The society’s Conklin House is decked out for the Historical Holiday House Tour on Dec. 2. Photo from Huntington Historical Society
By Heidi Sutton
A beloved tradition returns to the Town of Huntington as the Huntington Historical Society gears up for its 13th annual Historical Holiday House Tour this weekend. Five gracious homeowners from Huntington Village, Lloyd Neck, Cold Spring Harbor and Lloyd Harbor will open their festively decorated homes on Sunday, Dec. 2, from noon to 4 p.m.
The yearly fundraiser “helps us with our mission of preserving Huntington’s history for future generations,” said Huntington Historical Society’s Executive Director Tracy Pfaff Smith in a recent interview.
After visiting the private homes, Pfaff Smith encourages ticketholders to visit the historical society’s 1795 Dr. Daniel Kissam House Museum at 434 Park Ave., featuring a gorgeous lace exhibit titled Poetry in Thread, and the 1750 David Conklin Farmhouse Museum at 2 High St. Both properties will be decorated for the season.
“The Conklin Barn will have its usual scrumptious array of refreshments, and the much-loved Antiques and Collectibles Shop on the Kissam property will be open and fully stocked with unique gift items,” said Pfaff Smith, adding that the Arsenal (1740), located directly across the street from the Kissam property, will also be open for tours. Managed by the Town of Huntington, “The Arsenal is rarely open [to visitors] so this is a special occasion,” she said.
Advance tickets are $35 for members and $40 for nonmembers. A tour map with house locations will be available at the society’s Trade School building at 209 Main St. If available, remaining tickets will be sold the day of the event at the Conklin Barn for $40 for members and $45 for nonmembers.
For more information or to purchase tickets call 631-427-7045, ext. 401, or visit www.huntingtonhistoricalsociety.org.
Erase Racism is holding events across Long Island. Photo from Erase Racism website
A Syosset nonprofit and a Stony Brook University department are teaming up to open up a public dialogue pertaining to one of Long Island and America’s oldest societal problems.
ERASE Racism, a regional organization founded in 2001 that advocates for public policy to promote racial equality in housing, education and more, and SBU’s Center for the Study of Inequalities, Social Justice, and Policy, a department founded in 2017 that provides a forum for the promotion of various forms of student and faculty engagement on the same issues, will co-host the first of a series of forums meant to jump start a community conversation on racial inequality.
The series of forums, entitled How Do We Build a Just Long Island? will kick off at the Hilton Garden Inn on the SBU campus Nov. 29 at 6 p.m.
“This whole thing is premised on the fact that everybody can educate themselves,” ERASE Racism President Elaine Gross said in an interview. “It’s not about anyone calling anyone a racist. It’s not a blame and shame kind of thing. Let’s make sure we have all the facts, let’s make sure we understand the context.”
Gross said so far about 400 people have registered to attend the event. She said from the organization’s inception its goal has been to identify institutional and structural racism and seek to educate the public about the history that has led to places like Long Island being so racially segregated today.
“It is embedded — it doesn’t require that all of the players be racist people, or bad people, it only requires that people go along with the business as usual,” she said.
Christopher Sellers, SBU history professor and director of the center, said part of the thinking behind the forums is to frame the conversation in a way for people not exposed to racial inequality or injustice on a daily basis to see barriers and exclusions they may not have viewed as such. He said the goal is to ultimately expand the discussion from the confines of the campus and into the community. He called Long Island the perfect place to begin this dialogue.
“Demographic change causes people to get more defensive and fall back on these racializing tool kits they may have picked up from their own past,” he said, adding that data suggests Long Island has become more racially diverse during recent decades, specifically seeing an increase in those of Hispanic descent.
Sellers said he feels a sense of urgency to begin a wide discussion on racial intolerance despite the perception from many that in the decades since the civil rights movement society has made sufficient progress in creating a just America for all. In “Hate Crime Statistics, 2017” released Nov. 13, the FBI reported a 17 percent increase in incidents identified as hate crimes from 2016 to 2017, with nearly 60 percent of those incidents being motivated by racial or ethnic bias. From 2015 to 2016 there was a roughly 5 percent increase in these incidents. From 2014 to 2015, hate crimes went up by about 7 percent.
“We need as a university to do something, we as academics can no longer sit on our hands,” Sellers said. “This is maybe a more urgent matter than we’ve considered before.”
Gross said the aim of the events is education.
“We didn’t plan to be doing this at a time when the country is so divided and there’s so much overtly biased comments, racist comments being said at the highest levels,” Gross said. “We planned this because we felt that even though with all of the work that we’ve done, we felt that was really needed was a regional public discussion and understanding of how things are connected.”
To register for the event and to get more information on the remainder of the forums — slated for Riverhead, Hempstead, Melville and Hauppauge — visit www.eraseracismny.org.
