Huntington History

The cover story of Newsday’s March 17, 2024 edition of LI Life highlights the history of Montauk’s Camp Wikoff.  The interesting account of the camp where Theodore Roosevelt, his Rough Riders, and other soldiers were quarantined after the Spanish American War did not include the very small role Huntington played in this story.

The first soldiers arrived in Camp Wikoff on August 15, 1898.  Within days, the owners of the Mountain Mist Company, which bottled spring water from West Hills, proposed sending their product to the soldiers as a cure for any cases of yellow fever imported to Montauk from Cuba.  The Surgeon General accepted the company’s offer of 100 five-gallon bottles of water.  The chief surgeon at the Camp Wikoff hospital said the water was “grand” and “thoroughly appreciated by the soldiers.”

The Mountain Mist Company had been formed earlier that summer to bottle the cool, fresh spring water that had been enjoyed for years by locals.  Doctors from Huntington as well as New York City endorsed the curative powers of the water to treat various conditions.  The company controlled all the land adjacent to the spring and erected a bottling plant on the northwest corner of Sweet Hollow and Chichester Roads.  The water was shipped to New York City and Brooklyn for sale as well as to Camp Wikoff.

It is unclear when the company stopped bottling the water.  It is still shown on the 1909 E. Belcher Hyde Atlas of Suffolk County.  David Wood, who had been in charge of the bottling plant for several years, died in 1907.  It appears that he was no longer working for the company when he died, perhaps indicating that the plant was idle before his death.

According to former Huntington Town Historian Rufus Langhans, the bottling plant building was moved to another location and converted into a residence.

Huntington’s newest designated historic landmark is a small wood framed building that served as one of the last blacksmith shops in Huntington village.

The building stands on what had been the Zophar Oakley property.  The 12-acre site was subdivided by a local real estate syndicate in 1892 (See The Stuart Block). In 1909, William Brahm constructed this building on the east side New York Avenue north of Gerard Street to serve as the blacksmith shop for Edward Place.  

In 1911, Frederick Gallienne moved the building to First Street (now known as Gerard Street) onto property Place had acquired from Hiram Baylis.  Originally one story, a second floor was added some time between 1914 and 1922.

Place lived on Elm Street in Huntington village, but by the 1920s appears to have lived with his wife on the second floor of the shop.  When he died in 1928 at age 55, his address was given as First Street.  According to his obituary:

Mr. Place specialized in racing and saddle horses, and on more than one occasion was solicited as horseshoer (sic) on the grand circuit.  He had a movable forge and went to various estates to shoe their fancy horses.  . . .  Mr. Place was always the owner of fast stepping horses, and has won in many racing events. [The Long-Islander, April 6, 1928]

An updated 1930 Sanborn map identifies the building as a dwelling upstairs and a garage on the first floor.  According to the 1950 census, Joseph Jordan, an African American chauffeur, lived there with his wife Lula, their nephew, and a boarder and his wife. Later, it was home to James and Clara Selvy, who had lived across the street in 1950.

The most recent owner and resident of the building was Frank E. Johnson, Jr., who recently passed away.  Johnson acquired the building in 1979 and used the lower level as his workshop for his contracting business.  He moved into one of the two second-floor apartments in the mid-1980s.  

The Town Board designated the shop as a local historic landmark on March 12, 2024 because it is a unique survivor of Huntington village’s equestrian past.  At one time there had been several blacksmith shops and livery stables in the village.  Now the Edward Place Blacksmith Shop is the only survivor and the only connection to the days when horses provided the primary means of transportation.  It is one of the few surviving wood frame buildings in the downtown commercial center and, as such, has become a familiar feature of the area.

A long abandoned and neglected building on Jericho Turnpike was recently torn down. That fact, in and of itself, would not usually be worthy of comment. But those remains had an interesting history about a man and his love for his wife.

George Eckert moved to Huntington from Brooklyn in 1909, joining his parents who had moved here seven years earlier, when they purchased land on the south side of Jericho Turnpike at Melville Boulevard.  His parents, George and Kunienda Eckert, operated a chicken farm and opened the first gas station in that part of town.  In 1918, George, Jr. purchased a large plot of land on the south side of Jericho Turnpike between Oakcrest Drive and Melville Boulevard.

The Eckerts ran a small general store known as “Camp Idle Hour.”  In addition to providing household necessities, the store telephone was available to local residents who did not have their own telephone lines.  Mrs. Eckert ran the store, while Mr. Eckert operated a trucking company between Huntington and New York City.  Previously, George had worked for the Long Island Rail Road as a tool and die maker.  His son Robert also worked for the railroad.  George Eckert was active in the South Huntington Protective League, a civic association formed in 1925 shortly after the merger of the South Huntington and West Hills School Districts and the announcement of plans for a new water district.

Tragedy struck in October 1932, when Mrs. Eckert was hit by a car while helping a little girl cross Jericho. She sustained fractures to her legs and skull as well as internal injuries.  She was rushed to Huntington Hospital, but died a few minutes after arriving. 

George and his son continued to run the store and gas station until 1934.  They then rented the store to various businesses.  For many years, it was the location of The Lobster Inn, which remained in business through the late 1950s.

