History

Soldiers and Sailors Building

The Huntington Historical Society invites the community to an opening reception for its newest exhibit titled Holiday House Tour in Miniature: Dollhouses from 1920 to 2020 at the Huntington History & Decorative Arts Museum in the Soldiers and Sailors Building, 228 Main St., Huntington on Sunday, Dec. 5 from 3 to 5 p.m. Also on view is an exhibit titled Remembering a Huntington Hero: Peter H. Fleury. Light refreshments will be served. For more information, call 631-351-3244.

Photo from Vanderbilt Museum

The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum and Reichert Planetarium, 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport will be open Thanksgiving weekend, Friday through Sunday, November 26 to 28.

Visitors can take a guided tour of the Vanderbilt Mansion, decorated for the holidays by Ethan Allen and local garden clubs. Tour times on Friday, Saturday and Sunday are 12:30, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and 3:30 pm.

The Planetarium will also be open on Friday (on a Saturday daytime schedule), and throughout the holiday weekend. The Planetarium playbill offers shows for all ages and has just premiered its newest show, Explore, for or ages 14 and up. Take an odyssey to the planet Mars, seen through the lens of human history and scientific development. This visually stunning fulldome film begins with a look at how scholars and scientists throughout the ages have used the sky as a clock and calendar to measure the passage of time. Their charts and star catalogs informed the modern science of astronomy.

Before or after a tour or a show, visitors can stop by the Under the Stars café in the Planetarium lobby for sandwiches and treats from the renowned Copenhagen Bakery in Northport.

For more information, call 631-854-5579 or visit www.vanderbiltmuseum.org.

The cover of 'Founders Day'

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

4th grade students from the Three Village School District take a tour of Setauket. Photo from TVHS

The Three Village Historical Society has published an excellent series of short works highlighting the North Shore region. Founders Day: Discovering Setauket, Brookhaven’s Original Settlement is “a walking tour guide for families who love exploring and bringing history to life.” It joins several other excellent offerings from the Society. The slender volumes are colorful and well-researched, with dozens of illustrations and photos. The goal is “to create meaningful experiences for families interested in exploring community.” Previous publications include George Washington’s LI Spy Ring, Down the Ways – The Wooden Ship Era, and Setauket and Brookhaven History (the latter two recently reviewed in TBR News Media). 

Founders Day is written by the Society’s Founders Day Committee: Katherine Downs-Reuter, Barbara M. Russell, Donna Smith, Lindsey Steward-Goldberg, and Beverly C. Tyler. The impetus (Founders Day, created in 2006) was to “enhance [the] Three Village Central School District’s fourth grade students’ understanding of local history […] using the Vance Locke murals displayed in the Setauket Elementary School auditorium.”

The cover of ‘Founders Day’

As in previous guides, there is a well-balanced combination of archival documents, paintings dating back to the eighteenth century, and historical and current photographs. The book gives clear and concise instructions, with the tour beginning in front of the Setauket School, Main Street, Setauket, and concluding at the Emma S. Clark Library. Throughout, there are detailed explanations of building markers (coats of arms, inscriptions, plaques), archaeological points of interest, and architectural details. The writers even point out errors: “The date on the plaque on Patriot’s Rock, August 23, is wrong by two days. Information on historical markers can sometimes be wrong. It is always a good idea to check with a more original source.” This detail presents a valuable and telling lesson in the pursuit of history and historical accuracy. 

Brief family genealogies are provided in appropriate circumstances. Some sites get a thorough background. The Setauket Grist Mill rightfully warrants an entire page, given its importance to the community. A detailed account of Tyler Bros. General Store receives two detailed pages that include quotes from Lucy Hart, born in February 1899. Here, there is a discussion about the lives and fates of African Americans in the Setauket area. The text is clear, concise, and descriptive, ideal for the walking tour and a stimulus for further and deeper investigations of the various locales. 

4th grade students from the Three Village School District take a tour of Setauket. Photo from TVHS

Travel and transportation, farming, fishing, and folklore are all included. In addition, the final page contains a list of vocabulary words and terms used within the book. This inclusion further emphasizes that Founders Day, along with the many works of the Three Village Historical Society, are ideal for classroom use and an opportunity for families to explore the area in which they live.

