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Beverly C. Tyler

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Above, Beverly C. Tyler, Lindsey Steward and Donna Smith stand next to the Samuel H. West Blacksmith Shop on the grounds of The Long Island Museum, which will be open for blacksmith demonstrations on Culper Spy Day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Photo by Heidi Sutton
Organizations team up for island-wide event

On Saturday, Sept. 16 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., The Long Island Museum and the Ward Melville Heritage Organization in Stony Brook and the Three Village Historical Society and Tri-Spy Tours in Setauket will host a day of spy-related tours and activities for the third annual Culper Spy Day, named for the Culper Spy Ring founded by Benjamin Tallmadge, George Washington’s chief intelligence officer during the Revolutionary War.

The Three Village area, which includes Stony Brook, Setauket and Old Field, is full of hidden intrigue and stories of how America’s first spy ring came together secretly to provide General George Washington the information he needed to turn the tide of the American Revolution.

The 3rd New York Regiment demonstrates musket firing on the Village Green in Setauket at last year’s event.

This year’s event has expanded to include other areas that played key roles in the Culper Spy Ring. Fans of the AMC hit series “Turn,” which has completed its final season, are familiar with Hollywood’s version of the Long Island-based spy group. On Sept. 16 visitors can learn what really happened while enjoying tours, Colonial cooking demonstrations, reenactments and many more family-friendly activities in the Three Villages and across Long Island.

The Long Island Museum will host a lecture at 2 p.m. with John Staudt, adjunct assistant professor of history at Hofstra University. Staudt will present “The Terrible Force of War: Eastern Long Island in the American Revolution.” In addition, blacksmith demonstrations will be ongoing from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and a special display of Revolutionary War artifacts will be on display.

Among other Culper Spy Day activities, the Three Village Historical Society hosts an interactive Culper SPIES! exhibit and a book signing with award-winning novelist and nonfiction author Selene Castrovilla. Visitors will also enjoy invisible ink demonstrations and Anna Strong’s famed clothesline, used for sending signals to Culper spies working off Long Island’s shores.

Above, living historian Diane Fish will give a Colonial cooking demonstration at the Brewster House during the event. Photo by Heidi Sutton

Ward Melville Heritage Organization will host Colonial cooking demonstrations and tours of historic structures that served as home bases for several spy ring members. Stony Brook University’s Special Collections department will display original letters written to Benjamin Tallmadge from George Washington, and the 3rd New York Regiment will demonstrate musket firing and marching drills on Setauket’s Village Green. The Country House Restaurant will offer a spy-themed lunch and the Ketcham Inn of the Moriches will host a guided tour and dinner at the home of noted spy Benjamin Havens.

Organizations participating in the Culper Spy Day event include The Long Island Museum, the Three Village Historical Society, the Ward Melville Heritage Organization, Tri-Spy Tours, Stony Brook University Special Collections, Emma S. Clark Memorial Library, Frank Melville Memorial Park, Three Village Community Trust, Caroline Church of Brookhaven, Setauket Presbyterian Church, Incorporated Village of Port Jefferson (Drowned Meadow Cottage), History Close at Hand, the Country House Restaurant, Times Beacon Record News Media, Raynham Hall, the Smithtown Historical Society, Discover Long Island, Ketcham Inn of the Moriches, and Sagtikos Manor in Bay Shore.

Tickets, which are available at www.tvhs.org, are $25 for adults and $5 for children ages 6 to 12. Children under the age of 6 and veterans will receive free admission. Tickets may be picked up at the Three Village Historical Society, 93 North Country Road, Setauket from Sept. 11 to 15. At that time, visitors will receive a bracelet and a copy of the Culper Spy Day map with all event listings. Tickets are good for admission to participating organizations for Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 16 and 17. Additional fees may apply for meals. For a full list of Culper Spy Day activities please visit www.culperspyday.com.

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Members of the Rocky Point Historical Society with Culper Spy Abraham Woodhull (historian Beverly C. Tyler ) at the Setauket Presbyterian Cemetery. Photo by Carol Calabro

On Saturday, June 3, Setauket historian Beverly C. Tyler led members and friends of the Rocky Point Historical Society on a journey back in time to the days of the Culper Spy Ring. The story has been made famous with the television series “Turn.”