A photo of a partly destroyed French church was taken by Lt. Marco C. Smith Jr. in 1918. Photo from the Smith family
By Beverly C. Tyler
On Nov. 15, 1918, Lt. Marco Carmelich Smith Jr. wrote to his grandmother Eliza Tyler from France: “To say the least, one can live somewhat in peace, now that the Armistice is signed. Beforehand we had had rumors of one but as old Lame Rumor is always present we passed it off as such until the official notice came. We all had our watches out at 11 a.m. on [Nov.] 11th and it was very noticeable that cannon that had been thundering away all morning ceased firing exactly on the hour. So now, as I say, we can live in peace. No more gas masks or helmets, and at night we can have all the light we want.”
A 1918 photo of Marco C. Smith in uniform. Photo from the Smith family
Smith was born Oct. 2, 1886, at his father’s family home, called Fairholme, which was built circa 1824 and expanded circa 1860, in what is now the Village of Old Field. His great-great-grandfather, Walter Smith, a descendant of one of Setauket’s original settlers, Arthur Smith, was the Old Field Point Lighthouse keeper from 1827 to 1830. Marco Smith’s father, the first Marco C. Smith married Mary Amelia Tyler, daughter of Charles and Eliza Tyler, this writer’s great-grandfather and great-grandmother.
Marco Smith Jr. enlisted in the U.S. Army July 8, 1918, and was commissioned as 1st Lt. of Engineers, Company F, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Engineers. He was first assigned to Fort Benjamin Harrison, near Indianapolis, Indiana, and then transferred to Camp Merritt in Bergen County, New Jersey, where troops boarded ships on their way to the war in Europe.
Smith was on leave briefly July 28, when he married in Mamaroneck, Marjorie Aldrich, daughter of Capt. Clarence Aldrich and Irene Hand of East Setauket. According to a newspaper clipping, “Military orders hastened the ceremony, and the groom is now supposed to be on his way to France.”
Smith sailed for France July 31. He was assigned to the 1st Army Aug. 28, as an engineer on light railway construction for the Meuse-Argonne Offensive until the end of the war Nov. 11. He spent most of his time in the area around the village of Montigny-sur-Meuse and continued to be stationed there until March 3, 1919.
On Dec. 16, 1918, Smith wrote: “My dear Grandma, Here it is past the middle of the month and I haven’t started my usual monthly letter to you so here goes for this evening.”
Smith noted that the mail was arriving more regularly since the Armistice and that he had just received a letter from his grandmother written Oct. 18 as well as one written by his mother and dad Nov. 27. He continued the letter: “Sometimes I marvel that I am not sick as we sure are subjected to some pretty severe conditions at times. One night I just slept on the wet ground in a pouring rain and felt fine the next day. … We are very historically located too being near to Dun [Dun-sur-Meuse], Stenay and Sedan. This was sure some hard earned ground as everywhere are evidences of many battles. I believe the part where we were tho’ is about as bad as any. We sure thought so at the time. … Lord, when you see some of the shells old ‘Fritz’ uses to amuse us with, it’s no wonder we were “alarmed” at times. But after all, most of my feelings go to the poor French people who are slowly returning to their destroyed homes. … How they are going to make a go of it this winter is beyond me. … and the tales they tell of the hardships endured while prisoners. They are barely believable. I cannot write of them; they are too sad. Loads & loads & loads of love for yourself and everyone, Your loving grandson Marco — Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.”
Marco C. Smith and his wife Marjorie in an undated photo. Photo from the Smith family
In his Jan. 22, 1919, letter, Smith writes: “Just now we are trying to arrange for some pleasure trips for the men. They have been my faithful workers ever since the drive began on Sept. 26th. And it has been rather tiresome and tedious to them to have seen nothing but shell torn areas since that date. The trip we are planning for them is to Sedan which is only about 25 miles from here.”
The three villages mentioned by Smith — Dun-sur-Meuse, Stenay and Sedan — are between 29 and 40 kilometers northeast of Verdun, site of the longest lasting battle of World War I. During 1916, there were more than 300,000 French and German casualties there.
Smith was reassigned to the engineers office, District of Paris, from March 10 to June 3, 1919. He returned from overseas July 11 and was discharged July 31, 1919. On Feb. 21, 1920, he was commissioned a captain in the Engineer Reserve Corps. He returned home to his wife Marjorie, with a house in Brooklyn and a job in Manhattan as an engineer with the New York Central Railroad. According to family information, Smith and his wife maintained the house in Old Field as a summer home until four months after their first child, Marco C. Smith III, was born April 25, 1927. Smith became a trustee of the Village of Old Field when it was incorporated in 1927, and he also served the village as mayor. The couple’s second and last child, Judith, was born Aug. 9, 1932. Marjorie died in 1953 and Smith died July 8, 1961.