An important note. All the recent publications carry a version of this message: “We wish to acknowledge that we are sitting on the land of the Setalcott indigenous people in Setauket and we pay respect to the Setalcott people whose land is where we live, work and explore.” This note embraces an important and growing awareness, recognizing the impact of the area’s indigenous people. 

Once again, the Three Village Historical Society has produced a novel and valuable tool for community discovery.

Copies of Founders Day: Discovering Setauket, Brookhaven’s Original Settlement are available at the Three Village Historical Society Gift Shop, 93 North Country Road, Setauket and online at www.tvhs.org.

For more information, call 631-751-3730.

TVHS

The Three Village Historical Society (TVHS) has received a $5,000 SHARP grant from Humanities New York (HNY) to support expanding operations. The announcement was made in a press release on Nov. 12. 

After being closed to the public for over 18 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the SHARP grant has enabled the Three Village Historical Society to hire a new Visitor Services Associate, which allows the History Center to be open to the public throughout the week and on Sunday’s once again. The Society kicked off its reopening on Nov. 14. 

HNY awarded a total of $1.2 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to 120 NYS cultural nonprofits affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. These SHARP (Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan) Operating Grants focus on organizations with a core humanities mission and ranged from $1,000 to $20,000. Grants will be used to cover day-to-day activities or ongoing expenses such as staff salaries, utilities, and rent, as well as for humanities programming and professional development, according to the release.

Located at 93 North Country Road, Setauket, the Three Village Historical Society invites the public to stop in to take a tour of the History Center exhibits and visit the gift shop. Hours are Mondays from noon to 2 p.m., Tuesdays from 2 to 4 p.m., Thursdays from 4 to 6 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. For more information, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.

By Tara Mae

Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s new exhibit, Alva Belmont: Socialite to Suffragist, traces Alva Vanderbilt Belmont’s evolution from Alabama belle to New York suffragist. 

Originally planned for 2020 as a centennial celebration of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, it is on display in the Vanderbilt Mansion’s Lancaster Room on the first floor and offers an overview of Alva’s life while highlighting her fervent support for the women’s suffrage movement. 

“Alva Vanderbilt Belmont was the mother of William K. Vanderbilt II, who built the estate, mansion, and museum,” said Executive Director Elizabeth Wayland-Morgan. Alva’s first husband, William II’s father, was the grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, a business tycoon who amassed his wealth through railroads and shipping. 

From a prominent Southern family, Alva brought her own money and social standing into the marriage and later used her position to fight for women’s rights. 

“As a Southern socialite, she became an unexpected champion of women’s rights. Alva gave important support and funding to the National American Woman Suffrage Association and several women’s suffrage groups in the U.S. and the United Kingdom,” Wayland-Morgan added. “Alva was in a position of considerable power, influence, and social connections. For such a woman in any era to take up the fight for the rights of all women was startling. I wanted to know more about her extraordinary life.”

The exhibit is set up in five sections: Early Life, First Foray, Marble House, The National Woman’s Party, and Later Life. 

“Each section represents a pivotal moment in Alva’s life that shows how she became involved in the suffragist movement over time,” explained Archives and Records Manager Killian Taylor during a recent tour.

Primary sources and artifacts, including newspaper articles and “Votes for Women” plates commissioned by Alva, are on display and the Estate of Nan Guzzetta loaned 13 replicas of historic suffragist outfits to set the stage. The focal point of the exhibit is the photographs that adorn the walls. 

Images are included from the museum’s collection, the Library of Congress, and the National Woman’s Party, as well as loaned from the Southampton History Museum. Port Jefferson Village historian Chris Ryon also provided prints. A video installation, sponsored by Bank of America, chronicles her life.

“It is primarily a photo-based exhibit; Alva’s life through photos. Alva was savvy about using the media to her advantage” said Taylor.

Featuring pictures of Alva’s private and public lives, photos depict Alva with her children, at her homes, such as Marble House in Rhode Island (site of her “Conference of Great Women”), and with her fellow suffragists, among them Alice Paul and Lucy Burns.  

Taylor’s favorite images pertain to Alva’s work with the suffrage movement. 