The tour began at the headquarters of the Three Village Historical Society where Tyler, wearing 18th-century clothing, took on the personality and true story of Abraham Woodhull, and continued on to the site of the birthplace and farm of Woodhull, to the burial grounds at St. George’s Manor Cemetery and the Setauket Presbyterian Cemetery.

Born in Setauket, Abraham Woodhull (1750 –1826) was a leading member of the Culper Spy Ring in New York City and Setauket during the American Revolution using the alias Samuel Culper, Sr., a play on Culpeper County, Virginia. The ring provided Washington with valuable information on the British Army headquartered in and operating out of New York, from October 1778 until the end of the American Revolutionary War. After the United States gained independence, Woodhull served as the first judge in Suffolk County. Other local residents who took part in the spy ring were Austin Roe, Caleb Brewster and Anna Smith Strong.

For more information on the Three Village Historical Society’s upcoming historical walking tours, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.

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The Setauket Presbyterian Church, pictured above after the turn of the 20th century. Photo from Beverly C. Tyler

By Beverly C. Tyler

The two churches at the Setauket Village Green are joining forces to present a joint country fair on the green June 3 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

For many years the Setauket Presbyterian Church and the Caroline Church of Brookhaven, who own the Setauket Village Green jointly, have coordinated their efforts to present individual fairs on separate weekends. This year the two churches have planned and worked together to bring a larger fair filling the entire village green with food, games, appropriate vendors and other activities designed to interest families, adults and children of all ages.

For more than a century there have been fairs on the Setauket Village Green. Just west of the village green, where Main Street turns south, was the general store belonging to Charles B. Tyler. In 1899, the store provided the Caroline Episcopal Church fair with two loaves of bread, four pounds of butter, ten pounds of sugar, 100 lemons, paper bags and one bunch of bananas at a total cost of $4.57. As the fair was in the heat of the summer, most likely Saturday, August 12, the lemonade was probably very popular. We can only guess what delicious treats they made with the bread, butter and bananas. So far we have not discovered what other food or activities were going on at the August fair.

Beverly Tyler is the Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the society, 93 North Country Road, Setauket. For more information visit www.tvhs.org or call 631-751-3730.

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Reviewed by Beverly C. Tyler

“Between Stony Brook Harbor Tides: The Natural History of a Long Island Pocket Bay” by R. Lawrence Swanson and Malcolm J. Bowman is a recently published book (Nov. 2016) that should be in every school library on Long Island. In addition, for those interested in the history, current conditions and future of our wetlands and waterways, this book is an essential read.

Specifically a book about the Stony Brook Harbor area, it takes a much wider view when considering the factors that have had and continue to have an influence on the harbor. Admirably this is a book that takes a very even-handed approach to the environmental and societal pressures that have contributed to the present state of the harbor and its future.

From left, Malcom J. Bowman and R. Lawrence Swanson. Photo by Heidi Sutton

 

In Chapter 1, “Shaping the Harbor,” the description of the formation of the hills and valleys of our Three Village area with “unsorted debris” left by the glacier is complemented by poetic and descriptive quotes from Setauket resident Benjamin Franklin Thompson who published the first history of Long Island and William Sidney Mount who wrote in his diary about the search for pigments in the banks and steep hills along the shore with his brother, Alonzo Shepard.

Chapter 2, “Physical Oceanography,” is the most technical chapter in the book, filled with tables and charts that detail the events and changes that have occurred in Stony Brook Harbor, as well as projections on the future of the harbor. Looking at the table on page 19, it is evident that the mean low water at the Stony Brook Yacht Club occurs approximately one hour after low water at the entrance buoy in Smithtown Bay. This is also the case for mean high water, an important consideration for boaters entering the channel to go to either the Stony Brook Yacht Club or the Smithtown Boat Basin.

These details are wonderfully enriched by interesting comments, “Boaters are perhaps frustrated by the seemingly excessive period of low stages of tide, while recreational clammers can relish the extensive period over which they can gather their harvest.” The rest of the chapter details currents, storm surges and more, all of it highlighted with salient comments including that sea levels, having risen one foot since 1886, will rise even faster this century and, “the wetlands will very likely shrink considerably.”

Chapter 3, “The Living Harbor,” begins “The splendor of the harbor is largely identified with its living marine plants and animals.” It goes on to describe the huge variety of plants and animals that inhabit the area. In many cases the same is true for all the pocket bays in our area including Mount Sinai and Setauket.

