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YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

YALE
HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
MISCELLANY IX
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
FROM THE INCOME OF
THE FREDERICK JOHN KINGSBURY
MEMORIAL FUND

THE EVOLUTION OF
LONG ISLAND
A STORY OF LAND AND SEA

By
RALPH HENRY GABRIEL
Assistant Professor qf History
in Yale College

NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
MDCCCCXXI

tr\Vt

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

TO
C. D. G.

PEEFACE
The writer of the present pages is not a Long Islander.
It is with some hesitation, therefore, that he presents a
work of this nature to people whose lives have been spent
in that beautiful region. The study grew out of a prob-"
lem that arose in a seminary given by Dr. Isaiah Bowman,
when Assistant Professor of Geography in Yale Univer
sity. Professor Max Farrand suggested that the problem
be worked into a doctor's dissertation. Under the super
vision of these two men the dissertation was brought to
completion. Since the time of its submission to the fac
ulty of the Yale Graduate School, the work has been com
pletely revised. My thanks are due, not only to the two
men who with great generosity of time and suggestion
saw the study through its early stages, but to the authori
ties of the Yale University Library, the New York Public
Library, and the Long Island Historical Society. Mr.
H. V. Smith kindly allowed me to use notes that he had
collected on Long Island history. Professors Charles M.
Andrews and Allen Johnson have made many useful
suggestions. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the invalu
able help rendered by my wife, whose criticism, encour
agement, and practical assistance in the completion of
the manuscript and reading of proof have played a large
part in making possible the publication of this volume.

I. An Unfinished Play  15
II. The Struggle for Existence y . .23
III. The Influence of the Hinterland ... 34
IV. Variation and Adaptation .... 49
V. The Three- Year Voyage around the World . 63
VI. "Coots," "Water Witches," and English
Capitalists ..... 76
VII. Blue Points and Baymen .... 89
VIII. The Cost of Progress . . ... 96
IX. " Scallopers " and Fishermen . . . 106
X. Pirates, Smugglers, and the Navigation Acts 116
XI. Sea Trade and Shipbuilding . . .124
XII. Wars and Eumors of Wars . . .132
"XIII. The Passing of Mud  145
XIV. The "Pine Barrens" . . . .156
XV. The Discovery of the Out of Doors . . 166
XVI. The New Civilization . . . .175

THE PEOBLEM— A FOEEWOED
In this first half of the twentieth century the philosophy
of Carlyle no longer dominates. Few men today would
maintain, as did the famous transcendentalist, that
"Great men are the inspired (speaking and acting)
Texts of that divine Book op Bevelations, whereof a
chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some
named History." In our day we respect and honor the
"Hero" but we do not believe that the history of any
people can be summed up in the biographies of its great
men. Thinkers who came after Carlyle saw that the
activities of leaders could not satisfactorily explain the
development of a nation. They sought for a surer foun
dation upon which to build the framework of their
analyses. They found it in economic and social history,
and, for the last quarter of a century, the dominant trend
in historical writing and thinking has been in this direc
tion. It may be, however, that the pendulum has swung
too far away from the doctrines of the philosopher of the
last century. Perhaps, sometimes, we have lost sight of
the spirituality of men in the materialism of economics.
History, after all, is the story of the deeds of leaders.
If, however, that story of the leaders and their work be
not founded upon the silent, unheroic forces of evolution,
it is a house built upon the sands.
If it be true that the trend in present-day historical
writing and thinking has been toward the economic and
social explanation, it is also true that with this explana
tion men have, in the main, been content. We have traced
the development in the adaptations of peoples to their

12 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
social and economic environment, their cities, their indus
tries, and their customs, and have many times believed
that we had taken into account all the factors of evolution.
We have too often forgotten that literally underneath the
unfolding life of any people is the earth itself and the
great natural forces which play both with it and upon it.
This is the natural environment, the mountains, the
rivers, the sea, and all that complex of energy and matter
that makes up climate. If economics has explained many
a hitherto unsolved enigma, a study of this environment
will explain many more. Civilization has in no way
diminished man's ultimate dependence upon the earth.
The problem of the present study is to trace the de
velopment of a people as it has been affected, not only by
its social and economic, but by its natural surroundings.
Long Island is a definite entity, with boundaries fixed and
easily determined. On every side the sea washes its
shores. It is not, however, an oceanic island, isolated in
the midst of one of the broad seas. It is a fragment of
the North American continent, and its life is inextricably
intermingled with that of the greater land body. Lying
off the Atlantic coast of the United States it is, in reality,
a part of that eastern coast zone which stretches back
from the water's edge to the ridges of the Appalachians.
Like every such coastal region, it is a transition zone be
tween the two dominant forms of the earth's surface, the
land and the sea.
Long Island, however, is not a typical coastal area with
the sea on one side and the hinterland on the other. In
this region the influence of both of these factors is greatly
intensified. The ocean, literally surrounding the Island
and asserting its mastery in a multitude of coves, bays,,
and harbors, would seem to be in a fair position to domi
nate the life of the region. But Long Island is set down
in an unusual position. Three gateways open into the

^ THE PEOBLEM— A FOEEWOED 13
broad interior of America, the Mississippi, the St. Law
rence, and the Hudson-Mohawk valleys. The first is far
from Europe and the second is icebound during parts of
the year. It is the Hudson, the central gateway, there
fore, that, working through a system of lakes, canals, and
railways, taps the limitless resources of the heart of the
North American continent. It is this hinterland, acting
through the metropolis which it has created at the
entrance to the greatest of the three gateways, that con
tends with the encircling sea for the mastery of Long
Island. These are the giant gamesters that play at mov
ing hither and thither the kings, queens, castles, and
pawns in the great game that is still unfinished. The
story of this game is the problem of these pages.

CHAPTEE I
AN UNFINISHED PLAY
It was in an age when the sea was asserting its power and
making for the last time a wide extension of its dominions,
an age when the land was undergoing great readjust
ments that were ultimately to check the onslaught of the
oceans and to fix the boundaries of the continents, that the
foundations of Long Island were laid down. The story
began at the end of the Paleozoic era, that long period of
geologic ancient history, the close of which was marked
by a world-shaking revolution. It seemed as though the
earth were shrinking. The sea, which for millions of
years had covered a large part of North America, receded,
and an immense folding, to shorten the crust of the globe,
piled up in eastern America a mountain range with peaks
three miles and more in height. What is left of this range
is called the Appalachians. The place which is now Long
Island lay in the eastern foothills of this mountain sys
tem. There were no marks or boundaries to differentiate
it from the surrounding area. It was simply a tiny spot
in the interior of a broad land-mass.1
With the completion of the bowing up of the great
eastern ranges, the ancient Paleozoic times came to an
end and the middle ages, the Mesozoic era, were ushered
in. The Appalachian system, its foothills, and the broad
land-mass that lay to the east and west of it were attacked
by all the agencies of subaerial erosion. As the sculptor
i Pirsson and Schuchert, A Text-Book of Geology, pp. 748-749.

16 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
with tedious labor reduces the rough marble to smooth-l
ness, so the wind, rain, and rivers, working through thou
sands of centuries, base-leveled the great rock folds until
what had been one of the great mountain chains of history ;
took on the appearance of a rolling plain. On the west
this plain reached well into the interior of the continent,
and on the east, spreading beyond the old mountain area,
it stretched its flat slopes far into the present Atlantic.1
Over the slowly dissolving uplands roamed the creatures
of the Mesozoic, the saurians, reptiles great and small,
who ruled the earth, air, and ocean of those days.
There is no space here to describe the details of this
erosion process or the many significant events in the his
tory of the geologic middle ages. One episode, and that
at the very end, must suffice. The era of the Mesozoic
was brought to a close by a crustal disturbance second
only in intensity to that of the Appalachian revolution.
From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego the surface of the
earth was cracked and folded, the result of mighty strains
and stresses. When the tremors of the disturbance had
died away, the snow-capped ranges of the Cordilleras
stretched, as they do today, from the Arctic to the Antarc
tic.2 These earth-shaking forces which piled up the
Eockies made themselves felt in the east. The base-
leveled country, part of which had once been the Appa- ;
lachians, felt a heave from the northwest. Slowly and
steadily the broad plain, like a giant table, was tilted.
Its southeastern half sank below the waters of the At
lantic. Century after century, the sea crept westward
from beach to beach, until, at last, it stopped somewhere
near the eastern edge of the present Appalachians. The
i Pirsson and Schuehert, pp. 813, 814, 846, 849. The bulk of this erosion
took place during Jurassic time. The details of the Triassic and Jurassic
erosion cycles have been omitted.
2 Ibid., pp. 901-902.

AN UNFINISHED PLAY 17
place which was to become Long Island lay under water
a little way off shore.1
The differential tilting of the broad eastern plain lifted
up the broad core of the old worn-down Appalachian sys
tem.. Eejuvenated rivers began again to cut deep valleys
and to bring down to the sea loads of sediment from
the new uplands. As time passed, these uplands were
chiseled into the low, rounded, parallel ridges of folded
sedimentaries that characterize the Appalachians of our
times. It was this mountain mass that was destined to
make a deep impress upon the history of the people of
Long Island and of the eastern United States. The debris
from the mountain valleys, which was carried down by
ever flattening streams, was deposited as clays, sands,
and marls on that part of the rock surface of the old tilted
and partly sunken plain which now was the ocean bottom.
It was those sediments, laid down in the angle between
New Jersey and Connecticut, that were to become the
foundation of Long Island. While this deposition was
still going on, the Mesozoic era came to an end. The
reptilian evolution ceased with dramatic suddenness and
the dawn of the Cenozoic, the era of modern life, looked
down upon a world in which mammals held the strong
holds of their saurian predecessors. During the early
centuries of this rule of the mammals, the laying down
of the marine strata on the old tilted plain was completed.
With this, the first act in the drama of the making of Long
Island came to an end.2
The second act opened with a general vertical uplift of
the tilted and now well-dissected plain. Strata which had
been laid down on the ocean bottom were now lifted above
the level of the sea. The ocean receded and a new coast
1 Pirsson and Schuchert, p. 900 ; Fuller, The Geology of Long Island,
p. 193. 2 Fuller, p. 194; Pirsson and Schuchert, pp. 911-915, 927-942.

18 THE EVOLUTION 'OF LONG ISLAND
plain of soft and loosely consolidated materials sloped
gradually to the water's edge. As a shingle, laid to cover
the roof below it, is shaved to a thin edge at the top and
increases steadily in thickness to the bottom, so this
coast plain, thin on the north and west and growing
thicker as it approached the ocean, lay on the base-leveled .,
rock surface that had once been tilted below the sea. The
rivers which wound their ways across the older country
continued in a normal course across the new region.1
It is impossible to tell in detail the story of the result- [
ing erosion. South-flowing rivers, rising in New England,
crossed that part of the plain from which Long Island
was to be chiseled. East and west tributaries flowing
into these ate away the thin northern edge of the coast
plain. In this way the surface of Connecticut was
stripped of the sediments so recently uplifted. South of -
Connecticut, stream action began the creation of a depres
sion running east and west. Eiver courses developed and
changed, how or why no one exactly knows. But the
result is clear. A broad, shallow valley, draining ulti
mately to the east was formed in the place where Long
Island Sound now lies. One standing in its bottom and
looking southward would have seen a narrow line of low-
lying hills separating the valley from the sea. The hills
were to become Long Island. The depression was the
inner lowland that lies behind a cuesta.2 With the exca
vation of this Sound Valley and the consequent raising of
Long Island in bas-relief the second act of the drama
came to an end.
How changed was the stage setting for the next, great
scenes ! The- broad, green forests, full of birds and
i Fuller, p. 194; Bowman, Forest Physiography, p. 510. This uplift seems
to have been a complex of movements, the details of which are not all clear.
There was an uplift at the close of the Eocene and another at the beginning
of the Pliocene.
2 Bowman, pp. 509-510; Fuller, pp. 56-59.

AN UNFINISHED PLAY 19
animals, were gone. Even the rivers and valleys and
hills disappeared. In their place was a vast, bleak ex
panse of ice. Pinned beneath a boulder-shod ice sheet
that covered the northern half of the North American
continent lay the hills of Long Island and the newly
formed Sound Valley. Not once but four times did Long
Island feel the creep of these great glaciers. Hundreds
of years at a time the region lay underneath or. at the edge
of these ice masses loaded with rock and gravel that had
been picked up to the northward. When the warm sun of
a changing climate had driven the last of these, the Wis
consin Ice, toward the Arctics, it was possible to see what
had been done.1
The Sound Valley had been somewhat scoured out by
an early advance and slightly filled in by a later one. The
front of the third ice sheet had stood for a long time just
north of the western half of the range of Long Island
hills and had built them out, leaving them, upon its
retreat, with a steep scarp facing north. But the greatest
changes were made by the Wisconsin Ice. Twice this
broad glacier advanced its southern edge to the top of the
Long Island hills and stopped. Each time it built a high
ridge of terminal moraine. The first moraine extended
from the western part of the island to Montauk Point and
the second kept well to the north of Orient Point. And
south of each of these ridges sloped the gently dipping
sands and gravels of glacial outwash. The moraines
form the present hills of the region, the "backbone of
Long Island," in the language of its people. The outwash
plains make up the flat country covered sometimes with
prosperous farms but more often with stunted pine and
scrub oak.
With one more episode the story of the third act is com
plete. As a result of the changing elevations that
i Fuller, pp. 195-212.

20 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
occurred during the ice age the sea came in to fill not only
the Sound Valley but the low land between the eastern
termini of the Wisconsin moraines. The new Sound made
the hill country to the south of it an island, while Peconic
Bay split its eastern end into two long, roughly parallel
peninsulas. In this third act, Long Island, as a separate
entity, came into being.
At the opening of the last act, Long Island, again
covered with a mantle of forest, looked much as it does
today. In its outline it suggested a huge fish lying with
its blunt head at New York Bay and the two flukes of
its tail stretching to Orient and Montauk points. Its
greatest length must have been just over a hundred miles
and its greatest width a little less than a score. Through
the length of the Island ran the two morainic ridges.
South of them the broad, flat, outwash plains sloped grad
ually to an irregular coast line whence they dipped grad
ually beneath a shallow sea. On the north shore was an
abrupt escarpment, smooth and straight in the east but
indented, west of Port Jefferson harbor, with many deep
and sheltered fiords. It was this island that now began
to be shaped into its present form by wind and rain and
ocean. The wind has played its part, for Long Island is sandy.
Here and there in the level stretches of the interior
rounded hills can be found, old sand dunes now caught
and held by the roots of vegetation. In the Shinnecock
Hills these were active scarcely more than a century ago.
But on many parts of the bluffs of the north shore and
the exposed beaches of the south the dunes still drift as
the wind drives them, evidence that the form and surface
of Long Island are not yet fixed.1
It is the sea, however, that is playing the dominant part
in the present sculptoring of this fragment of the North
i Fuller, pp. 180-183.

AN UNFINISHED PLAY 21
American continent. The Wisconsin Ice had barely
receded when the waves began their attack on the
northern escarpment. In the east the assault was most *
effective. The constant undermining of the surf pushed
the scarp southward until, in places, the morainic ridge
has been cut through and the cross section of the outwash
apron laid bare. In the west many of the headlands have
been truncated and the material gathered by this erqsion
used to build sand bars, sometimes threatening to enclose
the mouths of harbors and often connecting small out
lying islands with the mainland. It is this constant
assault of the waves which has made and is yet making
the naked dirt cliffs of the north shore.1
Along the flat, irregular southern beach of glacial times
the situation has been quite different. As soon as the
Wisconsin Ice had gone, waves arid currents attacked the
southern side of the long Montauk peninsula with nothing
to shelter the beach from the full power of the Atlantic.
From Southampton to the Point, the land has been cut
back hundreds of yards and the fragments ground up in
the mill of the surf. This material taken from the Mon
tauk peninsula has been, and still is being, carried west
ward by the littoral currents which have used it to build
a series of long, narrow barrier beaches from Southamp
ton to Coney Island. Fire Island Beach, the longest of
these, stretches west from Southampton more than forty-
five miles to the Fire Island inlet, with an average width
of one-fourth of a mile. West of the inlet, Oak Island
Beach, Short Beach, Long Beach, and Eockaway Beach,
to mention only the more important, have been brought
about in the same fashion. It is these beaches, built up
by the westward-flowing littoral currents, that have
brought into being the enclosed waters of the south shore
— Shinnecock Bay, Moriches Bay, Great South Bay, and
i Bowman, p. 507.

22 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
the rest. The wrecks which line the outer sands of these
sand barriers are mute evidence of how different the quiet
life of the southern shore would have been without them.1
The curtain has never been rung down on this fourth
act of the great drama. Though the murmurs of the
primeval forests have given place to the noise of cities,
the play goes on. Though civilized men have lived upon
' the island for nearly three hundred years, the wind still
drives the dunes, the streams still carry the hills to the
sea, and the ocean still carves and remakes the shores at
will. It has not been given to man to control the elements.
His task hks been to take things as he found them, the
changing hills and plains and shores, and to adapt himself
as best he could to them. It is not strange, therefore, that
those factors which have played such fundamental parts
in the drama, the near-by continent, the Appalachians, the
rivers, and the sea, should guide and direct the evolution
of human life upon the Island. The elemental forces that
have been operating since the beginning of things on the
earth are still at work. It has been the task of the genera
tions of Long Island people, as of every other people, to
make true and sure their adjustments to the inevitable.
i Fuller, pp. 177-179.

CHAPTEE II
THE STEUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE
It was in the first half of the seventeenth century that a
few of the worthy Dutchmen from the little frontier trad
ing post on the southern tip of Manhattan Island, crossed ;
the East Eiver and laid out their boweries on the hills and
flats of the Breukelen region. These were the first civi
lized men and women to come to Long Island to live. Not
many years later small ships could have been seen at one
time and another carefully working their way around the
irregularities of the strange coasts of the eastern penin
sulas. Piles of goods surrounded by little knots of people
appeared on the beach, two on the straight shore line of
the southern side of the Montauk peninsula where the
ocean had been cutting back for centuries, and one on the
sheltered southern slope of the northern peninsula. The
names of the hamlets thus founded — Southampton, East
Hampton, and Southold — tell of their English origin.
Long Island lay between the Dutch holdings at New Am
sterdam and the English settlements of Massachusetts
Bay and the Connecticut Valley. The frontier periph
eries, steadily widening, finally touched the Island, and
both English and Dutch gained footholds in those parts
of the region nearest their important population centres.
For the Dutch, within sight of the little New Amster- v
dam fort, the adventure was not so hazardous, but for
those first small companies of Englishmen and New Eng
enders, who unloaded their belongings onto the beaches.
of the eastern peninsulas, the prospect must have been

24 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
awe inspiring. Behind them lay the ocean over which
they had come; before them, as far back from the shore
as they could see, stretched an unbroken forest. From
this they must wrest, by force and cunning, the means of
subsistence. These men and women stood face to face
with a struggle for existence in an environment un-
softened by the touch of .civilization. As was the case
among the primitive tribes of Indians, — their new neigh
bors, — the individual's penalty for failure was suffering
and perhaps death. The little piles on the beach must
have seemed scanty equipment, indeed, with which to
meet the problems that lay before them. Yet their lot
was no different from that of other pioneers. They found ¦
the same problems as did the Puritans of New England
or the settlers of the South.
It is not strange that these little pioneer companies
built their hamlets near the shore where were to be found
the only means of communication with the people and the
civilization they had left. Nor is it strange that they
developed at once a group organization to meet the diffi
culties of their situation. Stories are told of herds of
bison, in the old prairie days, that would make a circle,
back to back, a ring of horns to fight off their enemies of
the plains. From the same necessity, the early frontiers
men made groups so that they might stand together
against the dangers of the forest. Their cabins, huddled
together, were "fenced all around with pallissades or
long boards and closed with gates, which is advantageous
in case of attack by the natives. ,n As a community they
acquired their land and later parceled it out among the
individuals. Their laws were made at a meeting of all.
The village group became the strong point of offense and
defense in the struggle against the wilderness.2
i N. Y. Col. Boots., I, 368.
2 The lands at the end of the Montauk peninsula were owned in common

THE STEUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE 25
Their villages were laid out after the fashion of New
England. On either side of the central street straggled
the homes of the people, sometimes rude cabins quickly
thrown up, sometimes cellar-like pits, six or seven feet
deep, lined with something to prevent the caving of the
earth, and covered with a roof of bark or green sod.1
These were the homes of a people, not great and powerful,
but poor and often ignorant. Close to the cabins lay the
"Common," reserved for the use of all. Beyond this the
rest of the land was divided up from time to time among
the members of the company.2 As the seventeenth cen
tury wore on, such small, palisaded towns began to dot
the western end of the Island and to create a line of clear
ings along the fiord-indented northern shore. Gravesend,
Hempstead, Newtown, Huntington, Smithtown were, with
one or two exceptions, built near the water. In these
diminutive communities, visited by an occasional trading
ship, were laid the foundations of civilized life on Long
Island. The people of a later generation can only with the
greatest difficulty picture the world that surrounded these
little isolated groups of pioneers. The village herdsman
in caring for the animals of the community had to contend
with predatory wildcats and wolves.3 More important
than the forest animals, however, were the Indians. Thir
teen tribes living on Long Island kept the possibility of
an Indian war always before the eyes of the householder.
As the village groups of the white men grew larger and
by the first settlers of East Hampton. Common ownership by the de-
-scendants of the first proprietors continued until 1879, one of the most
remarkable cases in American land records. Jameson, Magazine of American
History, IX, 225-239.
i N. T. Col. Docts., I, 368.
2 For typical cases, see Huntington Records, I, 110; East Hampton
Records, IV, 17-27, 64-81, 96-110.
s Hempstead Records, I, 88 ; N. F. Col. Docts., VI, 161.

