Huntington History

 In the 1870s, the Town of Huntington gained a one-mile road, but lost 114 square miles of land.

 Through numerous land purchases from the indigenous residents in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Huntington stretched from sea to shining sea, or at least from the Long Island Sound to the Atlantic Ocean, including the 114 square miles that is now the Town of Babylon.  Originally, European settlers established homes on the north shore.  The south shore was valued for the abundance of salt hay, which north shore farmers would cut to feed their livestock.  Every fall, the farmers would cross the island to cut, cure and cart the hay from the south shore to their farms.

 Eventually, Huntington South, as the area was known, attracted full time residents.  Three hamlets developed—Babylon, Amityville, and Breslau, now known as Lindenhurst.  As these South Side areas grew, their interests diverted from those on the North Side.  In addition, to attend to Town affairs, such as the annual Town meeting, they would have to travel across the Island.  By the 1850s, the Town meetings were held at Elias Smith’s house in Long Swamp  (on the east side of Beverly Road, north of Jericho Turnpike).  Intended to accommodate South Side residents, it must be admitted the location was closer to the north shore than halfway between the shores.

As early as 1852, there were proposals to split the town in two.  Thirteen residents gave notice that they intended to ask the Suffolk County Board of Supervisors to create a new town of Babylon from the lower half of the Town of Huntington.  The boundary line would run west from the southwest corner of the Town of Smithtown through Melville along Old Country Road. Nothing came of that effort.

Enter Henry Livingston, who on July 7, 1869 published the first edition a new newspaper, the South Side Signal.  Livingston was a booster of the South Side, particularly the village of Babylon.  By his third issue, he was advocating for succession: “The division of the town of Huntington is being talked of by those who object to going to the North Side to attend to town business.  In many respects there would be much to gain by a proper division of the Town, as it is full large for convenience.”

A few months alter, he was more explicit: “Huntington is large enough in territory to make two good-sized towns, while the rapid increase of population on the South Side will allow this half to govern itself. We feel kindly towards the North Side but the village of Huntington cannot much longer make laws for Babylon.” (South Side Signal, February 12, 1870). South Siders also contended that “they pay the largest share of the taxes, while the most lucrative offices are given to the people on the north side.” (The Brooklyn Union, January 16, 1872, page 4).

In addition to the convenience of being able to conduct town business closer to home, those agitating for a new town were incensed by the construction of a new road from Main Street in Huntington village to the harbor.  William A. Conant, Suffolk County’s representative in the Assembly, introduced a bill “for the laying out and opening of a highway in the village of Huntington.” The bill was approved by the legislature in May 1869.  The so-called “road bill” authorized the purchase of land for a street to run from Main Street opposite the center line of South Street (now New York Avenue, NYS Route 110) northward to the east side of Huntington Harbor, a distance of one mile.  

The bill authorized the County on behalf of the Town to levy a tax of $4,000 to cover the expense of constructing the road.  The cost of acquiring the land, which was to be determined by independent appraisers, would be raised by another tax.  To put that sum in perspective, in April 1871, the Town raised $200 for roads and bridges throughout the town.  The amount collected for “Contingencies,” i.e., general expenses, was $ $4,500.  In other words, construction of the road would almost equal all other Town expenses for the year (other than care of the poor, which was the largest annual expense at $7,000).  

The tax was not well received.  Several residents petitioned the Town Clerk to call a Special Town Meeting to consider “what measure, if any, shall be pursued by the taxpayers of this Town, to resist, as we consider the unjust expenditures intended to be levied and collected upon the assessed property of the whole Town” for the building of the new road.

 The Special Meeting was held at Long Swamp on June 15, 1870.  Opponents of the new road contended that the road bill was pushed by Assemblyman Conant “for his own personal benefit, and that of a few of his friends, in violation of the rights of the people, and contrary to the interests and wishes of his constituents.”  Furthermore, they contended that the road “is intended to benefit the few at the expense of the many; it is unnecessary and uncalled for; its construction will impose upon the Town a heavy taxation, for which no adequate benefit will be received.”

  “We condemn the whole scheme as selfish, oppressive, unequal, unjust and insulting to our people.”