“The first is a photo of Alva, Alice Paul, and a number of members of the National Woman’s Party; everyone is centered around Alva, who is sitting at a desk that belonged to Susan B. Anthony. The second is a photo of Alva’s funeral in 1933; the mausoleum is a replica of one designed by da Vinci. Alva’s pallbearers were all women and her casket flanked by members of National Woman’s Party,” he said.  

Recognizing the influence of her social capital, Alva leveraged it for promoting women’s suffrage. Any event, even her own funeral, could be used for publicity. 

“One of Alva’s strong points was that she was very, very good at using the press, so when she became heavily involved in the movement she made sure that she got in the papers,” Taylor said.  

Alva joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association circa 1909, following the death of her second husband, Oliver Belmont, and quickly put to good use the connections she had initially fostered while married to her first husband, William Kissam Vanderbilt.  

Alva networked, hosted events, organized, founded the Political Equality Union of New York to elect candidates who supported women’s suffrage, created a new national press bureau, worked the press, and with Paul even arranged the first picket protest to be held outside the White House. 

As a leader of women’s suffrage, Alva was advocating for women to have power beyond what was allocated to them by the men in their lives. Before women had the right to vote, their primary access to power was through their husbands (or fathers.) 

And so, prior to her participation in the women’s suffrage movement, Alva sought authority through the means most available to her: making a socially and economically suitable marriage for herself. Alva understood the importance of a “good match,” as Taylor noted, and with William K. Vanderbilt, she made one.

“Their marriage was pragmatic; it was not a love match,” he added. “For an American woman who wanted independence during the 19th century, the option was to marry rich.” 

William was certainly rich; he was part of the wealthiest family in the country. He and Alva had three children: Consuelo, William, and Harold. 

Alva divorced William Sr. for having an affair, at the time an uncommon response to such behavior. 

“She is the one who suffered the backlash,” Taylor said. Still, she emerged with several of their estates and a financial settlement reportedly in the range of $10 million. 

Her second marriage, to Oliver Belmont, was by all accounts a happier union. In 1908, her husband died of appendicitis and Alva fell into a depression. To cope, she immersed herself in charitable works and causes, which led her to the women’s suffrage movement. 

“At Consuelo’s urging, she attended a suffrage event in the United Kingdom and that lit the spark,” Taylor said. 

Consuelo was involved in the women’s suffrage movement in England, and the two pooled their resources and clout for women’s suffrage in the United States. They had reconciled after a rift caused years earlier by Alva’s machinations in arranging Consuelo’s marriage.

She selected Charles Spencer-Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, as Consuelo’s husband. Alva apparently saw the union as an opportunity for further upward mobility and international social standing. Consuelo refused to wed him, wanting instead to elope with her secret fiancé, Winthrop Rutherford. 

In retaliation, Alva had her locked in her room and threatened to shoot Rutherford. “Alva was very strong-willed,” Taylor said. Consuelo continued to resist until Alva emotionally blackmailed her into compliance, feigning she was dying of a heart ailment to get her then seventeen year old daughter to acquiesce. On the day of the wedding, while Consuelo reputedly wept behind her veil, Alva appeared to have made an immediate and full recovery. 

A little over a decade into the marriage, Consuelo and Charles separated. They later divorced and sought an annulment, with Alva’s full support. During the process, Alva told an investigator “I forced my daughter to marry the duke.”

The common goal of women’s suffrage helped heal the once frayed relationship between the two women, and as Consuelo worked abroad, Alva, with the National Woman’s Party, sought a constitutional amendment to guarantee women the right to vote in the United States. 

Victory came in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Alva then moved to France to be near Consuelo. She died there in 1933 and is interred in the Belmont Mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. 

“The museum is proud of Alva’s national leadership role as a champion of women’s rights, as was her family. Her success in the suffrage movement and in securing the right of women to vote is a significant, pivotal chapter in American history,” Wayland-Morgan said. 

The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport presents Alva Belmont: Socialite to Suffragist through mid-January 2022. Tickets to the museum are $10 for adults, $9 for seniors, $9 for students with ID, and $7 for children age 12 and younger) Children under the age of two are free. Current hours for the museum, mansion and planetarium are Friday to Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. For more information, call 631-854-5579 or visit www.vanderbiltmuseum.org.