26 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
more numerous, the competition of life between the two
races became more keen. The hamlets with their pali
sades developed into military outposts. In 1643, the storm
broke over the Dutch settlements on the western end of
the Island. "Coming next to Long Island: It also is
stripped of people and cattle, except a few insignificant
places over against the main, which are about to be aban
doned. The English who have settled among us have not
escaped. They too except at one place are all murdered
and burnt. Staten Island ... is unattacked as yet but
stands hourly expecting an assault. ' n It was with reason,
therefore, that all trees were felled within gunshot range
of the palisades, and that every male between sixteen and
sixty years of age was required to furnish himself with a
gun and sword, a pound of powder, several "fathom of
match, ' ' and a supply of flints and bullets. Training days
were common. East Hampton was not many years old
when the actions of the Indians roused among the vil
lagers the suspicion that the Dutch, jealous of English
encroachments, were stirring up the red-skins. The town
meeting promptly decreed that no Indian was to set foot
within the village gates. Should one approach in the
darkness, the watch was ordered to shoot the interloper
if he did not halt on the third "stand."2 In 1657, the
general court of Connecticut, sent the doughty Captain
John Mason with nineteen men to the outlying settlement
of Southampton "to consider of all matters and things
whatsoever, that may appear necessary to be attended
to" with regard to "several insolent injuries and in
sufferable outrages committed ... by some Indians of
Long Island. ' '3 It was in the face of such a menace, when
i N. T. Col. Docts., I, 190.
2 East Hampton Records, I, 31.
s Quoted from the records of a general court sitting at Hartford, May 15,
1657, by B. F. Thompson, History of Long Island (third ed.), II, 153-154.

THE STEUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE 27
the snapping of a twig was an ominous sign, that the
small, ill-equipped pioneer groups commenced and car
ried on their battle to subdue the wilderness.
Pressing as was the problem of defense, that of sub
sistence was greater. In view of this fact it is not without
significance, that most of the pioneer villages were built
within sound of the surf. Not one of these early towns
was many miles inland. The ocean, aggressively grind
ing back the cliffs of the north shore and the beaches of
the Montauk peninsula, held the hamlets of the pioneers
close to the sand, not simply because the sea was the only
means of communication with the outer world, but because
it was rich in useful products. Clams abounded and eels \
were found in the shallow waters of the creeks and
marshes. People of the west end gathered oysters in the
sheltered coves of the southern beaches. The great
schools of menhaden which from time to time filled the
bays and harbors of the whole region furnished bait for
the fishing farther out. Off Sandy Hook and off Montauk
were cod banks. There were times in the latter half of
the seventeenth century when "most of the vessells" to
and from Virginia paused to "take good quantityes . . .
of excellent good Codd" not many leagues south of Eock-
away. Jealously guarded from poaching strangers were
all these sources of food supply. Making laws to govern
the taking of the products of the creeks and bays gave
zest to many a town meeting.
It was at the eastern end of the Island, however, that
the pull of the sea was strongest. In the heavy surf off
the Hamptons many an unwary whale was stranded.
Almost with their arrival the settlers divided the beach
into sections and designated men in each to cut up the
whales that were washed in. Not long, however, did these
people depend on such accidents. Before many years
they were establishing on the sand dunes lookouts who

28 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
scanned the sea for the familiar black hulk and geyser-like
spouting. Whenever one of these denizens of the deep
nosed his way in sufficiently close to shore, the alarm was
sounded. From wherever they might be the people of the
villages came scurrying to the beach, where they put off
in small boats to capture the quarry and bring it in. The
whale oil from the catches passed for currency through
out the Island and in the trade with Boston.1
Important as were the products of the sea, however,
the time had not yet come when permanent establish
ments could be founded on them alone. The sea could not
carry the settlers beyond the collection stage and the
hunting stage in the development of their civilization.
The hazards were too great. If the whites were to sur
pass their red-skinned competitors, they must advance to
the agricultural stage and found their homes on cleared
fields and cultivated soil.
The first adventurous men who built their villages on
Long Island bays and beaches were, of necessity, men of
many occupations — soldiers, hunters, fishermen, oyster-
men, whalers, and, with all the rest, farmers. There was
little division of labor. Every family tried to get a living
by taking advantage of all the opportunities that offered.
The main dependence of these people, however, was on
their crops and their animals. The civilization of Long
Island, as of all the English settlements in North Amer
ica, was founded on agriculture. Before farming could
begin the forest must be invaded.
It is hard to realize what the subduing of the woods
meant to a little group of these pioneers. They had none
of the saws, the stump pullers, and the dynamite of our
day. Their weapons were only two, the axe and the grub
bing hook. Besides these they made use, as the Indians
i For more complete accounts of fishing in colonial times, see chapters
V, VI, VII, and IX.

THE STEUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE 29
did, of fire. It was the custom of the villagers every
spring to burn over the woods in the immediate locality.
The matter would be taken up in the town meeting, a day
would be set, and two or three men named to have charge
of the work. Every citizen was obliged, under penalty of
fine, to turn out and assist.1 With the "firing" of the
woods the activities of the group, as such, ceased. The
remainder of the task of clearing away the trees and
underbrush from his fields was the problem of the indi
vidual landholder. It was slow and tedious work. ' ' The
trees are usually felled from the stuihp, cut up and burnt
in the fields, except such as are suitable for buildings, for
pallissades, posts and rails. ... In most lands is found
a certain root called Eed Wortel, which must before
ploughing be extirpated with a hoe, expressly made for
that purpose. This being done in the winter, some plough
right around the stumps, should time or circumstance not
allow them to be removed. . . . The farmer having thus
begun must endeavor every year to clear as much new
land as he possibly can. . . . "2 This great outlay of time
and labor was the price the pioneer paid for his farm.
The "farm management" of these early settlers on the
shores of Long Island was an ingenious adaptation to the
exigencies of their situation. They needed capital,
houses, barns, cleared land, domestic animals, and tools, —
in short, energy stored up against the struggle for exist
ence. To acquire a sufficient amount of this capital to
make their little establishments permanent was the work
of years, during which the rough tables of the small
cabins must be supplied with provisions. Some of the
food came from the creeks, the bays, and the sea, but this
supply was not assured. Men with families dependent
i East Hampton Records, I, 17; Huntington Records, I, 111-112; Smith-
town Records, p. 94.
2 N. ¥. Col. Docts., I, 367.

30 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
upon them found it necessary to utilize the scanty re
sources of the very woods they were destroying. They
became herdsmen as well as farmers. Their animals
foraged among the trees under the watchful eye of the
village "cow keeper." From these herds and flocks the
frontier families obtained materials for their simple
clothing and food for their tables. From Gravesend to
Southold herds of cattle could everywhere be found.1
The Hempstead Plains, a little natural prairie in the
midst of the forest, were rich in them. The blunt end of
the Montauk peninsula, fenced in by the surf, was covered
with the animals of the East Hampton villagers. Besides
cattle, small flocks of sheep, raised for their wool, could
be seen throughout the Island, pasturing on the "com
mons" or foraging in the woods. In the eastern settle
ments, goats grazed with the sheep.2 These two, however,
both ill fitted to fight the necessary battle for existence
against the wolves and the wildcats, never became very
plentiful. The same was not true of the swine, slab-sided,
long-legged, fleet, razorbacks. These animals, living on
the nuts under the trees, were a factor of the greatest
importance in the primitive economy of the pioneer
farmer. "The hogs, after having picked up their food
for months in the woods, are crammed with corn in the
fall ; when fat they are killed and furnish a very hard and
clean pork; a good article for the husbandman who grad
ually and in time begins to purchase horses and cows with
the produce of his grain and the increase of his hogs, and
instead of a cellar as aforesaid, builds good houses and
barns."3
iN. ¥. Col. Docts., I, 285; II, 433; East Hampton Records, I, 23, 28;
Jamaica Records, I, 6, 8.
2 East Hampton Records, I, 16, 32, 47; Huntington Records, II, 411, 515;
Hempstead Records, I, 100.
= N. Y. Col. Docts., I, 368 ; Hempstead Records, I, 16, 91, 123 ; Smithtown
Records, p. 99.

THE STEUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE 31
At the same time that his animals were growing more
plentiful with little effort to himself, the settler's slowly
broadening fields were planted to crops. Corn, rye, and
wheat seem to have been the earliest grains. Soon flax
was added, together with barley, buckwheat, oats, and, in
a few places, tobacco. In the fertile fields of the western
settlements gardens flourished. Potatoes and water
melons "with all sorts of pot-herbs, principally parsnips,
carrots and cabbage" brought "plenty into the husband
man 's dwelling. ' 'x
The "farm management,'! therefore, of the pioneer
was, in its general outlines, very simple. Isolated from
practically all markets, he had to support his family with
very little help from outside. He needed food, clothing,
and capital. To gain these he carefully balanced two
complementary types of industry, the raising of animals
and the tilling of the soil. He united on one farm the
pastoral and the agricultural stages of the arts. His
¦ acres not only supplied the needs of his household but
furnished him with most of the articles of the currency
of the region — beef, pork, wheat, rye, and whale oil.2
Aided by his wife and his boys and girls, the adventurer
who had perhaps started life in a cellar, with nothing save
a few tools and animals, could by dint of hard work and
careful planning lay the foundations for an establishment
both self-sufficient and permanent.*
In the dual economy of the early pioneer it was inevi
table that the ox should play a leading part. Like the
i N. Y. Col. Docts., I, 267, 368 ; VI, 122-123 ; Jasper Danckaerts, Journal
(1679-80), pp. 169, 230; William Smith, History of New York (1756), I,
272. 2 Huntington Records, I, 161, 239.
s Large families were of great assistance in solving the problem of labor.
Governor Dongan reported: "In this country there is a Woman yet alive
from whose loins there are upwards of three hundred and sixty -persons now
living." N. Y. Col. Docts., Ill, 391.

32 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
rest of the animals, the tough and hardy ox could forage
for its living. Like the flocks of sheep and droves of
swine, it was valuable at any time as a food product. The
ox fitted perfectly into the animal husbandry of the
pioneer herdsman. At the same time there could be no
tilling of the soil and raising of crops without this same
slow and powerful beast to draw the plough and cart.
The animal had, therefore, a double value, one for each
half of the dual economy which characterized the agricul
ture of the early settlements. The horse could be of
service to but one of these. It was too specialized for the
agricultural development of the day. Until the introduc
tion of new conditions should give this fleeter and more
intelligent animal an opportunity to show its superiority;
the ox was to remain the most important source of power
for the farmers of America.
With the passing of the seventeenth century, the period
of the primitive struggle for existence in a new and un
touched environment began to come to an end. The tiny
villages of the settlers increased in size and, at the
western end of the Island near the infant city of New
York, new ones were built farther and farther from the
shore. Trading ships moored at the crude docks were no
longer a rarity. They came to the fiords of the north
shore and the sheltered coves of the south, sometimes for
legitimate trade but often to flout the navigation acts of
England and smuggle illegal stores into the province of
New York. The contact with the outer world caused a
new life to pulse in the village settlements. In those com
munities where every man had been a jack-of-all-trades a
division of labor appeared. Some put to sea as sailors
or whalers. In the villages weavers, hatters, tailors, brick-
makers, blacksmiths, carpenters, cord wainers, and
coopers reflected the changing life. Merchants and "tap
sters" bespoke the origin of commercial enterprise

THE STEUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE 33
doctors marked an improvement in the standard of liv
ing.1 It was during this period that the farmer, dependent
solely on the land for his support, came into being. Grist
mills, driven by wind and tide and small streams, relieved
him of much labor and enabled him to handle larger
crops.2 The opening of markets caused the breakdown of
self-sufficient agriculture. In the eighteenth century
wheat from Long Island poured into New York to be
shipped to the sugar-producing islands of the West
Indies. With the appearance of the new division of labor and
the disappearance of the primitive struggle for existence,
the unfolding life of the people of Long Island became
more and more complex. To understand the evolution
that followed, it is necessary to separate the various
strands that are woven together to make the whole fabric.
Only in the separate stories of the farmers, the whalers,
the oystermen, and the rest are to be found the elements
that make up the whole.
i Jamaica Records, II, 74; Huntington Records, I, 268, 393; II, 448;
H. P. Hedges, History of East Hampton, p. ,79.
2 Southold Records, I, 212 ; Huntington Records, I, 98 ; II, 14, 87, 100.

CHAPTEE III
THE INFLUENCE OF THE HINTEELAND
Physiography, climate, and location have all combined to
make Long Island a farming country. The hills of glacial
moraine and much of the outwash plains, covered for
centuries with forest mould, offer a rich soil to the hus
bandman. A mild, maritime climate brings the spring
earlier and holds the autumn later than in the interior.
The great city at the entrance to the Hudson-Mohawk
gateway offers a market without equal in America. Natu
ral and societal forces, therefore, have made agriculture
the basis for Long Island's civilization. In spite of the
fact that the sea has pushed its influence to every cross-
roads? it has had less influence than the great hinterland
in controlling the development of Long Island farming.
The story of the farmer on this offshore island is closely
bound up with that of the mainland, for the evolution of
agriculture on the larger land-mass has dominated that
on the smaller. Yet, with all this domination, Long
Island has never lost its individuality. Its own develop
ment has never been lost in that of the whole.
The close of the long war of the Eevolution ushered in
a new era for American farming. Forces which had been
occupied solely in the winning of the conflict were now
freed to assist in the task of creating a nation out of the
fragments that the war had left. Among the men who, in
the critical years after the war, became prominent in the
upbuilding of the political and economic life of America,
was a small group who were convinced that "it is in a

INFLUENCE OF THE HINTEELAND 35
spirited and flourishing husbandry that the soundest
health and comfort of nations is to be found." In days
when more than three-quarters of the American people
were farmers, and yet when American agriculture was so
bad as to be the subject of the sharpest criticisms from
practically all observers, this group of men believed that
national and individual greatness had its best foundation
on the soil. ' ' Those who seek- for personal distinction in
our government, and those who from disinterested and
virtuous inclinations, perform duties the most honorable
to themselves, and beneficial to society, will find the most
solid popularity and durable fame in measures promotive
of the interests of agriculturists ; who compose the great
body of the people. ' n It was this pioneer group of agri
cultural thinkers who were destined to set in motion an
evolution of the greatest importance. Yet, if it had been
suggested to any small farmer, following his plough over
his Long Island farm, that he was witnessing the begin
ning of a great agrarian awakening, he would have smiled
and urged on his dawdling oxen.
At the close of the eighteenth century, the hinterland of
Long Island was a long, narrow strip of settled country,
reaching roughly from the Potomac to New England. Its
width was little greater than the distance from the sea to
the Appalachian barrier. A traveler among the people of
this region would have noticed that practically all were
farmers, and that the important unit in the economic life
of this region was the little rural hamlet of perhaps a few
hundred inhabitants. As he traveled from place to place
over unimproved roads and forest trails, he would have
observed that the farms of this hinterland were divisible
roughly into three types, each widely differentiated from
the other, and only when he had seen and studied these
types, would he have been able to understand the signifi-
i Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, Memoirs, I, preface.

36 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
cance of the life and development in the small farming
villages that dotted the Long Island shore.
At the western border of the hinterland was the fron
tiersman, chopping his way into the forest beyond the
Appalachians. Eough, weather-beaten, and independent,
he was little different from his forerunner who, a century
and a half before, had attacked the forests on the shores
of Massachusetts Bay or Peconic Bay. He had discarded
the awkward matchlock for the more modern flintlock but,
otherwise, his tools and methods and problems were prac
tically the same as those of the first settlers. His was the
same isolated struggle for existence in an untouched
environment. He girdled his trees and destroyed his
timber lavishly. He "stubbed in" his crops, with no
thought of rotation, until virgin soil became so exhausted
that it would produce little but sorrel. Year after year
the roads and the trails brought to his neighborhood a
flood of new people, the ambitious and the luckless, the
shiftless and the thrifty, from the older regions. With
them came the foreigner. On the frontier mingled the
American and the European, the reputable and the dis
reputable, the intelligent and the ignorant, a mixture of
discordant elements bound together by the ties of a com
mon lot and the frontier dreams of the future greatness
of their section.1
As a prairie fire works its way across the plains and
leaves behind a wake of charred and blackened stubble,
so the frontier, pushing its eventful life steadily west
ward, left behind the dull listlessness and the impover
ished fields of the back country. It was on the farms of
this back country, covering county after county in the
i For contemporary accounts of the farming methods on the frontier see:
J. B. Bordley, Essays and Notes on Husbandry and Rural Affairs (1799),
pp. 448-449; The Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, Memoirs,
I, preface.

INFLUENCE OF THE HINTEELAND 37
interior of Pennsylvania, New York, and New England,
that American farming could be seen at its worst. Long
miles of almost impassable roads and trails lay between
these farms, exhausted by years of ignorant or heedless
cultivation, and the markets of the coast cities. Only the
lightest products, of which whiskey was the most common,
could cover the journey with profit. There was but slight
incentive to improve the worn soil, when any material
increase in crops, beyond what the farmer and his family
could consume, must rot in his barn for want of a pur
chaser. From the enervating stagnation of these inland
communities many men, plunged into debt, saw but slight
prospect of extricating themselves. To such people ' ' stay
laws," to ward off for a time the demands of creditors,
or a cheap paper currency, which would enable them to
return to the money lender less value than they had
received, offered the easiest ways out of the dilemma.
Practically the only alternative was emigration to the
frontier. It may be that the group of leaders near the
coast who were initiating the science of agriculture were
stimulated in their efforts partly by a fear of what this
numerous debtor element might do. If this be true, the
attempt was ill-advised. On the scrubby, badly managed,
and practically self-sufficient farms of the back country
there could be no progress until canals or improved roads
brought them within the invigorating influence of a
market.1 Long Island, at the end of the eighteenth century, was
not a part of the back country. Its fields and meadows
made up an important portion of that narrow zone within
reach of markets which stretched, with few interruptions,
1 The best analysis of the life and the agriculture of the back country is
to be found in P. W. Bidwell, "Bural Economy in New England at the
Beginning of the Nineteenth Century," Transactions of the Connecticut
Academy of Arts and Sciences, XX, 241-399.

38 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
along the shore of the sea and drove reentrant angles
inland along the banks of navigable rivers. The region
was as wide as the limit allowed for the hauling of miscel
laneous farm products by ox-drawn or horse-drawn vehi
cles. For the people of this zone the ocean was the great
highway. To and from New York, along the shores of
Long Island, plied fleets of sturdy little sailing vessels,
which put into the harbors and bays and moored at the
docks of the shore villages or, as often, at the "landings"
on creeks and coves that lay between. The docks and the
"landings" were the centres to which the farmers hauled
their produce. Here their loads were piled aboard the
small crafts to be taken to New York and sometimes to
Boston. At the end of the eighteenth century, therefore,
the sea which had dominated the life of the early Long
Island settlements was still a controlling factor and,
throughout the greater part of the region, profoundly
influenced the basic industry of the people.1
Though the countryside of Long Island had changed
with the passing years since pioneer times, its farming
methods had altered but little. If one could have visited
the little hamlets of Hempstead, Huntington, Southold,
or the rest, at the end of the eighteenth century, he would
have found establishments quite typical of the Atlantic
seaboard. The farms, one hundred or one hundred and
fifty acres in size, were fenced with rails or posts. There
were no stone walls, as in New England, but in some
places where timber was scarce, could be seen the hedges
of old England. Over the pastures grazed herds of flat-
sided, mongrel cows, more distinguished for their hardi
ness than for their beef or dairy products. But the
farmers fattened them and were satisfied. To these
animals the "rat tailed" sheep of colonial lineage formed
fitting companions. The Hempstead Plains, the Shinne-
i For a more complete account of this sea trade, see chapters X and XI.

INFLUENCE OF THE HINTEELAND 39
cock Hills, and the blunt end of the peninsula of Montauk
furnished ranges of exceptional value. Eastern Long
Island was, at that time, probably better stocked with
cattle and sheep than any of the neighboring farming
country in either New York or New England. Growing
on the fields of the farms could be found such staple crops
as wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, flax, and the common
grass which was cut for hay. The yields were not large,
because an impoverished soil, inherited from colonial
times, was scratched with shallow and unlevel furrows
and constantly drained by an exploitative crop rotation.
Moreover, the Hessian fly ravaged widely in the wheat
fields. When this crop failed, the farmers in desperation
began putting a little manure or some menhaden fish on
their wheat ground, but that was, in general, the extent
of fertilization.
The tools of the Long Islander of those days, often
clumsy and ill-contrived, were the same that Englishmen
had used from the Middle Ages. He could have carried
practically all of them on his back save the spike-toothed
harrow, the awkward cart, and the Brobdingnagian
wooden plough. Most of the grain was cut with the
sickle, of long and honorable history, and all was threshed
on the threshing floor with the flail, or beaten out by the
hoofs of horses and oxen. The threshed grain was hauled
to the tide mill or to one of the picturesque, great-armed
windmills that dotted the eastern end of the Island. The
"grist" which jolted homeward was the product of the
summer's labor transformed into provisions for the bleak
months of winter. The farm still produced most of the
things that the farmer's family needed — food, fuel, and
clothing. Some of his grain and animals, however, he
took to the nearest "landing" and shipped to market.
The income, thus derived, brought a meagre prosperity,
which neither the frontier nor the back country knew.

40 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
The simplicity and the quiet of these Long Island farming
communities, most of them sequestered from the more
active world, tended to make these people more attentive
to what was their own and gave their customs, especially
those which had come down from their ancestors, a com
manding influence on their conduct. Among such people
the "new f angled" notions of scientific agriculture could
meet with only a slow and unwilling acceptance.1
The time for a step forward, however, was almost at
hand. A type of farming, developed to meet the primitive
needs of the pioneers, was proving ill-adjusted to the new
environment of cities and markets. As a result of the
discomforts of this maladaptation came the first steps of
progress. It was not, however, the man who held his own
plough to the furrow who made the earliest attempts
toward the improvement of agriculture, for the small
farmer who, in the fall of the year, drove his "grist" to
the neighboring windmill, had neither the leisure nor the
capital for study and experimentation. Moreover, his
judgments were narrowed and warped by superstitions,
handed down from father to son for generations. If the
man of the soil was unable to originate new methods,
neither had the state yet been brought to see the necessity
for supporting agricultural experimentation. There were
no nonproducing agriculturists, maintained at public ex
pense, such as are now found in the agricultural college
or the department of agriculture. Agricultural science,
therefore, could only begin under the leadership of men
who had both capital and leisure. Such men must have a
knowledge of farming at home and abroad and time
i New York Society for the Promotion of Arts, Agriculture, and Manu
factures, Transactions (1795), I, 44, 136, 238, 232-233, 240; Bordley, pp. 37,
67, 140-141, 200-203, 335-336; Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agricul
ture, Memoirs, I, preface; SpafEord, Gaeatteer of the State of New Yorh
(1813), pp. 138, 187, 195. (The New York Agricultural Society will here
after be referred to as Transactions.)

