59:00.001-05:00

After World War II, the Baby Boom and the explosion of suburban housing developments created the Long Island which we know today. But twenty-five years earlier, William Gibson and his Gibson Corporation began building in Valley Stream to accommodate New Yorkers who wanted to get out of the crowded city.

The concurrent development of the Long Island Railroad and Sunrise Highway made Valley Stream a transportation hub and an easy commute to The City.

According to Howard F. Ruehl in his History of Valley Stream, published for the village's fiftieth anniversary in 1975

"Almost all of the families included at least one commuter. Realizing that his community needed transportation, Mr. Gibson planned a railroad station. After several years of legal negotiations, the Long Island Railroad agreed to have trains stop morning and night at Gibson, if the builder would erect his own station. This was done at a cost of $55,000 and on May 29, 1929, the new building was
officially opened. ..."

"Gibson awarded prizes for the most-beautiful and best-kept gardens and lawns. He started the custom of carol-singing around a Christmas tree at the Gibson Station, provided the Santa Claus, and bought candy for all the children who attended. ...In a whimsical mood, he named some of the new streets after well-known liquors: Haig Road, DuBonnet Road, Carstairs Road, Gordon Road and Wilson Road."

At one period during Gibson's development, 733 houses were sold in 738 days. During the depression years, Mr. Gibson pioneered the cellarless house, the so-called Nantucket model. It sold in 1939 for $3,890. These homes, comparable to an average four-room apartment, won the award of the New York Chapter of The American Institute of Architects for "excellence in design and construction."
The accompanying photos, dated November 2, 1947, are part of a fascinating series of photographs in the Library's local history collection which documents the post-war construction of the Gibson Houses and the growth of a neighborhood.
(Photographs by Max Hubacher)

For more information:

Newsday's Long Island History: Valley Stream
Valley Stream Historical Society
"South Shore Operation: sites in four towns being improved with dwellings " The New York Times, Feb. 18, 1923
"Building houses without cellars". The New York Times, Sept. 21, 1941.
Ruel, Howard F. Ruehl (comp.). History of Valley Stream, 1840-1975. Valley Stream, NY : Incorporated Village of Valley Stream, 1975.

Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library - First Library Building

2007-10-17T11:16:00.001-04:00

Now in our 60th year, the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library is based on a strong foundation of community service as well as community support and involvement.

From its humble beginnings in one room of the Woodmere School, the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library has grown to a be the Nassau County co-central library for Art and Music, with an extensive collection of almost 200,000 books, plus periodicals, compact discs, videorecordings, DVDs, CD-Roms and online databases to fill the needs of our ever-growing and ever-curious public.

Help us celebrate our sixty years of excellence by visiting the Library or our home page at hwpl.org and seeing the new and exciting information resources we have to offer. (photo by Susan Szraz, 1950)

Back to school

2007-09-19T14:03:00.000-04:00

It may have been sixty years ago, but things haven't changed all that much.

This photo was taken on September 17, 1947 at the corner of Amherst and Page Roads, in the Gibson area of Valley Stream.

View a New York Times article about the Gibson Corporation on the Proquest database (login required).

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=105848569&sid=2&Fmt=10&clientId=13364&RQT=309&VName=HNP

The Hewlett Bay Company

2007-08-06T10:42:00.000-04:00

A 1908 article in The New York Times (June 14, 1908, p. 12) recounts purchase of a 650 acre tract of land by the Hewlett Bay Company for a residential community between Hewlett and East Rockaway. The land, acquired by attorney Joseph Auerbach, was originally owned by the Hewlett family and was established by land grants to the Hewletts from Queen Anne of Great Britain (1665-1714) .

The owners listed in the Times article include Auerbach, R.W. Stevenson, William Voss, George Seargent Jr., A.W. Connoble, George T. Hewlett and H.C. Everdell. The land was restricted to building one residence every five acres.

Further resources:
See the houses at the Library's website: www.hwpl.org/fthh.html
"Big Long Island Land Deal", The New York Times, 12/23/1899, p. 12.
Hewlett Bay Company (Smithsonian Archives, Manuscripts & Photo Collection)
Homes at Hewlett at the Queensborough Public Library