The Hewlett Homestead

May is Preservation Month

While a British citizen might describe a Victorian structure as "new," most Long Islanders would envision an "old building" as one which predates 1970.

The area known today as the Five Towns is fortunate to have a number of historic buildings - homes, schools and stores -- which date back to the early Twentieth Century and some much older.  Many of the original Victorian "cottages" in Lawrence's Isle of Wight still retain their original character.  The original Brower homestead at 989 East Broadway in Woodmere is one of the oldest in the area. Although it has been modernized, property records date it back to 1763.  Rock Hall in Lawrence, an ancestral home of the Hewlett family, is museum of colonial life administered by the Town of Hempstead. And the Hewlett Homestead at 86 East Rockaway Road in Hewlett was the home of many members of the Hewlett family from 1749 until 1986.

George Hewlett, the first Hewlett to settle in this area, was born in England in 1634.  He was part of an English community which emigrated to Long Island - by way of Connecticut - and negotiated treaties with the Dutch governors and native inhabitants to establish a population center in what is now Hempstead.  According to his descendant,  Charles W. Hewlett, the family soon established several farms along the wagon trail that stretched from today's Broadway (once an Indian trail) to Near Rockaway (today's East Rockaway).

 Photographs of the Hewlett house taken c.1984.



The site of George Hewlett's original home, was alled "The House at the Head of the Vly,"  and was situated at the head of George's Creek near Willow pond in present-day Hewlett Bay Park.  After George's death, his grandson Daniel lived in the house until his purchase of Richard Green's farmhouse (the current Hewlett house) and its surrounding two hundred acres of land.  At the time the Green property was surrounded by woods.  Joel Morris writes:

 No public road led to the house. An immense gate on the Rockaway main highway opened to an inviting lane which, flanked by the tall trees on either side, led to the house and farm buildings.   (p. 14).

 The Hewletts were a large and influential family in 19th and 20th century Long Island.  As farmers, dry goods merchants, members of Trinity Church, and Nassau County's early Republican party, Hewletts were active in the Branch communities. This culminated in Augustus Hewlett's 1897 donation of land for the renamed Hewlett railroad station, which in 1893 had been changed to Fenhurst.

Nassau County Historical Society Journal (1966), p.12

George Wilson Hewlett (1887-1969) and his wife, Cerecies (nee Watts) were the last Hewletts to reside in the house. George W. served forty years on the Hewlett Fire Department and was a member of its Board of Commissioners.  He served on the School Board of District 14 for forty-six years and was its President for thirty-four years.  The Hewlett-Woodmere School District's high school is named in honor of George W. Hewlett. After his death in 1969, Cerecies lived in the house until her death in 1984.  She deeded the house to the  Hewlett-Woodmere School District Board of Education in 1974, with the right of life tenancy.  Unfortunately, the District could not afford the restoration and upkeep on the property and by May 1997 school district voters approved the sale of one-half acre of the property to Nassau County for $1. The school district retained the remaining land.

Controversy has surrounded the property since the death of Cerecies Hewlett as family, community and government try to determine the best course for its management and preservation.   Since 2001, the Hewlett house, designated a local landmark by the Town of Hempstead, has been the home of 1 in 9: the Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition. 

May is National Preservation Month.  This is a wonderful opportunity for groups and individuals to show their concern for our local history and the buildings that reflect our past.  Let others know which places matter to you!

[Preservation Tips & Tools] How to Save a Place: Become an Advocate from Saving Places

Further Information: (some links may require H-WPL Library card login.

• Hewlett, Charles W. The Story of the Heritage of the Rockaway Peninsula and the Adjoining Five Towns, 1965.
• Morris, Joel J.  "The Hewlett House, 1749-1984: A Family History," Nassau County Historical Society Journal, 1996, pages 13-18.
• Preservation Month - May 2016: This Place Matters 
• National Parks Service:  National Register of Historic Places 
• Monahan, Sharon."Hewlett asks aid to save old house." New York Times, November 1, 1987, p. 12. 
• Whittle, Patrick, "District, community at odds over organic garden," Newsday, November 20, 2012 (Newsday.com)

 

Hewlett Embroidery Works

The next time you pass the Hewlett Fire House, to pick up some donuts -- take a moment and look UP!  At the corner of Franklin and Railroad Avenues is a building which displays roofline crenellations, an architectural element more common to castles than to donut shops.  One hundred years ago, it was the site of the Hewlett Embroidery Works.  The firm specialized in Swiss Embroidery  (also called broderie anglais), a white-on-white variety of lace which was very popular in the Edwardian world.