INFLUENCE OF THE HINTEELAND 41
enough for study. They were not plentiful in the new
country. Scattered here and there throughout the farming coun
try were to be found, at the close of the eighteenth cen
tury, the homes of the gentlemen-farmers, the American
Sir Eoger de Coverleys. Among them were the planter
of the South, the manorial lord, descended from the old
Dutch patroons of the Hudson Valley, and the man" of
commercial or professional prominence in the larger
towns who signalized his success by the acquisition of an
estate. They formed a group of high-spirited agrarian
aristocrats, many of whom were conspicuous in the found
ing of the new nation, and they gave a prestige to farm
ing and a prominence to agricultural problems scarcely
rivaled at any later time. Crops, as well as politics, were
discussed in the gossip of the best circles. America was
distinctly a .farmer nation. Here and there, in this aris
tocracy stood out a man, so interested in his calling as to
be willing to devote much of his time and energy to the
improving of his own fields and the spreading of the gos
pel of better farming. These men made up the group that
laid the foundations of agricultural science in America.
The Eev. Jared Eliot, a member of the New England
theocracy, was the voice crying in the wilderness prepar
ing the way for the movement to come. His Essays on
Field Husbandry in New England, first written in 1749
and published in collected form in 1760, made up the first
important agricultural treatise to appear in the new
country. The pioneers who followed Eliot, after the close
of the American Eevolution, formed a group of remark
able men. General Washington, owner of ten thousand
acres on the Potomac, was the first farmer of his day.
The friend and correspondent of many of the agricultural
leaders and the originator of many improvements on his
own acres, he would probably have been the foremost

42 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
figure in the new movement had his countrymen per
mitted. As it was, the great influence of his name sup
ported and aided the work of others. Neighbor to Wash
ington on the other bank of the Potomac was John B.
Bordley, living at Wye, a lawyer-planter, and a former
judge of the provincial admiralty court. Familiar with
the work of the leaders of agricultural thought in Eng
land, he tried to bring their conclusions to the attention of
Americans. . After editing Forsythe on Fruit Trees and
writing a number of special studies, he published one of
the most complete and sound agricultural treatises thus
far issued, Essays and Notes on Husbandry and Rural"
Affairs. In 1794, together with Eichard Peters of Phila
delphia, he was engaged in an unsuccessful attempt to
induce the state of Pennsylvania to organize a state agri
cultural society. Peters, the other man interested in the
effort, a leader of the Philadelphia bar and a United
States circuit judge, was long a close friend and corre
spondent of General Washington. For years he was
president of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting
Agriculture. His essays, more than a hundred in number,
covering practically every phase of agricultural research,
published in the Memoirs of that society, form the great
contribution made by that organization to the advance of
agricultural knowledge.
It was but natural that Long Island, one of the most
important farming sections of the day, should furnish a
member to this group of agrarian leaders. Ezra L'Hom-
medieu was a New York lawyer and a Long Island farmer.
During the Eevolution he represented his state in the
Continental Congress. He was one of the two leaders in
the New York agricultural society and published in its
Transactions a large number of able papers setting forth
the results of his investigations and experiments. To the
north of Long Island, in New England, Colonel David

INFLUENCE OF THE HINTEELAND 43
Humphries, at one time ambassador to Spain, rose to
agricultural prominence for his flock of merino sheep, the
nucleus of which he obtained from the Iberian Peninsula
during the Napoleonic wars. Greatest of the group, how
ever, and dean of the new school of agricultural thought,
was Chancellor Eobert Livingston of the Hudson Valley.
Jurist, statesman, and ambassador, Livingston seems to
have found his greatest interest in farming. He was the
dominant figure in the New York Society for the Promo
tion of Arts, Agriculture, and Manufactures. On his
great farm were carried on all manner of experiments.
His barns sheltered the best animals that he could obtain.
In his office were letters and literature relating to almost
every phase of agriculture. His pen was constantly being
called upon to turn out many papers and treatises setting
forth his theories, experiments, and conclusions. Living
ston, like every one of his colleagues, was a man of dis
tinction in a field other than farming. Although each did
much in other lines of activity, it was their joint efforts
that started one of the most important movements in
American history. They were not alone. Other men
worked with them. They were, however, the leaders, the
pioneers who blazed the trail to better things.
The experience of these men was not limited to the hap
penings of their local parishes. They approached their
task with a broad vision. All were familiar with the work
of the English leaders, Tull, Bakewell, Townshend, and
Arthur Young. Some of them had connections and corre
spondents in England. They drew their inspiration from
the profound agricultural revolution that was bringing
such changes to the farms of their late enemies. This
British revolution was of the greatest importance in
starting the new era in America.1
i Bordley, pp. 386, 567; Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture,
Memoirs, I, preface.

44 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
The ambitious projects of the American pioneers were
as wide as agriculture itself. The small farmer sowed his
cereals year after year with no idea that there were any
other crops worth raising. Livingston and the others
made an attempt to bring to the western shore of the
Atlantic the root crops, beets and turnips, that were in
vogue in England, and thus add a new element to the
American rotation. Moreover, Livingston coveted the
fame of introducing into the young nation lucern, later
famous as alfalfa. He lived to see his effort crowned with
a mild success. The American leaders strove to interest
the small farmers in timothy and, particularly, in the
"ameliorating" clover grasses that created "artificial"
meadows to take the place of the scrubby lots of common
grass. New plants, however, were not all. This first
school of experimenters began the attempt, which has
continued for more than a century, to raise the standards
of American livestock. The mongrel cattle and the razor
backed swine came up for consideration. New breeds,
usually of large cattle, began to be introduced from
Europe. Interest centred, however, in sheep. The Na
poleonic wars that' gradually cut off America from Euro
pean wool and cloth also broke up the Spanish cabanas.
Both Livingston and Humphries brought Spanish me
rinos to their farms and started flocks of blooded sheep.
Peters built up his flock in part from Barbary mountain
stock. Others followed their example. High wool prices
gave sheep-raising an importance, that diffused the new
blood widely through the old "rat tailed" flocks. The
growing of wool and the weaving of woolen cloth became
permanent industries in America, and Livingston and
Humphries were recognized as the two leading experts
on American sheep culture.
The advocates of the new agriculture, however, were
not content merely with the introduction of new crops and

INFLUENCE OF THE HINTEELAND 45
animals. They struck at the root of the evil, the dissipa
tion of soil fertility. They knew practically nothing of
soil chemistry. Their conclusions were all empirical. On
this foundation, however, they built solidly. An effort
was made to do away with the soil scratching of the ordi
nary farmer. ' ' Trench ploughing, ' ' with furrows at least
ten inches deep, was experimented with and encouraged.
Although the concept of humus had not been developed,
the value of manure fertilizer was recognized. The work
of L'Hommedieu and Bordley on the conservation and
use of this product of the barnyard has been superseded
by later men in but few particulars. L'Hommedieu, on
account of the peculiarities of his Long Island neighbor
hood, went further. He gathered and published a con
siderable body of information relative to the use of men
haden fish for fertilizing purposes. For a number of
years the farmers of the coast region had been applying
gypsum or "land plaster" to their fields. Peters and
Livingston independently made extensive studies of this
calcareous fertilizer and both published conclusions
favorable to its use. It was Bordley, however, more than
any other, who went to the heart of the matter. In un-
softened language he condemned the usual three field
rotation of "maize, wheat or rye, and spontaneous rub
bish pasture" or the four field type of "maize, naked
fallow, wheat, and the like mean pasture. ' ' He demanded
that farmers adopt a six or seven year rotation and that
they build it around the legumen clover. Neither Bordley
nor any of his colleagues knew that the legumens added
nitrogen to the soil. They only knew that clover and
lucern left the land better for having been raised. ' ' The
man who manures the whole of his arable fields" and who
does not shy at clover on account of the cost of the seed
and the labor of raising it "will accomplish a great ob
ject, tending highly to his domestic comfort, his reputa-

46 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
tion, and his independency of creditors." No one, even
in these days of the high development of the science of
agriculture, can turn the yellow pages of the publications
of these pioneer agriculturists without being struck by
the clearness of their perception of the needs of the times
and the sanity of the remedies they proposed. Their
vision was broad and their purpose above reproach. "Let
us cultivate the ground, that the poor, as well as the rich,
may be filled ; and happiness and peace be established
throughout our borders. ' n
These pioneer experimenters labored under no illusions
as to the attitude of the common farmer toward their
work. They were of the cynical opinion that men of this
class were "much more attached to their old customs
than the people of other professions. ' ' The fog of super
stition, the pride which prevented a man from admitting
that other methods were better than his own, and the "de
grading and shameful" excess of the crossroads tavern
were all recognized as obstacles in the way of improve
ment. Nevertheless, they set themselves to the task of
combating these things. They wrote books. They tried
to interest their neighbors in the experiments on their
farms. They organized societies, not in the country
where the time for them had not yet come, but in cities,
anxious to further their own interests by bettering the
farming in their immediate environs. These societies
published articles in the press and, from time to time,
issued collections of theoretical and practical papers.
They also offered premiums for a wide range of agricul
tural improvements. The leavening of the mass, however,
was slow. The press did not reach all men and those
interested in the formal papers of the Transactions must
have been few. The bounties of the city societies seem
frequently to have been ignored by the sturdy yeomen of
i Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, Memoirs, I, title-page.

INFLUENCE OF THE HINTEELAND 47
the small farms, perhaps too often filled with the leveling
doctrines of an Anti-federalist democracy, and in at least
one organization they accumulated, unclaimed, in the
treasury year after year.1 Yet the movement did not fail.
When its leaders had finished their work, new and un
familiar crops were growing on many fields and better
animals grazing on better pastures. To many men had
come the vision of the new farming. Perhaps most im
portant of all, however, there had been created a consider
able body of agricultural literature, the first that America
had known. Though obscured for a while by the stirring
changes of the early years of the nineteenth century this
literature was ultimately to become the foundation for
the new science of American farming.
The real reason, however, why so many of the seeds of
agricultural reform fell on sterile ground was the influ
ence of the West. During the opening years of the nine
teenth century, the farmers of Long Island saw the trickle
of emigrants across the Appalachian barrier increase to
a flood. The siren-call of the West lengthened, year after
year, the caravans of Conestoga wagons that jolted over
the mountain roads. Many families from the shore vil
lages of Long Island Sound and Peconic Bay were among
them. Sales of land in the public domain, which had
averaged less than a hundred thousand acres a year from
the close of the Eevolution to 1800, leaped to eighteen
million acres in the next two decades and aggregated
seventy-six million in the two that followed, from 1820 to
1840. Why waste time and energy improving the worn-
out fields of the East when an untouched empire lay be
yond the mountains ! Those who stayed at home on Long
Island saw a new section come rapidly into being with its
i Elkanah Watson, History of the Rise, Progress and Existing Condition
of the Western Canals in the State of New York together with Rise, Progress,
and Existing State of Modern Agricultural Societies, p. 132.

48 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
own individuality, its own problems, and its own leaders.
They began to hear the echoes of a new issue that had
come out of the West. Henry Clay, of Kentucky, was
demanding at Washington that internal improvements be
built to connect the virgin fields beyond the mountains
with the growing markets of the seaboard. They saw
New York City, so long largely dependent on their farms
for its food and forage, roused to competition with Phila
delphia and Baltimore, and reaching out through the Erie
Canal and a network of turnpike roads to tap the reser
voirs of the valleys of the Genesee and the Ohio. In the
effort to get to the West the old "back country" was
crossed and its isolation broken. Counties, that had long
been remote and stagnant, were stirred with a new hfe
and became active competitors with the older regions for
the eastern markets. Swiftly and surely, the farmers of
Long Island saw their position of vantage disappear.
What had once been one of the most important producing
regions of the coast sank into relative insignificance. The
hinterland had suddenly become a giant, which through
ruthless competition threatened the very foundations of
their institutions.

CHAPTEE W
VAEIATION AND ADAPTATION
"The bane of this country, Squire, and, indeed, of all
America," remarked an eastern farmer in the first half
of the nineteenth century, "is havin' too much land; they
run over more ground than they can cultivate and crop
the land so severely that they run it out." When land
was plenty and labor scarce, production per man rather
than production per acre was, of necessity, the goal of
the American farmer. "That's the reason you hear of
folks clearin' land, makin' a farm and sellin' off again
and goin' further into the bush." That was also why
people were more interested in Governor Clinton's grand
canal than in Chancellor Livingston's new farming. In
ternal improvements, to be sure, brought the competition
of the West to the doors of the East, but they also offered
the eastern farmer an opportunity to abandon a losing
venture and to try his luck in the country of romance
beyond the mountains. This was the situation that the
stay-at-home farmer on Long Island faced, as the hinter
land grew in size and power. His problem was to adapt
his farming to a constantly changing environment.
It was the necessity, therefore, of meeting the threat- ~
ened competition of the hinterland that brought home to
the men of the coast a realization of the value of the work
of the early agricultural experimenters. Competition
compelled better husbandry. There was a touch of irony
i (in the fact that Elkanah Watson, the pioneer promoter
of the Erie Canal project, was instrumental, perhaps

50 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
more than any other, in bringing the new farming to the
old farmer. Watson was not a member of the early
school of theoretical agriculturists ; he was its most dis
tinguished pupil. As a business man he had traveled
along the Atlantic seaboard and in Europe. Then he came
under the influence of Livingston and became the friend
of Humphries. In 1807, he gave up commerce and began
farming at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. During the next
four years he made his great contribution to the develop
ment of agriculture. By 1811, he had completed the
organization of the Berkshire Agricultural Society.
Watson was an able student of human nature and he used
his best skill in forming a society that would appeal
strongly to the small farmer of the early nineteenth cen
tury. He was convinced that success could only be
achieved if the wives, as well as their lords and masters,
became participators in the enterprise. The diplomacy
that he and others used to win over these country women,
unaccustomed to activities outside their own homes and
fearful of arousing comment by appearing in public, is an
interesting example of the different standards of this
earlier generation. The purpose of the organization was
to hold every year an exhibition of the best work and the
best products of the locality; Prizes were awarded for
preeminence in farms, animals, and crops, and the butter,
cheese, and cloth made in the home. At the end of the
exhibition came the general assembly, usually in the
largest local church. It was here, amid impressive cere
mony, that the honors were distributed, each prize accom
panied by a certificate of distinction that, when framed,
became a valued decoration in the rural household.1
The Berkshire organization had the good fortune to
appear when the times were ripe for it. When Watson
introduced it into one or two communities in eastern New
i Elkanah Watson, pp. 114-132.

VAEIATION AND ADAPTATION 51
York, it caught the popular fancy and began spreading
rapidly from its own momentum. In 1817, it came to
Long Island.1 By the twenties, it had reached most of the
states north of the cotton belt. The old communities of
the East and the new ones of the West were both affected.
The rapid growth of the Berkshire System, as it was
called, was the first great movement for better conditions
among the small farmers of America. In its way it played
as important a part in the evolution of American agricul
ture as did the Grange of the sixties and seventies. By
arousing the interest of the small farmer in his profes
sion and stimulating in him a desire for improvement, it
did much toward opening the minds of the vast, conserva
tive agrarian mass to the new ideas and methods of the
new farming.
These ideas, which Livingston and his colleagues had
found so difficult to dispense, were now worth money.
One of the most important results of the new and wide
spread interest in better farming was the birth of the
farm press. For some time newspapers had been run
ning columns of hints to farmers. Now, however, a few
courageous editors were willing to risk the entire support
of their publications with the men of the fields. They
were the first nonproducing agriculturists. One after
another farm papers made their appearance, The Ameri
can Farmer, Baltimore, 1819, The Plow Boy, Albany,
1819, The New England Farmer, Boston, 1822, and The
New York Farmer, New York, 1827. No longer were the
benefits of agricultural experience limited to the local
neighborhood. It is one thing, however, to trace what seem to be the
broad phases of agricultural development and quite a
different thing to find out how these developments
affected, if at all, the cultivation of the stony side hills of
i Long Island Star, IX (1817)., no. 447.

52 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
the ordinary farmer. City people are too apt to think the
stbry is told when the accounts of "organizations" and
' ' movements ' ' are finished. The picture of the new farm
ing, as the small, ox-driving farmers of Long Island knew
and practiced it, is not exactly what might be expected,
but it presents an interesting contrast to the habits and
methods of an earlier day. Instead of the old, unim
proved roads of ruts and bottomless mudholes, turnpikes
were beginning to stretch eastward from Brooklyn and
Williamsburg. Farmers made up many of the companies
that were building these. Although the tollgate was
exacting its stipend, the cost of the trip to market was
being lessened.1 Over these new roads, after the begin
ning of the century, rolled a steadily increasing number
of farm wagons loaded with sweepings from the streets
of New York or refuse from its stables. Similar cargoes
weighted down the fleets of small boats that plied their
trade along the coast. The farmer who, a quarter of a
century before, had been exploiting the land, was now
spending his hard-earned money on soil fertilization.2
Moreover on the farms near the shore the use of seaweed
was increasing and many more thousands of menhaden
were spread upon the fields.8 Nor were the changes
limited to new methods. During the second decade of the
nineteenth century, cast-iron ploughs began to replace
their wooden forerunners and grain-cradles to eliminate
the time-honored sickle.4 A remarkable revolution in
agricultural tools was beginning.
On the fields of Long Island, along with new tools,
unfamiliar crops were appearing. Here and there could
be seen plots of the newly introduced turnips and patches
i For the details of this road building, see chapter XII.
2 Long Island Star, I (1810), no. 36; XIX (1828), no. 35; Mitchell,
The Picture of New York (1807), p. 160.
s Chapter VI.
iLong Island Star, VI (1815), no. 310.

VAEIATION AND ADAPTATION 53
of Livingston's alfalfa. The old meadows of common
grass were beginning to be covered with clover and timo
thy.1 At the western end of the Island, where at least one
nursery had been started far back in colonial times,
orchards of apples, peaches, and cherries told the story
of a broader farming.2 With them came the garden, not
intended merely for the family use, but as an investment
from which a money income might be derived.3 At the
opening of the nineteenth century, heralded by no less a
poet than the bard of the Eevolution, Philip Freneau, the
''Market Girl" made her debut.
"At dawn of day, from short repose,
At hours that might all townsmen shame,
To catch our money, round or square,
She from the groves of Flatbush came
With kail and cabbage, fresh and fair. ' '
The new farming, however, brought to Long Island a
time of uncertainty, a period of experimentation, in which
were tested many possibilities both as to crops and
methods. It was becoming evident that the old farming
must go, but what the new type should be few could tell.
Gardening, horticulture, animal husbandry, and the rais
ing of the common crops of the old days were all being
tried. The farmers of the region, however, were feeling
their way forward with caution. The famous English
radical, William Cobbett, in 1817, fiving in exile on Long
Island, thought them backward. He sought to introduce
among his neighbors of the Island the general use of
i The new crops were Buta Baga turnips, Cobbett, A Year's Residence in
the United States of America (1818-19), I, 158; Mangel Wurzel beets, Long
Island Star, VIII (1816), nos. 368, 374; alfalfa, Cobbett, I, 16, 22.
2 Long Island Star, I (1809-10), bos. 5, 27, 35, 44.
aSpafford, Gazatteer of the State of New York (1813), p. 138; Cobbett,
I, 41; Long Island Star, XIX (1828), no. 36; Long Island Farmer, II, no.
35.