After his wife’s death, George Eckert built a castle as a shrine in memory of his wife.  First, he dug a 50-foot diameter moat.  Next, he gathered rocks from near and far in his truck to mix with cement to form the walls of the circular castle.  In the middle of the three-story castle was a 70-foot tall tree.  The first floor of the castle was used for storage and for the coal furnace.  The second floor contained a kitchen, bedroom and library.  The third floor was partially enclosed and included a roof top garden for Eckert’s plants.  The grounds around the castle were described as park-like.

In later years he would retreat to his library, which included hundreds of books on a variety of topics.  His family sometimes wouldn’t see him for days.  His son Robert lived nearby on the property.

Tragedy struck again in the early hours of February 25, 1950 when a newspaper truck driver noticed flames coming from the castle.  He called in the alarm from a nearby restaurant, but by the time the firefighters arrived the fire, which had started in the coal furnace, was out of control.  The fire fighters could not enter the building.  When they finally were able to gain entry, the 75-year old recluse was found slumped outside his bedroom.  He had apparently suffocated. 

George’s son Robert continued to live on the property until his death in 1963.  Later generations still live in the area.

A barbershop is often a place where stories, gossip, and tall tales are shared.  Some are true, some are embellished, and some are just plain wrong.  In the case of Cold Spring Harbor’s barbershop, the same could be said about the stories and tall tales told about the shop itself.

Here’s what is said.  The small building was moved to Cold Spring Harbor from Huntington in 1890 by Oliver Jones, who took possession of it after the owner defaulted on a mortgage.  The building once was the post office and telegraph office.  For a period, it housed the local library collection.  It was an ice cream parlor and candy shop.  A wealthy woman purchased the building, secured a barber, and made provisions that it must always be a barbershop because she was motivated by a desire to keep her husband from traveling to Manhattan for his haircuts and perhaps other pursuits.

Some of that is true.

The story begins in Huntington.  Hewlett Scudder, not yet 30 years old but from an old Huntington family, was making a name for himself in real estate and insurance.  He was described as “tall, well proportioned and passes as a good looking fellow.”[1]  In August 1891, he had brokered the purchase of the Stuart property at the east end of Huntington village.  The property stretched from New York Avenue to east of the Trade School building at 209 Main Street and as far north as Union Place.  He arranged the sale of the property to the Huntington Real Estate Association, a syndicate of wealthy investors that Scudder had helped organize and in which he was an investor.[2]  A month later, his syndicate closed on the Temple property on Cold Spring Hill at the other end of the village.[3]  Both properties would be divided into building lots and sold to the public or individual members of the syndicate.

The Stuart property investment was wildly successful, the investors made a 93% profit in one year.[4]  Now the location of a row of brick commercial buildings, the first building erected on the property after the purchase was “a portable house” built by Scudder to serve as his real estate office.[5]  Eighteen months later, Oliver Jones, one of the investors in the syndicate, found out just how portable the house was. 

On August 2, 1892, a year after closing on the Stuart property, Scudder told his wife he was going to Middletown, NJ for business.  He never returned.  His wife feared foul play.  Some suspected suicide because a relative had committed suicide a month earlier.  Others alleged he fled debts he could not pay.  Indeed, when Charles R. Street, a lawyer hired by Scudder’s wealthy uncle, examined Scudder’s books, he found debts of $6,500 (for comparison, the Stuart property had been purchased for $20,000).  Scudder had borrowed heavily from the Bank of Huntington.  His notes were endorsed by many of the well to do of Huntington.  “The night before leaving town Scudder borrowed money wherever he could get it, and had several checks cashed, overdrawing his account considerably.”[6]  Cash paid for lots in the Temple property received days before Scudder disappeared could not be found.[7]

How had such a successful young man amassed so much debt?  Reportedly, Scudder was a regular participant in a nightly high-stakes poker game in the village.  He also liked to bet on horse races.  Apparently, he was not as successful with his bets as he was with his real estate career.  The biggest loser in this mess—other than Scudder’s wife—was Dr. Oliver L. Jones, one of the investors in the real estate syndicate and owner of the property on which Scudder had built his “portable house.”[8] 

While things were being sorted out, the small building was rented to Edward Johnson to use for a fish and vegetable market.[9]  In the spring, Jones hired William Bingham to move the building to Cold Spring Harbor “to be used for a post office and telegraph office.”[10]

The building was moved to property on the south side of Main Street opposite Shore Road.  The 40-acre property on which the building now stood had long been owned by the Conklin family.  That property had been purchased from the estate of Elizabeth Conklin, widow of Richard M. Conklin, by Charles H. Jones in 1879.[11]  Jones died three years later, and the property was inherited by his daughter, Mary E. Jones, wife of Oliver L. Jones.