The three letters Smith wrote to his grandmother Eliza, written between Nov. 15, 1918, and Jan. 22, 1919, and copies of the photographs he took in France will now be a part of the Three Village Historical Society archival collection.
Beverly C. Tyler is Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the society at 93 North Country Road, Setauket. For more information, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.
Members of the bus trip pose for a photo between the statues of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr with dueling pistols.
By Elizabeth Kahn Kaplan
Twenty-seven enthusiastic day trippers boarded a chartered bus at the headquarters of the Three Village Historical Society at dawn on Nov. 3. Led by TVHS historian Bev Tyler, they arrived in comfort before 10 a.m. at Philadelphia’s newest tribute to the founding of our nation, the Museum of the American Revolution. There, the drama of the American Revolution and the ideas that inspired it came to life through the personal stories of the people who were there, from the early stirrings of unrest in Boston to the opening shots of the War of Independence and beyond, to the creation of the American Republic.
A must see was the recently opened exhibit, Hamilton Was Here: Rising Up in Revolutionary Philadelphia, on display through March 17, 2019. While New York City, our nation’s first capital, is the focus of attention in the Broadway hit “Hamilton: An American Musical,” it was in Philadelphia, the second national capital, that many of the major events in the life and work of Alexander Hamilton took place.
Museum visitors prepare to load and fire a cannon
The exhibition highlights different aspects of Hamilton’s contributions: his role as an artillery officer in Washington’s army and, later, as adviser to President Washington; his writings that persuaded states to accept the United States Constitution; creator of the U.S. Coast Guard; and first Secretary of the Treasury who envisioned the financial future of the nation.
Through interactive displays, hands-on activities and wall texts, the museum presents the struggles by Hamilton, who favored a strong central government, with Jefferson and Madison, who believed that power should lie with each state. These are questions that we still struggle with today: How do we achieve a proper balance between the rights of each state to act independently andthe need for federal oversight?
Other permanent exhibits are exceptional as well. The museum proudly displays Washington’s war tent, in which he worked and slept alongside Continental Army battlefields. Another remarkably stirring exhibit is housed in a small amphitheater containing life-size, three-dimensional representations of members of the Oneida Indian Nation. Each one “speaks” in turn, presenting arguments for and against sending their warriors to take part in the Saratoga Campaign in the autumn of 1777. Should they support the Patriot cause and fight alongside the Americans, or should they side with the British Army? The Oneidas wrestle with their decision and decide to fight with the Continental Army. The Saratoga Campaign became a turning point of the war.
A scene from the Oneida Indian Nation exhibit at the museum.
Is this an appropriate museum for children? Yes, bring a child to see Washington’s war tent, or follow the 10 steps it takes to load and fire a cannon, or design a coin or paper currency for the new nation, or dress up in reproduction 1790s clothing to attend one of Martha Washington’s “levees.” All can sit in comfort to see excellent, informative short films.
That said, the museum’s exhibits appear to be designed primarily for high school and college students and adults. They pose serious questions — questions that the nation still struggles to answer. At the end of the day I asked one of the knowledgeable participants among the group to share his impression. “It was good,” he said, “but not great.”When asked why the lower rating, he said, “Too politically correct.”
Hmm. Yes, the museum has expanded upon the history many of us learned about our country’s origins, mostly told from the perspective of affluent white Protestant males. Little was said in most textbooks or high school class discussions about the impact of the American Revolution on Native Americans, enslaved Africans, women, Catholics and other religious minorities and French and Spanish occupants of the land. For them, the revolution offered promise and peril. Some chose the cause of independence and others sided with the British.
Storybook touch screens called Finding Freedom introduce the African-American London Pleasants, who ran away from slavery in Virginia in 1781 and joined the British Army as a trumpeter. We hear about Eve, owned by the Randolph family of Williamsburg, Virginia, who fled to the British when they occupied the city. She and her son George enjoyed a period of freedom, working under the British, until she was recaptured at Yorktown in 1781. We learn of Elizabeth Freeman, who sued her owner for freedom based on the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution — and won.
The museum focuses attention on the most revolutionary legacies — personal liberty, citizenship, the right to vote and social equality. Is the museum “Politically Correct,” or simply “Correct”?
On the bus ride back to Setauket, the participants from the Three Village Historical Society were treated to a screening of the TBR News Media film about Nathan Hale, “One Life to Give.” They also had time to think about what they’d learned at the Museum of the American Revolution. If that was the goal of its designers, they accomplished their purpose.
The author is the former director of education at the Three Village Historical Society and an educator, writer and lecturer on art, artists and American history.