54 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
turnips, but his efforts made little breach in the wall of
conservatism. The caution of these farmers was not, however, without
a reason. Agriculture breeds personal independence.
The farmers of America are and always have been indi
vidualists. The nature of the enterprise which they man
age and the distance that separates them from their
neighbors both conspire to make them an upstanding,
self-reliant people. This independence found its origin
far back in the days of the old frontier, when a man's
farm produced all that he needed. During the eighteenth
century, the husbandman of Long Island and the coast
had modified, somewhat, the self-sufficient establishment
which he controlled and allowed himself to become de
pendent, to the extent of selling his "cash crops" in a
market over which he had no influence. In the early
decades of the nineteenth century, he was confronted with
another change. Not only was the new farming threaten
ing the old independence, but standards also were shift
ing. A farmer must have a larger money income both
to run his business and to support his home. This meant
more crops for market and less for domestic use. He was
becoming more and more dependent upon the buyer.
During those unsettled years when men were crowding
into the new settlements of the West and when turnpikes,
canals, and the early railroads were opening up broad
acres in the older country, markets fluctuated. No one
could foretell from year to year what the conditions
would be. If markets were unstable, the farmer, entirely
dependent upon them, gave, indeed, hostages to fortune.
It is no criticism of the small eastern agriculturist, there
fore, to say that he adapted himself to the new conditions
slowly. Nor is it surprising that the period of adapta
tion, the trying out of new crops and new methods, lasted
for practically the entire first half of the nineteenth cen-

VAEIATION AND ADAPTATION 55
tury. For Long Island, however, two conditions' brought
this period to an end : one was the unprecedented growth
of New York City in the middle years of the century ; and
the other the development of the American agricultural
revolution. By the time of the Civil War, the growth of American
agricultural science was well under way. If scanty crops
and scraggly meadows had been among the reasons for
its appearance at the end of the eighteenth century,
scarcity of labor was, perhaps, the dominant factor in its
later development. The West had drawn off the people of
the East only to spread a thin veneer of settlements over
the plains of the Mississippi Valley. Neither West nor
East had an adequate labor supply. Production per man
rather than per acre was still the point of view of a nation
that had more land than it could use. To increase a man's
capacity to produce, therefore, became the aim of the for
ward-looking agriculturists. The result was the develop
ment of machinery that would enable the farmer to raise
a greater acreage of crops. One after another, the labor-
saving devices of present-day farming made their appear
ance. The new cast-iron plough came into general use
about 1825. From 1830 to 1840, a primitive form of
grain thresher was eliminating the flail and the threshing
floor. In the forties, the "horse rake" relieved the
farmer's wife of the necessity of raking the cured hay
into winrows after the scythe. During the same years,
the epoch-making reapers of Hussey and McCormick were
increasing enormously the amount of grain which a
farmer could raise and handle. In the following decade,
the mower did for the hayfield what the reaper had done
for wheat, and the modern type of thresher, which not
only threshes the grain but separates it from the chaff,
began to be hauled from farm to farm. These were the
important tools. Beside them, a host of minor inventions

56 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
affected almost every phase of the farmer's life. The age
of homespun came to an end.1 The new tools spelled the
doom of the ox. That great, slow-moving beast, admira
bly adapted to the simple needs of the old farming, could
not compete with the specialized horse in the hauling of
the machines of the new era. Thus the development of
the agrarian revolution brought the first important
change of power on the farms of America.
If the passing of the ox is one of the milestones marking
the progress of American farming, another is to be found
along the path of knowledge. In 1857, was established the
Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first
important institution of its kind in America. Three years
later, after a series of "lectures and discussions at New
Haven" in which Silliman participated, it was announced
that a "large sum of money . . . has already been con
tributed toward the erection of commodious buildings for
the Yale College Scientific and Agricultural School and,
during the summer, a complete set of models and paint
ings of animals, of different kinds of agricultural imple
ments, of fruits, etc., will be gathered for use in illustrat
ing future lectures and discussions. ' '2 Whether because
Connecticut farming was too backward to support it or
for other reasons, the Yale Agricultural School never
developed, although the importance of the Yale confer
ences was very great. In 1862, the Morrill Act of the
United States government gave each state thirty thou
sand acres of government land or its equivalent, multi
plied by the number of state's senators and representa-
i Long Island Star, XV (1825), nos. 807, 814; XIX (1828), no. 45; Long
Island Farmer, XII (1831), no. 640; The Cultivator, I (1834), 52; V
(1838), 7; VI (1839), 7, 36, 72, 181; VII (1840), 89; New York State
Agricultural Society, Transactions (1842), p. 188; Long Island Farmer,
XIV (1846), no. 36; XVIII (1850), no. 5; XIX (1851), no. 24; XXIX
(1861), no. 12; American Agriculturist, XIV (1855), 15.
2 American Agriculturist, XIX (1860), 102.

VAEIATION AND ADAPTATION 57
tives, to found a college of the agricultural and mechanical
arts. Beginning with the Cornell Agricultural College,
in 1867, more than forty institutions for the promotion of
husbandry have been founded. With the development of
these institutions farming definitely began to leave the
"rule of thumb" stage and to enter upon that of science.
To Long Island, agricultural development brought the
same general changes that it did to all the seaboard
from New England to the cotton country, for the im
proved machinery, the changed power, and the scientific
methods all speedily found their way to its fields. But
in the issue the revolution there was fundamentally modi
fied by the development of New York City. When, in
1825, a line of booming cannon, stretching from Buffalo
to New York, announced the opening of the Erie Canal,
forces were loosed which were ultimately to bring almost
a complete overturn to the life of the Long Island people.
The great Hudson-Mohawk gateway into the interior had,
at last, been opened. During the years when the agrarian
revolution was developing, canals, highways, and rail
roads had been carrying the products of the vast hinter
land through1 the broad pass, and New York City, winning
the contest with the other cities of the coast, became the
metropolis of America. This great centre of population
covered Manhattan Island and spread westward to New
Jersey, northward across the Harlem, and eastward to
the plains of Long Island. Brooklyn, absorbing the vil
lage of Williamsburg, became an important city. At the
mouth of the Hudson the life of the hinterland met the
great highways of the sea. Long Island lay just beside
the meeting ground. He would have been dull, indeed,
who could not have foretold the result.
The power of the larger New York came home to every
hamlet from one end of the Island to the other, when, in
1844, wheezy locomotives rumbled, for the first time, over

58 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
the tracks of the old "main line" of the Long Island Eail-
road from Brooklyn to Greenport. Markets whose dis
tance from the eastern villages had been measured in days
were now only a few hours away. New York, like a great
magnet, was pulling everything toward itself. Further
more, the market had stabilized. For Long Island, the
period of variation was at an end. The decision as to
what Long Island farming should be had been made.
Gardening was to be the lot of the Long Island farmer.
The only task that remained was adaptation to the inevi
table. It was not easy, however, to leap directly from the-
general farm to the truck farm. It meant that the hus
bandman must learn a new business. It meant, further,
that the last vestige of the self-sufficient farm must go.
Under such circumstances, a conflict was inevitable be
tween extensive and intensive agriculture. The farmers
in the hill country of the northern half of Queens County
became dairymen, producing milk for the consumption of
New York and Brooklyn. In the sixties Westbury was
the most important milk-shipping station of the Long
Island Eailroad. During the next two decades, the busi
ness grew to such proportions that in 1886 five hundred
dairy farmers were found to sign a petition against an
alleged grievance on the part of the railroad. Although,
for a few years, the business underwent a boom, its days
were limited. The time was soon to come when the land
of Queens County would become too valuable to use for
hayfields and pasture lots. Sooner or later, the inten
sively cultivated garden was bound to drive off the herds.
By the end of the nineties the dairy business had prac
tically ceased to exist.1
i American Agriculturist, XIV (1855), 73; XX (1861), 38; Long Island
via the Long Island Railroad (1868), p. 18; New York State Railroad Tie-
ports (1884), I, 196.

VAEIATION AND ADAPTATION 59
Little would be gained by telling in detail the compli
cated story of the introduction of the new plants that
brought the truck farm to Long Island in the latter half
of the nineteenth century. On the farms at the western
end, the gardens simply grew in size until they swallowed
up all the fields. Here and there, a flower farm made its
appearance. Night after night, the ever lengthening
caravan of truckmen rolled into Brooklyn and across the
ferry to. reach the markets of New York before the open
ing morning hours. The story was but little different at
the eastern end of the Island. Within a decade after the
completion of the main line of the railroad, the potato
output of Suffolk County had nearly doubled.1 The years
from the fifties to the nineties saw the rise and fall of the
strawberry business on farms from Eiverhead to Cutch-
ogue.2 With the decline of strawberries, came the intro
duction of crops that have stood the test of time, first
cauliflower, then asparagus, and, finally, cucumbers and
brussels sprouts.3 These, together with potatoes, are the
main dependence of the new eastern farmers. Down upon
the green fields of the small farms, neatly laid out in
parallel rows, look the quiet, great-armed windmills,
picturesque and unused relics of a generation that has
gone. Together with the introduction of new plants have come
other developments. The fertilization of the fields with
i French, Gazatteer of the State of New York (1860), p. 639; Sag Har
bor Express, XIII (1872), no. 29; Hedges, Bicentennial of Suffolk County
(1883), p. 43; Long Island Traveler, XXII (1892), no. 5; XXIX (1899),
no. 1.
2 Sag Harbor Express, XIV (1872), no. 1; Long Island Traveler, XV
(1886), no. 43; XX (1893), no. 43.
s Cauliflower, Sag Harbor Express, XIII (1871), no. 21; Long Island
Traveler, XV (1885), no. 11; XXX (1901), no. 41. Cucumbers, Jamaica
Farmer, XLIX (1870), no. 21; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LIX (1899), no. 278.
Asparagus, Long Island Traveler, XV (1886), no. 40; XXX (1901), no. 41.
Brussels sprouts, Long Island Traveler, XXXI (1901), no. 1.

60 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
fish was largely abandoned because the menhaden became
too valuable. In its place carloads of manure were
shipped, as they still are, from New York to be laid
thickly over the mellow gardens. Here and there, over
head irrigation has made an occasional gardener inde
pendent of the rains. In other places, the vegetables have
begun to be raised under the glass of a greenhouse roof.
In more than one of the villages the eanning factory, that
institution which has taken so much labor from the shoul
ders of the busy housewife, has begun with the city
market its competition for the output of the locality.
Along the swamps of the Peconic Eiver red-fruited jcran-
berry fields, crossed by tiny canals and held in by dykes,
have increased in size and number. Beside the shallow,
tidewater creeks that empty into the quiet waters of
Moriches Bay or into the eastern end of Great South Bay
has occurred a development that is a direct adaptation to
the peculiarities of the local topography. On these flat-
banked creeks which broaden out into little estuaries duck
raisers, furnishing thousands of ducks yearly to the New
York markets, have laid out their noisy pens half on land
and half in the water. What a contrast is there between
the duck farms and the much cultivated gardens of the
present day, whose products are hurried to market in
motor vehicles over macadam highways, and the broad
fields of old, ploughed by lumbering oxen, and the
meadows dotted with cocks of hay cut with the scythe and
raked by hand. The old farming has given place to the
new, and only an occasional plantation, like a quiet eddy
beside the main stream, remains to tell the story of what
once was.
Looking back over a span that covers nearly three cen
turies, it is possible to see a little more clearly the role
that the farmer has played in the story of Long Island.
It is not too much to say that into his hands was given

VAEIATION AND ADAPTATION 61
the task of laying the foundation for the civilization of
the region. He cleared away the forests and built and
defended the first rough hamlets that dotted the shore.
It was he who first laid out the roads that ultimately
joined these settlements together. In the beginning, when
practically all the people were farmers, it was on the
fields and meadows that the life of the Island rested. Dur
ing the eighteenth century a division of labor divided
Long Island people into different occupational groups.
By the end of that century a small school of theoretical
agriculturists was beginning the science of agriculture.
To the common farmer of the East the new ideas and
theories made small appeal until improved transporta
tion facilities brought the competition of the rejuvenated
back country and the vast West to his very doors. The
interest in better farming which economic necessity had
aroused was greatly stimulated by the tremendous success
of the Berkshire societies. The new state of mind of the
farmer was almost immediately reflected in the birth of
the farm press. Long Island reacted to these changes in
much the same way as did other farming sections east of
the Appalachians. It is not too much to say, however,
that the first half of the nineteenth century, which saw
the growth of revolution in farming, was a period of varia
tion and adaptation not only for Long Island but for the
whole of America as well. Before the revolution was
' complete, crop specialization by sections had made its
appearance. The corn belt and the wheat belt had begun
to be recognized. Dairy sections had appeared here and
there and certain localities had been marked off for diver
sified farming. For climatic and geographic reasons
Long Island became a garden and ultimately developed
into one of the richest garden areas in America. Thus
from the beginning of the garden phase Long Island has
reflected very imperfectly the agricultural development

62 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
of the nation, though the change has not diminished the
basic importance of agriculture for the civilization of the
region. As the old range of low-lying hills that made up
the first Long Island supports the tumbled glacial de
posits that later eras have piled upon them, so the farmer,
who was the first Long Islander, still supports the life
that later generations have called into being.

CHAPTEE V
THE THEEE-YEAE VOYAGE ABOUND
THE WOELD
Not all the men of Long Island were destined to be
farmers. Some chose to go down to the sea in ships.
There is a relation between the land and the adjacent
ocean full of significance for the man who lives on the
shore. The sea pulls one way and the land the other.
The shore dweller must choose between the two. There
is no option. Long Island lies offshore like a great tree,
uprooted and fallen in the water, its trunk and branches
half submerged. To Long Island people, therefore, this
choice has come in all its difficulty. It is not surprising
that many have answered the call of the sea or that the
story of the life of Long Island people broadens out to
the ocean beyond the beach.
To the eastern peninsulas that enclose Peconic Bay
clings a sea-tale well worthy of recounting. It begins
with the first appearance of human life on the Island. In
the years when the early colonists were founding tiny
settlements here and there along the coast of New Eng
land and Long Island, the rough winter waters of the
north Atlantic were dotted with whales. Many a fisher
man, on his way to the Newfoundland banks, sailed past
them. People standing on the bleak beach could see them
often come nosing in close to shore. Like the bison on the
yet unknown western prairies, they offered both sport and
profit to those who would hunt them. These whales were
to play an important part in the lives of the adventurous

64 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
men and women who built their cabins and their palisades
on the shore at East Hampton and Southampton. It was
an exposed beach against which drove the full force of the
Atlantic. Offshore, where the sea had cut back the land,
the water was shallow and the surf unusually heavy.
Many a whale, unable to weather a winter storm, was
driven onto the sands of this wind-swept peninsula lying
far out to sea. So frequently, after a blow, did the early
people of the Hamptons find a whale cast up that they
quickly became familiar with the manner of handling the
carcass. On their exposed beach American whaling is
supposed to have begun. In 1644, within four years after
its settlement, the men of Southampton divided the vil
lagers into four groups, each group to take charge of all
drift whales cast ashore in its ward. Whenever one was
washed up, lots were promptly cast and two persons from
each group selected to cut it up. In East Hampton,
"oversears" were appointed by the town meeting to see
that each man did his work and that "all be cut soe near
as may be. " The bounty of the sea was shared by all alike
save the cutters, who received a double portion for their
labor. When the work was done, the watchful Indians by
right of treaty, were allowed to carry off the "fynnes and
tails." On these exposed southern beaches of Long
Island,- therefore, whaling began as a community enter
prise. The aggressive Hampton frontiersmen, however, were
not long content to wait upon fortune. On the tops of
the highest sand dunes along the shore they planted
watchmen, the men of the town being called out "by suc
cession to loke out for whale. ' ' When the black, spouting
mass was discerned in the gray offshore waters, the watch
would sing out the alarm. It must have been a strange
sight to see the quiet little village of cabins, tucked up for
winter inside the palisade, suddenly rouse itself to energy

THE VOYAGE ABOUND THE WOELD 65
and excitement. At the sound of the familiar call, the
street would suddenly be filled with men, women, and
children running for the gate and the path that led to the
water. Crude harpoons would clatter on the bottom of
small boats into each of which six men would clamber and
seize the oars. The breathless watchers on the shore
could see a small fleet of these, hovering like kingbirds
above a hawk, about the swashing whale. They could
watch the risky chase as it zigzagged along the coast
until the prey was killed or had disappeared in the rollers
of the deep sea. The fishery had advanced from the col
lection to the hunting stage. If the whale was killed and
the great carcass guided to the beach, the villagers had
work for days to come.1 First came the cutting up. Then
the oil was tried out. When this latter task was reached,
the romance of whaling came suddenly to an end. Noth
ing can describe the scene that followed a successful chase
better than the unadorned words of a public order to the
people of Southampton, issued March 4, 1669. "Whereas
the trying of oyle so near the street and houses, is soe
extreme noysome to all passers by, especially to those not
accustomed to the sent thereof, and is considered hurtful
to the he'alth of people — and ... is very dangerous (if
oyle should fire) for firing houses or hay stacks, the cort
doth order that noe person after this present yeare, shall
try any oyle in this towne nearer than 25 poles from the
main street of the towne, under penalty of paying £5
fine."2 With "oyle" passing as currency in some of the
local trade exchanges at the rate of one pound ten shil
lings per barrel the thrifty Hampton people could afford
to put up with the olfactory discomforts of the business.3
i Documentary History of New York, I, 677; East Hampton Records, I,
54; Tower, A History of the American Whale Fishery (1907), pp. 19-25.
2 Quoted from the record of the Court of Sessions for Suffolk County in
Thompson, History of Long Island, I, 255.
3 1679, Huntington Records, I, 239.

66 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
As the seventeenth century drew to a close, there
occurred a further development in the fishery. Whaling
"companies" were formed. They were primitive con
cerns, simple associations of a few men owning small
boats and tools. These companies usually hired Indians
to man the boats. During the winter season, when the
whales were in the ocean, these boats, manned by red
skins and commanded by whites, could be seen working
their way along the treacherous waters outside the bar
rier beaches of the southern Long Island shore. When
night came, the parties would pull up on the beach and
camp for the night. Sometimes these adventurous com
panies would be gone two or three weeks down the deso
late and uninhabited coast.1 Occasionally there would be
an altercation with a representative of His Majesty the
King of England, who would learn of a stranded whale
and appear upon the shore to collect the king's share.
Even the efficient Governor Andros, however, had to
admit failure and report that "very few whales have been
droven on shoare but what have been killed & claimed by
the Whalers . . . and tho' I have not been wanting in my
endeavours I never could recover any part thereof for
his Eoyal Highness."2 The prosperity of the offshore
whale fishery grew until on Long Island in one year alone
(1707) four thousand barrels of oil were made.8 This
year seems, however, to indicate a high-water mark. As
the eighteenth century progressed, the business declined.
In 1718, it was reported that the whales had left this
coast. By the middle of the century, the industry had
fallen into almost complete neglect.4
The reason for the decline of the Long Island offshore
i Huntington Records, I, 295; Tower, p. 23. i
2 N. Y. Col. Docts., Ill, 311. ':
s Ibid., V, 60.
*Ibid., V, 510; Smith, History of New York (1762), I, 273.

THE VOYAGE ABOUND THE WOELD 67
whale fishery is not difficult to discover. To the east of
Montauk Point, lay Nantucket Island, like a great boulder
off the Massachusetts coast. On Long Island the pull of
the sea had been strong enough to draw the people only
to the waters off the shore. The sterile soil of Nantucket,
however, joining its influence to that of the ocean, drove
its inhabitants out into the deep sea. There being few
other ways whereby to make a living, whaling became the
dominant pursuit of the people of the region. Hardly
had the eighteenth century begun, when ships from Nan
tucket were turning whaling into a deep-sea fishery. In
1712, sperm-whaling was begun by the men of that island.
Year after year their sturdy, square-rigged vessels could
be seen pushing farther and farther out. Some ventured
as far north as the icebound waters of Davis Strait.
Others worked their way southward toward the equator.
On the eve of the American Eevolution, the prows of Nan
tucket whalers were disturbing the waters of the Brazil
ian coast.1 The little boat, creeping along the shore,
could not compete with the seagoing ship. When deep-
sea whaling supplanted the offshore type, the villagers of
East Hampton and Southampton discovered that their
coast was not suited to the industry in its new form.
Neither village had a harbor. If the men who had formed
the whaling companies wished to continue to catch whales,
they must seek a home elsewhere. By the middle of the
eighteenth century, a few had moved across the narrow
peninsula and had established themselves on a sheltered
arm of Gardiners Bay. ' ' Sag" they called the new abode.
In this new station deep-sea whaling by Long Islanders
began. Their development, however, was far behind that
of Nantucket. In 1760, Sag Harbor's three ships, Good-
luck, Dolphin, and Success, made up her whole fleet, while
fifteen years later, Nantucket was sending to sea one
i Tower, pp. 23-28.

68 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
hundred and fifty vessels. This tiny hamlet, south of
Shelter Island, however, founded by whalers, was des
tined ultimately to become one of the great centres of the
American fishery.
The battle of Lexington was the opening event in a
long period of uncertainty and disaster for the whale
fishery. This period did not end until, forty years later,
Andrew Jackson defeated the British at New Orleans.
For years, during the Eevolution and the War of 1812,
the guns of English warships blocked the paths to the
open ocean. In the interim between the conflicts, John
Adams 's unpleasantness with France and Thomas Jeffer
son 's policy of "peaceful coercion" were almost as disas
trous to the whaler as formal wars. During these forty
years, well named "the critical period of American whal
ing," the people of Nantucket suffered the greatest hard
ships. The Long Islander, however, was able to turn to
other work until a real peace made the ocean once more
secure. When the second war with England came to an
end, a sadly diminished fleet put out from the old whaling
ports to try again its luck at sea.1
At the outset of the building up of a new business, Sag
Harbor met with misfortune. In June, 1817, the little
town of closely packed wooden buildings was gutted by
fire. Scarcely a store in the business section was left
standing. The life of a whaler, however, is one long
gamble. Neither fires nor shipwrecks need block his
enterprise. By 1820, the village was fully able to meet
again the competition of its rivals. These were more
numerous than before the long period of war and uncer
tainty. New Bedford and New London had now taken
their places beside Nantucket and Sag Harbor. From
these four, of which the greatest was to be New Bedford,
sailed the bulk of the great American whaling fleet which
i Starbuck, History of the American Whale Fishery (1876), p. 43.

THE VOYAGE ABOUND THE WOELD 69
swept the seven seas. Year after year, as new fields were
opened up, an increasing number of vessels put off from
the docks of Sag Harbor for voyages that rounded the
Horn and turned northward into the Pacific. By 1836,.
there were twenty-one whalers, some of them from the
"Eastern oceans," that called Sag Harbor home. Five
hundred thousand dollars represented the investment of
the villagers. It was the golden era of the whale fishery.
During the forties, this village, now grown to more than
three thousand people, fairly burst with prosperity. The
forty-four ships in 1843 increased to more than sixty in
1847; the investment to more than two million dollars.
Other towns also on Peconic Bay felt the pull of the sea.
Jamesport and New Suffolk sent out an occasional vessel
and Greenport had a fleet of twelve. With all the expan
sion, however, Sag Harbor remained the centre for Long
Island.1 At the wharves of this village were to be found
the weather-beaten ships that had been around the world.
"I touch my country's mind, I come to grips
With half her purpose, thinking of these ships,
That art untouched by softness, all that line
Drawn ringing hard to stand the test of brine,
That splendour of fine bows which yet could stand
The shock of rollers never checked by land.
That art of masts, sail crowded, fit to break,
Yet stayed to strength and backstayed into rake,
The life demanded by that art, the keen
Eye-puckered, hard-case seamen, silent, lean, —
Earth will not see such ships as those again."
By the decade of the forties, when American whaling
reached the zenith of its prosperity, great changes had
i Spafford, Gazetteer of the State of New York (1824), p. 491; Gordon,
Gazatteer of the State of New York (1836), p. 715; Thompson, I, 349, 351;
Mather, Geography of the State of New York (1847), p. 168.