Chapter 4, “Human Impacts on the Harbor,” factually describes the effect that humans and large numbers of water fowl have had on the harbor, especially in relation to pollution and contamination.

The even-handed approach is evident in Chapter 5, titled “Scars upon the Landscape,” which details that “the physical process of dredging destroys shellfish beds…,” but goes on to say that, “dredged material, if toxicant-free and managed properly, can be a valuable resource when used for such purposes as beach nourishment.”

Chapters 6 and 7, “Governance” and “The Harbor’s Future,” tells the story of how the harbor was used and controlled and then paints a picture of what its future can and should be.

With their life’s works, Larry Swanson and Malcolm Bowman have made significant and substantial contributions to our knowledge and understanding of the natural environment. Their research and instruction at Stony Brook University provides students and residents alike with a more concrete knowledge of the effect that we have on our environment as individuals and as a society. Their contributions to our environmental knowledge are also crucial to Long Island’s future.

The book is available online at www.sunypress.edu and www.amazon.com.

Author Beverly C. Tyler is the Three Village Historical Society historian and pens a biweekly History Close at Hand column in the Village Times Herald.

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Kate Strong sits on her front porch on Strong’s Neck in December 1899. Photo from Beverly C. Tyler

By Beverly C. Tyler

Kate Wheeler Strong was born in Setauket March 21, 1879. She was the daughter of Judge Selah Strong and a descendant of Revolutionary War spy Anna Smith Strong, as well as of Setauket settler William “Tangier” Smith. As Dr. Percy Bailey wrote in October, 1977, “As a historian, ‘Miss Kate’ has probably done more than any other in popularizing and humanizing the history of this beautiful Long Island which she loved.”

Kate Strong wrote local history articles for the Long Island Forum from 1939 through 1976. Most of these articles she had published in small booklets which she sold or gave away to friends over the years. These booklets, called “True Tales,” have provided a special look into the past for many generations of Three Village residents. Kate Strong died at her home The Cedars on Strong’s Neck July 22, 1977. In 1992, William B. Minuse (1908-2002) wrote about Kate Strong in the 1992 Three Village Historian:

A photo of Strong taken in May of 1897. Photo from Bev Tyler.

“Miss Kate Wheeler Strong was one of the most remarkable persons I have ever known … Miss Kate loved young people. For many years, she told stories to groups of children at the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library. When the Stony Brook School opened, she organized a stamp club there.

“Her chief interest over the years was local and family history … She wrote extensively, most of her articles being based on family papers and information gathered from older residents … Even after she lost her sight she persisted. We will always be in her debt for the wonderful anecdotes and the invaluable accounts she left us of our Long Island communities and people.

“From time to time she gave me artifacts for the Three Village Historical Society. Among them were a pair of snow shoes her father had used during the blizzard of ‘88.

“Toward the end of her life her neighbors celebrated each of her birthdays, and I was always invited. I shall always remember her most fondly. She was kind and generous.”

After Kate Strong’s death, her personal papers and her family papers going back to her second-great-grandfather were donated to the Three Village Historical Society. The Strong collection contains more than 3,000 papers of the Strong family of Setauket, dating from 1703 to 1977. Included in the collection are deeds, diaries, 224 handwritten pages of court cases by State Supreme Court Justice Selah Strong, letters about their daily lives, politics, travels, farm matters, business records, school records, payments, receipts, Setauket Presbyterian Church records and weather bureau records. There are approximately 2,250 photographs of families, friends, relatives, places
and scenes.

In the 1980s and ‘90s, I was the editor for yearly publications of The Three Village Historian: Journal of the Three Village Historical Society. The issue of 1992 included nine of Kate Wheeler Strong’s “True Tales,” and a complete listing of the 38 years of “True Tales” booklets she produced between 1940 and 1976. This 24-page publication is still available for $1 at the Three Village Historical Society History Center and Gift Shop.

Beverly C. Tyler is Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the Three Village Historical Society, 93 North Country Road, Setauket. For more information on the society’s exhibits and gift shop hours, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.

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William Bacon’s notebook where he recorded leaving Alderwasley on June 12 1794, leaving the Port of Liverpool 10 days later and arriving in New York on Aug. 23. Photo from Beverly Tyler

By Beverly C. Tyler

“Here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations.” – Walt Whitman, preface to Leaves of Grass – 1855

For almost 400 years, America has welcomed immigrants from around the world to its shores. They came here for many reasons, but principally to find a better life for themselves. As we prepare to celebrate American Independence Day on July 4, we remind ourselves that the strength of our nation is in its people, the men and women who came here for political, economic or religious freedom and, in the process, made America greater.

