Until it was developed in the 1920s, the area between Depot Road and Lenox Road from Ninth Street south to a point south of Vondran Street was home to a one-mile horse racing track featuring a 1500 seat grandstand, a club house, large barns and open fields.

Horses had been raced at this site since as early as the 1840s.  The Suffolk Racing or Driving Course was a half-mile track that reportedly was the scene of some the first races run by the legendary horse “Lady Suffolk.”  These early races featured trotters pulling a driver in a sulky.  The track sat on a 47-acre parcel and endured an uneven history with different owners and operators.  Races were held sporadically.  For example, in 1874, the summer meeting lasted just three days with only two or three races each day.  Nonetheless, the meet was popular enough to attract visitors from Brooklyn by way the Long Island Rail Road.

After the Civil War, concerns were raised about the future of the track.  In 1878, it was suggested that a fair be held at the course—so long as it didn’t detract from the county fair in Riverhead.  But it took another decade for the idea to be realized.  In 1886, Henry C. Brown, proprietor of the Long Island Brewery in Brooklyn and a recent resident of Northport (his home is now the Indian Hills County Club), organized the Huntington Live Stock Fair Association.  Despite the Association’s best efforts, the grounds were not ready for the hoped for opening in 1887.  The Association had purchased additional land around the track and had made extensive alterations to the grounds and the track itself.

The track and fair grounds were formally opened on the Fourth of July the following year.  The track was hard and pebbly; the grand stand was missing some final details and needed a coat of paint.  Nonetheless, attendance was excellent.  The wealthy summer residents of East Neck and from miles around came.  So did local farmers and their families dressed in their Sunday best.  Several races were run—but there was no betting.  Between heats, a brass band played.  Visitors enjoyed the scene from the wide balconies of the club house; and enjoyed meals in the lunch rooms.  The grounds were surrounded by open meadows and fields of grain with forests on the distant horizon.  It was a “picture so full of beauty and variety” that it “calms the mind when agitated by conflicting thoughts.”  Further improvements were made in time for the September races, erasing all memory of the “unsavory Mecca of the horsemen of olden times.”

By September–when the Association’s first annual fair was held—every pebble had been removed from the track, but racing was not part of the program.  The event featured livestock shows, displays of local produce and flowers, samples of bread, cakes, pies and jellies, as well as quilts and paintings.  Wagons and carriages, and farm equipment were displayed.  Visitors could ride the merry-go-round, have their photograph taken, or watch a baseball game between the Suffolks and the Norwalks.

It was a welcome diversion for a town that had experienced a terrible blizzard the previous March and a devastating fire that had destroyed the block of stores known as the Brush Block, a carriage factory, blacksmith shop and the Central Presbyterian Church just a week before the fair opened.  But the first day of the fair also featured rain, which turned out to be an omen of things to come.  In succeeding years, rain would be a constant problem for the fair’s organizers.   Even though the Long Island Rail Road ran extra trains to get visitors to the fair, which was only a few minutes walk from the train depot, rain kept them away.

By 1893, the Live Stock Association had defaulted on its debts.  A new company, known as the Long Island Fair Grounds Association, was formed to take over.  The group intended to resume the fairs, but it seems the only activity was horse racing.  In 1905, an effort was made to incorporate a new organization—The Huntington Fair and Exhibition Company—to purchase the property and resume the fairs.    The grounds were instead purchased by Singleton Van Schaick, son of one of the founders of the Huntington Live Stock Fair Association.  In 1921, the old fair grounds were purchased by Addison Sammis, who turned the land over to the Huntington Station developers, Koster & Cornehlsen, who subdivided the land into 20 foot wide lots and began building houses where the horses had once raced.

Perhaps the only tangible reminder of the old race track, other than horse shoes found buried in the area, are the cement pillars that flank the south entrance to East Park Drive.  According to neighborhood lore, the pillars were a part of the stable area and were where the jockeys dismounted from their horses.

Although the annual fairs did not last, they did give rise to a new name for the surrounding community—Fair Grounds.  But that too turned out to be a temporary appellation.  In 1911, the name was changed to Huntington Station.

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Roads in Huntington today are mostly paved in asphalt.  There are a few concrete roads—especially in Northport—and maybe even a dirt road or two.  But a hundred years ago, Huntington’s Main Street was a wood road.

In 1911, the Town Board decided to pave Main Street with wood blocks.  At the time the road was basically a dirt road with a covering of Peekskill gravel.  It tended to get muddy in wet weather and dusty in dry weather.  For many years around the turn of the twentieth century, Samuel Shadbolt would ride up and down Main Street in a wagon equipped with a water tank in an effort to keep the dust down during the summer months.  In 1907, George Taylor circulated a petition asking that oil be used instead of water because it would last longer.  Those who favored water circulated their own petition.  They say oil and water don’t mix, but that didn’t keep several storeowners from signing both petitions.

The decision was made to use oil.  But oiling the dirt road was not good enough.  For one thing, it did nothing about the mud after a rainstorm.  For another thing, the advent of automobiles took their toll.  In 1907, The Long-Islander predicted that with the arrival of William K. Vanderbilt’s Long Island Motor Parkway, Huntington would became “an Arcadia for Autoists.”  One Sunday afternoon that summer, Mrs. Thomas Aitken counted 250 automobiles pass along Main Street in just three hours.

Four years after the oil was introduced to Huntington’s streets, the Town Board decided it was time for a more permanent solution.  This time salvation from mud and dust came in the form of wood

blocks measuring 8” x 3” and 3” deep (the block pictured here measures 7¾” x 2¾’”and 2½“ deep).  The work began in September 1911.  The blocks were laid on a concrete foundation from New York Avenue to Green Street (the wood paving was extended to Prospect Street two years later).   Private companies wishing to lay water, electric, telephone, or gas lines were warned to do their work before the wood blocks were laid because they would not be allowed to dig up the blocks once they had been installed.

There was some discussion as to the effect the new surface would have on the annual bobsled races down Cold Spring Hill into the village.  Would sleds go faster and further; or slower and less far?  The blocks also inspired a weekly newspaper column, “Along the Wood Blocks.”  The column was inaugurated soon after the blocks were laid and ran for five years.  The witty observations exposing the foibles, idiosyncrasies, and charm of the local population and extolling the beauty of their town were signed, appropriately enough, with the name  “Creosote.”  The writer was, in fact, Harry R. Fleet, a Huntingtonian who had enjoyed a long career in newspapers.

The wood blocks lasted until 1927.  Despite the warning to the utility companies, over the course of a decade and a half, so many holes were dug into the blocks—and improperly filled—that it was almost impossible to keep the street in decent shape.  Out with the wood blocks, in with concrete.

Blocks were salvaged by local residents.  Some were burned to heat houses.  The one pictured here—along with a few thousand others—was used to pave the new cow barn at the Park Avenue Dairy.

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Over the last half-century, the Town of Huntington and the County of Suffolk have assembled an impressive collection of open space totaling some 520 acres in the Crab Meadow section of Huntington.  But a small portion of that land was acquired by the Town more than 350 years ago.