70 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
come to the fishery. In those days, the Nantucket fleet
was leading that of Sag Harbor by a few ships. New
Bedford, however, was sending out more than two hun
dred and fifty ships a year. American whaling boats
cbuld be found in every ocean.1 Changes also had come
"in the methods used since those early days, when the
hardy people of the Hamptons had sent out their Indians
in open boats. Instead of creeping along the stormy
waters off Fire Island Beach, the Sag Harbor whaler set
out for a voyage that often encircled the globe. Some
times, if luck was good, he came back in two years. More
often, however, the time was three or more. There were
many trips that resulted in failure. Whaling was, after
all, a fishery, subject to all the uncertainties of that most
uncertain vocation. Some voyages brought a catch worth
fifty and even seventy-five thousand dollars, and such
opportunities brought able men into the business. The
ocean saw no better seamen nor more intelligent leaders
than the captains of the whaling ships.
Although ships were constantly coming and going, the
sailing of a whaling vessel was an event in the life of the
little village of Sag Harbor. The crowd of friends and
relatives that gathered at the wharf to wave good-bye
inspected an equipment brought to the highest possible
pitch of perfection. The vessel, of four hundred or five
hundred tons, was rigged for seaworthiness rather than
speed. Just forward of the mainmast and imbedded in
brick was the huge boiler for trying out oil. Above the
decks hung the curved whale boats, twenty-eight feet in
length and sharp at both ends, boats rowed by four men
and capable of being handled with the greatest speed and
quickness. As they hung in the blocks, each of them was
equipped with the harpoons and the long, deadly lances
used in the chase. On the decks below could be seen the
i Tower, Appendix, Table ii.

THE VOYAGE ABOUND THE WOELD 71
captain and one or two mates supervising the departure.
Here and there on the vessel worked the crew. Among
these were a few specialists, a cook, a steward, a car
penter, a blacksmith, a cooper, a doctor, arid one boat
steerer for each of the whale boats. In addition were the
common seamen, usually sufficient in number to bring thes
total to about thirty men. The seamen were a motley lot.
There were Indians and half-breeds from the reservation
in the Shinnecock Hills, and with them were many choice
spirits whose loss from the village community was not
lamented. When the last rope had been cast off and the
ship stood out to sea no one could foretell when or under
what circumstances she would return. There were enough
who never came back to give to such a departure a touch
of solemnity.1
A favorite voyage of the forties was to touch at the
Azores, follow down the west coast of Africa and, round
ing the Cape of Good Hope, to cross the Indian Ocean to
Australia. Here the whaler turned his prow northward.
Sometimes he went to the whaling grounds in the Bering
Sea, sometimes to the "offshore" grounds in the central
Pacific. Many times he stopped at one of the Polynesian
Islands to barter with the natives for supplies. On the
homeward journey, the skipper rounded Cape Horn and,
a second time, turned north. It was a long trip and a
dangerous one.2 Whales were not easy to catch. Of all
the pursuits of the sea none were more exciting or more
exacting in the skill and intelligence required for success
than the whale chase in the open ocean. When the watch
sang out the alarm, ' ' There she blows ! ' ' the work began.
The whale boats were lowered and made their way cau
tiously and silently toward the dark, spouting mass. Not
i-Long Island Star, XX (1829), no. 50; " Beminiscences of John Ford-
ham," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LX (1900), no. 263.
2Fordham, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LX (1900), no. 263.

72 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
seldom did the chase carry the boats so far away that the
distant ship was but a small spot on the horizon. When
striking distance had been reached, the captain or mate in
the bow threw the harpoon and "fastened" the whale to
the boat. Then began the manoeuvring to get into posi
tion for casting the lance that struck through to a vital
spot. It was in this manoeuvring that the danger lay.
Perhaps the whale, maddened by pain, would rush the
boat, and more than one craft proved unable to avoid the
onslaught and was broken to bits between the great teeth.
Perhaps, if it were a right whale, it would dart about
lashing the water with its tremendous tail and flukes, a
blow from which would throw the boat well into the air.
There were times when lives hung upon the ability of the
boat steerer in the stern. Let the danger be never so
great, however, few captains would willingly let their
prey escape. The prize was worth too much. When it
had been killed and the ship brought alongside, the oil
and bone taken out would amount in value to hundreds of
dollars. The product of the catch was divided between
the owners and the crew. The men who shipped for the
long voyage rarely drew wages. They sailed "on the
lay," each man sharing according to a prearranged plan
in the profits of the trip. This was the evolutionary out
growth of the early community fishing at the Hamptons.1
When the ground had been covered, the ship with the
oil and bone obtained turned her prow homeward to the
little village on the eastern end of Long Island. The
home-coming of such a whaler was indeed an event in the
life of the town. As soon as she was sighted down the
bay, boats put off filled with the owners of the vessel and
the families and friends of the officers, while the news of
the arrival spread through the streets. Almost as one,
i Many thrilling tales of whale-fishing are to be found in Starbuck, who
gathered most of them from the whalers of New Bedford.

THE VOYAGE ABOUND THE WOELD 73
the people turned out to watch the weather-beaten whaler
tack up to the crowded wharf. Well might the residents
of Sag Harbor come out to greet the returning whaler. It
seemed as though almost every man and woman in the
village, in one way or another, was interested in the voy
age. There were tales to be told and experiences to relate.
The money brought into the community stimulated the
business of the local retail merchants. Before the vessel
could again put to sea, demands would be made on the
cooperages for casks and barrels, and the ship chandleries
would be called upon to furnish all kinds of miscellaneous
equipment. Sailmakers and ship-carpenters would find
plenty of work overhauling the vessel and putting her in
shape for the next cruise, while blacksmiths would be busy
replacing her irons and tools. In short, the whole life of
the community was centred at the dock to which the peo
ple flocked to greet the home comers.1
In a totally different way, however, the individuals of
the community were interested in the fortunes of the
returning ship. The organization of the whale fishery
was an ingenious adaptation to the ever present element
of chance. Whaling vessels were seldom the property of
individuals. Incorporated companies owned and con
trolled a certain fraction of the shipping. Four of these,
Howell Brothers and Hunting, Mulfred and Sleight,
Charles T. Deering, and H. and S. French were the most
important. The majority of the vessels, however, seem
to have been owned in a different way. Some individual
in the community, often a whaling captain himself, would
take the initiative in the raising of money to build a ship.
Stock in the vessel would be issued and sold to the people.
In this way both the risks and the profits of the voyage
were distributed throughout the whole population. No
one need be ruined by the failure of a single ship. It was
i Thompson, I, 349; Sag Harbor Express, I (1859), no. 60.

74 ' THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
an organization centred in the idea of insurance and, as
a result, it made the whole village one great whaling con
cern.1 No less swift than its rise was the decline of Sag Har
bor whaling. In 1845, fire again blackened the streets of
the town. Four years later the lure of the California gold
fields took many of its citizens away from the sea.2 But
in spite of these setbacks the business flourished. In
1869, however, petroleum was discovered and in the suc
ceeding years coal oil steadily replaced whale oil. This
circumstance, coupled with the gradual disappearance of
the whales, brought an end to the Sag Harbor fishery. By
1860, its fleet had dwindled sadly. After 1874, no more
vessels put to sea.3 During the hard years of the decline,
the population of the little village diminished by half.
When the end came Sag Harbor faced annihilation. The
sole foundation on which the community had rested for
more than a hundred years had crumbled. With the
energy which is born of necessity the village sought to
save itself. A cotton manufacturing plant was induced
to establish itself in the town. After years of roving hfe
on the broad seas of the world the people of the old whal
ing port were forced to settle down to the earning of their
living beside machines in a stuffy factory.
Since the day when the last whaler tied up tp the Sag
Harbor wharf, the village has changed in aspect and
interests. Change also has come to East Hampton and
Southampton on the other side of the narrow peninsula.
These villages on whose beaches the whale fishery began
are now two of the most beautiful summer places in
America. To these same beaches, however, every few
i Gordon, Gazatteer of the State of New York (1836), p. 715; Fordham,
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LX (1900), no. 263.
2 Sag Harbor Express, XIII (1871), no. 21.
s Tower, p. 124.

THE VOYAGE ABOUND THE WOELD 75
years, a whale comes nosing in and sometimes is caught
in the pounding surf. More than once the villages have
been stirred by the excitement of a whale chase like those
of three centuries ago. The restless ghost of the old
whale fishery still haunts the familiar shores whence the
earliest whalers pushed off in their primitive open boats.1
i Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LVIII (1898), no. 9.

CHAPTEE VI
"COOTS," "WATEE WITCHES," AND
ENGLISH CAPITALISTS
The menhaden fishery is not much known outside the
small shore communities that are directly interested. It
has little of the romance of whaling and does not demand
the hardihood required in the quest for cod off the New
foundland banks. There is scant material in this business
of the sea with which to stir the imagination. Yet the
story of the development of the menhaden fishery is not
without value. The shore is the greatest boundary line
in the world and the coast area the world's greatest zone
of transition. Most people think of the beach line that
runs from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of St. Lawrence
as the eastern edge of the United States and fail to realize
that it is also the western rim of the Atlantic Ocean. Per
haps this story of the development of an obscure fishery,
a story in which the sea plays none of its famous roles,
the great barrier, the highway for endless commerce or
the source of limitless food supply, will serve to point out
one of the lesser ways by which the ocean influences the
lives of the people who live on the shore, and the silent
power of that influence when it has once begun to operate.
Many an older resident still lives along the shores of
Peconic Bay or Great South Bay who well remembers the
time when the menhaden came frequently to those shel
tered arms of the sea. He can recall the sudden appear
ance of vast schools of these fish, sometimes hundreds of
thousands of them, rushing into the shallow offshore

"COOTS" AND "WATEE WITCHES" 77
waters, pursued, perhaps, by their voracious enemies, the
sharks or the bluefish. The coming of these menhaden,
swimming just under the surface of the agitated water,
presented a strange spectacle. There were times when
the bays seemed full. From time immemorial, these fish
have migrated in the summer months from their haunts in
southern waters or in the deep sea to cast their spawn in
the sheltered coves and inlets of the North Atlantic, coast.
Booth Bay and Cape Ann, Narragansett Bay, Long
Island, the Jersey coast, Chesapeake Bay, and even Cape
Hatteras are the regions to which they came. It was in
these bays and estuaries that the menhaden fishery
began.1 There is a saying among some students of society that
man adapts himself to his environment, not so much as it
really is, but as he thinks it is. The traveler among the
coast people of New England or Long Island at almost
any time during the century and a half of the colonial
period would have found a striking illustration of this.
To the shores on which these people lived, the vast schools
of menhaden annually came and were allowed to go away
again with scarcely a net drawn to catch them. The local
fishermen used a few for bait, but there was little more
than that in the business. The "mossbunker" was not a
food fish and was, therefore, considered valueless. The
beginning of the fishery must, on this account, await the
time when some need should arise which the menhaden
could satisfy.
By the end of the eighteenth century, scanty crops and
thinning meadows had begun to tell the story of the ex
haustion which had come to the farm lands of New Eng-
!An indispensable reference for menhaden and the menhaden fishery is
Goode, Report of the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, 1877, Appendix
A. The sections which are not biological are composed largely of source
material, reports, letters, et cetera.

78 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
land and Long Island. Exploitative and unscientific
methods had borne their inevitable fruit.1 For a century
and more, however, the means for replenishing the soil
had been at hand, little nsed and apparently but little
thought of. About the time of the opening of the nine
teenth century, however, when the damage had mostly
been done, farmers began to make use of the great schools
of fish which frequented the coast. Ezra L'Hommedieu,
one of the group of pioneer agricultural experimenters,
published a long paper of conclusions based on observa
tions of his own and of others.2 Within the first decade of
the new century, the new fertilizer became well estab
lished. The people of the shore swept the bays and Sound
and "covered their fields with immense shoals of white-
fish."3 It took eight thousand to dress an acre of land.
Sometimes the fish were ploughed in. Sometimes they
were left on the surface to putrefy in the sun. The pun
gent odor which arose from the decaying soil may well
have been the reason why the use of "mossbunkers" did
not at once become general. Profits, however, beat down
aesthetic objections and the use of "bunkers" spread.
Numbers help but little in giving an idea of the steady
rise of the fishery. The hundreds of thousands of fish
that were caught in the early years of the nineteenth cen
tury grew to millions when the first quarter had been
passed. These, in turn, became hundreds of millions as
the half -century mark approached. In the rejuvenating
of the impoverished soil of Long Island the long-neglected
"mossbunker" played a leading part. Better farming
and bigger catches went hand in hand. The menhaden
fishery was dependent upon agriculture.4
i Chapter III.
2 Transactions, I (1801), 65-67.
3 Dwight, Travels im, New England and New York (1822), III, 305.
* Thompson, I, 440.

"COOTS" AND "WATEE WITCHES" 79
The organization of the menhaden fishery during this
"agricultural phase" was a simple one. The first fisher
men were mainly farmers who went out in boats to take
the fish when they should appear. As the demand in
creased, "companies" were organized, devoting their
whole time during the season to the capture of "bunkers."
There were the "Coots," the "Fish Hawks," the
"Eagles," the "Pedoodles," the "Water Witches" and
a host of other "companies" scattered here and there
along the sands of Peconic Bay or the lagoons of the south
shore. The most important possession of each organiza
tion was a huge seine, sometimes fully three-quarters of
a mile in length. A small, weathered, board shack on the
beach was called "headquarters," and in this most of the
meagre equipment was stored. When the surface of the
bay was rippled, as by a puff of breeze, the "company"
would hastily put off in large, sharp-pointed rowboats
and bend to the oars to reach the school ahead of any rival
organization. Swiftly the fish would be surrounded.
Each boat would drop overboard the segment of the net
it carried. The pieces would be coupled together and the
ends of the great seine brought to the shore as near as
possible to the headquarters shack. Horses would be
hitched to the net at the water's edge and the fish drawn
slowly up the beach. When all was done, a heap of glisten
ing "bunkers," perhaps a hundred thousand or more,
would lie piled up on the sand. Putting away their boats,
the "Fish Hawks" or the "Water Witches" would begin
counting out the catch. As the news of the haul spread
throughout the countryside, the farmers would come
flocking to the water to load their lumber wagons with the
fish. When the last of these had jolted away into the
interior, the great net would be slowly wound up on a
giant reel and left in the sun to. dry, while the watch again
began his lookout for the disturbed water above another

80 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
school. It was the simple organization of an offshore
fishery.1 The middle of the nineteenth century brought a change
to the menhaden fishery. For some years, a few people
had been tryingwith indifferent results to extract oil from
the "bunkers" by boiling them in whalers' "try-pots."
In 1850, however, D. D. Wells built on the shore near
Greenport, Long Island, the first menhaden oil factory
ever seen on the Atlantic coast. Great success did not
immediately attend this venture for the product was of
a dark color and exuded a highly offensive odor. Per
sistent efforts, however, on the part of Mr. Wells in im
proving his methods and machinery, soon developed an
oil that was saleable. It could be used in painting and
tanning and also for the adulteration of more expensive
oils. The refuse left, after the oil had been expressed,
was also utilized. This "scrap," as it was called, was
dried, pulverized, and made into a fertilizer of great value
that sold among the farmers of the eastern states as
"guano."2 The coming of the factory put an end to the
simple agricultural phase of the menhaden fishery, which
was now established for the first time on a basis that
would justify a man in risking his entire livelihood in the
prosecution of the enterprise. The farmer of the Island,
however, finding his supply of fish depleted and "guano"
too expensive for general use, was forced to bestir him
self to a search for other sources whence fertilizer might
be obtained.
The high prices of the Civil War period brought pros
perity and also many competitors to the Wells enterprise.
i ' ' Beminiscenees of a citizen of New Suffolk, ' ' Long Island Traveler,
XXVII (1898), no. 22; Prime, History of Long Island (1845), p. 74; Sag
Harbor Express, XIII (1872), no. 48.
2 Statement of B. H. Sisson, Greenport, quoted by Goode, pp. 446-447 ;
Long Island Traveler, XLIX (1870), no. 37; Long Island via the Long
Island Railroad (1868), p. 25.

"COOTS" AND "WATEE WITCHES" 81
Crude "factories," scarcely more ambitious than the
"headquarters" of the "Coots" or the "Water Witches,"
began to appear on out-of-the-way stretches of the beach
where their inevitable odor would offend as few as possi
ble. To the docks .of these primitive establishments the
fishing "companies" brought their catches.1 The factory,
on the one hand stimulating the ' ' bringing up of a hardy
race of boatmen and sailors," brought also many people
to the beach to do the necessary work on shore. It was
the measure of the increasing pull of the sea.
With the coming of the factory a second change began
to manifest itself in the menhaden fishery. The rivalry
of the fishing "companies" inevitably led to the seeking
of the "bunkers" farther and farther off shore. Sloops
and schooners, sometimes of twenty tons ' burden, began
to follow the schools on Long Island Sound, Gardiners
Bay, and beyond. After the turn of the century, the occa
sional whaler, tacking in toward Sag Harbor, met the
boats of the new fishery standing out to sea to search for
"bunkers" on the broad ocean. To meet the demands of
deep-sea fishing the purse net was invented. When a
fishing schooner sighted a school, she veered her course
and drew near. Two rowboats, each carrying half the
net, would be lowered and a circle of net laid about the
fish. While the upper edge of this floated on the water,
the bottom would be quickly shirred together with the
long ropes attached for that purpose. The "bunkers,"
caughtin a great bag, found escape shut off on every side.
The schooner then would tack alongside the circle of
floating corks and, with a scoop net, transfer the catch
to the great storage tank in the boat. Although some of
the old seining companies remained, the day of their im
portance was passing, as many of their number aban-
1 Goode, pp. 446-447; New York State Census Report (1855), pp. 416-
430; Sag Harbor Express, XIII (1872), no. 29.

82 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
doned the beach for the ocean. Menhaden fishing, which
had called many men to a new occupation at the water's
edge, was now steadily drawing them out to the open
water as the business shifted from an offshore to a deep-
sea fishery.1
The advent of the oil factory came just at this time of
change. The factory, however, was not, at first, the con
trolling agency in the business. The fishermen were inde
pendent and cast their seines and purse nets when and
where they would. The factories, dependent upon the
fishermen for their supply of fish, were forced to compete
with one another in prices offered.2 To ensure as steady
and as cheap a supply of "bunkers" as possible, some
owners developed what were called "floating factories,"
hulls of old ships remodeled and equipped with the
requisite apparatus. These, towed along the shore, saved
time and expense by following the movements of the fish.3
The primitive floating factory was an adaptation to the
offshore phase of the fishery. It disappeared when shal
low water fishing declined. It was inevitable, under these
circumstances, that factory owners should begin to chafe
at their dependence upon the fishermen over whom they
had no control. They began sending fishing boats of their
own to sea. Within fifteen years after the founding of
Wells's first establishment, a majority of the oil-making
companies were sending out their own fleets. This change
marked the practical disappearance of the independent
fisherman. Most of his old ' ' companies ' ' were broken up.
He still went to sea to fish for menhaden, but now merely
as one of the factors in an organization steadily growing
i Goode, pp. 119-124.
2 In 1873, the proprietors of the Barren Island factories formed a mutual
benefit association and decided upon the price that they would pay for fish
for the coming year. Sag Harbor Express, XIV (1873), no. 29.
s Goode, pp. 175-177.

"COOTS" AND "WATEE WITCHES" 83
more complex. The risks of the fishery were shifted from
his shoulders to those of the factory owner.1
During the first three decades of the "factory" phase
of the menhaden business, a multitude of small oil-making
establishments costing from ten to forty thousand dollars
appeared along the north Atlantic shore. By 1877, the
coast of Maine could boast fourteen factories of sufficient
importance to be represented in the Maine Oil and Guano
Association. Narragansett Bay supported thirteen con
cerns, of which nine were located at Tiverton. Farther to
the west, five more dotted the Connecticut shore. An
other five prosecuted their business on the Jersey coast at
Somers Point and Tuckerton. Four factories were scat
tered along the Chesapeake from Norfolk to Baltimore.
Even at this time, however, when the business reached its
greatest regional expansion, Long Island, with its multi
tude of shallow bays and sheltered harbors, was the most
important centre. The first ten factories of the pioneers
had increased to fifteen on the beaches of the east end
with eight more on those of the southern shore. Al
though, here and there, an isolated plant could be found,
nearly all of the Long Island establishments were claimed
by three centres, Barren Island in Jamaica Bay, Sayville
on Great South Bay, and, most important of all, Green
port and Shelter Island on Peconic Bay.2
During the period of multiplication of small factories,
occurred a change which was destined to alter profoundly
the development of the industry. A spirited competition
between the fleets of rival factories sprang up. Longer
and longer voyages southward were made, though the
speed with which a very perishable product had to be
brought to the factory from distant fishing grounds dis
tinctly limited the usefulness of the sailing ship. As
i Goode, p. 189.
2 Ibid., pp. 165-169.

84 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
factories grew and competition increased, the advent of
the steamer became inevitable. The new boat required
a smaller crew to handle her and her greater speed
enabled her to undertake longer trips than her sailing
rival. The change to steam caused nothing less than a
revolution in the menhaden oil business. The small
manufacturer of the seventies could rarely afford to pur
chase and maintain a steamer which in many cases would
cost more than his entire factory. He had neither the
capital nor the volume of trade to warrant such an outlay.
But the exigencies of competition in the deep-sea fishery
could not be avoided. The steamer was forced upon him.
The inevitable result was the consolidation of the small
factories. By 1895, the sailing vessel had been practically
driven from the water and the twenty-three Long Island
factories of 1877 had been reduced to eight. These were
located at two centres, Barren Island in Jamaica Bay and
the treeless isthmus of Promised Land on the Montauk
peninsula.1 These larger concerns marked the beginning
of a new phase of the menhaden fishery, characterized by
a highly intelligent adaptation to the maritime environ
ment. Instead of waiting for the fish to come to the
shallow offshore waters, small steamers pushed their
prows well to the south and scanned every stretch of
water where menhaden might be found. The sea had not
only drawn the fisherman out from land but had greatly
changed his method of work.
The movement toward consolidation, fostered by the
demands of the new deep-sea fishing was, however, not
yet completed. On the morning of November 19, 1897,
when the people of Greenport picked up their local paper,
those interested in the menhaden fishery were dismayed
to read the following announcement which came without
i Goode, pp. 114-116; The New Long Island (1879), p. 22; Jamaica
Farmer, XLIX (1870), no. 31; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LIV (1894), no. 313.