The first use of the Scudder building after it was moved to Cold Spring Harbor was to serve as the local Western Union telegraph office.  Eva Wright was the operator.  With the onset of colder weather in October 1893, Miss Wright moved operations to her father’s house because Western Union did not supply coal to heat the Scudder building.  She moved back to the Scudder building the following March.[12]  The post office was moved into the building in March 1897 following the 1896 fire that had destroyed its previous location at the Seaman & Bennett’s store, which was located on a pier where the Seafarer’s dock is now located.[13]  That post office, and the store, were destroyed by a fire set by robbers in November 1896.  After the fire, the post office was relocated to the Scudder building.[14] 

George Bennett bought out Seaman and built a new store, with a second-floor apartment for his family, to the east of the Scudder building.  The new store was completed by March 1897.[15]  For a few years, while the building was the post office, it also housed the small book collection of the Cold Spring Harbor library. The land on which Bennett built his store continued to be owned by the Jones family.  In 1910, the post office was relocated to the Holmes building at 90 Main Street.[16] 

While a definitive timeline has not been established yet, the old Scudder building eventually was converted to use as a barbershop.  Jack Sloter was the first barber to use the building.  Sloter had been a resident of Cold Spring Harbor since at least 1892.[17]  In 1894, he was described as “the popular Main St. barber,”[18] but his shop was not yet located in the Scudder building.  There were also barbers at the Glenada Hotel and at Van Ausdale’s.[19]

Sloter, who was from Brooklyn, married Jennie Jones, the daughter of John and Elizabeth Jones of Cold Spring Harbor, in 1894.  The couple lived in Cold Spring Harbor since their wedding.[20]  From 1918 to 1948, Sloter also worked as a custodian at East Side School.[21]

When Sloter set up shop in the Scudder building is not known.  It had to be after the post office vacated the building in 1910.  In 1908, Sloter moved his shop to the Valentine building.[22]  The Valentines owned property on the south side of Main Street, east of Shore Road.  Sloter may have moved across to the north side of Main Street sometime between 1908 and 1921. In 1921, there was a report of an attempt “to jimmy the door of the barbershop of John Sloter, near the Lockwood and Carley residences.”[23]  A small, one-story building is shown on the 1917 Sanborn fire insurance map at 103 Main Street, next to the Lockwood residence at 117 Main Street.  This may have been where Sloter’s barbershop was in 1921. 

However, reports of another burglary in 1924 seem to place Sloter’s shop at the Scudder building.  The burglar not only broke into Sloter’s barbershop and cigar store, he also broke into Jennie Sloter’s ice cream and tobacco store, located “some 25 feet distant.”[24]  The juxtaposition of the two shops is consistent with the positions of the Scudder building and the Teal building.  In 1911, Edgar Shadbolt had opened an ice cream parlor.  Previous accounts have given the location of the ice cream parlor as the former Scudder real estate office building.  But the Sanborn fire insurance map for 1917 shows the ice cream parlor in the Teal building next door to the south.  That building had served as Cold Spring Harbor’s first firehouse from 1896 to 1906.  The Teal building was also owned by Jones.[25]

A car accident in 1929, clearly locates Sloter in the Scudder building.  A truck turning from Shore Road onto Main Street was struck by a car traveling west on Main Street.  The car “struck the truck midway and drove it to the south side of the road, overturning it in front of the show window of Sloter’s store.”[26]

After Sloter died in December 1951, Sam Ryan took over as Cold Spring Harbor’s barber.[27]  In 1964, Ryan was joined by Vinny Hayes, who assumed ownership of the shop a few years later.[28]  Vinny’s daughter, Jennifer, joined him in 1991 and took over when he died in 2003.

One of the first issues to confront Vinny Hayes when he took over the shop was the expansion of the 1930 firehouse next door.  In 1922, the estate of Mary E. Jones sold the land on which the barbershop and the store built by Bennett stood to Stephen A. Pedrick.[29]   Pedrick had been a clerk in the Seaman & Bennett store starting in 1892 when the store was located on the pier where Seafarer’s dock is now located.  In 1906, Pedrick purchased from Bennett the new store Bennett had built in 1897.[30]  Pedrick’s 1922 purchase from the Jones estate included his store, where he also lived, and the barbershop building. 

In 1969, the fire district proposed building an addition to the 1930 firehouse to accommodate its larger fleet of fire fighting equipment.  District voters had rejected a proposal to tear down the 1930 firehouse.  A second vote to acquire the Pedrick property and build an addition to the firehouse was approved by the voters.[31]  To make room for the expanded firehouse, the Bennett/Pedrick store was demolished, and the barbershop building was moved to the east of where the Bennett/Pedrick store had been.  The new firehouse addition was dedicated at an open house held for the community on January 31, 1971.[32]

Jennifer Hayes continues to cut hair as the fourth proprietor of Cold Spring Harbor’s historic barbershop.  Like any good barbershop, it is the place to catch up on the latest local news and gossip, notwithstanding tales of a wealthy woman conspiring to keep her husband from wandering into the City to get a haircut.

[1] The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 7, 1892, page 15

[2] The Times Union (Brooklyn), August 11, 1891, page 2.

[3] The Times Union (Brooklyn), September 15, 1891, page 5.

[4] See https://huntingtonhistory.com/2011/03/30/the-stuart-block/

[5] The Times Union (Brooklyn), February 29, 1892, page 5; the building stood at what is now 257 Main Street.

[6]The Long-Islander, August 27, 1892, page 2.

[7] Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 7, 1892, page 15; The Sun, August 10, 1892, page 3; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 11, 1892, page 4; The World, August 11, 1892, page 1; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 18, 1892, page 10.

[8] The Long-Islander, August 27, 1892, page 2.

[9] The Long-Islander, October 8, 1892, page 2.

[10] The Long-Islander, March 18, 1893.