Above, the Wiener family, Željko, Beruria, Frances and Julius circa 1941. Photo courtesy of Beruria Stroke
By Donna Newman
Most Holocaust survival stories, told by those still around to bear witness, describe boxcars and concentration camps, starvation and abuse, and the horrific separation of children from their parents.
In a recent program at the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library in Setauket, titled Grazie Italia, local nonagenarian Beruria Stroke told her story of survival and it was quite different. She described a long and tortuous journey from Zagreb, Yugoslavia, to Campobasso, Italy, where advancing Allied forces liberated the Wiener family, who had been fleeing the Nazis — often day by day — for two and a half years.
Stroke’s life story had all the elements of a thriller and, in the discussion that ensued following her presentation, most of those in attendance encouraged her when she said she was thinking about writing a book. The general consensus: It is a story that should be shared.
Beruria Stroke answers questions after the library program on Nov. 2. Photo by Donna Newman
Speaking without notes, Stroke began her narrative in an idyllic-sounding childhood in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Her parents, Julius and Frances Wiener, were intellectuals — people of means — and very well read. She credits her father with the ability to foresee the events of the second World War after reading Hitler’s book, “Mein Kampf.”
In 1939 her parents traveled to Palestine, then under British control, and applied for papers for their family to immigrate. As they waited for the papers, they established a plan to leave Yugoslavia. It was a long wait. When transit visas finally came through on April 4, 1941 Beruria, her parents and her younger brother Željko, fled to the east via the famous Orient Express. They only made it as far as Belgrade.
In Belgrade, the train was stopped and all passengers had to find overnight lodgings. They expected to board the train the following morning to continue their journey. But that night, while staying at the apartment of an uncle, young Beruria experienced the horrors of war firsthand. She described hearing sirens at 3 a.m. but then was told it was “just an exercise.” At 6 a.m. there were no sirens — just bombs falling. The next day, after realizing they could no longer go forward, they learned of a train that could take them back to Zagreb. They negotiated the rubble that Belgrade had become, walking past dead bodies in the street. As fate would have it, they missed the train, but were directed to a spot where another train would be forming. They waited there, inside a boxcar. By the time the train left, the boxcar was filled beyond capacity. In Stroke’s mother’s words, “Not a needle could come between one person and another.”
Back in Zagreb, things had changed over night. Jews were made to wear identifying cloth badges bearing the letter Z topped by an accent mark that looked like a V — the letter representing the word for “Jew” in the Croatian language. Heads of families were being arrested and incarcerated. In exchange for their large apartment, Julius Wiener negotiated travel papers and safe transit to a train headed toward the Italian border. Stroke said, “We left in the nick of time. That night the Nazis came [and would have taken us] to a concentration camp.”
Throughout her story Stroke made note of unexpected but lucky moments that allowed her family to survive intact. It was serendipity, she said, that got them through the German occupation — serendipity, and the help of many good people along the way.
After the family made it to Italy, they still had the difficult task of avoiding capture. Stroke told of their journey south along the eastern coast of Italy on bicycles — another of her father’s brilliant ideas — sheltering overnight wherever they could find space, so as not to be outdoors after curfew.
The Wieners were among those liberated by Canadian forces on Oct. 14, 1943 in the city of Campobasso in southern Italy. That event launched the next phase of her young life, which led to her emigration to Palestine in 1945. But that’s another story.
This was only the second time Stroke has shared her story publicly. The first time was this past April at the invitation of Rabbi Joseph Topek of Hillel, a Jewish student organization on the Stony Brook University campus. Israeli premed student Eilona Feder worked with Stroke to facilitate her talk.
Feder is the Israeli-American Council “Mishelanu” (Hebrew for “from ourselves”) intern on campus, tasked with connecting Israeli students as well as offering educational and cultural programs open to all. Feder has been involved in Holocaust education for years, ever since her middle school days in Israel. “I became so involved,” she said, “because my grandfather is a Holocaust survivor, and he was never willing to tell me his story.”
Anthony Parlatore of Stony Brook captured this majestic image during a recent visit to Gettysburg. Sculpted by Ivan Schwartz, the life-sized bronze statue depicts President Lincoln sitting on a bench on the day of his famous speech at the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery in 1863.
For four decades the Three Village Historical Society has been illuminating the way to the holiday season with its Candlelight House Tour, showcasing historic properties dressed in all their festive finery by a team of local decorators.
On Saturday, Dec. 1, ticket holders can take part in the society’s 40th annual Candlelight House Tour. Titled 40 Years Honoring a Sense of Place, the tour will include five homes in East Setauket, the grist mill at Frank Melville Memorial Park and the historical society’s headquarters on North Country Road.
