Huntington History

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.

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.

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.

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!

Seventy years ago, the United States was drawn into a second World War when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  Although several Huntington men were stationed at Pearl Harbor or elsewhere in Hawaii at the time of the attack, it appears that only one was killed.  John Grubbs Little of Northport was a 1935 graduate from the Naval Academy stationed aboard the USS Utah.[1]

Eric Noeldechen, a Huntington Station resident, was aboard the USS Enterprise.  At the time of the attack, the aircraft carrier was about 215 miles west of Oahu.[2]  Noeldechen went on to see considerable action aboard the Enterprise over the course of the following year.  The ship sank 19 Japanese ships and downed 185 Japanese aircraft.  In 1942, Noeldechen transferred to the submarine service.[3]

Wilfred A. Ruland, Walter Schlossberg, Edgar and Donald Hazleton, Kenneth Babcock, Anthony Fusaro, and Kent Gale were stationed in Hawaii or somewhere else in the Pacific.[4]

On the home front, parents did not hear of the fate of their sons for weeks.  The papers even reported the death of one Hicksville native, who later was reported alive and well.[5]  People were nervous.  Just three days after the Pearl Harbor attack, the air raid alarm sounded in Huntington twice, once at 6:00 a.m. and again at 8:40 a.m.  Residents didn’t know what to make of the alarms and were especially concerned about their children.  School children were instructed to go home when the second alarm sounded, but parents were concerned about sending them back to school after the all clear was given.  The resulting confusion and calls from the merely curious jammed the phone lines preventing officials in charge of civil defense from getting their calls through.  Notices were placed in the newspaper instructing that when the air raid warning sounds, people should avoid the use of the telephone “for curiosity or any purpose except in case of an actual emergency.”[6]

The FBI instructed local police departments to interview all Japanese residents and order them to remain indoors until further notice.  The day after the attack, Lloyd Harbor police picked up two Japanese nationals for failing to abide by the alien registration law.  They were taken to New York later in the day.[7

Residents were asked to bring waste paper to the Defense Paper Depot on Stewart Avenue.  “Worthwhile” books were collected to provide to servicemen overseas.

More than one senior at Huntington High School left school before graduation to enlist.  Peter Campbell was a popular member of the Huntington High School football team who left school in May 1942, just a month before he would have graduated, to enlist in the Marine Corps.  He loved to hunt in the woods around Huntington.  He would often cut school to go hunting.  But he had a gentle side as well that led him to nurse an injured bird back to health and to care for homeless dogs.  He was engaged to get married.  But in November 1943, he was killed while scouting enemy positions on Bougainville Island, a part of Papua New Guinea.

His parents were presented with a Bronze Star Medal for Campbell’s heroic actions.[8]  But they were devastated by their loss.  Two years after he would have graduated, the high school planted an elm tree in his honor during an Arbor Day celebration.  The ceremony on the front lawn of the school included a rendition of the Marine Hymn by the high school band, a recitation of “Creed to My Rifle,” dedication of the tree in Campbell’s honor and the National Anthem.  The principal of the school, Robert L. Simpson, also shared a letter he had received from his former student:

You know I thought I’d be the last one in this wide world to miss the old school.  I guess it’s the company of all the kids I miss most and the football games.  Somehow or other I seem to connect hunting with my school.  I guess that’s because I cut school so much to go hunting.  I can still go hunting, though.  Pretty soon now I’ll be hunting with my buddies, for more dangerous game than I found at home.  It’ll be good hunting, though, and it will have more purpose behind it than just plain sport.  It will be so the people all over the world can keep going to schools like H.H.S. and so that the boys can keep playing football, and so that the girls can have their football heroes.  It will be to preserve our grand old American customs and traditions.  So that there will be lots and lots of kids going to those football games with minds free from fear or oppression.  They will be able to cheer with all their hearts, not because they have to but because something inside of them makes them want to.  Believe me, if I and all the other young Americans have anything to say about it, all these things will remain unchanged in our great country.

I’m not very good at putting down on paper what I feel inside me, but that’s just about how I feel about it, and I guess everyone else in this country feels the same.  We’re going to win this fray just like some of our school songs say.  It will be a big fray but not too big for good Americans to handle.  Good luck to all at home.[9]

 Eventually 3600 Huntingtonians would enlist—127 of them would be killed.

For Marcel Proust, the taste of a madeleine leads to a remembrance of things past.  Likewise the discovery of some lost object can lead to a rediscovery of the history of a place.  Such an event happened on a recent Saturday morning when members of the Cold Spring Harbor Fire Department and the Huntington Historical Society visited an old farm on Woodbury Road to transport a hundred year old bobsled that was being donated to the historical society.