The Hewlett Embroidery Works

was incorporated in New York on May 3, 1911 The firm, whose corporate offices were located on East 18th Street in Manhattan, manufactured and sold embroideries, laces, silk, wool, cotton, linen and other textile fabrics.   The President of the company was Albert Brenwald of Woodmere; Henry Ruppert of New York City is listed as Secretary, and Charles Englehard  of Roselle, NJ as Director.

Brenwald (also spelled Brennwald) (born 1874 in Zurich, Switzerland) emigrated to the U.S. in 1902.  He lived on Brower Avenue with his wife, Anna, and son, Adolph.  He and Ruppert (also a Swiss native) formed their partnership in 1909.  Apparently, Brenwald had the embroidery expertise; his partners had the business experience.

Workers

The 1912 New York State Register of Factories lists a workforce of 6 men and 22 women at the Hewlett Embroidery Works (2). In 1914 a branch site opened at Pitz’s Hall in Lynbrook, which employed 100 female operators (3).

An average female embroidery worker earned about  $387 a year. A two week vacation at half pay was a luxury and any minutes they did not work were deducted from their time at the end of the week. This was an era of sweatshops, where workers tolerated overcrowding, long hours (average 53-hour work-week and low wages in factories  to support themselves and their families.(4)  The 1911 Triangle Factory fire, which took the lives of 146 workers trapped in the burning building, served as a catalyst for better working conditions, through union intervention and government legislation.

As early as 1891, a Ladies’ Home Journal article described a group of embroidery workers who decided that if each worker could spare ten unpaid minutes a day, they could read to each other.  In this way, they got 800 minutes a day, 1800 minutes a week, etc. of reading accomplished during their working hours (5).  In 1900, only 19 percent of women of working age participated in the labor force and children comprised 6 percent of the labor force (6).

Later History of the Company

With the start of World War I, the market for decorative lace diminished.  Over the next few years, the firm’s management changed -- Ruppert is listed as Secretary and Director in 1915. and in 1917 and 1919 , Milton J. Gordon is listed as President and Treasurer (7).  Mary Simon was Secretary and Director in 1918.  Albert Brenwald’s family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where he died in 1925.

By 1922, The American Textile Reporter lists the Hewlett firm under the name Sands and Appel Embroidery Works .  Sylvester Sands (d.1934) and Moses Appel (c1858-1934) owned several factories in New York City, one of which was involved in a fire in November 1905, which was an eerie harbinger of the Triangle fire (8). The firm was dissolved by Proclamation on March 12, 1926.

Ladies working at the loom at the Kursheedt embroidery factory in Tennessee.  
The Smith family recruited the factory from New York.  
It made fine Hamburg lace and during World War I, i
t produced patches for military uniforms. (Lewis County Museum)

Further Information:

• Lewis County (TN) Museum: Hohenwald and New Switzerland
• 1911 Triangle Waist Company fire: Primary Documents
• St. Gallen embroidery (Wikipedia)
• Machine embroidery in St. Gallen

Endnotes:

1. Robert Denton Fisher. Robert D. Fisher Manual of Valuable and Worthless Securities (1938) , vol. 6, p. 458.
2. New York State. Department of Labor. Annual Report (1912), p. 192.
3. “Lynbrook,” The Hempstead Sentinel, October 15, 1914, p. 2.
4. "Girls Work for Less than Living Wage, 'Spite of "Prosperity," The Evening Call, January 28, 1919, p.5.
5. “Making Minutes Count,” Geneva Gazette, June 12, 1891, p. 1.
6. Donald M. Fiske, “American Labor in the 20th Century.”  (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
7. “Work girls in a panic at a big factory fire,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 13, 1905, p. 1.

Pharmacies in The Branch

The winter months are commonly considered "flu season" in the United States.  Those at risk are advised to avail themselved of "flu shots", vaccinations have been readily available for the past sixty years and antibiotics have been available to combat secondary infections since the 1940s.  Only since the 1980's have strides been made in antiviral medications, which interfere with the life-cycle of the virus itself. 