This year’s tour is the seventh one organized by co-chairs Patty Cain, historical society vice president, and Patty Yantz, a former president. Yantz said the title of the tour is a natural fit for the society that offers various programs that educate residents about former residents and local history, which in turn gives them a sense of place.
“People can come and go, but that history still lives on and is hopefully appreciated by generations to come,” Yantz said.
One of the homes on the tour this year was featured during the first Candlelight House Tour and is owned by the same owner, Eva Glaser. Glaser was one of the first co-chairs of the event and came up with the idea to hold a candlelight tour to raise money for the refurbishment of The Setauket Neighborhood House, where the historical society was initially housed. “It’s a treat to have her home on it,” Cain said.
This year’s tour includes other homes from past tours, mostly from the event’s first decade, and even though the owners have changed, the historical aspect of the houses hasn’t, according to Yantz and Cain.
“Some of these houses are favorites of tour-goers and the community, so they do like to see them again,” Cain said.
Cain said in the past some recently built homes were included on the tour because they were situated on properties of historical significance, but this year all the houses are significant on their own merits. The co-chair said they all date back 100 years or more, and the owners have maintained the unique historical character for each.
Among the spots are one structure that belonged to a sea captain and a beach house that overlooks Conscience Bay. Cain said a Dutch Colonial home that is a familiar sight to locals will also be one of the stops giving ticket holders the opportunity to see what the new owner has done with it.
The theme of each house is different either depending on the décor or the architecture of the home, according to Yantz, and each spot highlights and honors the area.
“Not only do we get to see the houses but sometimes we get a glimmer or concept of who built the house,” she said. “We get the history. We get an idea of who came here before [us], which I think is a wonderful thing in the more of a transient world we live in. Sometimes it’s very nice to be very grounded.”
Cain said she thinks attendees will take away a lot from this year’s event.
“I hope what they get out of the tour this year is to really see a beautiful sampling of the historic homes that we have in the area and can appreciate the fact that each owner has really cherished the fact that it is a historic home, and they have maintained the bones of the house,” Cain said.
The 40th annual Candlelight House Tour will be held on Dec. 1 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (the Nov. 30 evening tour is sold out). Tickets are $50 per person, $45 members. An optional breakfast at the Old Field Club from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. is available for an additional $20. For more information or to order tickets, call 631-751-3730, email [email protected] or visit www.tvhs.org. Tickets may be picked up at the Three Village Historical Society located at 93 North Country Road, Setauket.
Setauket residents, above, honored veterans at a parade Sept. 1, 1919, along Shore Road in East Setauket. Photo from Three Village Historical Society
By Beverly C. Tyler
It was Nov. 11, 1918, and World War I had come to an end for the Americans fighting in Europe.
Two who did not return to Setauket were memorialized at a ceremony on the Village Green at the end of a parade Sept. 1, 1919, as reported by the Port Jefferson Times.
Soldiers Ralph Lyon and Bill Byron at the local memorial. Photo from Three Village Historical Society
“With the service men in uniform standing stiffly at attention and the civilians with bared heads, the entire assemblage united in singing ‘America’ and the Rev. T.J. Elms opened the meeting with a prayer. Judge Watson then introduced the speakers of the day, the first being Admiral Niblack. Admiral Niblack made many friends when he was here with the fleet last summer, many of whom were in the crowd.
“The Rev. T.J. Elms then dedicated a rock to the memory of the Setauket boys who died in the war — Raymond Wishart and Harry Golden. The Community Chorus, led by Mr. & Mrs. W.H. Stewart Jr., sang a patriotic song and an army officer addressed the gathering.
“Those boys of Setauket who had been denied the privilege of giving their lives in the great cause were then presented with suitably inscribed medals. Mrs. Wishart received a medal for her son and Mr. Golden for his boy. The ceremonies concluded with a benediction by Father Roex and the singing of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’”
A plaque, originally placed in a monument on the grounds of the East Setauket Veterans Memorial is now in the entrance foyer of the Setauket Elementary School. The memorial metal plaque reads: “Erected in honor of those of Setauket and East Setauket who served in the World War.”