Under the Town’s colonial patents issued by various royal governors, the Trustees of the Town were granted all lands that constitute the town.  Over the years, the Trustees sold almost all of the land.  The few remaining trustee lands include the beach at Crab Meadow.  As early as 1901, several residents had erected shacks on this beach.[1]  In 1907, residents of the area sent a petition to the Town Board requesting the Town to remove the houses; “thereby giving all citizens of the Town the use of said property in common.”[2]  The Huntington Board of Trustees retained attorney Willard Baylis to render an opinion on the legal status of these shacks.  After examining records at the County Clerks’ Office as well as the Town Clerk’s Office, Baylis concluded that the Board of Trustees had never conveyed the lands at Crab Meadow beach.  As a result, none of the persons who erected the structures on the beach “has any right in or title to such beach, and certainly their possession has not been long enough in time or of such character as to give any of them adverse rights against the Town, or its Trustees.”[3]

The beach in question extended from the highway leading south from the Sound (what we know as Waterside Avenue) east to the Gut or creek that flows out of the meadows south of the beach.  Prior to 1890, the road jogged to the east and separated the Trustees’ land, which was on the east side of the road, from private land on the west side of the road.  In about 1890, the road had been straightened, and as a result 196.7 feet of the private property along the Sound was now on the east side of the road.

That parcel was part of the land acquired by Willis B. Burt from William Chesebrough in 1900.  Burt developed the land on the west side of the road as Waterside Park.  On the beach on the east side of the road, Burt operated a private beach pavilion.

After Baylis confirmed the Town’s ownership of the beach property east of Burt’s pavilion, residents petitioned the Town Board to maintain the beach as a public park and to appropriate $5,000 to equip and maintain the park.  Proponents pointed out that most of the town’s waterfront was owned by private parties and was, therefore, inaccessible to the public.  In fact, the Town’s only waterfront park at the time was Halesite Park, which had opened a dozen years earlier and had only 200 feet of shoreline along Huntington Harbor.  The proposal was the subject of a special town wide referendum held in October 1919 at the Centerport firehouse.  The two resolutions passed by a 4 to 1 ratio.[4]  Once the park was established, Burt served as the manager of the park on behalf of the Town, in addition to operating his concession stand.

Unfortunately, swimming at Crab meadow was not without risk.  Northeast storms had built up a peninsula from the east side of the Crab Meadow Creek across the outlet of the creek, which diverted the flow of the creek westward directly in front of the town beach.  The swift current created hazardous swimming conditions, especially for children.  The dangers presented by this situation were brought to the Town’s attention as early as 1920,[5] but it would take decades before the problem was resolved.

An attempt in 1920 to cut a channel through the peninsula so that the creek would flow north into the Sound rather than along the beach was met with a letter from one of the owners of the adjoining land on the east side of the creek.  Edwin H. Brown asserted that he and his partner Frank Lambert owned the peninsula.   Lambert and Brown had purchased land on the east side of the creek in 1903.[6]  They claimed ownership of the peninsula as an accretion of their property.[7]  Brown warned the Town, “I hereby forbid the work above mentioned and give notice that if, as I believe, we can establish title to said land I shall claim and endeavor to collect damages if the work is continued.”[8]

Despite Brown’s warning, the Town hired Burt to proceed with the work in 1923.  Brown made good on his threat and sued. The case dragged on for the next twenty years during which time attorneys became ill, interested parties died, and settlement talks fell apart.  All the while, the current caused by the peninsula continued to pose a threat to swimmers.

In the meantime, thousands of residents visited the beach each summer.  Five years after voters approved a resolution to create a park at Crab Meadow, they approved another resolution to spend $20,000 to acquire Burt’s property on which he operated his pavilion.[9]

But the park’s popularity was not without its downside.  Residents of Waterside Park complained about late night partying at the beach.  Members of the Waterside Park Association, many of whom were Brooklynites with summer homes at Waterside Park, reported that young people would arrive at the beach late in the evening after the town’s beach pavilion had closed and they would stay until as late as 3:00 in the morning and sometimes until dawn.  They asserted that “the hilarity and boisterousness that occasionally ensue not only cause serious discomfort, annoyance and disturbance, but are a distinct menace to the good name of the place.”[10]  The problems of late night use of the beach continued—especially when there was a high tide after midnight.  In 1926, the Town Board placed a police officer at the beach to help avoid the problems presented to nearby residents.[11]

There was also another private pavilion nearby.  As early as 1929, Walter Post had opened Post’s Pavilion on Waterside Avenue just south of the town beach.  Having a somewhat unsavory reputation in later years, Post’s Pavilion remained open until the late 1950s.  It then was known as the Soundview Inn and burned to the ground in the early morning hours of June 7, 1963.[12]

Burt’s old wooden pavilion was showing its age and as early as 1927 voters were asked to approve expenditures to replace it.  The measure was defeated each time it was presented.  But the need to create jobs during the Great Depression fit nicely with the need to improve the facilities at Crab Meadow beach.  In 1937, the old pavilion was finally replaced with a Mediterranean style brick and concrete building designed by Huntington architect David Dusenberry that featured men’s and women’s locker rooms, showers and lavatories.  The locker rooms would be in the two wings of the building that were joined by an open-air court.  On the roof of the center portion was a sun deck.  The cost of the building, which was a WPA project, was split between the State and the Town.[13]  The new building also included food concessions.  In front of the building, the Town built an 18 foot wide boardwalk extending 700 feet east and west of the pavilion.[14]  The new building was ready for the opening of the 1938 season.  As part of the dedication ceremony on May 28, 1938, a time capsule was placed in the cornerstone of the building.[15]

The building was a hit, a perfect compliment to the always-popular beach.  However, the dangerous current created by the outflow from the creek continued to be a concern.  Moreover, the erosion occasioned by the current threatened the new pavilion.  In light of the failure of earlier efforts to reach a settlement in the matter, the Town Board voted to seize the offending sand bar by eminent domain.  The action was, of course, challenged by the Brown and Lambert interests.  By this time Edwin Brown and Frank Lambert had both died, but their estates continued to fight the Town.  In 1942, the Town finally prevailed and paid Brown & Lambert $9,258.64 for the disputed sandbar.

After a hurricane in 1944, the Town constructed a breakwater along the creek, which resulted in the accumulation of so much additional land that the Town was able to add parking for 120 to 150 additional cars.[16]  The continued popularity of the beach—one neighbor compared it to Coney Island on a hot summer weekend—led the Town to acquire an additional eight acres south of the parking area for additional parking.[17]  At the time private homes continued to stand on the south side of Waterview Street West, which now runs just past the entrance gate to the beach, but at one time extended as far as the creek.

But Brown & Lambert (or more accurately their estates) continued to own hundreds of acres of the meadow and uplands.  On the higher ground to the south of the meadows, a golf course, known as the Northport Country Club, was laid out in 1923.[18]  The club lasted only about twenty years and the abandoned clubhouse burned to the ground in 1949.[19]

In 1956, a private company with a public sounding name—Empire State Development Company, Inc.—acquired Brown’s interest.  Justine Lambert, Frank Lambert’s widow and heir to the bulk of his estate continued as the co-owner.   In all the years this tract was privately owned, it was never developed.  Of course, the meadows were too wet to be easily developed, but the uplands where the Northport Country Club had been located could have been developed.