The historic Drowned Meadow Cottage Museum is open to the public. Photo by Wenhao Ma
*Please note this event has been postponed. Details to come.
Celebrating Our History

Join the Drowned Meadow Cottage Museum at the corner of West Broadway and Barnum Avenue, Port Jefferson for a Fall Heritage Festival on Saturday, Nov. 13 from noon to 4 p.m.

Bring your family for a walk through Revolutionary times with docent led tours through the home of Culper Spy Phillips Roe and taste slow cooked foods from historic recipes. Enjoy a wampum making demonstration, time period vendors, colonial story hour and an unveiling of new spy ring evidence. Free. Rain date is Nov. 14. Sponsored by the Village of Port Jefferson.

For more information, call 631-473-4724.

'White Table' by Myungja Anna Koh. Image from Gallery North

Deck the Halls, Gallery North’s annual group exhibition of small original works for holiday giving, returns from Nov. 12 to Dec. 19. 

‘White Table’ by Myungja Anna Koh. Image from Gallery North

Enjoy artworks by over 50 local and regional artists in a range of media, including painting, printmaking, works on paper, sculpture, glassware, and more. The exhibition offers an excellent opportunity to support local artists and local business, and features a diverse selection of affordable, exciting, original artworks for everyone on your list. 

In addition, Gallery North also features a large assortment of artisan created jewelry, handmade crafts, and decorations within the Shop at Gallery North, as well as clothing and artist-made greeting cards produced in the Studio at Gallery North. They also offer the gift of an art class or workshop to an aspiring artist, child, or adult. 

An opening reception will be held on Friday, Nov. 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. and will be free and open to the public.

Deck the Halls is generously sponsored by WFC Architects, Suffolk County Department of Economic Development and Planning, and DIME Bank.

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As a complement to this year’s group exhibition, Deck the Halls, Gallery North will partner with the Three Village Historical Society and WUSB 90.1 FM/107.3 FM Stony Brook, to present The Holiday Market, a series of new outdoor events held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays from Nov. 27 to Dec. 18. 

The purpose of The Holiday Market is to provide the community with an alternative to holiday shopping indoors and will offer an excellent opportunity to support local artists and businesses within a free, outdoor, safe, and socially distanced setting, complete with food by local eateries and live music by local musicians. 

Holiday shoppers will find a diverse selection of affordable, exciting, original paintings, prints, photography, ceramics, pottery, woodwork, glassware, artisan created jewelry, handmade crafts, decorations, and clothing — perfect gifts for everyone on your list. 

Gallery North is located at 90 North Country Road,  Setauket. The gallery is open Wednesdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call 631-751-2676 or visit www.gallerynorth.org.

 

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The Hotel Echo was located immediately north of the LIRR tracks; Photo from the Kenneth C. Brady Digital Archive

For some of the residents of Comsewogue, now Port Jefferson Station, getting the mail once meant traveling from three to five miles to the post office in downtown Port Jefferson.

Tired of the inconvenience, a group of Comsewogue’s citizens petitioned the government in 1888 to establish a post office within their community.

The Echo Building on the west side of Main Street housed the Charles A. Squires Real Estate Agency, Port Jefferson Echo newspaper and Port Jefferson Station Post Office. Photo by Arthur S. Greene; Photo from the Kenneth C. Brady Digital Archive

The Postmaster General responded that so many places in the State ended in “ogue” that to avoid confusion Comsewogue would have to be renamed if a post office was to be considered for the area.

The name Comsewogue and its many variants was an Algonkian term meaning “a walking place,” had appeared in Brookhaven Town records as early as 1805 and was rich in etymology and history.  

Nevertheless, the petitioners acquiesced and submitted several names as Comsewogue’s replacement: South Port Jefferson, Port Jefferson South, Maple Hill, Enterprise, Cedar Grove, and Jefferson Heights. Each was rejected, either for being too common or too long.

In the next round of proposals, William I. Wyckoff suggested Echo, the same name as a famous racehorse once owned by Comsewogue’s Nathaniel Dickerson. Echo — only four letters long — was accepted by the postal authorities and Charles A. Squires appointed as the office’s first postmaster.

A native of Good Ground (Hampton Bays), Squires had begun work as the depot agent at the Port Jefferson Railroad Station in 1886 and soon earned a reputation in Comsewogue for his competence and geniality.