[11] Suffolk County Clerk’s Office Deed Liber 240, page 384

[12] The Long-Islander, October 21, 1892, page 3 and March 17, 1894, page 3.

[13] The Long-Islander, November 21, 1896

[14]  The Long-Islander, March 20, 1897, page 1

[15] The Long-Islander, March 13, 1897

[16] The Long-Islander, July 22, 1910, page 7

[17] The Long-Islander, December 17, 1892, page 3, his named is spelled Slater.

[18] The Long-Islander, November 24, 1894, page 3

[19] The Long-Islander, August 19, 1899, page 4

[20] The Long-Islander, June 15, 1934, page 12; The Long-Islander, June 5, 1925, page 4 (report of Mrs. Sloter’s brother’s death identifies their parents).

[21]  The Long-Islander, February 1, 1918, page 7; The Long-Islander, February 5, 1948, page 15

[22] The Long-Islander, November 6, 1908, page 7

[23] The Long-Islander, April 1, 1921, page 11.  The burglar turned out to be George Hawxhurst, a 27-year-old blind man who lived where the current post office is located, New York Herald, March 30, 1921, page 1.

[24] Brooklyn Times Union, September 2, 1924, page 3

[25] The Long-Islander, November 9, 1895, page 2

[26] The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 3, 1929, page 58

[27] The Long-Islander, January 31, 1952

[28] The Long-Islander, March 13, 2003, page 7

[29] Suffolk County Clerk’s Office Deed Liber 1054, page 480

[30] The Long-Islander, June 15, 1906

[31] The Long-Islander, April 24, 1969, page 6; Suffolk County Clerk’s Office Deed Liber 6607, page 184.

[32] The Long-Islander, January 28, 1971, page 20

Generations of the Funnell family lived and worked on what they called Strawberry Hill.  Today their homestead is best known as the home of Main Street Nursery. 

In 1853, Henry Funnell placed a notice in The Long-Islander newspaper announcing that he was moving his candle manufacturing business to a location half way between Huntington and Cold Spring Harbor.  In addition to making candles, he also sold strawberry plants and called his new home Strawberry Hill.

Henry and his wife Mary had immigrated from England in the 1840s.  They had thirteen children.  When they moved to Strawberry Hill, they occupied the George C. Wood property.  The family later acquired land on the north side of West Main Street near what is today the entrance to Huntington Country Club.  George Wood ran a livery stable in Brooklyn, but returned to Huntington after the Civil War.  The widowed Wood later married Henry Funnell’s daughter Anna Maria, who was 25 years younger than he was.

Henry’s son Henry T. Funnell trained as a schoolteacher and taught in Binghamton.  He later became Superintendent of Schools there and also taught at Oswego.  He returned to Huntington shortly after the Civil war to take over his father-in-law’s drug store in Huntington.  He continued to be involved with education as a member of the Huntington Board of Education.

Around 1892, he turned active management of the drug store over to his son Harry and went into the florist and nursery business with his son Archibald.  Their first greenhouses were located north of Main Street behind what is now Rosa’s Pizza.  Henry T. died in 1912.  Archibald continued the business.  In 1927, he opened a florist shop next to the family pharmacy at 306 Main Street in Huntington.  Later he built greenhouses at the family property on West Main Street.  In 1950 he moved the florist shop there as well.  It was located in the small building at 477 West Main Street that is now home to DeLuca Designs.  Archibald continued to operate the business until the early 1950s.

Henry T’s sister Esther lived in the house that is now Main Street Nursery.  The house was built in 1876 for Esther and her husband George W. Barrett, who had been a whaler.  Over the course of 12 years before the Civil War, he shipped out on three whaling voyages.  It is said that he along with five other men formed “the heaviest boat crew ever lowered in pursuit of a whale.”  None of the six weighed less than 225 pounds.  Barrett commanded a steamship for the Navy during the Civil War and later was a captain on coasting vessels.   He spent 50 years on the sea. 

George Barrett died in 1908.  Esther continued to live at the house until her death in 1924.  Their son Frank later sold the house and it changed hands several times.  According to an account written by Henry T.’s granddaughter, the Barrett house eventually ended up in the hands of “an unsavory character,” whom she did not identify. 

That “unsavory character” was Nicholas Radano.

Radano turned the Barrett house into Nick’s Inn, which became the site of various nefarious doings over the years, including selling liquor in violation of Prohibition and operating a disorderly house.  Nick’s Inn attracted many visitors, including the police, who raided the place on several occasions.

In June 1931, Radano was acquitted on a charge of selling liquor in violation of Prohibition laws.  Radano had previously been convicted of “manufacturing alcohol, maintaining a nuisance and possession of a still.”

The month after his acquittal, the Inn was raided, and Radano was taken to Brooklyn to be questioned by the police as a material witness in connection with the murder of gangster Anthony Capato, an associate of Al Capone.  During a search of the house, the police found several guns, two night sticks, and a slot machine.    A revolver found at the Inn was taken to Brooklyn to see if it matched the bullets in the body of the murdered gangster.  Radano paid a $50 fine for possession of the slot machine.  The gun charge was dismissed for lack of evidence.  Apparently, the bullets from the revolver found at Nick’s didn’t match those used in the murder.