By the early 1960s, the Brown & Lambert holdings in Crab Meadow were one of the largest undeveloped lands in a fast growing town.  In June 1961 the Town held a special election to vote on a proposed $2,500,000 park and recreation plan that would involve the acquisition of nine sites for parkland, including the Brown & Lambert holdings.[20]  Town Supervisor Robert J. Flynn explained. “We are trying to solve our desperate need for space while the area is still available.  If we wait much longer, we will have to take what the speculators leave us at costs that would be frightful.”  The referendum failed by 548 votes out of 7,224 votes cast.[21]

At the same time, the Empire State Development Company instituted legal proceedings to clarify title to the property so that it could proceed with development plans.[22]  In 1962, Justine Lambert and Empire State Development engaged in a bidding war at Town Hall.  Bids were made for individual parcels and then the referee asked for bids for the entire tract.  Lambert started at $705,000; Empire responded, only to be outbid by Lambert.  The parties raised their bids by a thousand dollars a bid, sometimes four or five thousand dollars at a time.  Until, finally, Lambert bid one million dollars. There was no response from Empire. [23]

Lambert said she intended to develop the property with luxury homes on lots of two to three acres—and no “split levels”—even though the Town had already announced plans for a re-vote on the parks referendum.

In September of that year, the parks referendum was put before the voters again and passed by an overwhelming majority, 5,272 to 1,815.  The referendum covered only the cost of acquisition; it was estimated that it would cost another $3.8 million to develop the parks.  The proposal for the Crab Meadow parcel included plans to dredge the meadow to create fresh water fishing lakes, restoration of the golf course, bridle paths, a salt-water marina and a wildlife refuge.[24]

Of course, Lambert’s plans to develop the property were rendered moot by the passage of the referendum.  Subsequent condemnation proceedings to establish the fair market value of the land did not commence until 1966.  The case also involved title issues arising from the Town’s Colonial grants.  The Town’s Board of Trustees claimed ownership of the waterways through the meadow under these patents arguing that their ownership had never been transferred.  The Town prevailed and began making payments for the land in 1967.[25]  The Town had hoped to acquire all the land between the Sound and a right of way established by the Long Island Lighting Company for its transmission lines, but there were not enough funds.  However, in 1970, Suffolk County was persuaded to purchase the 140 acres along Makamah Road from the LILCO right of way to the meadows that the Town had not purchased earlier.[26]

The old Northport Country Club golf course was renovated and a new clubhouse was built overlooking the meadow.

In the 1980s, the town undertook an extensive renovation of the Crab Meadow beach pavilion.  What had been a snack bar was expanded to a full service restaurant with the addition of greenhouse enclosures on the west side of the building.  The boardwalk and gazebos were rebuilt, shuffleboard courts were added and lights were installed.  When the work was done, the Town Supervisor and Town Board sent invitation to a 50-year “Golden Anniversary Celebration and Rededication of Crabmeadow Beach.”  Cocktails and hors d’oeuvers were served.  It is doubtful that anyone pointed out that the building was in fact only 48 years old.

By 2009, the WPA pavilion was showing its age.  An engineering report indicated that the breezeway between the two wings was structurally unsound, perhaps because salt water was used to mix the cement when it was built.  The Town replaced the breezeway with an exact replica.  The bricks have not been painted so the building appears as it did when it was originally built.  Another benefit is that the rooftop sundeck is once again open to the public.

In recent years, the Town has added additional parcels to its open space. The Ingraham Nature Preserve, which includes the Crab Meadow Burying Ground and which lies across Waterside Avenue, was added in 1998 with partial funding coming from the Iroquois Pipeline Operating Company.  The Fuchs property was purchased with Suffolk County in 2003.

But a question remains.  Who were Brown and Lambert?

Francois Lambert was born in Lyons, France on June 13, 1851.  He arrived in the United States in 1876.  He was an inventor, eventually holding 60 patents.  His first patent, secured in 1878, was for a striking mechanism for clocks.  He also invented an early recording device, which appears to have been intended to be used for a talking clock.  A recording of his voice announcing the hours of the day made in 1879 is the oldest surviving recording in the world.

Lambert’s most financially successful invention was of a water meter.  He shared that 1887 patent with John Thomson.  The Thomson Water Meter Company was based in Brooklyn.  The company was sold to Neptune Water Meter Co. in 1925, netting Lambert $800,000 (the equivalent of about $10 million dollars in 2012).  Later that year Lambert’s wife died.

The following June, the 74 year old Lambert married 30 year old Jennette Justine Lawson Ebbets, who had sold sheet music in Lambert’s son-in-law’s office.  After a yearlong honeymoon in Europe, the couple moved from Brooklyn to the 22^nd floor of the Savoy Plaza Hotel in Manhattan and later moved to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.  A profile of Lambert notes that in his retirement “he owned several rental properties in Brooklyn, and some undeveloped land on Long Island.”[27]

Lambert died in 1937 and left the bulk of his estate to his young widow.  Justine Lambert was apparently a successful investor and when she died in 1975, the fortune had grown to an estimated $15 million (or about $64 million in 2012 dollars).  That explains why the widow of a man who had first purchased land in 1903 was still around in the 1960s and was able to coolly bid one million dollars to gain complete control over the hundreds of acres her husband had purchased so long ago.

Edwin H. Brown was Lambert’s patent attorney.  Born in Brooklyn to English parents the same year as Lambert was born in France, Brown graduated from Columbia University Law School in 1874.  He became one of the most well regarded patent attorneys of his day.  He retired in 1902 and traveled extensively, living in London for two years.  When he returned in 1912 he focused his attention on his extensive real estate holdings, which he had acquired previously.  He developed Addisleigh Park in St. Albans, Queens in 1892.  Based on English garden suburb designs, the neighborhood features homes built in the Colonial Revival, English Tudor Revival and Arts and Crafts styles popular in the period from 1910 to 1930.  Starting in the 1940s, the neighborhood became a popular place for jazz musicians.  The Addisleigh Park Historic District was created by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2011.[28]

Brown died in 1930.

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Today the name Crab Meadow is generally considered to encompass the town beach, marshes and golf course by that name and the residential area to the immediate west of those public lands.  But historically, the area extended as far south as Route 25A.  In fact, the post office that was established in 1820 at the Scudder store located on the corner of Waterside Avenue and Route 25A was known as Crabmeadow until the name was changed to Northport in 1840.

This larger area is bisected by Waterside Avenue, which runs from the Long Island Sound to the historic settlement of Red Hook at the five corners intersection of Waterside, Route 25A, and Main Street.

About a mile south of the Sound, Eaton’s Neck Road runs from Waterside Avenue up the hill to Eaton’s Neck.  This road was dug out before 1723 and for centuries was known as the Dug Way.   The Crab Meadow Burying Ground lies just south of Dug Way and had been used as a burial place for local residents for two centuries.[1]

To the west of Waterside Avenue north of the Dug Way is a fresh water lake.  This essay concerns the properties surrounding the lake.