William Bacon, my great, great, great grandfather left his home in the midlands of England on June 12, 1794. He booked passage on a ship out of Liverpool on June 22 and arrived at New York’s South Street Seaport on Aug. 23. He then traveled to Patchogue, arriving on Aug. 28. Letters from his father and brothers between 1798 and 1824 and numerous trips I made to the villages of his youth provided the basis for this fictional letter to his father and mother based on other letters he wrote after his arrival in America.

In 1794, England was at war with France, as was most of Europe. The resultant curtailment of trade was having a very negative effect on the British economy. The impressment of American merchant ship crews by the British had brought America and England very close to war again. President George Washington was in his second term as the first president of the United States and had recently appointed Chief Justice John Jay to negotiate a treaty of commerce with England.

On Long Island, Selah Strong was again elected as president of the trustees of the Town of Brookhaven, a post he had held almost every year since the end of the Revolutionary War. In Patchogue, the Blue Point Iron Works, run by a Mr. Smith, was in full operation and looking to England, especially the midlands, for young men like William Bacon, who came from a long line of lead miners and iron workers:

“July 4, 1794
M. Matthew Bacon
Alderwasley
Parish of Wirksworth
Derbyshire, England

My Dearest Father & Mother

I am writing this letter at sea. We are twelve days out from Liverpool and expect to arrive in New York before the end of next month. Today is Independence Day in America and, as this is an American ship and crew, they celebrated the day with canon fire and decorated the ship with flags. A special meal was prepared and the other passengers and I were included in the feast. Sitting with these new friends and enjoying their hospitality, I realized for the first time how much I already miss home and family.

Last month, the day before I left, as I sat on the hillside above our home, I realized that there was a part of me that would stay there forever. The green hills of Alderwasley will remain forever in my memory, as will your kind smile and patience with me as I prepared to undertake this journey.

My resolve in going has not diminished in spite of my love for my family, for my home, and for the gentle rolling hills I have so often walked. The position in Mr. Smith’s iron works I regard as a chance to flourish in a land of opportunity as many others have done before me. America also offers the chance to live free of the will of the Lord of the Manor. He has been good to you, and generous, but he owns the very hills and valleys where I was born and grew up. In America, I can work and be anything I wish to be.

Please write and tell me if any from Wirksworth or Alderwasley have volunteered for the cavalry or infantry and how the war with France goes. I will send you the prices of pig and bar iron in English money as well as the prices of beef and mutton in the same as soon as I can. If brother Samuel is still in Jamaica after I arrive, ask him to come and see me when he goes through New York. The same for my brother Matthew if he comes to Philadelphia to trade, as he plans.

I continue with great hope and anticipation and a deep sorrow at parting.

Your loving son, William Bacon”

One book to read this week is “A Nation of Immigrants” by John F. Kennedy. This important and detailed book was written as Kennedy prepared to ask Congress to revise our immigration law. Published in 1964, “A Nation of Immigrants” can be read in just a few hours.

Beverly Tyler is the Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the Three Village Historical Society.

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Wilson Sail Loft’s sail plan of the schooner-yacht Wanderer. Photo from Beverly Tyler

By Beverly C. Tyler

“Roots,” a new version and a new vision.

This past week the cable channels History, A&E and Lifetime presented a new look at Alex Haley’s 1976 novel, which tells the story of his Mandinka ancestor Kunta Kinte and his descendants. Born in the village of Juffure, West Africa, in 1750, Kunta Kinte and other Mandinka men and women were captured, transported to America and there suffered brutal enslavement. In 1977 “Roots” became an ABC network miniseries watched by millions of viewers. It was a slavery story that many Americans were learning for the first time. Now a new generation of Americans, sadly less informed about our history, can benefit from this new adaptation of Haley’s historical novel.

“Roots,” 2016, benefits from new scholarship giving viewers a broader understanding of the Mandinka culture in which Kunta Kinte grew to manhood, factors that led to a culture of enslavement by the Africans themselves, and the brutal conditions on the British and Americans ships that transported Africans to the Americas. The story continues in America with a more detailed story of the enslaved Africans and less about the white slavers and plantation owners than in the 1977 ABC miniseries.