 The vote in favor of the resolution against the road was 403 to 0.  Soon after the Special Town Meeting, an injunction was issued restraining the Commissioners with proceeding on the road project.  However, since the road was authorized by the State, only the State could abandon the project.  By July the road was complete from Mill Lane to the harbor and by Halloween it was completed from Main Street to the harbor.  Litigation continued even after the road was completed. But all proceedings were finally dismissed in April 1871.

In his annotation to the Town Records, Charles R. Street notes that “There was much public excitement over the matter and considerable of opposition to the road, resulting in a protracted lawsuit, but the Commissioners performed the duty imposed on them by law, and all their proceedings were sustained.  The utility of the road is now [in 1889] universally conceded.”

The energy directed at stopping the road was now directed to splitting the town.  In addition to the burden of paying the tax assessment to construct the road, arguments were made about the lack of representation for those who could not afford the time to travel long distances to town meetings.  Democracy required smaller towns, both in terms of geographic area and population.  The argument was not limited to the town of Huntington.  The same considerations applied to Brookhaven, Southampton and other large towns in both Queens and Suffolk Counties.  Yet only Huntington was divided.

 By September 1871, it seemed leaders on both the North Side and the South Side agreed that the town was too large to serve the interests of “convenience, unity or harmony.”  In December 1871, the Elias Smith House, which the Town had purchased in 1868 for use as the Poor House as well as a venue for Town meetings, burned down. (Coincidentally, the Poor House was offered for sale for $4,000—the same amount the State Legislature directed the County Board of Supervisors to tax for construction of New York Avenue.  The sale only realized a price of $2,600.)  With no centralized place to meet, it was thought the time to proceed with a division of the town was at hand.

On January 9, 1872, less than a month after the fire at the Poor House, residents of the first election district met at Euterpean Hall in Huntington village and adopted the following resolution:

Whereas A diversity of interests has been created within the last few years by the rapid growth and increase of the villages on the North and South Sides of the Town of Huntington, and 

Whereas, the Town House, where the people have heretofore held their Town Meetings has recently been destroyed by fire, and no appropriate or commodious building now exists in the central part of the Town, where Town Meetings can conveniently be held and 

Whereas, the People of the South side of the Town have, through their local Press and otherwise, exhibited a desire to have the Town divided and to erect a new Town, [it is] now therefore 

Resolved, That it is the sense of this meeting, that a fair and equitable division of the Town of Huntington would result in benefit to each section, and that we are in favor of such division. 

Resolved, That a written request be immediately executed and delivered to the Town Clerk for a Special Town Meeting to be held at or near the Town Farm at Long Swam at an early day as practicable, to take the sense of the people of the whole Town, on the Question of a division of the Town, and if favorable to such division, to decide upon a dividing boundary, and to take such further action as will effect the object. 

Resolved, That we deem an application to the Legislature for the passage of a suitable Act to be the best, most expeditious and most advisable method of procuring such division.

The residents also appointed a committee of three (Town Supervisor J. Amherst Woodhull, Henry C. Platt and former State Assemblyman William A. Conant) to confer with committees from the Town’s other four election districts.  The residents of the Babylon and Amityville election districts adopted a similar resolution.  In the Central or Long Swamp District, the residents expressed an interest in dividing the Town into three new Towns.  They felt that as currently constituted the residents of the middle of the Town could hold the more populous North and South Sides in check by aligning with whichever one was to their advantage on  a particular issue.  Being part of a Town with one or the other would leave them helplessly outnumbered.  The proposed central Town would include the area between the Main Line of the Rail Road and the northern branch line (i.e., the Huntington line).  

With a speed that would astonish the modern-day residents of Long Island, the wheels of government now turned quickly.  Representatives from each district met in Deer Park on January 17 and adopted resolutions calling for a town-wide vote on January 27 to decide whether to divide the Town into two parts, three parts, or leave it as is.

As we know, the vote favored the two Town proposition as follows:

The central district chose not to hold a vote and instead planned to attack the division separately.

The voters also elected two representatives from each district to determine the dividing line between the Towns.  The Division Committee met the Monday after the election in Babylon and drew the dividing line a half mile north of the Melville Church, on Old Country Road, to run directly west to east, the same line proposed in 1852. Melville residents objected, preferring to stay in the Town of Huntington.  The line was then moved south about three miles to a line one mile north of the Rail Road’s main line. 

The legislation creating the Town of Babylon was passed by the State legislature on March 13, 1872.  An election for the new Babylon Town Board was held on April 2 and the newly elected representatives met that same day.