- "COOTS" AND "WATEE WITCHES" 85
the slightest warning: "A syndicate composed of English
capitalists is negotiating for the purchase of the men
haden business at Promised Land. It proposes to buy
the factories and the entire outfit, thus securing entire
control of the menhaden business on eastern Long Island,
and not only does this syndicate hope to obtain control of
the Promised Land works, but it has also negotiated for
the purchase of the National Oil and Guano Manufactur
ing Company, which has an office at Maiden Lane, New
York, and is regarded as. one of the most influential in the
business.. In fact it is believed that the syndicate pro
poses, to corner the entire menhaden business of the At
lantic coast. The capitalists have offered the owners of
the factories the privilege of selling out their business to
the syndicate at a fair price or else run the risk of being
frozen out, as they claim this will ultimately come, in due
course of time. If the owners of the factories will not
sell, the capitalists will then undertake the process of
freezing out the individual owners. In order to do that
they will secure a desirable harbor frontage, in the
vicinity of the present factories, and then proceed to
business. The capitalists claim to control a patent by
which they can manufacture menhaden fertilizer with
one-third less expense than is incurred" according to the
present method. In this manner they propose to freeze
out the present owners, if they will not sell. ' n
This sudden assault upon the prosperous menhaden-
business brought consternation to the people. Disquiet
ing rumors ran from village to village along the coast.
"Fishermen are asking who the syndicate is. Is it the
Standard Oil Co., the Sugar Trust, or an English syndi
cate?"2 Would the Maine and Ehode Island factories
sell out? Famifies whose support depended upon the
i Long Island Traveler, XXVII (1897), no. 12.
zibid, XXVII (1897), no. 17.

86 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
business became fearful that, in the event of a change,
things might not fare well with them. Deep indignation
at the cold-blooded attack appeared in every quarter.
Behind closed doors the factory owners considered the
situation in all its aspects. They understood that they
were face to face with a corporation whose capital was
reported at ten millions of dollars and which was armed
with an invention that would enable it to undersell the
most efficient of the local manufacturers. It was inti
mated to them that, in the new concern, American as well
as British money was involved and that the Standard Oil
Company, wishing to turn certain of its waste products
into a profitable lubricating grease by the addition of
cheap menhaden oil, was the American firm interested.1
From November until February the owners considered
the proposal. On the twenty-fifth of the latter month, all
the important concerns yielded to the inevitable and, on
that day, was consummated the final transfer of their
properties to the American Fisheries Company.2 With
those of Long Island went practically all the factories of
the Atlantic coast. The movement toward consolidation
which had begun far back in the seventies now reached
its dramatic culmination.
The problem which, at the outset, confronted the Amer
ican Fisheries Company was of a distinctly geographical
nature. Where should the great, new factories of the
concern be located? The dominant factor in the problem
was the annual migration of the menhaden schools from
the warm waters of the Gulf region and from the deep
sea up the Atlantic coast as far as Maine, a great north-
flowing river of fish running roughly parallel to the Gulf
Stream. The company decided to establish four oil-mak-
i Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LVTII (1898), nos. 2, 5; Long Island Traveler,
XXVII (1898), no. 23.
2 Long Island Traveler, XXVII (1898), no. 26.

"COOTS" AND "WATEE WITCHES" 87
ing centres from which steamers could be sent out to tap
this living river. Delaware Bay in the south, Promised
Land on eastern Long Island and Tiverton on Narragan-
sett Bay at the centre, and the coast of Maine in the north
were the locations chosen. Besides these an experimental
factory was to be established on the Texas coast to try
the possibilities of winter fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.1
Apparently because of its central location and its near
ness to New York, Promised Land was chosen for the
headquarters of the company. The winter quarters for
the fleet were sometimes at Greenport and sometimes at
Tiverton across the Sound. The new company abolished
competition. Long voyages to outdo rivals were no
longer necessary because the factories of the concern had
been so arranged as to divide the river of fish into seg
ments. When the new large steamers brought a greatly
increased catch to the improved factories, adaptation to
the peculiarities of the menhaden fishery was complete.
The only problem that remained was whether the supply
of fish could hold out in the face of such inroads.
The reasons which had led to the concentration of the
menhaden oil business of Long Island in one small locality
at Promised Land were significant of certain important
developments in the life of the Island. In the days of the
early oil factories, establishments had been scattered at
irregular intervals along the whole shore from Greenport
to Jamaica Bay to utilize the fish which came to all those
waters. By 1890, most of these concerns had moved to
Promised Land in the east or to Barren Island in the
west. After the coming of the American Fisheries Com
pany, the Barren Island factories were given up and the
whole Long Island business carried on at the eastern
station. There was another reason for this change aside
from the shifting of the fishery to the deep sea. The odor
iLong Island Traveler, XXVIII (1898), no. 2.

88 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
of decaying fish that inevitably arose from the menhaden
manufacturing establishment was exceedingly offensive.
Unpleasant as this was, the factory of the early days,
built on an out-of-the-way part of the beach, was allowed
to stay because many of the men and women of the locality
were dependent upon it for their living. When, however,
the summer people of New York began to come to the
beaches of Long Island in sufficient number to increase
their value, the situation was changed and a struggle was
precipitated between the factory owner and the inn
keeper. First to feel the new influence was the beautiful
Shelter Island, from whose beaches the factories were
expelled as early as 1872 by the strong arm of the law
acting avowedly in defense of public health.1 The story
of Shelter Island was that of the whole Long Island coast.
Everywhere, health officials began closing down or driv
ing out the factories as fast as the local inhabitants
entered into the business of caring for the vacation people
from the city. The question presented to the factory
owner was where to go. Promised Land, a narrow bleak
isthmus of sand with the sea pounding on either side, a
land of no farms, no villages, and no summer people,
offered a safe retreat and refuge. Attractive from its
very unattractiveness, set far out upon the Montauk
peninsula near which flowed the great menhaden stream,
a railroad skirting its beach of sand dunes and finding a
terminus a little more than half a hundred miles away in
the greatest industrial centre in America, Promised Land
formed the ideal location for the maker of fish oil. To
this centre ultimately gravitated the whole of Long
Island's great business and here the American Fisheries
Company established headquarters. At least one section
of the ''Long Island Barrens" had come into its own.
^ Sag Harbor Express, XIII (1872), no. 46.

CHAPTEE VII
BLUE POINTS AND BAYMEN
Stretching along more than half the length of the south
shore of Long Island is the broad lagoon, called Great
South Bay enclosed by Fire Island Beach. In these quiet
waters, sheltered from the storms of the Atlantic by a
narrow, tenuous sand reef, oysters can live and beds of
oysters find conditions suitable for growth. Here oyster-
ing began in early times and has continued through many
changes until the present. Crises and conflicts have
marked its progress, the same crises and conflicts that
have characterized the evolution of the business in the
broader waters of the North Atlantic. The history of the
oyster beds of Great South Bay is, on a small scale, the
story of the development of the whole industry. For this
reason, it seems worth while to consider this typical case
before taking up the broader phases of the problem.
He who would know when or where on Long Island the
oyster industry began, when or where the red man first
eked out his store of maize and game by gathering oysters
from the neighboring waters must forever have his query
unanswered. On the shore he may stand beside the occa
sional piles of weathered shells that the Indian heaped
together, but shell piles have no dates. The first white
men left no better records. Not until 1680, when Jasper
Danckaerts toured the region around the Hudson, is a
reference to be discovered: "We found good oysters in
the creek inside [Coney Island] and ate some of them."
At another time Danckaerts went oystering at Gawanus.1
1 Jasper Danckaerts, Journal, pp. 172, 174.

90 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
It can scarcely be said that there was an oyster industry
at this time. Although the taking of the bivalve was ap
parently common in some waters, it was subordinate to
other forms of activity of the early settler. Throughout
the eighteenth century the farmer or the artisan gathered
oysters, as he would go fishing or hunting. Men living
by the sea, went out to take what nature offered. The
oysterman had not yet appeared.
The growth and expansion of the oyster business in
the old days depended directly upon discovery. Large
natural beds existed in Great South Bay, Narragansett
Bay, and Long Island Sound, veritable mines of marine
wealth, but they were of no service until discovery made
them known. Usually the locating of these was purely a
matter of accident, for there is no evidence to show sys
tematic searching for new areas. The large bed off Blue
Point in Great South Bay was one of the first big finds in
the history of the Long Island business. Before the be
ginning of the nineteenth century this field had been
opened up and was being worked. The century was not
many years old when the catch from this area had ob
tained sufficient prominence in the markets of the time
to give to a product of superior quality the name which
has lasted to the present, "Blue Point" oyster. It was
the discovery of this rich bed that marked the beginning
of organized oyster fishing in Great South Bay.1
The manner of working the Blue Point field was char
acteristic of the methods universally employed early in
the business. The industry was in its ' ' collection stage ' ' ;
men seized the wealth they found and took no thought for
the future to prevent its becoming exhausted. The very
slight amount of capital required for the successful prose
cution of the business merely made unbridled exploitation
iHopson, An Essay on the Oyster Industry (1885), p. 49; Thompson,
I, 441.

BLUE POINTS AND BAYMEN 91
the more easy. An open rowboat and a pair of simple
"tongs," two iron-toothed rakes with long handles, were
practically all the equipment necessary. The "barons"
of this early business "tonged" the bottom from the
magnificent vantage point of catboats or small sharpies,
but even these were not unduly costly. Few men were so
poor as to be unable to procure the necessary tools, and
the business required little skill on the part of the work
man. The result was inevitable. An ever increasing
group of men appeared who depended for their subsist
ence upon the products of the waters of the bay. They
were called "baymen." The name has remained. They
were a rugged type of men who braved the weather at all
seasons in open boats. For nine months they lived on the
profits derived from the oyster beds, and depended for
the other three upon clamming and fishing. They were
poor for the most part, but independent, masters of their
own time and tools. In the early hours of the day a fleet
of these baymen could be seen putting off from the coves
and inlets that lined the shores. During the morning, the
bay would be dotted with anchored rowboats and sail
boats. In each of these were men leaning over the sides,
lifting by hard manual labor bushel after bushel of
bivalves from the bottom. It was slow work, for the
tongs were clumsy and their load was small. From time
to time the boats would shift their positions as the oys
ters were cleaned from the areas underneath. By the
middle of the afternoon these small craft, piled high with
the day's catch, would move toward shore to moor along
the oyster wharves, where the product was taken out and
opened. The business was simple and profitable. Season
after season, the number of the baymen increased and the
villages of the oystermen along the shore felt the stimu
lus of a vigorous industry. But it did not last. The bed
was small and its product limited. The closer and closer

92 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
tonging of each succeeding year brought signs of exhaus
tion. Not many years had passed until exploitationi
proved fatal. In 1824, appeared the ominous record that
Blue Point in Brookhaven had formerly been noted for
its oyster fisheries.1
The history of the exploitation of the Blue Point beds
is a story quite characteristic of the American of the first
half of the nineteenth century, as is also the way in which
the loss of such a bed was remedied. When the Blue
Point oysterman set out to win back his failing business,
he found fortune ready to make amends for his lack of
foresight. He began to look for new beds and found them
almost at his own door. The exploring of the next forty
years brought to light a great area, twenty-three miles in
length, extending from Smith's Point to NicolFs Point,
which was practically one huge oyster field. As long as
the oyster industry remained in this primitive collection
stage, just so long the growth and expansion of the busi
ness depended directly upon the discovery of such new
beds.2 This huge Great South Bay field was a mine of wealth
indeed, the exploitation of which brought fat years to the
south shore bayman. Local villages were stirred into life
and population grew. The oyster centre shifted from
Blue Point to Patchogue.3 Here began to be built a large
cluster of packing houses. Others were established at
different points along the shore. The packing house be-
i Spafford, Gazatteer of the State of New York (1824), p. 61. The stand
ard work on the oyster is Kellogg, Shell Fish Industries (1910). The work
is primarily biological though it contains a useful description of the present
industry. 2 New York State Commissioner of Fisheries, Report (1885), pp. 49-57.
Other natural beds in Long Island waters were found in Oyster Bay, Hunt
ington Harbor, Hempstead Bay, Smithtown Bay, off Eaton's Neck, Shinne
cock Bay, Mecox Bay, and Jamaica Bay.
3 Long Island via the Long Island Railroad (1868), p. 54; Long Island
and Where to Go (1877), p. 215.

BLUE POINTS AND BAYMEN 93
came, in fact, the very heart of the early organization of
the industry. To its docks the bayman every day brought
his loaded boat and sold his catch. Under its roof the
oysters were "shucked" and the "meats" put in gallon
and half -gallon wooden kegs. From its doors reached out
the distributing system which carried the product to its
markets.1 There were two of these, New York City and
the local Long Island villages and countryside. To sup
ply the latter trade two agencies were employed. One
was the peddling wagon, which not only supplied the kegs
of oysters to the country stores but also stopped, like the
horn-blowing fishman of the interior, at the homes of the
individual consumers.2 The other was the small sailing
boat that beat its way along the shore, putting in at vil
lages, like Sag Harbor, where oysters were not found, and
selling its wares from the open boat to the housewives
who came down to the shore to buy.3 Although the local
trade was important, the great market was New York
City. Into this centre tons of oysters were poured, some
shipped over the old main line of the Long Island Bail-
road, others carried by fleets of small sloops, and still
others hauled overland in wagons. In the development of
the packing house and its auxiliary distributing and sell
ing systems, the organization of the oyster industry in
its exploitation stage reached its culmination. This
organization had hardly been brought to perfection, how
ever, when a change came over the business bringing
results of the utmost consequence.
The new factor was the invention of the dredge. Like
the tongs, the dredge was simple in construction and easy
^Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LIII (1893), no. 11. For an account of the
highly developed packing houses of Chesapeake Bay, see The Oysterman,
III (1906), no. 47.
^ Long Island Farmer, XV (1848), no. 42.
3 Sag Harbor Express, XV (1877), no. 24.

94 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
to use. A long bag of steel rings woven together and a
mouth held open by a steel frame were the essential parts.
A broad iron lip, scraping along the bottom, scooped in
the oysters and a cable and windlass lifted the full dredge
into the boat. In principle, the new invention was merely
an adaptation of the fisherman's dragnet. The important
qualities of the dredge were two. Its cheapness put it
within reach of practically every bayman. Its efficiency
enabled its owner to gather oysters at greatly increased
speed and with a minimum of manual labor. There could
be but one result. Every bayman who owned a sailboat
went to the slight expense of installing a windlass and
dredge, while his more humble brother of the open boat
planned tb save enough capital to buy the necessary sail
ing craft and fittings. By 1860, the new tool was almost
universally employed.1
During the decade from 1860 to 1870, the dredge
brought boom times to Great South Bay. Yields hitherto
undreamed of were taken from the beds, as new areas,
where the water had been too deep for tonging, were
opened up. The profits of the baymen grew and, natu
rally, their numbers increased.2 The prospects of the bay
never seemed, brighter. In reality, however, the pros
perity was hollow. By 1870, too many men were working
the Great South Bay beds and too many oysters were
being taken from them. The story of the Blue Point fields
was being repeated on a vastly larger scale. Unregulated
exploitation was bringing unmistakable signs of exhaus
tion. Natural increase could not make good the losses to
the dredge. No new beds, such as those which had saved
the Blue Point baymen, remained to be opened up. Ex
pansion by discovery had come to an end. The means of
i Sag Harbor Express, I (1859), no. 14.
"Long Island and Where to Go (1877), p. 54; French, Gazetteer of the
State of New York (1860), pp. 544, 632.

BLUE POINTS AND BAYMEN 95
livelihood for whole communities was threatened. People
interested in the oyster business cast about for a cause to
explain the impending disaster. The one hit upon was
,the most obvious though not the most vital. It was the
dredge. On April 15, 1870, an act was passed by local
authorities forbidding the use of anything but tongs in
the taking of oysters from the public beds of Great South
Bay.1 In an effort to check the destruction of the oyster
fields the lawmakers deemed it necessary to take a step
backward in the management of the business.
This partial checking of exploitation, however, held out
to the bayman but an indifferent prospect. During the
full years of prosperity, while he was reaping the bounty
of the great natural beds, a danger had arisen that had
been little heeded. A competitor to the bayman appeared
in the person of the oyster planter. Year by year, after
1865, this personage had been quietly leasing and bring
ing under cultivation more and more bay bottom. Many
of the more progressive baymen were drawn into the new
business. By 1870, oyster culture on privately leased
land had become firmly established.2 The law which for
bade the bayman to use the dredge on the public beds did
not apply to the privately managed fields of the new
planter. The bayman must give up a highly valued ad
vantage which his rival was permitted to retain. The
smaller catches and lessened income which resulted when
he took up again the long unused tongs, showed him the
difficulty of competing with his more powerful and better
equipped rival. It touched his pride of independence to
go into the contest with one hand tied. But if he refused
to give up the dredge, he brought speedy and inevitable
destruction to those very beds on which his living de
pended. He stood between Scylla and Charybdis.
i Hough, Gazatteer of the State of New York (1872), p. 634.
' ' "Sag Harbor Express, XIII (1871), no. 23.

CHAPTEE VIII
THE COST OF PEOGEESS
Oysters will grow and mature in waters in which they
cannot breed. Upon this characteristic of the bivalve the
business of oyster planting rests. The oyster farmer gets
embryo oysters, "seed" as they are called, bred where
conditions are favorable, and "plants" them on his fields.
These fields have been prepared by covering them thickly
with oyster shells, making a hard, smooth surface to which
the "seed" can attach itself when it settles to the bottom.
The period of maturing lasts from two to four years. The
typical oyster farm is divided into four divisions, one of
which is dredged clean and planted again each year.
Oyster planting began in America in 1855. In that
year, the state of New York recognized by law for the
first time property rights in sea-bottom land used for
the raising of oysters. No rights could be had in "natu
ral" beds where the bivalve bred and grew of its own
accord, but "unproductive" areas where no oysters were
to be found could be taken up and leased. The law had
hardly been placed on the statute books when the first
attempts at oyster culture were made off City Island,
near New York. The venture was successful and the busi
ness spread. It worked its way into New York Bay and
expanded along the Connecticut shore.1 In 1865, with the
i In the early days of oyster planting in Long Island Sound most of the
seed was obtained from the beds of the Chesapeake. When this tract de
clined, the seed was secured from favorably located beds along the Con
necticut shore. The planters of Great South Bay obtained their seed, at
first, from Maryland and later from Connecticut. n

THE COST OF PEOGEESS 97
passage of a Queens County ordinance, it entered Great
South Bay. Then began the struggle between the oyster
planter and the bayman, the method of cultivation and
that of exploitation.
The Queens County law, as was the custom of the time,
limited the planter to three acres.' Although he could
avoid this stipulation by taking out leases in the names of
his wife and children, he could not acquire holdings of any
considerable size: Such a system was not conducive to
the rapid growth of oyster culture for the reason that a
larger farm, of one hundred or two hundred acres, could
be managed to better advantage than a small one. Hold
ings of three, six, or nine acres were too small to occupy
the full time of the oysterman or of his sloop and dredge,
with the result that he, together with his equipment, had
either to lie idle part of the time or be employed at other
tasks. It was but natural that, when his own fields were
cared for, he should join the baymen in the working of
the natural beds. It was inevitable that some of the more
progressive among the latter should make the easy transi
tion and set themselves up as small planters. In this way,
in spite of the handicap of the three-acre system, oyster
planting steadily spread in Great South Bay. Between
1865 and 1871, twelve hundred acres of unproductive bay
bottom were turned into oyster farms.2 There were many
times when these aggressive farmers were scarcely more
than within the border of the law. No bay bottom where
natural beds occurred could legally be leased. The new
planter, however, many times staked out areas tempo
rarily exhausted by excessive dredging, with the plea that
because there were no oysters in the area it did not come
under the legal definition of a natural bed. The success
of this plea brought dismay to the bayman.
- Hough, Gazatteer of the State of New York (1872), p. 546.
"Sag Harbor Express, XIII (1871), no. 23.

98 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
The bayman girded up his loins for combat. In 1871,
an indignation meeting was held to oppose the carrying
out of the oyster-leasing law on the ground that, ignoring
the poor man, it gave the business into the hands of
monopolists.1 Two years later stronger action was taken.
A petition was drawn up and presented "To the Honor
able the Board of Trustees of the Town of Brookhaven."
The paper reads as follows: "We the oystermen and
baymen of Great South Bay, petition your venerable body
to cease leasing lots for planting oysters in said bay by
private individuals after April 1st, 1875. Our reasons for
-asking this are, that the ground most prolific for the
natural growth of oysters is staked in and we are de
prived of the means of gaining a living for ourselves
and families. If your honorable body accedes to our.
request, we are willing ... to pay a toleration fee of five
dollars a year after the ground now leased is open to all
oystermen paying said toleration fee."2 The petition,
however, came too late. The planters had more influence
with the board of trustees than did the baymen. Instead
of being checked, oyster planting steadily increased. In
less than a decade, the oyster farmers were claiming an
output equal in amount to that of the whole community of
baymen. This change brought its inevitable result. The
three-acre regulation broke down. In 1879, the township
of Brookhaven modified this ordinance in such a way as
to permit both the leasing of large areas and the organiza
tion of incorporated companies to carry on the business.3
Acting under the provisions of the law of 1879, indi
vidual farmers began to build up holdings, running some
times into hundreds of acres. Some small companies,
i Jamaica Farmer, L (1871), no. 43.
'Sag Harbor Express, XV (1873), no. 24.
s New York State Commissioner of Fisheries, Report (1885), pp. 49-57.