If you missed the original production last week, you will be able to see it repeated on the cable channels or on the web at https://roots.history.com/. The Web site also includes more details on the show and on the featured characters and actors.

On a more local level, the book, “The Logbooks: Connecticut’s Slave Ships and Human Memory,” by Anne Farrow uses a log book of three voyages, over 20 months in the first half of the 18th century, recorded by a young Connecticut man who went on to captain slave ships and privateers, to tell a much wider and disturbing story.

Farrow’s book connects Dudley Saltonstall, the Connecticut man who kept the log books, to the slaves transported from Africa, then to the African men who enslaved them, to the ships that transported them across the Atlantic, and finally to the men who purchased them to work to death in the Caribbean sugar plantations and rice plantations of America’s southern colonies.

Farrow, a former Connecticut newspaper reporter, feels the early story of African people in America must be told over and over, from the beginning. She believes that it has not yet been absorbed into the family of stories told and retold about America, that the story of injustice and suffering still has not made its way into the national narrative.

Unknown to most Americans is the fact that colonial Connecticut was a major provisioner of British West Indies plantations where slaves were growing and processing sugar and yielding huge profits. In addition, Rhode Island men were at the helm of 90 percent of ships that brought captives to the American south, an estimated 900 ships.

The story of the Connecticut and Long Island Sound men who took part in the slave trade is disturbingly real. It brings into focus the way many of our own prosperous and influential Long Island families made their fortunes. It doesn’t change who they were or who we are, but it provides us with a clearer understanding of the pain and suffering caused by their actions.

In spite of the federal law (1807) prohibiting the importation of slaves from Africa, slaves were still being transported from Africa until the beginning of the American Civil War. On an even more local level is the story of our own East Setauket slave ship, Wanderer.

East Setauket’s Joseph Rowland built the schooner-yacht Wanderer in 1857 for Colonel John D. Johnson, a New York Yacht Club member and a wealthy New Orleans sugar planter. The sails for the Wanderer were made in Port Jefferson in the Wilson Sail Loft.

Johnson sold the Wanderer in 1858 to William Corey, and she reappeared in Port Jefferson where large water tanks were installed. Despite numerous checks by the U.S. Revenue Service the Wanderer was allowed to sail.

Slavers were rigged to outrun the slave squadrons of Great Britain and America, both of which were trying to stop the now illegal slave trade. Wanderer took aboard some 600 people from the west coast of Africa and sailed for America.

On Nov. 28, 1858, she landed 465 Africans on Jekyll Island, Georgia. The ship was seized by federal authorities; however, the Africans, now on Georgia soil, a slave state, were sold at auction.

A walking tour of the maritime and wooden shipbuilding area along Shore Road in East Setauket will be conducted Saturday, June 18, beginning at 3 p.m. from the Brookhaven Town Dock for a tour of the homes and shipyards that built ships that sailed around the world. The tour includes the home of the Wanderer shipbuilder and his story.

Beverly Tyler is the Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the Three Village Historical Society.

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Dedication service in memory of Sergeant Harry Golden and Private Raymond Wishart on the Setauket Village Green, Sept. 1,1919. Rev. T. J. Elms, pastor of Setauket Presbyterian Church, delivered the address. Photo from Beverly Tyler

By Beverly C. Tyler

The celebration of Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was first called, began when the first proclamation for a day to decorate the graves of Union soldiers killed in the Civil War was made on May 5, 1868 by General John A. Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic.

He declared, “It is the purpose of the commander-in-chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept from year to year.”

May 30 was chosen as the day, “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in the defense of their country during the late rebellion.” In 1873 New York State recognized Memorial Day as an official holiday and many other states followed during the next few decades.

In the Three Villages, Memorial Day is observed with ceremonies, first in Stony Brook and then in Setauket.

In Stony Brook, a plaque first dedicated on July 6, 1946 states, “This tablet is erected and dedicated, as an abiding memorial and as a token of the affectionate esteem of grateful citizens, to those gallant young men and women of the Stony Brook community who, in obedience to their country’s call, courageously offered their lives in World War I and World War II to maintain the American principles of liberty and justice.”