Those named are: Irving R Addis, Thomas F. Bowen, Edwin Brown, Fred K.M. Brown, Jacob Brown, James Brown, Joel W. Brown, Wilson Brown, John H. Bristol, Lewellyn Bristol, Edwin M. Bryant, Charles Buchanan, Leroy J. Buchanan, Charles Buehrman, William J. Byron, Eversley Childs Jr., William H.H. Childs, John Darling, Louis L. Darling, Roger P. Dodge, Mary Elderkin, Julius Freedman, Louis Freedman, Nathan Gerstein, Howard Gibb, Harry Golden, Leon Goldberg, Max Goldberg, Edward T. Grahm, Alfred A. Hawkins, Floyd B. Hawkins, Daniel H. Hawkins, George R. Hawkins, Irving Hart, William B. Hart, Leo M. Heath, Hattie D. Jayne, Lester H. Jayne, Theodore Junk, Cornelius Kiendl, Theodore Kiendl, Oliver D. Lyon, Ralph S. Lyon, Archibald McLaren, Percy W. Macauley, George R. Mohlman, David A. O’Leary, John A. Payne M.D., Walter W. Peters, Edward H. Pfeiffer, William F. Pfeiffer, Samuel Pinnes, Russell G. Rogers, C. Lawrence Rossiter Jr., Frank F. Schields, Silas Seaman, Albert Sells, Charles W. Sells, Joseph Sells, William S. Sells, Willis H. Skidmore, Marco C. Smith Jr., Frank L. Stenken, Caroline H. Strong, Thomas S. Strong, Harold Terrell, Raymond L. Terrell, Annie R. Tinker, Edward L. Tinker, Handford M. Twitchell, Pierrepont E. Twitchell, Leon J. Tyler, John Walker, Harvey H. West, George H. West, Ernest West, Percy H. West, David L. Wishart, Raymond Wishart, Stanley G. Wood.
Setauket residents, above, honored veterans at a parade Sept. 1, 1919, along Shore Road in East Setauket. Photo from Three Village Historical Society
There is no existing plaque or memorial for the men from Stony Brook who served in World War I. However, a card file of nearly 4,500 World War I veterans was made by the Suffolk County Records Committee and listed these names for Stony Brook:
James Wesley Beldon, Ernest Merwin Bennett, John Oscar Bennett, Stephen Bochinski, Archibald Manning Brown, Nelson David Combs, Frederick Ebenezer Darling, Russell Eugene Darling, George Vincent Davis, Lee Fitshugh Davis, William Sidney Davis, Alexander Findlay, Ross Comrade Findlay, Joseph Gumbus, Frederick Brewster Hawkins, Homer Stanley Hawkins, Charles Lundgren, Frederick A. Mielke, Herman Oakley Newton, Herbert Nichols, Charles Clifford Peterman, Arthur LeRoy Platt, Benjamin Merton Powell, Stanley Russell Rogers, Frank Anton Schaefer, George Washington Schaefer, Paul Eugene Schaefer, William Henry Harrison Shipman, Jay Lawrence Smith, Robert Merwin Smith, Joseph Stufkosky, Robert Hawkins Topping, George Aloysius Wilson, Wilmot Smith Wood, Richard Lawrence Woodhull, Charles Halsey Young.
Remembering … this year
The U.S. World War One Centennial Commission — along with the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, the Society of the Honor Guard: Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars — is inviting American citizens and organizations to toll bells in their communities as a WWI remembrance. The event, Bells of Peace: A World War I Remembrance, will take place Sunday, Nov. 11, at 11 a.m. local time.
The centennial commission has created a page on its website: www.ww1cc.org/bells.
The National World War I Museum and Memorial, in Kansas City, Missouri, opened in 2006 to national acclaim. Since then, more than two million people have visited the museum including Frank Buckles, America’s last surviving WWI veteran, who visited the museum and memorial over Memorial Day weekend in 2008. During World War II, he was captured and spent three-and-a-half years in Japanese prison camps at Santo Tomas and Los Baños in the Philippines. Buckles died Feb. 27, 2011, in Charles Town, West Virginia, at the age of 110.
In 2014, the museum and memorial received a second designation from Congress, effectively recognizing it as a national memorial. The museum is “dedicated to remembering, interpreting and understanding the Great War and its enduring impact on the global community.”
The museum began as the Liberty Memorial, dedicated Nov. 11, 1926, by President Calvin Coolidge who said the memorial “has not been raised to commemorate war and victory, but rather the results of war and victory which are embodied in peace and liberty. … Today I return in order that I may place the official sanction of the national government upon one of the most elaborate and impressive memorials that adorn our country. The magnitude of this memorial, and the broad base of popular support on which it rests, can scarcely fail to excite national wonder and admiration.”
The Liberty Memorial began as a dynamic addition to Kansas City’s cultural offerings, but by 1994, it had to be closed due to safety concerns. Then state, federal and individual donors raised $102 million for the memorial, and an extensive museum restoration and expansion. In 2004, the building was designated by Congress as the nation’s official World War I Museum, and construction started on a new 80,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art museum with the Edward Jones Research Center underneath the memorial. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark Sept. 20, 2006.
Beverly C. Tyler is Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the society at 93 North Country Road, Setauket. For more information, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.