The 1889 pandemic, known as the Russian Flu, began in Russia and spread rapidly throughout Europe. It reached North America in December 1889 and spread to Latin America and Asia in February 1890. About 1 million people died in this pandemic." The most infamous pandemic was “Spanish Flu” which affected large parts of the world population and is thought to have killed at least 40 million people in 1918-1919

One hundred years ago, medicine could only combat the symptoms of the disease.  The patient's own immune system did most of the work.  Although physicians were available in The Branch, most medicines were dispensed by pharmacists.  Since there was a ready supply of pharmacists from the New York College of Pharmacy (Columbia University) and the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy, The Branch communities had many pharmacies.   What is of interest to this author, however, are the numbers of married couples, both registered pharmacists, who practiced in the area.

Woodmere Pharmacy
George A. Koch, postmaster of Woodsburgh and then Woodmere from 1897-1904, had a small apartment on the second floor of his drug store on the corner of Broadway and Irving Place, where he lived with his wife, Theresa.  Late one night  in August 1904, thieves broke into the store and dynamited the safe inside.  Both Mr. and Mrs. Koch came down armed -- he with a double barreled shotgun -- and engaged the thieves in an exchange of gunfire before they escaped with $750 worth of stamps and $300 in cash.  This was a repeat of an earlier, unsuccessful robbery attempt a month before.  In 1904, Koch sold his Woodmere location and opened a drug store in Far Rockaway, perhaps a more civilized area at the time.

Colonial Pharmacy, Woodmere
William Wisendanger
Estelle V. Wisendanger

William Wisendanger (born 1873; graduated BCP 1895) and his wife, Estelle (nee Vaughan, married 1898) owned and operated the Colonial Pharmacy, located at the corner of Broadway and Irving Place in Woodmere (the same corner if not the same location as the Woodmere Pharmacy).  William, a member of the German Apothocaries Society,  had owned the Rhinelander Pharmacy in Manhattan before moving to Woodmere.

It was Estelle, however, who was the family superstar.  Upon her graduation from NYCP in 1908, Estelle, who placed second in her class, had won the free scholarship prize offered by the Manhattan Pharmaceutical Association. An article in the July 1912 Pharmaceutical Era, highlighted Estelle's accomplishments:

Few women have been the recipient of more conspicuous honors than Mrs Wisendanger.  Her course as a student placed her in the ranks of the exceptional She graduated from Columbia University College of Pharmacy in New York City in the class of 1908 with honors She won the $100 prize for materia medica and pharmacognosy, also the alumni prize: a silver medal and the Kappa Psi gold medal which prize was never before won by a woman She was also the recipient of the Max J Breitenbach prize of $200 for the highest standing in both junior and senior years. Seldom indeed does any one student tower so continually above his or her compeers and her success is a matter of congratulation not only for the student herself but for the profession. Mrs Wisendanger is now a partner in the fine Colonial pharmacy, Woodmere, Long Island with her husband William Wisendanger,  Ph G.   She has full charge of the prescription department.  That a store equipped with the concentrated interest and ability of congenial co-workers should merit confidence and meet with financial success is a foregone conclusion.

By 1913, Estelle was elected president of the New York Women's Pharmaceutical Association and in July of 1914 was one of those on a 55-day European tour sponsored by the German Apothocaries Society when the German army mobilized.  The tour was cut short and the Americans were allowed to leave Germany.

Although she was still in Woodmere in 1935, Estelle Wisendanger is listed as a widow in the 1940 census and had moved to Monroe, NY.


Jennings Pharmacy, Lawrence 
Frank R. Jennings
Eliza  Jennings 

Jennings Pharmacy, c. 1912/ photo: Courtesy Linda Forand

Frank R. Jennings  (born 1877, NYCP 1896), worked with his father in Far Rockaway, until in 1899, when he got a job in Mianus, Connecticut.  In 1900, he married Eliza W. Pettit (born 1877), who became a certified pharmacist in 1904.
 
 Jennings was a member of the King's County Pharmaceutical Society (American Druggist, Jan-June 1908) and opened a new drug store in Lawrence in 1912.  (Druggists Circular, 12/1912). According to family members, it was located at the intersection of the Rockaway-Jamaica Turnpike and the Rockaway Road (today's Broadway) -- a crossroad which had been called "Jennings Corners" since the mid-19th Century.