Before Europeans arrived here in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Crab Meadow area was home to a Native American settlement.  Extensive archeological records of the native presence, including burials, were unearthed over the years mostly by amateur archeologists.   The area was—and is—an ideal place to live.  The area was a plateau with an elevation of 80 to 100 feet above the Sound with steep slopes down to the fresh water lake.  The forests were home to a variety of animals as well as berries.  The lake provided fresh water.  The Long Island Sound provided shell and fin fish as well as transportation.  Before the land was extensively disturbed, amateur archeologists discovered numerous shell heaps or middens, some measuring as much as six feet deep and up to 75 feet in diameter.  Potsherds, and stone tool fragments were also found throughout the area.  Eight native graves were also discovered.[2]   The Native American presence is now noted by a historical marker on Eaton’s Neck Road.

The lake may have originally been open to the Sound and was for years known as the Cove.  According to a book published in connection with the celebration of the Town’s 250^th anniversary in 1903, Captain Kidd, the pirate, may have sailed into the Cove seeking a safe anchorage.  He also supposedly used the occasion to hide some treasure on the shores of the Cove—if so, it has never been found.  Over time the tides closed the outlet to the Sound.  Spring fed fresh water replaced the salt water and the Cove became a fresh water lake.  In the nineteenth century it was known as Sweetwater Lake.  The current name, Blanchard Lake, derives from the name of a bordering property owner.  A glowing description of the beauty of the area in 1893 includes a reference to the estate of Mr. Blanchard.[3]  Interestingly, the name Blanchard does not appear on any of the historic maps of the Crab Meadow area, but, unlike other prominent property owners, Blanchard’s name lives on in connection with the lake.

In the seventeenth century, Huntington and Smithtown were involved in a legal dispute over the boundary line between the towns because the deeds each secured from the native inhabitants covered overlapping territories.  In order to strengthen its claim, the Town of Huntington in 1672 laid out ten farms along the disputed territory.  Farms 7 through 10 were located in Crabmeadow Neck.  One of the men to whom farm 7 was assigned was a Mr. Bryan—some family members spelled the name with a “T” at the end.

The Bryant family remained in Crabmeadow into the nineteenth century.  Melancthon Bryant, 1810-1884, had a large farm on the west side of Waterside Avenue.  His home, which stood about a half mile from the beach, was destroyed by fire in 1919.  Melancthon Bryant was an agent for the Lodi Manufacturing Co., which had exclusive control of “all the night soil from the great city of New York.”  In the days before sewers, night soil was dried then mixed with charcoal, gypsum or some other material and then sold as “the cheapest and very best fertilizer on the market.”[4]

The Bryants’ neighbor on the west side of the lake starting in about 1820 was Eliphalet Arthur whose two hundred acre farm stretched from the cliffs on Long Island Sound to the Dug Way.  The farm was eventually inherited by his grandson Elbert, who was born in 1829.  In 1855 Elbert married Margaret Skidmore, who had grown up on an adjoining farm to the east of the Arthur property.  Five years later, Elbert Arthur went into the sand mining business with David Carll, Jesse Carll and William Gardiner.  The four men had secured a lease from the Town of Huntington to mine sand on town-owned land known as East Beach—today known as Asharoken Beach—and located just west of the Arthur property.  In 1866, Arthur began mining the 60-foot cliffs on his own property.  Arthur, who built what was described as “one of the finest homes in Suffolk County” overlooking the Sound and Northport Bay, was elected Town Supervisor in the 1880s.  He retired in 1900 and died six years later.  His son, John W. Arthur, inherited the estate but apparently did not continue in the sand mining business—although he did follow in his father’s political footsteps by serving a two-year term as Town Supervisor in 1903.[5]

John W. Arthur sold the 177 acre estate in 1910 to William Henry Hall, president of Hall & Ruckel a wholesale Manhattan druggist.[6]  The estate of Hall’s widow sold the property in 1927 to the Goodwin-Gallagher Company, which resumed sand and gravel mining through its subsidiary Metropolitan Sand and Gravel.

The reintroduction of mining to the area was met with much opposition.  Lawsuits were filed, and zoning restrictions suggested.  Eventually a three way agreement among the Town of Huntington, the Village of Asharoken and the sand mining company was reached pursuant to which the company agreed to maintain a buffer along Eaton’s Neck Road.  The company demolished the Arthur home in the 1940s and eventually excavated the entire property except for the buffer.[7]

In 1956 the mining operation was acquired by Colonial Sand and Stone Corporation, which also acquired the old Skidmore farm which was located between the Arthur property and Waterside Avenue, south of Blanchard Lake and which Metropolitan had acquired earlier that year.[8]

The Skidmore family was among the earliest settlers of Huntington. The Skidmore’s extensive holdings straddled both sides of the Dug Way.  Thirty-one acres of the Skidmore land north of the Dug Way was sold to Waterside Holding Corp. in 1928, which in turn sold the land to W.N. Beach.[9]  As noted above, Colonial Corp. acquired the Skidmore lands in 1956.[10]  The Revolutionary War era homestead is gone, but the Skidmore burying ground, on Eaton’s Neck Road just west of the intersection with Ocean Avenue, is still maintained by the family.

H.C.S. Blanchard owned about 120 acres on the east side of the lake that bears his name.  In 1889, he had the property subdivided into 18 lots of 4 to 6 acres each plus the Home Farm of 27 acres (identified as Cedarholm on the 1909 Atlas of Suffolk County, Sound Shore).[11]   The subdivision created West Avenue and North Avenue.

To the northeast of Blanchard’s holdings (on the northwest corner of what is now Soundview Terrace and Waterside Avenue) was the property of William Chesebrough, which was acquired by Willis Burt in 1900.  Over the next three years, Burt acquired the land on the south side of Soundview Terrace (lots 8 through 13 of Blanchard’s subdivision).  Burt, who had a wheelwright and blacksmith shop in Northport village, and his son Henry, subdivided the land in 1908 as Waterside Park.  In 1925, they developed the property south of West Street as Waterview Terrace.

Building in Waterside Park was controlled by several restrictions imposed privately in the days before Huntington adopted its zoning code.   Only one building per lot was allowed; no building could be erected within 30’ of the street; no ale house, brewery, distillery, saloon, liquor store, hotel or inn, or manufacturing plant was allowed; dwellings north of Soundview Terrace had to cost at least $1,500; those south of Soundview Terrace for a distance of 700’ had to cost at least $1,200, those south of that as far as West Street had to cost at least $1,000.  Initially, homes in the area were used as summer homes by Brooklynites, but soon became year round residences.

The land to the west of Burt’s new development and north of the lake had been owned by Bartley T. Horner, a retired representative for the Lorrillard Tobacco Company throughout the South.[12]  Horner, who had “a fine residence near the sound shore,”[13] sold His 17½ acres with 720 feet of shoreline to Messrs. Frank of New York City in 1905.[14]  Later that year, Horner was fatally shot by his son-in-law at his house in Northport village.  That story can be found in Vernon Valley Violence, posted on February 25, 2012.