At a Labor Day celebration on the Village Green in 1919, above, Setauket’s Ernest West is second from right in the front row; George West is second from right, fourth row; Harvey West is third from left, third row. Photo from the Three Village Historical Society
By Beverly C. Tyler
“Victory and Peace,” the headline proclaimed, “War Ends — Fighting Ceased at 6 a.m. Monday.” It was Nov. 11, 1918, and World War I had come to an end for the Americans fighting in Europe. In a railway car in the French Forest of Compiègne, at 5 a.m., the German delegates accepted the strict terms of the armistice and at 11 o’clock that morning the world war came to an end.
Percy, Ernest, George and Harvey West of Setauket all served during World War I. Photo from the Three Village Historical Society
President Woodrow Wilson that morning issued a proclamation that said, “My fellow countrymen. The armistice was signed this morning. Everything for which America fought has been accomplished. It will now be our fortunate duty to assist by example, by sober friendly council and by material aid in the establishment of just democracy throughout the world.”
The men and women who served in “the war to end all wars” were coming home. Many of the soldiers were suffering from what they called “shell shock.” Today we know it as post-traumatic stress or simply PTS. Other world war soldiers were gassed. In many of these cases soldiers came home without revealing their need for help. In other cases, soldiers were treated and released back into civilian life with or without continued care. Many soldiers never recovered from their wartime experiences.
The following year, after the soldiers and sailors had returned home, a celebration, parade and memorial service was held Labor Day, Sept. 1, 1919. As reported by the Port Jefferson Times, “All Setauket was there and most of Long Island by the appearance, for long before the time scheduled for the start of the procession, automobiles began to line the road on either side. Promptly at 2:30 p.m. the 42nd Infantry Band from Camp Upton led the parade away from the dock at East Setauket.”
The parade continued along Shore Road from the harbor and then paused while the Rev. A.Y. Holter dedicated the new East Setauket Park in honor of those who served in the war. The parade then re-formed and proceeded up Main Street, turning right at the Methodist Church and continuing to the Village Green.
The parade brought out many local groups and some $5 gold pieces were awarded as prizes. The award for the best decorated carriage went toHenry Smith of Setauket whose buggy was decorated with pumpkins and other farm products. One of the decorated trucks that didn’t win a prize was in the shape of a submarine chaser, with real guns mounted fore and aft. Among the groups that marched were the mechanics of Setauket and Port Jefferson and 70 or so soldiers and sailors who later posed for a picture on the Village Green. Others in the parade included a car filled with men who had fought in the Civil War, men on horseback, decorated trucks carrying members of various organizations and school children carrying a “Welcome Home” sign.
Muriel Hawkins, of East Setauket, daughter of Clinton West, remembered the parade and how her uncle Ernest West, who was a ship’s carpenter in the Navy, made seven trips across the Atlantic and back during the war. Ernest was one of four brothers who served during the war. The other three, George, Harvey and Percy were in the Army. All four were the sons of Setauket blacksmith Samuel West and all four returned, in some cases with mental and physical scars that would last the rest of their lives. There was, however, a lot of family support as their father, Samuel West raised 10 children, with help from his own extended family, as his wife, Ida Hulse West, died after the delivery of their 10th child.
A young Forest West, born June 19, 1910, wears a child’s World War I uniform with his Uncle Harvey West on Bayview Avenue, East Setauket, looking north. Photo from the Three Village Historical Society
Percy Hulse West was born July 18, 1889, and enlisted in the U.S. Army April 13, 1917. The War Department telegram written Oct. 21, 1918, to his father says, “Deeply regret to inform you that it is officially reported that Private Percy H. West, Infantry was severely wounded in action about August twenty-eight [actually July 10]. Department has no further information. Harris, Acting Adjutant General.” Over the next few months, Percy was transferred to a number of different Army hospitals including Army Hospital No. 3, Rahway, New Jersey.
On Nov. 5, 1918, Clinton West, Town of Brookhaven justice of the peace and Percy’s brother, wrote to Maj. Fayermather at the hospital requesting information “regarding the revoking of the furlough of my brother Private Percy H. West. Father was quite upset as this was Percy’s only furlough since his enlistment in May, 1917. He being the first of our local boys to return from active front line service and crippled, we had planned to give him a good time and a chance to visit his relatives and friends …” On Nov.18, 1918, Samuel West, Percy’s father wrote to Capt. Sellers to request “that Percy might be allowed a little time to see his people [in East Setauket] after the service he has rendered his country.” Additional letters from Selah Strong and H.G. Rogers were received at the hospital with the same requests.
Percy did return after he was discharged March 3, 1919, as he is pictured in the photo of the celebration on the Setauket Village Green Sept. 1, 1919, as well as a family photo taken the same day with his father and his other three brothers who served in the war.