THE COST OF PEOGEESS 99
controlled by local capital, came into existence, but these
were neither large nor numerous. If the decade from
1850 to 1860 had been marked by the almost exclusive
control of the oyster business by the bayman, that from
1880 to 1890 was characterized by the predominance of
the individual planter. By 1890, twenty-five packing
houses were to be found scattered along the south shore.
The principal shipping points on the bay were Babylon,
Bay Shore, Oakdale, Sayville, and Patchogue. Out of
these villages between sixty and seventy thousand barrels
of oysters were shipped every year, forty thousand to
the New York market and the rest to supply the new and
growing trade with Europe. Nothing in the old days of
exploitation could surpass such an output. Oyster plant
ing had come to stay.1
Such success attracted attention. The growth of the
new business was watched. By the beginning of the nine
ties, interested parties were convinced that large corpora
tions could be made profitable in Great South Bay. The
economy which large-scale organizations would effect was
important. The producing branch of the business could
be united with the packing and distributing branch. For
merly the bayman and, later, the oyster farmer had sold
to the packing company. If the packing company and the
planter should become one, the middleman's profit would
be saved. The scheme had already been successful on the
Connecticut shore, where corporations had erected large
"shucking houses" and had established regular markets
for their products. In 1891, three large companies, sup
posed to be backed by New York capital, made their ap
pearance in Great South Bay. Two thousand acres were
at once leased outright. Oystering in southern Long
i Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LI (1891), no. 261; LIII (1893), nos. 11, 321;
New York State Commissioner of Fisheries, Report (1885), pp. 49-57.

100 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
Island waters entered upon the last phase of its develop
ment.1 The new companies promptly introduced the most im
portant improvement in the oyster business subsequent to
the dredge. The rowboat of the early tongers had de
veloped into the small sloop with a single drag attached.
This sailing craft had grown in size until two dredges
were dropped over the sides and a considerable crew was
required for the handling. The sailboat, however, was
at the mercy of calm and storm and, moreover, wasted
much time in coming about, a manoeuvre frequently neces
sary in dredging fields with fixed boundaries. In 1894,
the first oyster steamer made its appearance on Great
South Bay. The Curiosity was its name but the hostile
baymen dubbed it Hell's Wagon. The Curiosity was a
vessel sixty feet long, eighteen feet wide, and four feet
deep and was built at a cost of five thousand dollars. It
used six dredges and was manned by a crew consisting
of a captain and four men. Its owners estimated that the
new boat would do in a day six times the work of an ordi
nary sailing boat. Significantly enough the first large
corporation and the first oyster steamer appeared on
Great South Bay at almost the same time. It is also
significant that the baymen named the new boat Hell's
Wagon. This name measured the competition they were
compelled to face.2
With the appearance of the large corporation in Great
South Bay, the troubles which had long beset the path of
the bayman reached their climax. Between the competi
tion of the planter, on the one hand, and the growing ex
haustion of his beds, on the other, he fought a losing fight.
In 1883, when a crisis seemed imminent, he appealed to
the ballot and won. A board of "free bay" trustees was
i Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LI (1891), no. 261.
"Ibid., LIV (1894), no. 329.

THE COST OF PEOGEESS 101
elected in the township of Brookhaven. These men, acting
in the interests of their constituents, passed at once an
ordinance forbidding the further granting of oyster
leases in Great South Bay.1 The victory, however, was
short-lived. It seems that the trustees had exceeded their
power. Within a year, they were forced to rescind the
measure. After such a setback, the bayman stood power
less before his enemies. In 1891, the rumor ran up and
down the south shore that the new corporation had ob
tained options on about eight thousand acres of bay-
bottom, including some of the best natural beds that were
left. The bayman 's answer was immediate. A protective
league was formed to resist the aggression. William Un
derwood of Patchogue seems to have been the leader in
the movement.2 The legality of the leases obtained by
the corporation was uncertain on account of a conflict
over the title to the bay-bottom. Underwood, followed
by others, trespassed on the land claimed by the com
panies and stood trial in defense of his rights. Feeling
ran high and the court rooms were packed. The baymen
stoutly maintained that, no matter what were the uncer
tainties of the title, the "oyster barons" had no legal
or moral right to lease beds where oysters naturally grew.
After five years of litigation, the New York State Court
of Appeals handed down a decision in favor of Under
wood.3 Although the victory saved the beds for the
future, in reality, it came too late. In 1893, the natural
oyster fields gave out. For three years there was prac
tically no catch.* The crisis, long impending, had, at last,
arrived. A numerous population found itself without its
customary means of support. The result was inevitable.
iNew York Commissioner of Fisheries, Report (1885), pp. 55-57.
'Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LI (1891), no. 261; LII (1892), nos. 135, 261;
LIII (1893), no. 358.
sibid., LVI (1896), no. 51.
* Ibid., LVII (1897), no. 210.

102 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
A lawless and irresponsible group among the defeated
baymen made use of the last resort. In the year 1893,
piracy, for the first time, raised its head in Great South
Bay. "Down at Sayville on the Great South Bay armed
men are patrolling the shore and a cannon is held in readi
ness to blow out of the water the first piratical craft that
appears. Although three battles have already occurred,
the first on Sunday night, the second on Tuesday, and the
third on Wednesday, the pirates are as bold as ever. . . .
One incident of the Wednesday night attack is especially
noteworthy. Near midnight five sloops appeared on the
beds . . . and notwithstanding the outcry from the shore,
went to work dredging. The watchmen gathered together
and fired volley upon volley at the pirates, but to no pur
pose. Finally a steam launch was brought into play.
Lights were lowered and at full speed the launch was
driven at the nearest sloop. But the damage was trifling,
and the poachers with their pistols made the atmosphere
so warm that the steam craft was compelled to beat an
ignominious retreat. . . . [The watchmen] realized that
it would be folly to attempt to board one of the piratical
sloops, for they are well provided with shotguns and
revolvers and, moreover, the crews are expert in the use
of the oyster knife. . . . Thousands of bushels have been
taken under cover of the night. . . . The pirates are said
to live in the neighborhood of Patchogue and Blue
Point."1 The planters at once pooled a thousand dollars to dis
cover the authors of the violence. They aroused the fierce
resentment of the community by trying to implicate Un
derwood, the baymen 's leader. Detectives were retained
and information sought. No culprits, however, were
found and nothing important was accomplished. Gradu
ally the trouble blew over. The pirates seem never to
i Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LIII (1893), no. 352.

THE COST OF PEOGEESS 103
have returned to threaten again the property of Great
South Bay. Well might the oyster planter rest content to
let the wrongdoers go unpunished. The most desperate
among the baymen had made their last stand and had lost.
Although men continued to take oysters from the natural
oyster beds, the importance of the bayman was gone.
Organized industry, as must inevitably be the case, had
won. But, how costly in human struggle and suffering
had the victory been! Progress, as always, had aban
doned the man who could not maintain the pace.
The story of oystering in Great South Bay is, in minia
ture, that of the whole Atlantic coast. This general re
gional development can be sketched in a few words. Since
the business began, two great oystering centres have
existed, one in Chesapeake Bay and the waters of the
Virginia estuaries, and the other in Long Island Sound
and neighboring harbors. The business of Great South
Bay was, in reality, a part of that of this northern area.
The history of the two regions has, in many ways, been
different, - but the same principles have underlain the
development of each.
In the beginning the Chesapeake beds were the larger
and the richer of the two areas. The broad estuary at the
mouth of the Potomac boasted some of the finest and most
extensive natural beds in the world. ' ' Oyster bars ' ' they
were called. Hundreds and thousands of baymen,
equipped with tongs or with dredges, supported them
selves by the catch obtained from these waters. In 1840,
Maryland alone produced eight hundred thousand
bushels. In 1870, the figure had risen to nine millions,
and in 1884 the culmination was reached in the unparal
leled figure of fifteen million bushels. This output was
the product of the same methods of exploitation that had
characterized the early years of the Great South Bay
fields. So rich and so inexhaustible did the beds appear

104 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
to be, that oyster farming could not seem to gain a foot
hold.1 Exploitation, however, brought its inevitable reward
and exhaustion began to appear. By 1890, the output had
fallen from fifteen to ten million bushels. In 1900, the
decline had reached the five million mark, and four years
later it was still smaller. Many solutions for so serious a
situation were proposed, prominent among them being
anti-dredge laws like those tried years before in Great
South Bay. But the Maryland legislators looked deeper
than the surface. They sought to remove the disorder at
its very root. In 1906, the Haman-Seth law was enacted,
providing for the establishment of oyster culture. In
1912, acting under the provisions of this statute, Mary
land began a detailed survey of all the waters of the state
which was to be made the basis for the allotment of oyster
leases. Even in the famous beds of the Chesapeake, there
fore, cultivation had at last superseded exploitation.2
The story of the Long Island Sound development was
a very different one. In these waters the natural beds,
compared with those in Maryland, were small. If the
industry were to grow here, the amount of oyster land
must be artificially increased. This necessity gave rise
to the planting method and forced that method to its
greatest possible efficiency. Individual planters and small
companies made an early appearance. As the Connecti
cut shore fields presented the best opportunities, the
oyster companies of that region came to be the strongest.
By 1890, Norwalk, Bridgeport, and New Haven had be
come the most important oyster centres in the North
Atlantic. In each of these cities appeared one or more
great companies, head and shoulders above the rest, cor-
i United States Coast Geodetic Survey, Summary of Surveys of the Oys
ter Bars of Maryland (1909-1912), plate facing page 9.
2 Ibid, pp. 9-10; The Oysterman, III (1906), no. 30.

THE COST OF PEOGEESS 105
porations employing ten or a dozen large steamers and
controlling thousands of acres. Gradually, these large
concerns, imitated to a less extent by their smaller com
petitors, pushed their way into other waters. Narragan-
sett Bay was invaded. The north shore of Long Island,
Oyster Bay, Hempstead Bay, Northport harbor, and the
rest began also to feel the Connecticut influence. Plants
subsidiary to those across the Sound appeared upon Long
Island shores, and shipping stations for the Connecticut
products were established in Long Island villages.1
Great South Bay was far enough away to be at first
comparatively free from this influence. In fact, com
panies of that region after they had settled the competi
tion of the baymen, began a campaign of expansion and
conquest into other waters. When, in 1899, it became
known that Peconic Bay, with its large unoccupied area,
could be turned into successful oyster land, a sharp com
petition arose between Connecticut interests and those of
Great South Bay for the purpose of acquiring the best
bottom in that region.2 But the struggle could not be
long, for the Connecticut corporations were larger and
more powerful. Their expansion continued until, in 1910,
one of the largest among them made its appearance in
Great South Bay itself.
Although the bayman and the small oyster farmer still
exist both in Connecticut and Long Island, consolidation
and expansion have put the controlling influence into the
hands of the great companies. These, with few excep
tions, have their headquarters on the southern New Eng
land shore. Important as it is, the Long Island industry
has, to a large extent, become an adjunct to that of
Connecticut.
i The Oysterman, III (1905), nos. 3, 4.
"Long Island Traveler, XXVIII (1899), no. 38; The Oysterman, III
(1905), nos. 4, 17, 18, 21.

CHAPTEE IX
"SCALLOPEES" AND FISHEEMEN
One who chances to stroll along the sandy beaches of
Peconic Bay may pick up many a round, convex shell with
a beautiful system of grooves radiating from the hinge
at the side. It is the shell of one of the smaller bivalves
that lives in shallow, offshore waters and is known as the
scallop. The organism is relatively rare. The oyster and
the plebeian clam can be found in small quantities almost
anywhere along the coast, but with the scallop it is differ
ent. A few beaches on the coast of Maine, the Cape Cod
hook, Buzzards Bay, Narragansett Bay, the northern
shore of Long Island, and Peconic Bay are the regions
where scallop beds exist.1 Even these are not large.
There are, in fact, no great scallop fields to compare with
the vast areas of natural oyster beds which once were
found so commonly along the Atlantic coast. Conse
quently, the scallop has never become, like the oyster, a
great food staple. Its consumption has largely been
limited to the villages and cities of the coast. For this
reason the industry is obscure and the term, "scalloper,"
heard so much at the eastern end of Long Island, conveys
little meaning a score of miles inland.
The beginnings of scalloping, like the beginnings of oys
tering, are lost in the obscurity of the past. Certainly, as
long ago as the latter years of the eighteenth century, this
bivalve was caught and used in America.2 But no one
i KeUogg, pp. 336, 339.
2 Smithtown Records, 136.

"SCALLOPEES" AND FISHEEMEN 107
knows how much earlier the industry may have appeared.
The earliest records give a picture not of origins but of
a fishery fully developed. With this the enquirer must
be content. The story of the Maine coast beds is a tale
of fluctuation and irregular output. The unexpected find
ing of a bed, the flocking of baymen from far and near to
share the profits, and the speedy exhaustion of the area
form the greater part of the history of Maine scallop
ing.1 The record of the beds of Cape Cod and of Ehode
Island is much the same. But for the sheltered waters at
the east end of the Island the story is quite different.
Here, in Peconic Bay, is to be found one of the largest
and most productive of the scallop areas of the North
Atlantic. The account of the finding of the Peconic scallop field
has come down to us in the form of a local legend. Per
haps it was 1857, perhaps in the sixties, that one day a
lone, mysterious schooner appeared on the waters of the
bay off New Suffolk. The small craft began to beat slowly
back and forth across the bay, dredging. Curiosity seized
the people of the little village and boats put off to learn
for what the stranger was searching. He showed a catch
of scallops and, in answer to further questions, said that
he was from Connecticut. Coming in he taught the people
to open the valves and to take out and throw away the
soft visceral parts of the organism, leaving only the great .
flexor muscle to be used for food. With the imparting of
this information, he seemsJ;o have sailed away and left
the villagers to profit by his discovery. Not long after
this event, an ex-whaler of New Suffolk, left without a
livelihood by the decline of the whale fishery, became in
terested in the possibilities of the find and dredged some
scallops, which he sent to a commission merchant in New
York City. In a few days the merchant wrote back that
i The Oysterman and Fisherman, XIII (1915), no. 1.

108 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
the product had spoiled because no one would buy the
new article. He asked the ex-whaler, however, to send
down some more for which he would try to create a de
mand. In this way scalloping in Peconic Bay began.1
At first the new business grew slowly, for it had to
offer sufficient profit to divert men from other occupa
tions. But as the possibilities for marketing the product
increased it expanded. Farmers from the neighboring
countryside began to spend some of the fall and winter
days dredging the beds. During the height of the season,
local fishermen often left their nets for a time to take a
hand in the work. A few ex- whalers from Sag Harbor, in
search of something to do, drifted into scalloping. The
beds were rich and the number of dredgers increased. In
1873, a local paper informed its readers that "over 5000
bushels of scallops have been taken in Peconic Bay during
the fall season," a catch that enabled the "scallopers" to
coin "the almighty dollars by the hundreds."2 Even at
this early time the centre of the industry was at the little
village of New Suffolk where "scallops and cauliflowers
reign supreme. " The lean years were relatively few, and
more and more men became interested. Boats began to
come to the fields from Greenport, East Marion, Shelter
Island, Orient, Sag Harbor, and, at a later time, from
Jamesport and Eiverhead. "Eastern scallopers," prob
ably from Maine or Massachusetts, migrating to Green
port, had, by 1894, swelled the number of vessels from
that locality to thirty. Besides the men from the east,
there came also, in the nineties, a number of baymen from
Great South Bay seeking a means for making a livelihood
which would take the place of that lost by the exhaustion
of the public oyster fields of that region. By 1895, the
i Beminiscences of George I. Tuthill, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LX (1900),
no. 277.
"Sag Harbor Express, XV (1873), no. 23.

"SCALLOPEES" AND FISHEEMEN 109
scallop fleet had grown until, during the height of the
season, two hundred boats worked, day after day, back
and forth across the fields. "The bay presents a lively
appearance at times as white-winged craft from all sec
tions roam over the beds. ' n
Long before the close of the nineteenth century, the
simple organization of the primitive scallop industry had
been completely developed. It bore a close resemblance
to the oyster business in its early exploitation stage. In
both cases there was an open and a closed season ; in both
industries the dredge was used. Most of the small cat-
boats and sloops that made up the scallop fleet had origi
nally been built for the baymen of Great South Bay, and,
having been discarded by them on account of the exhaus
tion of their oyster fields, had been sold to the "scal
lopers" of Peconic Bay. The two industries were alike,
moreover, in the actual method of conducting the fishery.
Long before sunrise, during the busy days of the season,
the boats of the scallop fleet could be seen shoving off
from their small docks and putting down the bay to the
beds. Each little craft carried two dredges, and was
manned, usually, by two men who worked as partners.
During the hours of the morning, the boats beat slowly
back and forth over the field with both dredges over the
side. These were dragged one just before the other, the
first to clear away the seaweed from the bottom and the
second to gather up the shellfish. Before noon, most of
the craft returned to dock with the day's catch, which
sometimes amounted to a hundred and fifty bushels. On
the beach could be found clusters of small, weather-beaten
sheds, the "scallop houses." No one of them was more
than twelve or fifteen feet on a side. Each had a little
pier at which, about noon, the scallop boat drew up to turn
iLong Island Traveler, XXIII (1893), no. 5; XXIV (1894), no. 4;
XXVI (1897), no. 36; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LIV (1894), no. 299.

110 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
the catch over to the "openers." A shed was used by a
particular boat and the building was either owned or
rented by the two partners who ran the boat. Standing
in this structure before a broad shelf piled high with scal
lops, were to be seen the men, women, and children who
were opening the shells. With incredible swiftness and
dexterity they would force apart the valves, clear away
the soft viscera and cut the great muscle from its hold.
A few cents a gallon for the "meats" was the usual pay
to the "opener," and, at this rate, a swift girl, during the
busy season, could make good wages. The ' ' meats ' ' were
packed in tubs and shipped to New York or the coast
towns of New England.
For twenty-five years and more this organization has
undergone no material change. The reason for this is a
simple one. The oyster is sedentary and will stay where
placed, but the scallop is not so dependable. Slowly and
laboriously this organism can swim in a zigzag sort of
way by the sudden forcing out of water resulting from a
quick closing of the shells. "Jet propulsion," the biolo
gists call it. By such a crude method of locomotion whole
beds can migrate and will change their location from year
to year. Until, therefore, some cheap and practicable
scheme for enclosing a scallop field can be devised that
winter storms will not tear down, planting, comparable to
oyster planting, will be impossible, and the business must
remain a simple, exploitative industry.
The scalloper, himself, is as picturesque a shore figure
as any to be found on the coast. His business is a pre
carious one and the stakes of the gamble are the support
of himself and the welfare of his home. Even though he
take thought, he cannot predict from one year to another
how large the scallop crop will be. If the fields chance to
be fruitful, his life is easy and his pockets well lined, but,
if fortune does not smile, he is plunged into want. Accus-

"SCALLOPEES" AND FISHEEMEN 111
tomed to the risks of the sea in an open boat, he faces the
risks of his calling with equanimity. The joys and cares
of each day are sufficient and each morrow must look out
for itself. As money comes easy, when the season is good,
so easy it goes when the season is done. Often it happens
that, by the time the beds are worked out, the wolf is again
at the door. But the pride of his departed wealth still
lingers. Known to have made many dollars a day on the
water, he will rarely stoop to labor for a few paltry shil
lings on land. So it happens that when the lean months
follow the months of plenty the scalloper still puts out to
sea. Sometimes he turns to digging clams or catching
crabs by way of occupation. More often, however, he
goes off in his small sloop to spend his days in dredging
"jingle shells." On the beach he heaps together great
piles of these and sells them for a few cents a bushel to the
oyster planters, who spread them over their beds to give
a hard, smooth surface on which the tiny "seed" oysters
may settle. Dredging scallops and "jingle shells," with
a little clamming and fishing, makes up the round of life
for this denizen of the shore. Poor but independent, liv
ing from hand to mouth, rugged and weather-beaten, the
scalloper of Peconic Bay is still with us. Long may his
beds remain fruitful !
There are few things about the sea that have appealed
more to the imagination than the fisherman. The risks
• and the uncertainties which are the sport of the angler
are the very foundations upon which he builds his life.
The storms which, year by year, alter the beach line bring
also changes to his villages. To the shores of Long Island
the rich waters of the north Atlantic have drawn many
people who spend their lives gathering the products of
the ocean. The stories of many of these fisheries have
already been told. There remains, however, the tale of
the men with hand lines in dories or smacks.

112 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
This activity began with the first Long Island people.
In the days when fishing must, of necessity, be a most
important part in the frontiersman's struggle for exist
ence, it was but natural that the fishing rights in the
creeks and bays near the hamlets of the pioneers should
be most carefully guarded. At such times, an interloper
must be prepared to meet a brusque reception. East
Hampton forbade any stranger taking eels or clams in
the waters controlled by the town. Huntington added to
an ordinance, prohibiting both fowling and fishing, a sec
tion warning off outsiders from clamming on the beaches
owned on Great South Bay. The people of Jamaica were
so much troubled that they sent a commission to the
governor of the province of New York "for to represent
to His Lordship the right that this Towne hath to the fish
ing of and in the creeks, broken marshes and bay within
the bounds of the patent of the sd Towne for the prevent
ing of strangers from coming to fish here. ' ' The interests
of the amphibious hamlets of the Long Island frontiers
man were as much bound up in their fishing as in their
farming. Before the time of differentiation each supple
mented the other.1
It is impossible to trace here the various steps in the
emergence of the business of fishing with the net and the
hand line. On Long Island, in the early part of the nine
teenth century, it was almost always overshadowed by
other fisheries, whaling at Sag Harbor, menhaden seining
in Peconic Bay, or oystering in Great South Bay. Long
Island, however, lay at the southern border of the area in
which, for centuries, the great food fisheries of the north
Atlantic have been carried on. It was inevitable that
Long Island people should turn the resources of this area
IN. Y. Col. Docts., I, 268; Huntington Records, II, 434, 436, 484;
Jamaica Records, II, 79; East Hampton Records, IV, 266, 330.