Isaiah Frank intended to manufacture bricks on the property.  He spent a great deal of money building a plant and unsuccessfully sought permission to construct a dock into the Sound.  The brick-making venture did not work out because the clay was not of the right sort.  Frank sold the property to Rudolph Oelsner in 1908. [15]  Oelsner also acquired lots 5, 6 and 7 of the Blanchard subdivision.[16]  Oelsner had previously acquired land in the area in 1906.[17]  By 1909, Oelsner owned all the land on the shorefront between North Avenue and the Arthur property.  He acquired the Cedarholm parcel (i.e. Blanchard’s “Home Farm”) in May 1909.[18]

Oelsner, who had emigrated from Prussia in 1863 when he was 11 years old, was a beer importer with offices on West Broadway in Manhattan.  He had owned a 300-acre estate in Roslyn, but was forced to allow a right of way for a trolley across his estate in 1907.[19]  Perhaps that episode is what led him to Crab Meadow.  His main residence was in Yonkers.  After he died in 1925, his daughter Martha inherited the Crab Meadow property.

In 1935, Oelsenr’s superintendent John R. Leslie advertised camping sites available for rent on the “beautiful shore of Long Island Sound, or woods bordering on fresh water lake.”[20]

Oelsner’s daughter Martha sold the 20-acre Cedarholm tract to Jean Arabo in 1946.[21]  This was the old “Home Farm” parcel identified on the Blanchard map of 1889.  The mid-nineteenth century home on the property remains.  The property is identified as belonging to E.G. Lewis on the 1858 map of the area and G. W. Kelsey in 1873.  Blanchard purchased it sometime between 1873 and 1889.

Arabo was the proprietor of Colony Wine and Spirits Co., a Madison Avenue liquor shop that was often featured in The New York Times dining section.  Arabo was originally from Italy but lived in Nice.  His son, also named Jean, was born in the United States in 1927 and graduated from Lycee Francais de New York in 1946.  The son eventually inherited the property.

Martha Oelsner sold the rest of the property in 1949.  Paul Kirchbaum purchased 14.5 acres for $40,000 and Walter C. Hewitt and Stephen Cavagnaro purchased almost 82 acres for $60,883.  Both purchasers filed subdivision maps with lots of less than an acre, which generated some controversy.  The Sound Shore Bluffs subdivision, located west of North Avenue, was filed in 1949 by Walter C. Hewitt and Stephen Cavagnaro.

The land that Kirchbaum purchased had been used as a summer colony since the 1930s.  Visitors would rent tents or trailers.  There were also ten cottages on the bluff overlooking the Sound.  Despite neighbors’ complaints, the property passed sanitary inspections (The Long-Islander, June 16, 1955, page 1).   Kirchbaum filed a subdivision, known as Hillsboro Beach, but the property was never developed.  The Town of Huntington acquired the property from Kirchbaum in 1974.

The most significant feature of this area is, of course, the Northport power plant, whose smoke stacks can be seen from miles away.  In 1956, Metropolitan Sand and Gravel Corporation agreed to sell 175 acres of the former Arthur property and 77 acres of the former Skidmore property—which it had been mining for three decades—to the Long Island Lighting Company.[22]  The company’s application to re-zone the property was not favorably received by the resident’s of Crab Meadow, Asharoken or Northport.

A proposal to fill in a large portion of Blanchard Lake sent opponents back to the Town’s colonial deeds to assert that the lake was owned by the Town’s Board of Trustees and not Metropolitan or LILCO.  The argument rested on the claim that in the colonial period the lake was open to the Sound and thus fell within the colonial patent’s grant to the Trustees of all “havens and harbors.”  LILCO offered to exchange whatever rights the Trustees may have had in the western half of the lake for 600 feet of beach front in the northwest corner of its property.  The Trustees, arguing they were getting valuable beachfront in exchange for property in which they had no interest, accepted the offer.[23]

The Town Board granted the re-zoning and a subsequent lawsuit by residents of Sound Shore Bluffs—part of the former Oelsner property—was denied.[24]  LILCO began construction of the power plant in 1964.

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It is unknown who was the first Irish immigrant to settle in Huntington. To start, what do we mean by “Irish?” Does the term include the Scotch Irish who settled in this country starting in the eighteenth century; or do we mean the Irish who are often defined by their Catholic religion? This paper will use the latter definition.

While Irish Catholics had been immigrating to America for years, the numbers greatly increased during the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. An analysis of the 1850 U.S. census—the first census that included place of birth—reveals that there were 325 residents of Huntington who had been born in Ireland, about 4.34% of the Town’s population of 7,481. These figures are for the entire town, which at the time included what is now the Town of Babylon. Seventy-two percent of these Irish immigrants were under the age of 30. Most were young adults, age 18 to 29. Eleven children lived with families other than their own, perhaps because their parents had died during the famine.

Occupations in 1850 were only listed for men. It can be assumed that the young women living with other families were domestic servants. Of the 144 men whose occupation is indicated, most were listed as laborers. It is not unusual to find that a farmer’s household included a young Irish woman, who was probably a domestic servant, and a young Irish man listed as a laborer, or in five cases as an ostler or horse handler. Three of the more prominent Huntingtonians of the time had multiple Irish servants: Churchill Chamberling had four, as did Hiram Paulding, while John Rhinelander had six.

But forty per cent of the Irish born men worked in the brickyards. In fact 81% of all brick makers in 1850 Huntington were Irish born. Ten years later the number of Irish-born brickyard workers had doubled to 124. The overall Irish born population of Huntington had increased by 238 to 563, which was 6.32% of the town’s population of 8,908, up from 4.34% ten years earlier. In other terms the Irish born population in Huntington had increased by 75%; while the overall population increased 19%.

The Irish population was aging. In 1860, just under half the Irish born were under the age of thirty down from 72% ten years earlier. Of course, this figure doesn’t include the children born here to immigrant parents. The number of Irish born children under 18 remained somewhat constant (50 children in 1850 and 43 children in 1860), despite the increase in immigrant population.

Again, many of the occupations listed (which now included women as well as men) were as servants or farm laborers. But brick making retained its Irish flavor.

Bricks had been made in Huntington since the seventeenth century, but did not become a big business until Gilbert Crossman entered the business in the early nineteenth century. His yards at West Neck—now Lloyd Harbor Village Park—eventually produced as many as eleven million bricks in one year. Many of the Irish immigrants worked at Crossman’s yard or at the adjoining Jones yard. Most lived in company housing and shopped in the company store. In fact, the West Neck brickyards were a separate enclave to themselves.

Irish immigrants, who made up half of all immigrants coming to the United States at the time, were met at Castle Garden, the immigrants’ point of entry in lower Manhattan, by representatives of the brickyards. They would head over to the East River and board a steam ship to Lloyd’s Dock, located just north of the brickyards.

The company provided housing for the workers that included a small plot of land for a garden and sometimes for a pig or cow, but almost always for chickens. Rent was $8-15 a year. In 1854 a common laborer could earn from a dollar to $1.25 a day. Work at the brickyards could be dangerous. In 1839 “an Irishman (whose name we could not learn) was killed by the caving in of a bank from which he was digging clay.” A similar accident in 1853 resulted in a broken leg for Dennis Coleman.