Nick’s was raided again in September 1932 and Radano was charged with maintaining a disorderly house, which could mean operating a brothel, and violating New York’s gun law.  Liquor was also found on the premises.  Radano was again charged with maintaining a disorderly house in March 1934.  He pled guilty to that charge and was fined $200 and given a one year suspended sentence.

Nick’s attracted unwanted guests other than the police.  In September 1934, four men entered the Inn shortly after midnight and announced a stick-up.  The thieves took cash from the bar’s patrons as well as the cash register.  Then the thieves led the male patrons to an upstairs bedroom and told them to remove their pants.  They were then tied to the bed.  The thieves escaped before the police could be called.

Later that year, 42-year-old Radano married 28-year-old Dorita Armstrong, who had also been taken to Brooklyn for questioning after the 1931 raid.  It was Radano’s second marriage.  His first wife divorced him in 1932, at which time he was already living with Armstrong on Carley Avenue, around the corner from the Inn.

Married life didn’t mean the end of Radano’s run-ins with the law.  In 1936, the restaurant, now called the New Garden Inn, was raided at 1:00 in the morning.  Radano and a woman named Betty Fritz of Manhattan were arrested.  Radano was charged with violating the Mann Act, which made it a felony to transport a woman over state lines “for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.”  Radano pled guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in jail and a fine of $2,000.

Radano was back in Huntington by the beginning of 1939, when he was arrested again.  This time the charge was brought by his wife, who alleged that he struck her in the face with his fist.  A few months later, he ran afoul of the town zoning code by building an addition to a stand on his property without a permit.

In 1947, Dorita applied for permission to construct an addition to the house for use as a restaurant.  Neighbors objected arguing that the non-conforming restaurant use had lapsed during the war.  The application was denied.  The Radanos operated a refreshment or vegetable stand on the property for a few years.

By 1956, Gerry and Addie Raynor acquired the property as well as the Funnell greenhouses.  They operated a successful nursery until they retired in 1974.  As Bertha Funnell wrote, “Trees, nursery stock and flowers once more graced the neighborhood.  Respectability and dignity returned to the Barrett property.  The nursery business has continued under various owners to this day.

The two other Funnell houses remain private residences.

In 2012, I wrote a piece about one of Huntington’s most famous characters—Tom the Swan.  The original article is reposted below. 

At the time, Tom’s whereabouts were unknown.  Originally given to the Huntington Library, he was transferred to the Huntington Historical Society in 1914, where he was apparently on view until as late as 1938.  His current location was unknown.  Until now.

Tom is now at the Greenlawn-Centerport Historical Association’s office in the Harborfields Library. Last month, a Greenlawn resident asked Deanne Rathke, the executive director of the association, if she knew about Old Tom.  She did.  The gentleman returned the next day with Tom himself.  He explained that he purchased the taxidermied swan some time between 1969 and 1971 at an auction held by the Huntington Historical Society.

Karen Martin, archivist at the Huntington Historical Society then found the minutes of the Society’s April 22, 1969 Board meeting.  The last item of business at that meeting was approving a list of items to be removed from the collection to be sold at an auction on May 24.  The first item on the list was “Swan.”  Unless the historical society had more than one stuffed swan in its collection, this was undoubtedly Tom. Earlier accounts report that out of the water, Tom stood four feet tall. Perhaps he was stretching his neck–the stuffed Tom stands three feet tall.

On May 15, The Long-Islander printed an announcement about a Country Auction to be held at the Kissam House on May 24.  “Among the items to be auctioned off are ruby glass, Empire lamps and sofa, old and new china, a picnic table set, and antiques.”  No mention of a swan!

One of Huntington’s Most Famous Characters

He was described by The New York Times as “one of Huntington’s most famous characters and dearly beloved friends.”[1]  He was “known to every man, woman and child living within a radius of several miles.”[2]  His death in 1906 was mourned by many and plans were soon underway to memorialize him.  His name was Tom.  He was a swan.

The story of Tom the Swan is one of those interesting tidbits of local history that are often forgotten after the last person with a memory of it passes away.  But Tom was so well loved that post cards bearing his image were printed; and these photographic memorials can still be found.  The descendant of one of Tom’s “owners” also remembers being told about Tom and was curious about his current whereabouts, but more on that later.

Tom was originally owned by P.T. Barnum, who had imported a pair of swans presumably for his Happy Family circus exhibit.  The exhibit of various animals living in harmony in the same cage was supposed to inspire humans to live in peace with their fellow man.  Apparently, the animals’ complacency was drug induced.[3]   This Civil War-era exhibit may have been the inspiration for Animal Crackers, which are still sold at circuses.

According to one account, Tom did not follow the script for the Happy Family exhibit.  He became agitated and attacked and killed other animals in the cage. [4] According to another account, one of the pair of swans imported by Barnum soon died and the survivor was given to Dr. John Rhinelander, who had retired to Huntington in the 1830s (his house still stands on Kane Lane in Huntington Bay).[5]  In the second account, there were in fact two pairs of swans.  One of each pair dying shortly after being imported and each of the survivors given to Dr. Rhinelander.

Dr. Rhinelander died before 1864.[6]  If Tom were indeed one of the swans given to Dr. Rhinelander by P.T. Barnum, he would have been at least 43 years old when he died (the story announcing his death conceded that his age was a mystery, but reports that “good authorities state that he was probably between 75 and 100 years of age”).  Swans typically live no more than 20 years, so it is more likely that Tom was the offspring of the pair given to Dr. Rhinelander.