Over the years, Jennings relocated his store to the corner of Central Avenue and Washington Avenue in Cedarhurst (right) and eventually to Broadway and Franklin Avenue in Hewlett. (Hays Directory, 1945)
After Frank's death, Eliza continued as a pharmacist until she was in her seventies.





Crosby Pharmacy
John D. Crosby
May V. Crosby

   
John D. Crosby was born on his father’s farm at Deerfield, N.Y., May 23, 1858, and attended local schools and theWhitestown Seminary. At the age of twenty-four he left home for Utica,NY, where he was employed in a drug store for three years, after which he came to Inwood, then called Westville.

November 20, 1880, Mr. Crosby married Miss May V. Craft (born 1868, NYCP 1890). Soon after their marriage in 1888, May began the study of pharmacy and graduated from the New York College in 1890. The Crosby Pharmacy was located on McNeil Avenue in Inwood with another location on Bayview Avenue in Lawrence. (1899 Trow's Directory)

When the community got a post office in 1889, Westville's name changed to Inwood.  John Crosby became the first postmaster of Inwood, with population of about eleven hundred. (Newtown Register, 1/14/1889). He remained in that position through World War I.

John D.Crosby is listed in 1904 as treasurer of the newly-formed Queens County Pharmaceutical Association, which boasted 25 members. (William Wisendanger is listed as President)  In March 1907, John Crosby and others listed at a dinner of the Long Island Botanical Association, an organization comprised of all the druggists on the Rockaway Peninsula.

In February 1914 (Pharmaceutical Era), May Crosby is listed as the corresponding secretary of the Women's Pharmaceutical Association of New York; Estelle Wisendanger is the President.)

In addition to pharmaceuticals and patent medicines, drug stores of the early 20th century had elaborate soda fountains.  An area like The Branch, which was noted for its summer tourism, would have been no exception.  An advertisement in the Evening Telegram of March 14, 1923 reports that the Crosby Pharmacy is one of several listed who just bought a NEW KNIGHT fountain and is selling it's old one.







Raeder's Pharmacy, Cedarhurst
Edward M. Raeder 

In addition to sodas, drug stores supplied postcards to the tourist trade.  Many which still exist on the collectibles market bear the name of Raeder's Pharmacy. 

An article in The Pharmaceutical Era, (1909, vol. 41, p. 436),   describes the pharmacy:

"Raeder's Pharmacy in the White Building,Cedarhurst, Long Island, which was recently opened is one of the finest on the Island." 

Edward M Raeder  born c.1878 (NYCP 1898) was the proprietor.


 Further Reading

• "Thieves blow open safe in post office," The New York Times, August 10, 1904, p. 12

• World Health Organization: Influenza
• CIPRAP: Influenza: Pandemic Influenza: Overview:  Historical Perspective

• Parsons, Henry Franklin. Report on the Influenza Epidemic of 1889-90. London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1891.

• MacDonald, Ian. Betty O'Keefe. Dr. Fred and the Spanish Lady: Fighting the Killer Flu, Surrey, British Columbia : Heritage House, 2004.

  Crosby, Alfred W. America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918. New York : Cambridge University Press, 1989, 2003.
  

  "Portrait and Biographical Record of Queens County (Long Island) New York"
  (Copyright 1896 by Chapman Publishing Company)

   

   

Local Street Names

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, (1855-1944) 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.

Further reading:

•  Morris, Joel J.  "Hewlett Bay Park: The Hunting Club Connection." The Nassau County Historical Society Journal, volume XLIX (1994), pp.15-26.
• The lives of many of those mentioned are documented in detail through various articles (marriage announcements, obituaries, etc. in The New York Times* (available through the Library's Proquest Historical Newspapers database*), census records (available through the Library's Heritage Quest* database), archival maps (available through the Library's Historic Map Works* database) and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (available online through the Brooklyn Public Library's web site)
•  Meyer, Milton S.  Village of Lawrence, N.Y. : a brief history of a Long Island community.  Lawrence, NY : Village of Lawrence, 1977.
• Vollono, Millicent.  The Five Towns.  Charleston, S.C. : Arcadia Press, 2010.

  *requires Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library card login

Libraries in the Five Towns

    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:

•  Blaine, Katherine W. and Rowe, Miriam. A Brief Account of the Peninsula Community Library....(requires Adobe Acrobat)
• Illustrated history of the American Library Association
• Library History Links from LibraryHistoryBuff.com 
• America's Most Amazing Libraries