Of course, the Irish immigrants were overwhelmingly Catholic. The closest church was in Brooklyn. However, a priest came to Huntington in 1838 to say mass in the home of Matthew Hoban, who lived on the north side of Main Street east of Sabbath Day Path. For ten years, missionary priests would tend to the spiritual needs of Huntington’s small Irish Catholic community with masses in the Hoban home.

In August 1849, a small church was built in West Neck on the grounds of what is now St. Patrick’s Cemetery. It was certainly the first Catholic church in Huntington and perhaps also the first in Suffolk County. The first resident pastor of the church, the Reverend Jeremiah J. Crowley, was assigned to Huntington in 1860. Crowley, like those he ministered to was a young Irish immigrant. He had completed his seminary studies and had been ordained in Dublin in 1860. He immediately came to Long Island, settling first in Bay Shore and then moving to Huntington.

Father Crowley’s arrival coincided with the beginning of the Civil War. The war was fought in the south until 1863, when Confederate forces entered Pennsylvania. The three day battle at the beginning of July in the town of Gettysburg marked a high water point in the war.

Just one week after the Battle of Gettysburg, New York City began to draw names of those to be drafted into the service under the National Conscription Act, which had been enacted the previous March. At the outset of the war, the federal government had relied on volunteers—who were given a bounty to enlist—to fill the ranks. But heavy losses, dwindling recruitment and soaring desertion rates led to the enactment of a draft. The draft was unpopular in New York, not least because a draftee could avoid service by either finding a substitute or paying $300, a sum beyond the means of the working class.

The first 1,236 names were drawn at the draft office at Third Avenue and 47th Street on Saturday, July 11, 1863. Before the lottery could resume the following Monday, protesters had marched through the city and then burned the draft office down. Over the next three days, the city was engulfed in riots. What originally started as a protest against the draft, became an attack on the wealthy and then an attack on poor blacks. In addition to extensive property damage, it was estimated at the time that a thousand people had been killed (only 119 deaths could be confirmed).

Many of the rioters were recent Irish immigrants.

News of the riot reached Huntington on the day it started. Amos P. Conklin noted in his diary: “Quite an excitement has been made by a report of a riot in New York. Caused by the enforcement of the Draft.” Conklin was a 27-year-old father of a daughter who was about to celebrate her third birthday the next day. His wife was expecting their second child within the next month. Conklin worked in the Sammis bakery on the south side Main Street, just east of Green Street. Although the Sammis bakery was known for flying a large American flag each time the Union won a battle, Conklin dreaded the thought of being drafted. In fact, he and ten other young Huntingtonians set up an “Insurance Company.” Conklin collected $100 from each member of the insurance company. If any of the men were drafted, he could draw the $300 needed to avoid the draft from the pool. As it turned out, three of the members—including Conklin—w ere drafted. Each drew $300 from the pool. The balance of $200 was split among the 11 members—each received $12 back. The eight who were not drafted lost $82. The three who were drafted had to pay only $82 instead of $300 to avoid the draft.

Huntington’s Irish immigrants could not have afforded such a scheme.

On Tuesday, Conklin wrote in his diary: “The Riot still continues in the City and much damage is likely to be done to property And many lives will be lost.” The alarming news from New York caused a panic in Huntington. Conklin went on: “Some of the citizens of our Village are getting very much alarmed about an Irish invasion. A meeting was held this evening in the store of Baylis & Mills and a Kind of Organization for defense was formed. . . . Watchman will be on duty during the night.”

Conklin confessed that he did not think there was any danger. Nonetheless, he and Daniel Pearsall served as night watchmen the following night from 10:30 Wednesday night until 3:00 Thursday morning.

On Wednesday, Conklin noted: “The public is very much excited about the riot in the city and strange rumors are afloat concerning the Irish attacking this Village. … Groups are standing on the corners of the Streets discussing the events in the city, etc. . . . Men and boys are very much engaged at looking up guns and Pistils [sic] They even will take up with old Flint Locks.”

The riots in the New York were suppressed—with troops fresh from Gettysburg—by Thursday evening. That night Conklin reported, “David Brush & 2 or three men came in to watch the brick building.” Brush’s wife Amelia noted in her diary that her husband “& Elias & Jim went to Huntington tonight and staid [sic] until 10:00 to assist in putting down the expected riot but the rioters did not make their appearance.” It is curious why they were guarding “the brick building,” which must be a reference to the building erected on the southwest corner of Main Street and New Street by Richard Leaycraft in 1859—probably the first brick commercial building in Huntington. They may have suspected that that building in particular would be a target based on prejudiced views of the Irish—there was a liquor store located there.

The New York City Draft Riots did not incite Huntington’s Irish to riot. But four years later tragedy struck the small community when a fire destroyed the small wooden church, which had been incorporated in 1865 as “The Roman Catholic Church in West Neck.”

The Long-Islander newspaper reported on March 1, 1867 that the fire started in a stove pipe and somehow reached the wall, completely destroying the church.  Fr. Crowley objected to this explanation for the fire because “the stove pipes were as well and as safely secured in the Church as in any other building, and every precaution was taken to guard against the sad accident that has left us without a place of worship.”  Crowley may also have been thinking of an incident a year earlier.  In July 1866, Fr. Crowley offered a $500 reward “for the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who attempted to set on fire my premises on July 4.”  The notice of the reward appeared on the same page of the newspaper as a comment in which the editor commended Fr. Crowley for the Fourth of July celebration he had organized for the Town’s Irish residents.

Fortunately, the church was insured and was able to recover $1,482.50 from the insurance policy. Perhaps as a statement that the Irish were here to stay and to be a part of the larger community, Father Crowley decided to rebuild on Main Street instead of out in the woods of West Neck. He acquired a one-acre lot at the corner of Main Street and Anderson Place. The cornerstone for the new church was laid on Thanksgiving Day 1867. The new church was built appropriately of brick and was dedicated with an imposing ceremony led by Bishop Loughlin of Brooklyn on June 27, 1869. The 114′ x 45′ building was erected at a cost of $26,710.03. Looking back ten years later, the church finance committee noted that the ability to build such a handsome and commodious church was remarkable especially since none of its members was wealthy.

The 500-seat church was renovated in 1896. That same year additional land was acquired adjacent to the old church property to provide additional cemetery space.

The small, brick church served the parish for almost a century. But by the early 1960s, Huntington’s rapidly growing population created the need for a larger church. The present church building was completed in 1963.

The old church was razed in July 1969-almost exactly 100 years after it had been dedicated.

Huntington’s Irish organized the Irish American Social Club in 1933 to advance “their educational, economic, commercial and social advancement in American life.” Two years later the club organized Huntington’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade. The parade was held on St. Patrick’s Day, which fell on a Sunday that year, and featured, as it does today, bands, local fire departments, veterans groups and politicians. At 2:00, the marchers started at the intersection of New York Avenue and Depot Road and headed north. At High Street they turned left to Woodbury Road and then down to Main Street. They marched through the village to Town Hall where the Town Supervisor, a retired judge and a Justice from Queens made brief addresses from the steps of the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Building, which was at that time home to the Huntington Public Library.