The following year, the 1920 census lists Percy as living at “Mattawan State Hospital, Beacon, Dutchess County, NY.” In the 1930 census report, Percy was living as a boarder with Fred and Lydia Bartoo (or Barton) in Oxford, Chenango, New York, where he was working at a golf course. Percy died July 6, 1957. Percy’s brother Ernest West returned to East Setauket and continued working there as a carpenter until his death in 1966. Percy’s brother Harvey West, in 1930, was a patient in the Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital in Orange County. He later went to live with his brother George and Elsie West in Stratford, Connecticut. He died in 1967. George West, following World War I and his return home, lived the rest of his life in Connecticut, in 1920 with his sister Hazel West Jayne and her husband Robert Jayne. George married Elsie in 1922 and made his home in Stratford, Connecticut. He died in 1975.
“World War I was the first ‘modern’ war. Industry enabled weapons and explosives to be manufactured in vast quantities that brought death and destruction on a scale never previously experienced by mankind and that affected all combatants. On Sept. 18, 1918, American Sgt. Charles S. Stevenson wrote: “This is the seventh day of the St. Mihiel drive and I find myself sitting in a thick, muddy forest, with my knees and a gas mask as a table, writing to you. It was some drive. Small, in comparison to many operations, to we rookies it was a real battle. Machine guns, rifles, shells, aeroplanes and tanks — everything you read about — I saw ’em all. We followed the first line (the attacking party) for twelve hours and ours was a sort
of ‘after the battle’ review. I saw all kinds of German trenches, barbed wire entanglements, busted houses, burning trees, deep shell holes, torn-up railroad tracks, peaceful gardens, dynamited bridges.All kinds of German prisoners passed me on the way back.” (Exhibition: Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace: The Doughboys 1917-1918 — National World War I Museum, Kansas City, Missouri). This exhibit has been touring the world and is now at the Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois until Nov. 18.
Beverly C. Tyler is Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the society at 93 North Country Road, Setauket. For more information, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.
Editor’s note: Armistice Day was changed to Veterans Day in 1954.
U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, third from right, is joined Nov. 5 by members of the Long Island Women’s Suffragist Association and Huntington Historical Society in calling for a postal stamp to commemorate the 19th Amendment on the steps of Ida Bunce Sammis’ former home. Photo from Suozzi's office
The image of Huntington suffragist Ida Bunce Sammis may soon be traveling across the nation as the face of a postage stamp.
U.S. Representative Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) backed by members of the Long Island Women’s Suffrage Association called for the United State Postal Service’s Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee to consider putting out a commemorative stamp honoring the upcoming 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in federal elections.
“It’s really important we recognize women voting, as it’s something we all take for granted,” Suozzi said. “This year, more women than ever are running for political office in the United States of America for Congress. It’s really remarkable.”
“It’s really important we recognize women voting, as it’s something we all take for granted.”
— Tom Suozzi
New York was a leader in the women’s suffrage movement as it granted women the right to vote in local and state elections Nov. 6, 1917, three years prior to national passage of the 19th Amendment, according to Suozzi.
Huntington resident Sammis was a well-known suffragist who hosted meetings and rallies promoting women’s right to vote outside her home at 70 Main Street, according to Toby Kissam, treasurer of the Huntington Historical Society. Sammis became one of the first two women to be elected to the New York State Assembly in a “landslide victory” the following year, Nov. 5, 1918, alongside Mary Lilly, of New York City.
“Ida Bunce Sammis is one of the most influential women on Long island,” said Antonia Petrash, president and founder of the LI Women’s Suffrage Association. “We’re very proud of her.”
Sammis managed to get 10 of the 14 pieces of legislation she proposed passed during her single term in the state Assembly, according to Suozzi. During his research, the congressman said he also discovered a little-known story that alleges when the female legislator was given a brass spittoon when entering office, as was issued to each member of the state Assembly at the time, she polished it and turned it into a flower vase.
“Ida Bunce Sammis is one of the most influential women on Long Island. We’re very proud of her. ”
— Antonia Petrash
In honor of Sammis and famous suffragists, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Suozzi requested a postage stamp recognizing the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s passage be issued in 2020.
“A commemorative stamp honoring the centennial anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment would honor all of the pioneers of the women’s suffrage movement and inspire us to rededicate ourselves to equality,” reads the Nov. 5 letter sent to the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee.
The federal committee meets quarterly throughout the year to accept and recommend ideas for postage stamps “that celebrate the American experience,” according to its website. All suggestions are weighed based on 11 criteria that include whether the subject had a significant and positive impact on American history, culture, or life and events of historical significance are eligible to be considered on anniversaries in multiples of 100 years.
On a local level, Kissam said there will be a blue-and-yellow historical marker erected in the upcoming weeks outside Sammis’ former home to mark the location and serve as a reminder to future generations.
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