In any event, Tom was well known around Huntington.  He—or his parents—decided that the waters of Huntington Harbor were more inviting than the fresh water ponds on Dr. Rhinelander’s estate.  He and a mate soon built a nest in Thurston’s Cove, the area we now know as Wincoma.  In light of the swans’ preference for that location, Dr. Rhinelander gave the swans to Lewis M. Thurston.  It should be noted that a third account credits Thurston with introducing the swans to Huntington’s waters.[7]

The swans reportedly hatched four to six cygnets each spring, which were sold by Thurston’s sons for as much as $60.  But once the nest was discovered local boys would steal the eggs and the flock dwindled to just the pair.  Tom may have had as many as three mates.  One was reportedly killed on her nest by a dog; another was shot by a group on a steamboat and the third abandoned poor Tom.

By the time Thurston died in 1895, just shy of his 91^st birthday, the swans had not been seen since the year before.  It was assumed they had been shot.  But on that day in October 1895, the pair returned to the harbor and resumed their residency in Thurston’s Cove.  Tom’s mate—presumably his third—disappeared soon thereafter.

When Thurston’s property was auctioned off, Tom was purchased by Gustav deKay Townsend.  Although Tom was allowed to remain free, it was thought if he had an owner, his life would not be in danger.  In his old age, Tom did not appreciate the advent of motor boats.  He would fly straight at them flapping his large wings in an attempt to scare them off.

Tom wandered the waters of Long Island alone.  He spent the winter of 1899-1900 in Northport and had been seen as far east as Port Jefferson.  By November 1900, he was back in Huntington Harbor where Warren S. Sammis and Silas Ott made sure to feed him during the cold winter months.

Tom was found dead on the shore of the millpond in February 1906.  The original report did not indicate the cause of death.  Writing nine years later, The New York Times reported that he had been hit by a car.  Whatever the cause of his death, it was immediately suggested that he should be stuffed and placed on display in the library at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Building.  Mrs. John Caire was retained to do the work at a cost of $25.  Contributions to defray the expense were accepted at local drug stores.  Within a month $20 had been raised.[8]  Over the summer, the children of the village held a fair on the lawn of Charles N. White’s house on Carver Street.  They raised $5.76.

Two weeks before Christmas, Tom had been stuffed and was on display in a glass case in the library.  Since he stood fully four feet high when out of the water,[9] the library soon found that he took up too much room.  In July 1914, the library gave Tom to the Huntington Historical Society to display in the newly acquired Conklin House Museum.[10]

Even in death Tom remained a popular attraction.  A lengthy New York Times article about visiting Huntington to see sites associated with Nathan Hale thought the trip to Huntington would not complete without a stop to see Tom.[11]

Recently, a descendant of Lewis Thurston wrote to find out whatever happened to Tom.  He remembered his mother telling him about Tom and how he had been stuffed and put on display in the library, but that he had eventually found his way to the basement of either the library or the Conklin House.  He is in neither place today.  The Huntington Historical Society’s accession records do not include a listing for a stuffed swan.  As popular and well loved as he was, over the years his story was forgotten and some time in the last several decades, it was decided that there was no room for a stuffed swan in the Historical Society’s collection.

Today, Tom’s story lives on through the surviving post card images of a magnificent bird.

[1] The New York Times, August 22, 1915.

[2] The Long-Islander, February 9, 1906

[3] The New York Times, September 21, 1924

[4] The Long-Islander, February 16, 1906

[5] The Long-Islander, February 9, 1906

[6] The New York Times obituary for his wife in the March 16, 1864 refers to the late Dr. Rhinelander.

[7] The Long-Islander, November 16, 1900

[8] The Long-Islander, March 9, 1906

[9] The Long-Islander, November 17, 1938

[10] The Long-Islander, April 9, 1964

[11] The New York Times, August 22, 1915.

            On the first anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, the members of the Dix Hills Fire Department dedicated a bell in his memory.  The bell now sits in front of the department’s first firehouse on the east side of Deer Park Road, south of the Expressway.  The bell was a gift from the Brothers of St. Francis, who had recently relocated from Dix Hills to Oyster Bay, and who were active in the fire department since shortly after its creation in 1947.

            The Brothers of St. Francis were teachers.  Locally, they taught at St. Anthony’s High School in the San Remo section of Smithtown (from 1933 to 1984 when the school moved to the former Holy Family Diocesan high school in South Huntington) and operated Camp Alvernia in Centerport.  To accommodate a growing number of young men entering the order, the Franciscans opened the St. Francis Novitiate on November 21, 1949 on a 30-acre property on the southeast side of Straight Path about a third of a mile from Deer Park Road.  The property had been left by Mrs. Elizabeth A. Collins to the Diocese of Brooklyn when she died.  The Brothers converted the house for school use and built several additional structures, doing all the work themselves except plumbing and heating.  The Brothers also grew vegetables and raised poultry and pigs on the property.