The bobsled had been stored in the loft of a barn on the property.  The owner recently asked the Cold Spring Harbor Firehouse Museum if they would be interested in it.  Officials at the Firehouse Museum in turn contacted the historical society, which has a small collection of bobsleds.

In the early twentieth century, Huntington hosted a winter carnival, which featured bobsled races.  Bobsleds holding as many as 25 riders would complete to see who could go the furthest and the fastest starting on Lawrence Hill Road near Carley Avenue and down Main Street to as far as the old stone library a block east of New York Avenue.

The bobsled in question was the Huntington and was raced by the McKowen brothers.  It had apparently been placed in the barn after the last Winter Carnival in 1920 and remained there until the current owners decided to restore the barn.  The sled was placed outside while its ultimate destination was determined.  The historical society plans to restore the sled and display it.  The sled is in excellent condition, although missing its runners.  Some of the lettering that spelled out the sled’s name can still be seen.  Restoration will involve replacing the runners (luckily the historical society has some in its collection) and painting the sled white and recreating the lettering.

But what about the place where this sled was kept for the last 90 years?

To start at the beginning: The farm seems to have been developed around the time of the Civil War.  No buildings are shown at that location on the 1858 map of Suffolk County.   The map does show a house on Woodbury Road, about half a mile south of Main Street, owned by S. Rowland.  Smith Rowland was born in 1807.  According to information posted by family history researchers on http://www.ancestry.com, Smith Rowland’s great grandfather immigrated to New York from France.  Smith’s grandfather was born in Commack in 1738.  So Smith was a third generation Huntingtonian.  In 1838, he married Susan Taylor Roe (or Rowe).  They do not appear to have had any children.

In 1849, Smith Rowland was one of a party of four Huntington men who left to seek a fortune in California’s gold fields.  He returned eighteen months later, apparently not having found gold, but in poor health due to a fever contracted in Nicaragua on his way home.[1]

Ten years later, he offered his 15-acre farm on Woodbury Road for sale.  The farm was advertised as having a large two story dwelling, a tenant house, a good barn, cow house, corn crib and other out buildings.  The farm also boasted a young orchard of apples, pears and other fruits.  Moreover, the farm was “within a mile of one of the best schools in this part of the country, and in the immediate vicinity of churches, stores, post office, etc.”[2]

The 1873 atlas locates S. Rowland about three quarters of a mile further south of his location on the 1858 map indicating that he sold the farm as advertised in 1860 and purchased another farm.  According to the agricultural schedule of the 1880 census, Rowland’s farm was now 20 acres, on which he grew grass, buckwheat, Indian corn, rye, wheat, potatoes and apples.  Rowland was also a widower by 1880; his wife died in 1878.  Rowland sold the farm to Charles A. Van Sise in 1882.  Rowland died seven years later.

Although the farm was owned by Van Sise, it continued to be referred to as the Smith Rowland farm into the twentieth century.  For instance an advertisement in 1903 gave notice of an auction of “about 9 acres of standing grass on the Smith Rowland Farm on the Woodbury Road.”[3]  Van Sise died in 1901 and his son Peter inherited the farm.[4]

When John and William McKowen purchased the farm from Peter Van Sise in 1904, it was still referred to as the “Rowland Farm.”[5]  A couple of years later, the McKowen brothers purchased an additional 33 acres adjoining the farm from Mrs. Joel Titus.[6]

The McKowens appear to have been farm hands on various farms in town.  In 1868, they were on the Paulding farm in Lloyd Harbor and before their purchase of the Woodbury Road property, they worked on the Jones farm on Lawrence Hill Road, which is now owned by the Nature Conservancy.

The McKowen Brothers—William and James Edward[7]—operated a dairy on the property and had a milk delivery route serving the Cold Spring Harbor area.  By 1912, their herd numbered 32 cows.[8]   In 1911, three acres were divided from the property for John McKowen to build an “attractive cottage.”[9]

And, of course, the McKowen brothers entered their bobsled Huntington in the Huntington’s annual winter carnival as well as races in Oyster Bay.