The large rock on the Setauket Village Green was added in 1919 to honor the men who died in the First World War. A plaque to honor the men who died in World War II was added in 1946. A new plaque honors the young man, Chris Brunn, who died in Vietnam in 1969. The soldiers honored here were from families who immigrated to Setauket from England, Scotland, Ukraine, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Ireland, Germany, France and Italy.

Two men from the local area gave their lives in World War I, Raymond Wishart and Harry Golden. The massive boulder and south-facing bronze tablet were erected on the Setauket Village Green in their memory. The boulder was brought from Strong’s Neck and the plaque was designed by the well-known artist William DeLeftwich Dodge who painted the murals on New York history that are in the state capital in Albany.

Private Raymond Wishart, son of Postmaster and Mrs. Andrew Wishart, was born September 10, 1893, and he died in France on August 23, 1918. His remains were returned to this country and were buried in the Caroline Church of Brookhaven graveyard on a Sunday in July 1921.

Harry Golden is remembered by his nephew Sam Golden. “He was a Sergeant in charge of the mules, “ Sam recalled. “His unit was attacked and he was killed. He was 28 years old when he died and he’s buried there in France.”

On the opposite side of the rock is a plaque that was placed there after World War II. It reads, “1941-1945 – In memory of Clifford J. Darling, Henry P. Eichacker, Francis S. Hawkins, David Douglas Hunter, Orlando B. Lyons, Anthony R. Matusky, Edward A. Pfeiffer, [and] William E. Weston of the United States Armed Forces who gave their lives in World War II.”

The graves of these soldiers, who served during the two World Wars, are marked by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3054. The grave of Francis S. Hawkins, Tech. Sgt., 853 AAF Bomb Squadron, is also in the Caroline Church of Brookhaven graveyard, near the stone of Raymond Wishart, and it details his service. “The son of Everett Hawkins, the last miller in Setauket, and Celia Swezey was born in Setauket on June 18, 1911. He volunteered in the U.S. Army Air Force Sept. 24, 1942.

On Nov. 25, 1944 he gave his life to his country while on his 28th bombing mission over enemy lines, when his plane “The Moose” was shot down over Hanover and crashed near Gehrden, Germany.”

The graves of patriots who served in the Revolutionary War are not forgotten, either. There are thirty Patriot graves in the Three Village area that have been identified and marked with flags, including Anna Smith Nancy Strong, her husband Selah Strong and Culper Spy chief Abraham Woodhull. The graves are in eight separate graveyards, some of which are family burial grounds.

After ceremonies on the Setauket Village Green, units of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, fire departments and other community organizations parade each year to the Memorial Park in East Setauket for the final services of the day. The brief tribute honoring those who served, and especially those who died in the service of their country, is an experience that should be observed and renewed each year.

Beverly Tyler is the Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the Three Village Historical Society.

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Setauket Union Free School District No. 2, the “school on the hill.” Photo from Beverly Tyler

By Beverly C. Tyler

My previous article, on March 17, detailed the story of the Setauket Christian Avenue African-American and Native-American settlement and the oral histories collected by Stony Brook University professor Glenda Dickerson and her Theater Arts crew for the 1988 play and exhibit at the fine Art Center. At the time, the Three Village Historical Society produced a journal of the play and the oral histories collected which is now available as a PDF file. In 2014, the society developed and installed a new exhibit that detailed the Setauket/East Setauket area where Native-Americans, African-Americans, German-Americans, Irish-Americans and a new group of Eastern European immigrants lived and worked between 1861 and the first three decades of the 20th century.

This new exhibit, Chicken Hill, a Community Lost to Time, is an exploration of the life of the native and immigrant population in the half-mile surrounding the present 1870 Setauket Methodist Church. In 1861, the Nunns and Clark brick piano factory was erected southwest of the then 1843 Methodist Chapel. Nunns hired mostly German immigrants. It went out of business in 1857. The building became the Long Island Rubber Company in 1876 and soon hired a work force of mostly African- American and Irish workers. By 1888, the majority of workers were Eastern European Jewish workers with a flavoring of Eastern European Catholic workers as well as all the previous ethnic groups.