            When volunteers from the newly formed fire department began building their first firehouse on Deer Park Road, the Brothers stored one of the department’s trucks in their garage.  The Brothers provided a more lasting service to the fire department as dispatchers.  Originally, calls to the fire department were routed to the fire chief’s house.  The chief’s wife would then initiate a call tree by calling the homes of other firefighters alerting them to the emergency.  The calls would be relayed from one volunteer’s house to the next. This was not an ideal system, especially if no one was home to answer the call.  What was needed was a telephone that would be answered at all hours.  Since the Brothers were always on campus, they would always be available to answer the call. 

            When a call came into the Novitiate, the brother answering the call would note the type of fire and its location and then activate the siren at the firehouse.  The first volunteer to arrive at the fire house would get the information about the fire from the Novitiate and write the information on the blackboard for the firemen who came later.  The Brothers provided the service free of charge throughout the 1950s.  Their role was unknown to most residents of the community.

            Brother Bernard, who was in charge of the Novitiate, often gave the invocation at fire department dinners and was made an honorary member of the department.

            The close association between the Brothers and the fire department came to end after the Brothers purchased a 24-acre property in Upper Brookville in 1961.  The new site offered more room to house the increasing enrollment at the Novitiate.  Before the Brothers left, the fire department invited the community to a full dress review at the Novitiate on July 4, 1961.

            The property on Straight Path was subdivided in 1963.  Over a hundred houses now sit on Longworth Avenue, Ascot Court, Kent Place, Hastings Street, and Wentworth Drive.  No trace of the area’s former use as a training site for young Franciscans can be found.

            After they left, the Brothers had one more contribution to make to the fire department.  On November 22, 1964, the fire department dedicated a one-ton bell donated by the Brothers in memory of the assassinated president.  The bell, which was cast in 1872, is proudly displayed in front of the firehouse.

A more complete account of the early history of the Dix Hills Fire Department by ex-Chief Perry D. Hatch can be found here.

In 1956, archeologists from Fordham University conducted digs at 187 Park Avenue where several Indian artifacts were found leading the archeologists to conclude that the property was the site of a Matinecock village.  The Town Historian at the time speculated that this may have been the place where the First Purchase was signed.  But there was no evidence to support that claim.

The house at 187 Park Avenue is said to have been built around 1740.  Some accounts assert it was built as a wedding gift for Amelia Lloyd, but she wasn’t born until 1760.  It is unclear what support there is for the 1740 construction date.  The first deed for the property is dated 1811 when Amelia Lloyd sold the eight-acre property to Mary Long.

Amelia Lloyd married John Lloyd II in April 1783.  John was 39, Amelia was a month shy of her 23^rdbirthday.  John had grown up on Lloyd Neck; Amelia in Danbury, CT.  In September 1783, five months after their wedding, John wrote from Stamford to Amelia in Danbury.  He advised of his plans to visit Long Island before “returning to the arms of my Amelia.”  He said their separation must be “born with patience especially as it is to prepare a residence for the enjoyment of our mutual affections and esteem.”  It has been supposed he was referring to the house on Park Avenue.  However, it seems more likely that he was referring to the Manor House on Lloyd’s Neck, which he had inherited from his uncle, Joseph Lloyd.  John Lloyd II died in 1792.  Amelia may have purchased the Park Avenue house after his death.  Indeed, a letter to her dated 1794 is addressed to her at the Manor of Queens Village, i.e. Lloyd’s Neck.  A year later she received a letter addressed to her at Huntington, NY.

John, who had supported Independence, inherited much of the land on Lloyd Neck from his father and uncle, Joseph.  That inheritance included Jupiter Hammon, the first published writer of African descent in the country, who had been enslaved by the Lloyd family since his birth in 1711.  

As noted above, Amelia sold the Park Avenue property to Mary Long in 1811.  She died seven years later in Danbury.  The eight-acre parcel more or less ran from Park Avenue to the creek and from Creek Road south to Mill Lane.

Mary Long was the wife of cabinet maker Richard Long, who died in 1818.  Mary Long sold the eight-acre parcel to William Coburn, who was also a cabinet maker.  Coburn was one of the earliest members of the Methodist Church in Huntington.  When a church was built in 1829 on Main Street, Methodists who lived near the harbor and didn’t wish to travel to the village for services, worshiped in the loft of Coburn’s cabinet shop, which was reportedly in the eastern most room of the house. 

In 1833, Coburn sold the property to Elbert Walters, who was yet another cabinet maker.  Walters was also one of the founders of the Huntington Mutual Fire Insurance Company and served as Overseer of the Poor and Town Trustee as well as school district trustee.  In 1838, he raised a company of light infantry and was granted a Captain’s commission by the Governor, later promoted to Major.  In addition to his wife and six children, two apprentices and two Black servants (one of whom was an 11-year-old girl) lived in the house.

Waters also acquired land on the west side of the Creek.  From that property he sold small lots to Nelson Smith and Peter Crippen in 1854 and 1864 respectively.  Smith and Crippen were founders of Bethel A.M.E. Church

According to William A. Rushmore, who lived in the house for almost 90 years, the original house is the four-bay east section.  A small addition to the west proved too small and was replaced by the current west wing in the 1860s or 70s.  The original west wing was moved to Creek Road where it was used by a Black family.  This may have been used by one of the three Black families listed on the 1870 census on Creek Road–Peter Crippen, Nelson Smith and George Smith.