By the second parade, there were 1,000 marchers and several thousand spectators. The night before the parade a dinner dance was held. In the early years, the dance was held at Odd Fellows Hall on Wall Street and later at the Hotel Huntington on New York Avenue.

With the outbreak of war in December 1941, the Irish American Club voted unanimously not to hold a parade in 1942. The annual dinner dance was held and the usual journal was published. The first $100 of proceeds from both was given to the Buy-a-Bomber Fund and the rest was divided equally between the Red Cross and the U.S.O.

The parade resumed in 1946. The following year the county-wide Ancient Order of Hibernians created a division covering the Huntington area. The new division was expected to work in cooperation with the Social Club.

In 1949, the Irish American Club held its first Irish Field Day at Rice Farms, the former home of the Squadron C Cavalry Club. The fair featured Gaelic football, hurling and other traditional Irish sports in addition to Irish dancing and music. Administration of the fair was assumed by the Ancient Order of Hibernians the following year and, in a probably unintended nod to multiculturalism, the venue was changed to Lindbergh Park Lodge on Jericho Turnpike in Elwood.

In 1954, the parade was changed. Marchers would now proceed north on New York Avenue and then turn left to the reviewing stand on the west end Main Street. The parade disbanded at the St. Patrick’s school playground.

On occasion, the parade has been postponed a week due to inclement weather. But other than the war years of the 1940s, it has been every March. The numbering sometimes gets confusing—somehow the 1958 edition was inexplicably celebrated as the 25th anniversary parade—but, if you’re keeping track, Huntington has hosted the parade 72 times since 1935.

Today the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division 4 hosts Long Island’s oldest and largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade on the second Sunday in March.

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In the late nineteenth century many successful businessmen summered in Huntington and some retired here as well.  One was Bartley T. Horner.  Mr. Horner was working as a clerk in a New York tobacco shop by the time he was 18 years old in 1870.  Four years later, he married Ella Selvage in Brooklyn.  Mr. Horner eventually became the representative for the Lorrillard Tobacco Company throughout the South.  He lived in Galveston, Texas.  A loss of hearing forced him to retire early.

By the 1880s he had acquired a ten-acre tract (later enlarged to 17½ acres) overlooking Long Island Sound in the Crab Meadow section of Huntington for use as a summer residence.

The Horners’ daughter Julia—their only child—had married James Simpson in 1895.  Well over six feet tall, Simpson was a dentist from Virginia.  In September of 1900, Mr. & Mrs. Horner were at their “fine residence near the sound shore” in Crab Meadow.   While the Horners home sat atop a sixty-foot bluff, the Simpson home in Galveston was on low ground.  The Horners anxiously awaited word from their daughter when a category 4 hurricane hit Galveston on September 8 and claimed up to 8,000 lives.  The storm hit the city on a Saturday.  The Horners received no word from their daughter until a telegram arrived on Wednesday morning assuring her parents that the couple had escaped harm but had lost everything.  Horner sent a reply telegram advising them to come north right away.

It appears that the young couple moved to New York City where Dr. Simpson set up a dental practice at 434 Fifth Avenue, near the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.   In 1902, Mr. Horner rented the house of C.W. Call, perhaps for his daughter and son-in-law to use that summer.

In February 1905, Mr. Horner sold his Crab Meadow property and moved to Vernon Valley.  His house on Vernon Valley Road, just south of Fort Salonga Road, still stands.  Dr. and Mrs. Simpson moved in with the Horners, and Dr. Simpson commuted to his dental office in Manhattan.

On Christmas day that year, Dr. Simpson went rabbit hunting with a friend.  Two days later, he retrieved the shotgun from the attic to clean it.  First he marched around the house performing the manual of arms.  Then he went into the kitchen to clean the gun.  He thought the gun was empty, but it wasn’t.  When Simpson pressed the gun against the table to open it, it discharged.  The bullet tore through his father-in-law’s abdomen.  Dr. Simpson hurried to the village to summon Dr. Heyen.  Dr. Donohue soon followed.  The two doctors tried everything to stop the bleeding, but were unsuccessful.  Mr. Horner died within two hours of being shot.

It was a horrible tragedy.  But was it an accident?

During the inquest held the following day, it was revealed by the dead man’s widow that Mr. Horner feared his son-in-law and had an appointment with his attorney scheduled for the day after the shooting to redraw his will so that Dr. Simpson would not receive a penny of his money.  The widow testified that she, her daughter, and her son-in-law discussed the will that night during supper before Mr. Horner came home.  At the inquest, Dr. Simpson denied that he knew Mr. Horner planned to re-write his will.  But he did admit that he had asked an attorney in New York about whether Mr. Horner could set up a trust that would include Mrs. Horner’s separately owned property.  When asked why he would make such an inquiry, he said he was concerned about his mother-in-law’s welfare.[1]

Mr. Horner’s funeral was held at his home on New Year’s Eve.  A large crowd heard the local Episcopal minister base the service on John 8:7, “What I do thou knowest not, but thou shalt know hereafter.”  This was perhaps a reminder to Dr. Simpson that even if the truth of the shooting was not revealed at trial, it would be revealed in the hereafter.  But Dr. Simpson was not at the funeral.  He was in the Riverhead jail, charged with murder.

Mr. Horner’s body was taken to Huntington Rural Cemetery and placed in the receiving vault there until a mausoleum could be built.

The following week, a preliminary hearing was held in Northport’s Union Opera Hall.  The county’s new district attorney, George H. Furman, and new sheriff, John F. Wells, began their terms in office with one of the most sensational cases in the County’s history.  Reporters and photographers from the New York papers descended on Northport and it was reported that “very little business was done that day in the village.”  Mr. Horner’s attorney testified that he left a paper with Mr. Horner the day of the shooting.  The paper was the outline of a new will.  Dr. Donohue, who came to the house after the shooting, testified that Mr. Horner had two wounds, showing that Dr. Simpson’s gun had been fired twice.

The victim’s widow testified that her husband and son-in-law frequently argued.  Mr. Horner was concerned about Dr. Simpson’s gambling on horse races and staying out all night.  Dr. Simpson had financial difficulties and had fallen three months behind on his share of the household expenses.  She thought that Dr. Simpson may even have been drinking on the night of the shooting—although the two doctors who came to the house after the shooting disputed that claim.    Julia Simpson also testified for the prosecution much to the surprise of her husband.  Both women testified that Dr. Simpson handled the gun roughly when he first retrieved it, marching around the house as if in a military drill.  He then went upstairs where the ammunition was kept.  When he came back down he was careful with the gun and then went into the kitchen where Mr. Horner had gone to get a drink of water.  A short time later they heard the gun fire.

At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, Justice Partridge determined there was enough evidence to refer the case to the grand jury.  In March, the grand jury issued an indictment for murder in the first degree.  Dr. Simpson was confident that he would be exonerated.