One of the dozen or more oral histories in the exhibit is by Helen Strelecki Bubka, who grew up on Chicken Hill. “One of my fondest memories was how the boys, Hubbell and his brother Beeb, came to help me. There was a boy living in town and he was pestering me. … I was just a young teenager and I was frightened of him. I found out later that Beeb and Hubbell went and told him to leave me alone. That’s how close the relationships were with our friends on Chicken Hill. … We all got along so well together, black, white, Jewish, Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, it didn’t make a difference what nationality or color we were. If you needed help, you could depend on all your neighbors; one way or another, somebody would come through and pitch in and help. If somebody was ill, they would take food to them, they would try to help in so many different ways, it was such a close knit community, and I think that’s my fondest memory.”

Helen Strelecki was one of several children of Samuel and Sophie Strelecki. She was born and raised in Setauket on the family farm on South Jersey Avenue. Her Polish mother and Russian father emigrated from Europe. Helen attended the Setauket School, on the hill, just east of the Setauket fire house and the VFW log cabin building. Helen said, “Lunch times, we all ran home to get our lunch and run back to school quick so that we could, you know, play ball or something during the time.”

The Setauket Union Free School District No. 2 opened in 1911 and brought together students from the three schoolhouses in West Setauket, East Setauket and South Setauket. There are many stories that came from the students who attended the school until it closed in 1951. Many of these stories are detailed in the Chicken Hill exhibit.

Beverly Tyler is the Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the Three Village Historical Society.

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A baseball game at Chicken Hill field. Photo from Beverly Tyler

By Beverly C. Tyler

“Seek out the spot where the Setalcott Indians first camped. They called it ‘land at the mouth of the creek.’ You’ll know when you come to it because you’ll be standing on Holy Ground. From there it’s an easy step to Christian Avenue.” — Glenda Dickerson

The first lines of the play about the Christian Avenue community, produced in 1988 at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, took us back to a time before recorded history in Setauket, a time when Indian family groups occupied all of Long Island.

These natives left no monuments to be remembered by, no changes that would permanently alter the landscape. As a result, we know very little about their lives. The archaeological remains discovered at the places where they worked, lived and died provide only scant clues.

When the English settlers first came to the “land at the mouth of the creek,” they brought with them their knowledge of how to change the land to make it conform to their patterns of life. They dammed the stream and built a gristmill. They built permanent homes, erected walls and fences, cleared the trees and planted grains, and they buried their dead with permanent stone markers. The early settlers also dealt in another kind of property; they bought and sold Black slaves.

The first recorded notation of slavery in the three villages is listed in the Town records of 1674. “Richard Floyd, of Setakett, sold the … Negro, named Antony, to John Hurd, of Stratford.” It is also recorded that Floyd had purchased Antony two years earlier from Robert Hudson of Rye.

This story of the arrival of black slaves into the Setauket community was detailed in June of 1988 for theatergoers who took a bus tour to the Christian Avenue Community as part of an evening that culminated with the exhibit and play “Eel Catching in Setauket.”

The bus tour took the “eel catchers” — theatergoers — to the Bethel A.M.E. Church on Christian Avenue, where they were given a short message about the church and the community and led in a song and a word of prayer. A tour of the Laurel Hill Cemetery was followed by a fellowship meal served by members of the Christian Avenue community in the Irving Hart Post American Legion Hall.

The “eel catchers’” bus ride back to the Fine Arts Center of the State University at Stony Brook included a tour of some of the locations in Setauket that are part of the oral history and folklore of the Christian Avenue community. Much of the oral history was preserved in the May 1988 Journal of the Three Village Historical Society, which was given to each “eel catcher.” In one oral-history interview, Violet Rebecca (Sells) Thompson brought the Christian Avenue community full circle to the first settlers on Long Island. “ … I went to school in Setauket Union School up on the hill — Education Hill. There were a lot of nationalities. I think we were the only Indians in there … we were the only Americans in the class. … The rest of the kids were Irish … Polish … Lithuanians, all from Europe.”

The play “Eel Catching in Setauket” was in the Fine Arts Center. The exhibits and photographs of the Christian Avenue community were placed all through the theater room and the “eel catchers” wandered through the exhibit viewing the artifacts of the community residents.

The play was a series of vignettes based on the collected materials, performed by eight actors and actresses under the direction of Glenda Dickerson. It took place in the center of the exhibit-theater and around the various exhibits while the “eel catchers” watched and listened to the drama unfold all around them.

The Three Village Historical Society exhibit, “Eel Catching in Setauket” and “A Living Library-The African-American, Christian Avenue Community,” was displayed in Brookhaven Town Hall during the month of February.

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