Under Squires’ able leadership, the Echo Post Office opened in a building on the west side of today’s Main Street (Route 25A), immediately north of the LIRR tracks.  

Charles A. Squires, the “father of Port Jefferson Station.” Photo by Arthur S. Greene; Photo from the Kenneth C. Brady Digital Archive

Squires also championed his bailiwick in the Port Jefferson Echo, a newspaper that he had founded with G. Frederick Hallock in 1892. The “Republican journal” helped establish the uniqueness of Echo and operated out of the same building as the Echo Post Office.

Following A. Jay Tefft’s purchase of the Echo in 1899, Squires devoted his considerable energies to buying and selling real estate, developing several subdivisions in the area including Belle Croft, Norton Park, Fairview Place, and Bergen Estates.

In 1904, Echo’s post office and newspaper, along with Squires’ Real Estate Agency, resettled a few steps north on Main Street in the new Echo Building. Hugo Kreitzberg then transformed the unoccupied property resulting from the move into the Hotel Echo.

The Echo Post Office was renamed the Port Jefferson Station Post Office in 1910. Squires had led a popular petition drive in support of the change and later became known as the “father of Port Jefferson Station.”

Key among the reasons for the switch, it was argued that Echo was a “meaningless place name” and that the presence of the Port Jefferson Railroad Station best defined the area.

After being called home for 22 years, Echo just faded away.

Kenneth Brady has served as the Port Jefferson Village Historian and president of the Port Jefferson Conservancy, as s well as on the boards of the Suffolk County Historical Society, Greater Port Jefferson Arts Council and Port Jefferson Historical Society. He is a longtime resident of Port Jefferson.

Richard F. Welch

The Huntington Historical Society continues its virtual Lunch & Learn series on Thursday, Nov. 4 at noon with a presentation titled Long Island Gold Coast Elite and the Great War. Historian Richard F. Welch reveals how the potent combination of ethno-sociological solidarity, clear-eyed geopolitical calculation and financial self-interest inspired the North Shore elite to pressure the nation into war. 

Presentation will last 45 minutes with time for commentary and Q&A from participants. Suggested donation is $10. Your donation will help the Society continue to preserve and share the history of Huntington! To register, visit www.huntingtonhistoricalsociety.org.

Pictured from left, director of social studies Charles Benvenuto, award winner Josie Muratore, social studies teacher Joan Havranek, assistant principal Annemarie Freund

Smithtown High School West senior Josie Muratore fondly recalls her experience at Smithtown Elementary School. “Smithtown El gives all of its students a chance to be creative,” Muratore said. “They really always made me feel safe. Every single teacher I had made a really big impact on me and who I am now. I just love everyone I ever met at that school.”

Muratore was so moved by her experience, she profiled the school’s history as part of the Smithtown Historical Society’s Mildred Smith Historical Essay Contest. And her entry now has been selected as the winner. Muratore will receive a $1,000 scholarship, which will be awarded at the Historical Society’s Heritage Ball at the Watermill on Nov. 4. Her essay also will be published in the Heritage Ball Journal.

The Smithtown Historical Society has sponsored the Mildred Smith Historical Essay Contest for the past 15 years. It is open to all 11th graders attending High School East and High School West as well as Commack, Hauppauge and Kings Park high schools and the Knox School and Smithtown Christian School.

Mildred Smith helped found the Smithtown Historical Society and served as the organization’s first president. She possessed an intense passion for the history of Smithtown.

As part of her five-page essay detailing Smithtown Elementary School’s history, Muratore wrote:  “Smithtown was in need of a new school to accommodate its post-World War II growing population. In 1948, the Smithtown Central School District held a vote to purchase 12 acres of the Charles D. Miller Estate, and groundbreaking of the new building began in December 1949. The design of the new building was made to accommodate the children and make them feel welcome, according to The Smithtown Star, which wrote about the 371 students who attended the first day of school.

“Every classroom was referred to as ‘outside rooms.’ Each room had a wall entirely of glass — a wall of windows, in other words, where the children could observe the environment, the weather and nature as it changed throughout the school year. In today’s time it might not seem as a big deal, but in 1950, it was a luxury to have students be able to look and feel outside of their classroom, as opposed to the claustrophobic and less stimulating traditional windowless rooms.”

Photo courtesy of Smithtown CSD