William died in October 1950.  Just three months later, five men broke into the house and tied up 73-year-old brother Henry, 70-year-old Mary Elizabeth and a 53-year-old farmhand.   The gunmen cut the telephone wires and entered the house at around 6:45 on a Tuesday evening.  With their guns drawn and threatening bodily harm, they demanded money.  The occupants of the house refused to cooperate and they were tied up while the gunmen searched the house.  They eventually left with $200 in cash and silver.  The McKowen’s and the farmhand were rescued three hours later when brother Edward came to the house. [10]

Henry died less than two years later.[11]  Mary Elizabeth died three years after her brother.[12]  She left the bulk of her estate (after a $50 bequest to a niece) to the Central Presbyterian Church and Huntington Hospital.[13]

The property was subdivided in 1957 as “Woodbury Knolls” consisting of about 45 acres from Woodbury Road to Woodchuck Hollow Road.  A new street—Snowball Drive—was laid out through the property to join Woodbury and Woodchuck Hollow.

The family that donated the bobsled acquired the lot with the old farmhouse and barns in 1960.  They have recently acquired the lot to the south on the corner of Woodbury Road and Snowball Drive as well as the three-acre lot on which John McKowen built his home in 1911.

These days, many people carry a smart phone that gives them a private reminder of appointments and errands.  But before the advent of such devices, before the advent of wristwatches, and even before the mass production of affordable clocks, bells provided public reminders and alerts.

Huntington has had several notable bells intended to be heard far and wide.  The first was the bell procured to summon the faithful every Sunday morning to Old First Church.  The Town’s second church building was erected in 1715 on the site of the current Old First Church on Main Street across from Town Hall.  A small bell was soon acquired from England.

During the American Revolution, when Huntington was occupied by the British army, the bell was removed by the British troops.  Huntingtonian Zebulon Platt was a prisoner on the ship Swan in late 1777 and later reported having seen Huntington’s bell on that ship.  Nathaniel Williams arranged to retrieve the bell and in 1793, the bell was recast to include the motto “The Town Endures.”

While the bell was missing, the British had razed the church and used the timbers to build a fort in the Old Burying Ground.  The bell returned to service in the current church, which was built in 1784, and continued in use until the 1960s.  It is now on display in the church lobby.

About the time that the church bell was being restored, the Huntington Academy was built across the street.  The new schoolhouse included a tower for a school bell.  The Academy was replaced in 1858 by the Union School.  Since a new school needs a new bell, the small bell from the academy was retired.  It soon found a new use as a fire bell behind the firehouse on Wall Street.

Fast forward fifty years.  In 1909, the Union School was torn down to makee way for a new state-of-the-art brick high school (today’s Town Hall).   This new construction gave rise to some nostalgia: a committee was formed to create a display in the new building commemorating the old Academy.  The committee decided to hang a picture of the Academy in the new building and it was thought that the old Academy bell would be a terrific addition to the display.  The committee asked the fire department if they would part with the bell.

The old Academy bell had proved inadequate to alert fire fighters when they were needed—it could not be heard outside the heart of the village—and had been relegated to calling members to meetings.   The fire department, therefore, did not object to returning the bell.  The department decided to inscribe the bell with the years it served as a fire bell as well as the years it called children to the old Academy.  Newspaper reports in the 1950s indicate that the bell was on display in the high school building on Main Street.  But its current whereabouts are unknown.

The fire department had decided in 1898 to replace the old school bell with a bell loud enough to “awaken the soundest sleeper living within a mile radius of the village.”  The new 730-pound bell was hung in a new tower behind the Wall Street firehouse.

When the fire department moved to its new building on Main Street in 1911, a modern electric siren was installed.  It was later suggested that the 730-pound bell acquired in 1898 be used for brush fires and the electric siren for building fires.  With the advent of suburbia, the number of brush fires decreased.  The department decided to use the bell as a memorial.  On Memorial Day 1951, the fire department dedicated the new memorial to its members who had died in World War II.  Placed outside the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Building, which at that time was the home of the Huntington Library, the bell was topped with a spread wing eagle that has since disappeared.

The bell used for fifty years in the Union School (1858-1909), can now be seen in the lobby of the current high school building on Oakwood Road.  When the Union School was torn down in 1909, its bell was moved to a school in Huntington Station.  It soon found its way into storage, however.  From 1967 to 1985, it was located in the courtyard of what is now the Jack Abrams School.  It then was moved to Woodhull School as part of the school district Heritage Museum organized by Jack Abrams.  Since 2004, the bell has been on display in the high school lobby.

Having three of the town’s oldest public bells is impressive.  But if only we could find the missing bell from the Huntington Academy.

People complain that Huntington is getting too crowded.  There’s too much congestion, too much traffic, not enough open space, we’re losing our small town character.  But how accurate are these sentiments?  With the release of the 2010 census records, we see that Huntington is, in fact, more crowded than ever.  But is it that much worse than it was 10 or 20 years ago?