In 1865, Walters moved his shop to Wall Street and sold the Park Avenue property to Daniel K. Youngs of Oyster Bay.  Youngs was a descendant of an old Long Island family–his ancestor hosted George Washington during the president’s 1790 tour of Long Island.  Youngs was an expert agriculturalist.  He was one of the founders of the Queens County Agricultural Society.  In 1875, The Long-Islander pointed to Youngs’ gardens on Park Avenue as an example of the value of a good kitchen garden.  According to his obituary in The Long-Islander, Youngs “was a thoroughly practical market gardener and his fields of onions, rhubarb and asparagus opened the eyes of many of the farmers in this vicinity of the possibilities and profits of market gardening.”

Youngs’ father died in 1874 and he seems to have then moved back to Oyster Bay.  In 1877, Captain Meade, Commandant of the Marine barracks at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, leased the premises.  Charles Kohlman leased the barn and gardens.

Youngs sold the house to William H. Rushmore on March 1, 1884 for $3,000 (Suffolk County Deed Liber 280, page 505).  Thirty days later Rushmore sold the property to his cousin Rebecca J. Sutton for the same price (Suffolk County Deed Liber 280, page 507). 

The cousins moved to Huntington from Brooklyn in 1880 following the death of Rushmore’s wife and Sutton’s husband.  In the 1880 census, Rushmore and his two sons, William A. (age 12) and Henry (age 10) and Rebecca Sutton and her three children (ages 8 to 16) are listed as boarders in the household of Rebecca Sutton’s mother, Cornelia Sands.  

Rushmore was in the brick business and later a stock broker.  His son, William A. Rushmore, recalled an incident in 1888 when his father needed an operation for acute appendicitis.  William, Sr.’s brother, who was a well-known surgeon in Brooklyn, performed in operation in the living room of the Lloyd House.  William, Jr. reported that the doctors in Huntington were eager to watch the operation.  William, Sr. died in 1918.

William A. continued to live in the house.  He was born in 1867.  He started work at the City Savings Bank in 1903 and stayed there until he retired in 1932 after he had a slight heart attack.  As early 1899, William A. Rushmore was playing violin with the Huntington Orchestral Society.  By 1907 he was hosting meetings of the Chess Club at his house. He joined the Huntington Yacht Club in 1925.

When a sewer plant was proposed for Huntington in 1914, he objected to the proposed location on Creek Road.  In 1932 he was appointed to a committee to investigate problems at the sewer plant and possible expansion of the sewer district to include Halesite.

William A. didn’t acquire title to the house until 1947.  Two years later he sold it to his cousin Marian Statesir Smith.

After President Kennedy was shot, William flew in front of his house an American flag with a black border that his grandmother had added when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

William A. died in 1968.  The house was sold in 1973 to attorney Jordan Iserman, who converted it to office use.  The Daniel Gale Real Estate Agency moved its offices there in November 1973.  Kent Gale purchased the property less than a decade later.  Although the Daniel Gale agency moved its offices to 263 Main Street in the summer of 2022, the Gale family continues to own the Amelia Lloyd House.

Two hundred and forty-six years ago, the Huntington Liberty flag was proudly carried into battle by members of the Huntington Militia.  The Liberty flag, which is now the official flag of the Town of Huntington, was created just a month earlier when Huntingtonians first received news that the Continental Congress had adopted the Declaration of Independence.  The Huntington Militia as part of the First Regiment of the Suffolk County Militia marched to Brooklyn to fight to make the words of declaration real.  Although the Battle of Long Island was a defeat for the Americans, many militia members continued the fight.

Today members of the Huntington Militia commemorated the battle with a wreath laying ceremony at the Sons of the American Revolution memorial in front of the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Building.

The Ancient and Honorable Huntington Militia was formed in 1653 by the Town of Huntington to provide an effective defense against the hostile Dutch settlements of New Netherlands.  The militia held regular, public training exercises on the Town Common. Huntington was made part of the Colony of New York in 1664 and the Huntington Militia became part of the New York Provincial forces in 1666.  Over the years, trained volunteers from Huntington served honorably in the French and Indian Wars. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the Huntington Militia formed the nucleus of the first Suffolk County Regiment of Militia and raised several companies, which later fought in the Battles of Long Island, Harlem Heights and White Plains.

After the Battle of White Plains, the Militia as a unit did not follow the Continental Army into New Jersey, however some militiamen as individuals enlisted in various mainland regiments. The unit then dispersed. The militiamen not returning to Huntington formed a shadow organization of guerrilla fighters in Connecticut to raid occupied Long Island.
 

The militiamen who returned to their homes in Huntington during the British Occupation (1776-1783) were pressed into a forced labor company. When the Revolutionary War ended, Huntington reestablished the Militia. The Huntington Militia continued to be active under the New Republic and was called out for active service during the War of 1812 and the Civil War. In modern times, however, it was eclipsed as a military force by the National Guard System. Thereafter, it continued only as a social group whose members marched in annual parades until the 1920s.

The Huntington Militia was reactivated by The Town of Huntington in 1974, to serve in a ceremonial capacity as its official Colonial Guard and to continue as a permanent, living link with our proud heritage. The militia became a Revolutionary War reenacting unit in 1976 and continues to this day to preserve its heritage and recreate life as it was on Long Island in Colonial America. 

As we look forward to the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, it is important that we commemorate and honor the sacrifices made by our forebearers.