Fortunately, there was an eyewitness to the shooting.[2]  Mr. Horner’s 26-year-old Polish stable hand Frank Wisnewski could surely help determine if the shooting was accidental.  But the young man was distraught, concerned that his poor English would be misunderstood and perhaps fearing that if he testified against Dr. Simpson, he also would be killed.  He was put to bed to calm down, but only grew agitated and violent.  Eventually, Mr. Wisnewski was admitted to the Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital.  In September he escaped from King Park, but was found two weeks later in the woods of Central Islip.  A month before the trial a habeas corpus hearing was held in Brooklyn.  Mr. Wisnewski was found incompetent to testify at the murder trial.  When he was called to testify during the trial, he could not even take the oath to swear to tell the truth.  He was dismissed without having testified.

A May trial was expected, but the judge assigned to the case died.  An October date was then expected.  Dr. Simpson spent his months in jail meticulously preparing for trial, reading over similar cases and providing his lawyers with hundreds of well thought out questions.

Dr. Simpson sat in jail for all of 1906.  In January 1907, his lawyer commenced a habeas corpus proceeding in Brooklyn seeking his release.  The Suffolk County District Attorney tried to argue that he could not get a justice to try the case.  The Brooklyn judge cut him off and ordered that the trial be held by the end of the month or Dr. Simpson would have to be released on $1,000 bail.

The trial began with jury selection on January 28, 1907 and was not without drama.  During jury selection, one of the potential jurors suddenly died.  Another juror was about to be accepted onto the jury when he told the judge he could not serve due to a death of a relative.  The judge asked how close a relative it was.  He replied that it was his brother-in-law.  A court attendant explained to the judge that the potential juror’s brother-in-law was the man who had died just minutes earlier.  One juror fell ill during the trial and the others complained of the unsatisfactory living conditions in the house where they were staying.[3]

Hundreds of spectators attended the sensational trial, including many women and girls, who apparently were enamored of the tall, good-looking dentist with jet black hair, dark eyes, and a soft Southern drawl.  They firmly believed in his innocence.

The trial repeated much of the testimony from the preliminary hearing.  A question arose as to whether the shotgun shells admitted to evidence were the same as those in the gun at the time of the shooting.  The gun and empty shells had been taken from the house on the night of the shooting by Dr. Isaiah Frank (who coincidentally was the man who had purchased Horner’s property in Crab Meadow).  Dr. Frank testified that the shells were maroon like the ones entered into evidence.  Meanwhile his brother and mother, who both lived with him, testified that the shells Dr. Frank brought home were yellow.  Expert testimony differed on whether it was physically possible for a shotgun to discharge when it had been “broken” or opened. Through it all, sentiment in favor of Dr. Simpson grew.  Wagers were taken on his acquittal.

At the conclusion of the week-long trial, it took the jury less than two hours to reach a verdict of not guilty.  Dr. Simpson was congratulated by the courtroom spectators.  He made his way to the hotel where his sister had been staying to retrieve her things before they took the train into New York.  At the hotel, the doctor ran into the judge who had presided over the trial.  He thanked the judge for a fair trial.  The judge replied, “Let this be a lesson to you to keep away from guns.”

Mrs. Horner, Mrs. Simpson, and their servant Marion Walsh boarded the same train, but rode in the rear car.  Mrs. Simpson made it clear that she and her mother had no interest in the prosecution, but had testified because they had been subpoenaed.  Dr. Simpson said he hoped he and his wife would reconcile.

Mrs. Horner and Mrs. Simpson continued to live in the house on Vernon Valley Road.   They had enough money from the estate to live comfortably, but they lived in fear of Dr. Simpson.  They kept the doors locked even though they lived in one of the most peaceful spots on Long Island.  And they always kept a loaded revolver in the house.

Dr. Simpson took up residence at 24 West 59^th Street and resumed his dental practice with an office at 1181 Broadway.  He had initiated a lawsuit against his wife and mother-in-law claiming he was entitled to $5,000 from his victim’s estate.  But the suit was soon dropped.  Eventually he sought a divorce, but his wife refused.  He traveled to Northport on occasion to see his wife and once accosted her on the street in the village.

Then on Monday, July 13, 1908—18 months after his acquittal—Dr. Simpson took the 12:40 p.m. train to Northport, transferred to the trolley and went to his former home.  He rang the bell.  Mrs. Horner asked who it was.  Dr. Simpson replied, “It is I.”

“What do you want?” Mrs. Horner asked.

“I want to see Julia.”

Then two shots were fired through the glass door.  One hit the doctor in his lower lung and continued into his liver.  The other missed him.  Dr. Simpson went to a neighbor’s house and asked for a carriage.  He drove to Dr. Heyen’s office on Main Street.  He asked Dr. Heyen if the shot would be fatal.  Dr. Heyen said he wouldn’t know until he operated.  Dr. Simpson said he wanted to go to Roosevelt Hospital in New York for the surgery.

Before he left, Dr. Simpson explained to the magistrate what had happened, signed a deposition and then calmly boarded the trolley and took the one and half hour train ride back to Long Island City and from there boarded the 34^th Street Ferry.  He took a taxi to Roosevelt Hospital, where the doctors decided to wait until morning to operate.   It was feared that the wound would prove fatal, but eventually it was determined that no operation was needed.

Meanwhile back in Northport, word of the shooting spread quickly.  It was some time before the authorities came to the house to arrest Mrs. Horner.  Her daughter accompanied her to the Magistrate’s office and posted the $5,000 bail.   Mrs. Horner claimed she had told Dr. Simpson he couldn’t come in and then went upstairs to get her gun.  When she came down he was shaking the door and beating on it trying to gain entry.  Mrs. Horner said that it appeared through the glass door that Dr. Simpson was reaching for a gun.  It was then that she shot him.

It was thought that the charge against Mrs. Horner might need to be raised to murder, but Dr. Simpson recovered.  In October, the grand jury refused to indict Mrs. Horner.

While still waiting for the grand jury to act, Dr. Simpson sued Mrs. Horner for $10,000.  He won a verdict of $1,500 in June 1910.

With the lawsuit behind them, mother and daughter left New York for a cruise to the Orient the following February.  They made an around–the-world cruise in 1923.  By and large it seems they lived a quiet live in their home on Vernon Valley Road.

In the 1930 census, Julia Simpson is listed as a widow.  But a Virginia born dentist by the name of James W. Simpson matching in age Julia’s husband is listed as living in Larchmont with his wife Pauline who was 16 years his junior.

Mrs. Horner died in 1944.  She left her entire estate to her daughter.  She also left instructions that if her daughter had pre-deceased her, she was to be buried in the family mausoleum, which would then be permanently sealed and the key destroyed.  She also directed that her horse, dog and cat be destroyed.  She left $2,000 to the cemetery to care for the mausoleum.

Julia Simpson died ten years later.  The obituaries for all three family members indicate that the family mausoleum is at Pinelawn Cemetery.  But the cemetery has no record of a Horner family mausoleum.

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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]

In 2012, 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.

But where did he go? His whereabouts were a mystery until November 2022 when a Greenlawn resident asked Deanne Rathke, the executive director of the Greenlawn-Centerport Historical Association, if she knew about Old Tom.  She did.  The gentleman returned the next day with Tom himself.  He explained that he purchased the taxidermy 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, 1969, 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!

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