A look at the numbers is illuminating:

Throughout the nineteenth century the town’s population grew a pretty steady rate of about 15% per decade.  But in the twentieth century things started to take off.  IN fact, most people associated suburbanization with the 1950s.  But with the advent of direct train service to Manhattan in 1910, commuting from Huntington became possible.  It took a few years, but between1910 and 1930, the town’s population doubled.  The growth continued even through the Depression years of the 1930s.

Of course, public perception about the 1950s is accurate.  With a 165% growth in population, Huntington was no longer a small country town.  In absolute numbers, the town’s population grew almost as much in the 1960s.  The increase in population between 1950 and 1970 was three times the town’s total population in 1950.

But contrary to population complaints, Huntington essentially reached its present population levels forty years ago.  But you would hard pressed to find many who do not think Huntington is more crowded today than it was in 1970.  The net population growth from 1970 to 2010 was only 3,778, or less than 2%.

Of course, the difference is that the average household size has fallen.  There are more homes today than there were forty years ago.  But now there are fewer persons in each of those homes.  In 1967, the average number of people per household in Suffolk County was 3.74.  Today it is 2.93.

So yes, it feels more crowded, but it really isn’t.

The Huntington Town House catering hall, which was demolished the week of July 4, 2011, originated as roadside restaurant in 1937 and over the years grew to one of the largest catering facilities in the country.

The story of the Town House begins with Leo Gerard.  Leo’s father, William B. Gerard, operated three luxury hotels in Cold Spring Harbor in the late nineteenth century.  Leo continued the family’s success in the hospitality industry.

Leo was born in 1892 and served in the army during World War I.  In 1922 he married and began his own career in the restaurant business with the Gerard Inn on Park Avenue in Huntington.  In 1927 he was named steward of the Huntington Yacht Club, where among other things he was in charge of the dining room.  Starting in 1930, he would spend his winters operating the Hunter Arms Hotel in St. Cloud, Florida.

In 1932, he leased a restaurant overlooking the water in Cold Spring Harbor under the name The Oyster Bar.  It was later also known as Ye Olde Tavern Inn, but mostly was referred to as Leo Gerard’s.  In 1933, he also resumed his duties as steward at the yacht club.  Two years later he expanded his Cold Spring Harbor restaurant, but he still had to turn patrons away.

That same year, Alfred Bruns, the founder of the Liberty Can and Sign Co. of Brooklyn died.  Bruns had a large house on a wooded five acre estate on the south side of Jericho Turnpike, just east of the Huntington-Amityville Road (Route 110).  The house boasted an immense dining room that could seat over 100 people, as well as a large number of bedrooms.  Gerard purchased the estate in March 1937 and began making plans to relocate his restaurant to this larger building.

Leo Gerard’s new restaurant opened just three months later.  The Long-Islander predicted that “in view of Leo Gerard’s fine reputation, business in his new place will no doubt grow very fast.”  That prediction turned out to be correct.  Within a year, two additions were built and a third was being constructed.

In 1957, Gerard, now 65 years old, sold the restaurant to Thomas Manno, a New York caterer.  Manno converted the restaurant to strictly a catering facility for private parties—one of the first such establishments on Long Island—and named it the Huntington Town House.  Manno planned to refurbish the building (including the installation of air conditioning) and re-landscape the grounds.  By the end of the year, the Town House was advertising the picturesque country club atmosphere as the perfect place for wedding receptions.  Manno attracted clients from Brooklyn in the west to Riverhead in the east and hoped to cash in on the surge in weddings by war babies.

The Town House featured three ballrooms, each with its own kitchen and bandstand.  Dressing rooms for bides were located on the second floor and there was no bar, which reportedly pleased church groups looking to hold events there.  Within a couple of years, the Town House was hosting between 12 to 22 banquets a week and was being expanded with the addition of two new rooms that would increase the seating capacity from 900 to 1500 persons.   By 1972, the Town House had expanded to 11 rooms; and by 2000 it boasted 100,000 square feet of banquet space, 48,000 square feet for offices, kitchens and other support functions and parking for 2000 cars on a 20 acre site.

Rhona Silver purchased the Town House in 1997 from Thomas Manno’s estate for $7.6 million.  Silver hoped to transform the catering facility into a conference center with a 244 room hotel and 58,000 square feet of space dedicated to conferences.  Those plans were never realized.  Instead, in 2007 Silver sold the property to Lowe’s Corporation, which is in the process of constructing one of its home improvement stores on the site.