"SCALLOPEES" AND FISHEEMEN 113
to profit. Since that distant spring, in 1669, when ' ' Try-
alls" were made "with very good success," when several
good fishing banks were found off Sandy Hook and the
southern Long Island shore and a vessel was sent to New
foundland "to gett fishermen lines hookes and other
necessaries," cod fishing has played an important part in
the life of the Island.1 The Island smacks have never
brought to port great catches such as those from the
famous banks farther to the north. They have, however,
done a creditable business. In 1830, boats engaged in cod-
fishing registered an aggregate of eight hundred and fifty-
nine tons. Even this small tonnage, however, declined by
more than half during the decade of the forties when whal
ing was at the zenith of its prosperity. But fifty years
later, after bluefish had begun to be caught to meet a grow
ing demand, the boats of the Long Island fishermen regis
tered nearly six thousand tons and were steadily increas
ing in number. Many a whaler, as his business went to
wreck, turned from the harpoon to the hand line and the
trawl. In the nineties, Greenport alone had twenty smacks
that swept the waters off the Long Island and New Jersey
coasts in summer for bluefish and in winter braved the
rough waters of the same seas in the dangerous business
bf taking cod. There were usually three men aboard each
of these boats and the load brought home, if the luck was
good, was from five thousand to six thousand fish. These
eastern fishermen, however, did not monopolize the busi
ness. Their colleagues of the Great South Bay worked
the grounds outside of Fire Island Beach and often cast
their lines inside the bay itself. Nor has the business
ceased. The fish have not disappeared and the New York
market has grown steadily more voracious. Many a
family lives today along the shores of the Island, whose
i N. Y. Col. Docts., Ill, 182-183.

114 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
ups and downs of fortune are determined by the running
of the cod and the bluefish.1
Nor do bluefish and cod comprise the whole of the Long
Island catch. Sea bass, weakfish, flatfish, eels, and mack
erel are only the more important in a long list, with which
must be ranked clams, crabs, and lobsters. It is a varied
catch and the methods of taking are no less varied. If
one were to stroll along the beach of Fort Pond Bay, on
the north side of the Montauk peninsula, or on the inside
of Fire Island Beach, near the inlet, he would see, during
the season, long rows of stakes connected by nets protrud
ing from the shallow water. These are the great fish
traps, "pounds" as they are sometimes called, in which
the offshore fishermen make their hauls. In 1901, there
were one hundred of these along the shores of Montauk.
Sometimes a small school of menhaden will run into the
trap, followed by their enemies the bluefish, "the wolves
of the ocean." The "bunkers" will be sold to the fisher
men for bait or, if there are too many, to the oil factories
or the farmers. At other times, the "pounds" will be
crowded with weakfish, mackerel, or even cod. During
certain seasons of the year" fykes are set on the bottom
of Great South Bay. Sometimes, in the same region, eels
are speared through the ice in the winter. This is a
profitable business for the bayman when his work on the
oyster beds has been checked by the cold. In the shallow
tide-water creeks that empty into Moriches Bay and
Great South Bay, the business of catching crabs has
grown up and become extensive. A little sailing skiff or
power boat, a heavy line two hundred yards or therer
abouts in length, a small dip-net and several barrels are
all the equipment needed for the occupation of "crab-
iMcFarland, History of New England Fisheries, p. 17; Beeves, Bicen
tennial of Suffolk County, p. 96; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LV (1895), no. 40;
LVI (1896), no. 301; Long Island Traveler, XXVII (1897), no. 10.

"SCALLOPEES" AND FISHEEMEN 115
bing." The line is held in place by two stakes in mid-
channel and is weighted until it lies close to the bottom.
Every yard or so is a piece of bait, usually a bit of salted
eel. The "crabber," during the early hours of the morn
ing, sails up and down the line, lifting it and taking off the
crabs with his dip-net. It is a simple business.1
In fact, all fishing seems a simple business. Yet it is a
work requiring skill, knowledge, and judgment. It cannot
be mastered in a day or in a week. The fisherman must
know the tides, the currents, and the winds. He must be
familiar with the sea bottom where he sets his traps, and
must know the habits of the fish he seeks. To brave the
winter waters of the Atlantic in a small boat he must be a
sailor of skill and daring. The results of the efforts of
these fishermen are the tons and tons of edible fish that
pour every week into the New York markets, from which
they are distributed throughout the interior. Bred in the
little shore villages, reared on the beach and on the sea,
these fishermen of Long Island are worthy of note. Their
contribution to the life' of the Island and of the hinterland
is not inconsiderable.
i Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LV (1895), no. 56; LVII (1897), no. 26; LVIII
(1898), no. 295; LXI (1901), no. 293; The Oysterman and Fisherman,
XHI (1915), no. 9.

CHAPTEE X
PIEATES, SMUGGLEES, AND THE
NAVIGATION ACTS
"Few interests have exerted a more marked influence
upon the history of the United States than that of the
fisheries. Aside from the value they have had in a com
mercial point of view, they have always been found to be
the nurseries of a hardy, daring, and indefatigable race of
seamen, such as scarcely any other pursuit could have
trained." These seamen of Long Island, many of them
brought up on the fishing smacks or trained on the whal
ing ships that left no sea unvisited, have played their part
in the development of their native coast. It would be
profitless to trace in detail the history of Long Island
shipping and shipbuilders. The broad phases of the
evolution, however, have their significance not only for
the story of Long Island but for that of the whole Atlantic
seaboard. The three small villages of Southold, Southampton, and
East Hampton, set between forest and sea at the eastern
end of the Island, were isolated. Miles of water and of
forest separated them from the nearest white people.
The sea had brought the occupants of these hamlets to the
storm-swept peninsulas on which they had built their
cabins, and the sea was the only path that led back to
the world they had left. They were self-reliant, these
adventurous settlers who were gambling their lives and
fortunes that they might wrest a living from the unknown
country to which they had come. After the manner of

PIEATES AND SMUGGLEES 117
pioneers they were forced to supply with their own hands
practically all the needs of their families. The "people
of L. Island are very poor and labor only to get bread
and clothing, without hopes of ever seeing a penny of
monies."1 Yet there were some things that must be
brought from the outer world and some things that the
local communities could not consume. A trade exchange
was inevitable. The only highway that offered was the
ocean. The little settlements in the eastern townships lay be
tween two important centres, Boston to the east and north
and the Manhattan trading post to the west. Coming
from the same Puritan stock, it was but natural that the
Long Islanders should turn their prows toward Boston
and avoid the Dutch at New Amsterdam or their British
successors of the Duke of York's colony, although the
latter claimed jurisdiction over the entire Island. When
to make the trip down the Sound from Peconic Bay to the
New York docks sometimes took six days, it is not strange
that the New York officers of the law found it practically
impossible to hold the trade of eastern Long Island to the
post at the mouth of the Hudson. "Most part of the
people of the Island, especially toward the east end, are
of the same stamp with those of New England, refractory
and very loath to have any commerce with this place
[New York] to the great detriment of the revenue and the
ruin of our merchants."2 The trade which the western
merchants wanted was in whale oil, which the people of
the Hamptons spent much of their time and energy in
obtaining. The Dutch were unable to coerce these outly
ing inhabitants of the domain they claimed and the Eng
lish inherited an unsolved problem. The New York
i N. Y. Col. Docts., Ill, 106.
'Documentary History of New York, I, 166-167; Smith, History of New
York (1762), I, 273.

118 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
assembly passed an act imposing a ten per cent duty on
certain trade exchanges with neighboring colonies. It
was intended to prevent the people of the eastern settle
ments "carrying their oyle to Boston and bringing goods
from thence into this government."1 The troubles of
Dongan, governor of the New York province, in enforcing
this act can be told in no better words than his own in his
report of 1687. ' ' They thought it a hardship to be obliged
to come to this city to enter & clear and on their applica
tion were allowed to have a port. . . . Notwithstanding
the desire of theirs was readily granted they refused to
take our merchants money or goods and carried away
their oyle privately to Boston and brought back goods
from thence privately as formerly. Therefore with the
advice of the Council ... I have bought a Bark that
cruiseth there with a master, two seamen, a sergeant &
six soldiers from the garrison. ' '2 The governor 's display
of force does not seem to have been so overwhelming as
to frighten seriously the hardy seamen of the eastern vil
lages. The forbidden exchange was not stamped out.
The illegal trade which Dongan set out to check was
not, however, confined to that with Boston. In 1660, the
British government began its long attempt to direct arti
ficially the flow of commerce between Great Britain and
its colonial dependencies. But though it was an easy
thing to pass navigation acts at Westminster it was quite
a different matter to enforce them on the long, sparsely
settled American coast. As early as 1671, a ketch, owned
partly in Southampton and partly in Southold, was trad
ing between those villages and Barbados in the West
Indies.3 The latter were the great storehouses of wealth
in the old colonial days, and quite as often as not traders
i Documentary History of New York, I, 166-167.
'Ibid.s Southold Records, I, 293.

PIEATES AND SMUGGLEES 119
from New England or New York passed by the British
colonies in the Caribbean and risked a visit to the forbid
den French or Dutch islands. Smuggling offered an op
portunity for profit that the energetic colonists on the
shores of America were not long in seizing. Of all the
stretches of the Atlantic coast north of Chesapeake Bay,
Long Island offered the best opportunities for this traffic.
To uphold the majesty of the law in the isolated settle
ments of Peconic Bay was practically impossible, and
even farther to the west, near New York, it was found
"very difficult to discover the frauds & cunning prac
tices wch may be used by the Merchants, Importers or
Exporters by reason there are soe many Islands & by-
places from wch they may soe easily convey in and out
without being discovered."1 Huntington was the scene
of at least one raid. The great centres of the business
were "Sitaket, Oyster Bay and Musketo Cove."2 The
energetic Governor Bellomont endeavored to meet the
situation by a vigorous enforcement of the law. Among
other things, about 1699, he "constituted one John Town-
send a customs house officer" for the region beyond the
East Eiver. Townsend undertook the task cheerfully
enough, "but within a month he and his securities . . .
came and begged he might resign his commission, telling
me that most of that town [Oyster Bay] were his near
relations and several of them of his name, yet he was
threatened by them to be knocked on the head, and he had
already suffered many abuses, in so much as he was in
fear of his life. ' '3 Bellomont estimated at this time that
the "Excise of Nassaw Island if duely collected would
amount to £12000 per Ann : which is twelve times as much
as I doubt it will be let for this year." The eighteenth
i N. Y. Col. Docts., Ill, 305.
2 Ibid., IV, 516-517.
3 Ibid.

120 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
century opened and grew old with the departments and
officials of England still working at an unsolved problem.
The cumbrous British administrative system was never
able really to enforce the trade laws. Various expedients
were resorted to from time to time but with little real
success. More than once the suggestion was made that a
ship be kept cruising at the entrance of the Sound to
prevent smugglers from running in, but the suggestions
never seem to have resulted in any permanent accomplish
ment. In 1764, the year before Grenville began his ill-
fated policy to enforce the Navigation Acts, the report
was still current that hardy and skillful adventurers were
using the north shore of Long Island for circumventing
the trade regulations of the British Empire.1 Distance
from the seat of authority, nearness to a growing centre of
trade and exchange, and a sheltered coast, indented with
numerous harbors, all conspired to make Long Island one
of the great American centres for eighteenth-century
smuggling. The traders were far more skillful than the
lawmakers in adapting themselves to the peculiarities of
the western environment.
The people of the eastern villages early found another
means of gain, and one hardly to have been expected of
the worthy Puritans who set out from old and New Eng
land to build their homes and to worship God in the
wilderness. They were, however, subject to a strong
ternptation. Long Island stretched its narrow length far
to the eastward of New York. Scores of miles of almost
trackless forest separated the people of Peconic Bay from
those at the mouth of the Hudson. For the villagers even
of Southold the Connecticut shore was but a hazy line on
the northern horizon. In the days at the close of the
seventeenth century, when piracy was at its height, Long
Island had an important part in piratical ventures. "I
i N. Y. Col. Docts., VII, 666.

PIEATES AND SMUGGLEES 121
understand," wrote Bellomont in 1699, "that about 30
pirates came lately in the east end of Nassau Island and
have a great deal of money with them ; but so cherished
are they by the inhabitants that not a man of them is
taken up. Several of them I hear came with Shelly from
Madagascar. ... I too hear that Captain Kidd dropp 'd
some pirates in that Island. . . . They write from New
York that Arabian gold is in great plenty there. m " Ara
bian gold"! These days were, indeed, far removed from
those when the people of Long Island labored "only to
get bread and clothing, without hopes of ever seeing a
penny of monies. " It is not strange that the gentlemen
who had brought about the change came to be known, not
as "pirates," but as "privateers."
We, of a later generation, have come to look back upon
the days of these freebooters of the sea as a period of
romance. From the Bed Sea south around the Cape of
Good Hope and past the West Indies, to New England
stretched a vast extent of ocean that saw the activities of
these adventurous buccaneers of old. The picturesque
Captain Kidd who, in 1691, sailed away in the Adventure,
armed with thirty-four threatening guns, to put an end
to piracy, only to become, himself, the greatest among the
pirates, is but one of the many adventurers who wandered
from the paths of convention. To the energetic Earl of
Bellomont, governor of the province of New York, it was
hard work, trying to clean out the pirates' nest at the
eastern end of the Island. His letters to his superiors in
England were full of the difficulties of his task, yet each
of them was ample for a stirring tale of the sea. One of
these letters tells of the connivance of his predecessor
with the freebooters that threatened the commerce of the
ocean. Another recounts that Eayner, later to be appre
hended by Bellomont himself, had landed at the eastern
i N. Y. Col. Docts., IV, 532.

122 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
end of Long Island with a chest of treasure "valued at
fifteen hundred pounds," but had been seized by the
sheriff. This unpleasant circumstance made it necessary
to approach the governor with the persuasion of a "con
siderable reward," a manoeuvre crowned with complete
success. In 1699, after Bellomont had became governor,
a pirate ship from the East Indies was brought to the east
end of Long Island and sunk between that Island and
Block Island. Its treasure, concealed on the latter, was
recovered and confiscated by the governor of Ehode
Island. In one letter Bellomont lays bare the skeleton in
the closet of the chief justice of the colony, who owned an
extensive grant on Long Island. ' ' I confess that I cannot
have a good opinion of Colonel Smith; he knows what
pressing orders I have from England to suppress piracy,
and if he were honest and did his duty, there would not a
pirate dare show his head in the east end of Nassau
Island, he is so seated toward that end of the Island that
he could disturb and seize them as he pleased, and yet
that end of the Island is at present their rendezvous and
sanctuary." Those were indeed stirring times. They
were, however, soon to pass. In 1699, the great Kidd was
apprehended in New England and sent home to face a
jury and the gallows. Bellomont secured possession of
one of Kidd's crew who had been aboard the pirate's
sloop at the east end of Long Island and who had carried
off treasure to the value of about £5000. He was sent to
England with his chief. During the winter of the follow
ing year, the successful earl had the satisfaction of hear
ing that a pirate ship was hovering cautiously off the
familiar eastern beaches until the disposition of the
governor- had been learned. When the scouts who had
gone to New York had returned, the boat and its black
flag disappeared. The eighteenth century was not many
years old when the period of romance for "Nassaw

PIEATES AND SMUGGLEES 123
Island" came to an end. The people of the "pirate's
nest" at the eastern end, save for a little smuggling,
settled down to the prosaic business of earning an honest
living.1
iN. Y. Col. Docts., IV, 31, 256, 274, 303, 304, 307, 308, 327, 508, 512,
532, 535, 595, 710.

CHAPTEE XI
SEA TEADE AND SHIPBUILDING
The years of the eighteenth century saw the beginnings
of a new development in the history of Long Island sea
trading. The country was filling up with people, and a
narrow band of settlements along the north shore was
beginning to make a connection between the eastern and
western ends. Most important of all, the trading posti
at the lower end of Manhattan Island was rapidly becom
ing a city, and its markets an attraction for the produce
of the country to the east. The "North Country Eoad"
and the "Middle Country Eoad" were laid out to meet
the needs of the times. Country highways of the type
known in colonial days were, however, far from being
capable of handling any considerable trade exchange.
Snow and ruts in winter and mud in spring made trans
portation difficult almost to the point of impossibility. It
was but natural, therefore, that Long Island people
should still rely upon the ocean. From the beginning, the
eastern villages used the sea to communicate with their
trading centre in Boston. Now, however, the increasing
markets at New York proved more potent than Governor
Dongan 's "sergeant & six soldiers from the garrison."
The beginning of the breakdown of the Boston monopoly
of the trade of Peconic Bay was at hand.
The changes of the eighteenth century were slow but
steady. In the thirties and forties, "landings" were
being established in the bays and harbors of the north
shore. "Blydenberg's Landing," put in use at Smith-

SEA TEADE AND SHIPBUILDING 125
town in 1736, was one of the first of these. Wood and
farm produce were carried from these landing places to
New York and to the ports of the Sound.1 By 1765, the
local trade along the north shore of Long Island had be
come of sufficient importance to warrant the establish
ment of a regular ferry from Huntington to Norwalk.2
The tiny stream of Long Island trade was growing larger,
and because the Sound presented easy and cheap com
munication, the northern part of the Island was filling up
with villages and farms. The battered wrecks that lined
the beach on the Atlantic side, still deterred the seamen of
Southampton and East Hampton from attempting the
dangerous ocean route to New York.
After the interruption caused by the war of the Eevolu
tion, the local coastwise traffic grew as the population of
the Island increased. Back and forth along the sheltered
Sound coast sailed a steadily increasing fleet of small
sloops and schooners. On the westward trip they carried
wood and the produce of the farm, and on the return
brought back merchandise, ashes, or manure as the case
might be. The number of landings grew, and cross-island
highways brought the inland farmer to the water's edge.
The north coast, however, was not alone in feeling the
change. By the beginning of the nineteenth century,
settlements were extended far along the southern shore.
With the increase of people came also, in spite of the
danger, water communication with New York. By 1815,
the vessels plied back and forth for nearly the whole year
between Great South Bay and the mouth of the Hudson.
The increase in shipping was a measure of the growth of
the Island. As the century progressed, this coasting busi
ness grew. In 1824, it was estimated that the township of
Brookhaven employed one hundred vessels of from thirty
i Smithtown Records, pp. 89, 350, 431.
2 Huntington Records, II, 484.

126 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
to one hundred tons' burden in the trade with New York.
Not many years later, one little village, Stony Brook, was
giving business to one brig, eight schooners, and fifteen
sloops, in the transportation of more than four thousand
cords of wood annually, together with return voyages
bringing twenty thousand bushels of ashes, one thousand
bushels of bone, and three hundred loads of other manure.
The landings, like crossroads stores of the interior, were
community centres where producer, trader, and consumer
met, dealt, and gossiped. The names of many of these
landings have persisted into a generation which knows
little of the life that once bustled about them.1
The rise of the local coast trade, aided by the growth
of whaling, brought the shipbuilder to Long Island. The
coasts of that region saw ' ' some of the earliest boat and
sloop building in the country. . . . This Island had the
advantage of some good timber, the best and longest
growth of locust being found here and there beside some
good oak. ' '2 On the sheltered beaches of the Long Island
shores the ship-carpenter found conditions right for the
carrying on of his trade. In more than one place, by the
opening of the nineteenth century, he had laid his marine
railway and built the small shack for his tools and equip
ment. Working on the very edge of the land, the volume
of the product he turned out was the measure of the pull
of the sea. The hill-locked harbors of Port Jefferson and
Stony Brook were among the first to feel the new enter
prise. Small boats for fishermen and larger ones for the
whalers or the captains who carried on the coast trade
slipped every year from the ways into the water. The
iLong Island Star, I (1810), no. 36; IV (1813), nos. 190, 199; Spafford,
Gasatteer of the State of New York (1824), p. 60; Thompson, I, 391, 432,
433, 434, 474; American Agriculturist, XIX, 229; French, Gazatteer of the
State of New York (1860), p. 639.
= Hall, "Ship Building Industry of the United States," United States
Census (1880), VIII, 119.

SEA TEADE AND SHIPBUILDING 127
shipbuilder was dependent for his business upon the de
velopment of other callings.
In the middle years of the nineteenth century, from
1840 to 1860, the development of the American merchant
marine reached its spectacular culmination. The white
sails of the square-rigged and schooner-rigged sailing-
craft of the United States dotted every sea. It was the
era of the clipper ship when the Yankee sailor knew no
superior and when much of the world's carrying trade
was in American hands. The quiet coast of Long Island
reflected the development of the broad Atlantic. In places
where population had grown, the primitive landing gave
place to the wharf erected by the specially incorporated
wharf company. To these new docks were moored, not
only the desultory coasting sloop that put in from time to
time, but the packet sailing on a regular schedule. Weekly
and, sometimes, semi-weekly boats plied between New
York and the villages of both the north and south Long
Island shores. These vessels were built for speed and
their captains were ordered to make trips regularly re
gardless of wind, weather, or boat. Eivalries were keen
and jealousies great. Many a race streaked the waters of
the Sound with foam.1
It was during these years that the shipbuilder came
into his own. Whaling was forging rapidly ahead to the
point of its greatest development, and whale oil and bone
were being carried by an ever increasing fleet of boats
from Sag Harbor to Boston and New York. The men
haden business was shifting from an offshore to a deep-
sea fishery. On Great South Bay the oyster industry had
left the worn-out Blue Point beds and was spreading out
over the great area of the newly discovered fields to the
west. At the same time the oystermen of the north shore
iLong Island Farmer, IX (1829), no. 5; " Eeminiscences of Captain
Oliver Doxey," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LV (1895), no. 319.

128 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
were opening up great beds in the shallow waters of the
Sound. Boats were needed, not only for dredging, but for
carrying to market the tons and tons of oysters secured
every year. The fishermen were increasing in number.
They needed smacks and sharpies as well as transporta
tion. It was also the time on Long Island when the old,
inefficient general farming was giving place to a new and
specialized profession. More and more wagons came to
the landings or the wharves to ship away the products of
the fields or to load with manure from the city. Beside
the landings were great piles of cordwood waiting to be
taken by boat to New York to be used as fuel.
The supplying of boats for these varied and extensive
demands kept the hammers of the ship-carpenters always
busy. By 1840, shipyards and marine railways were to be
found in almost every shore village. In that year, it was
estimated that Suffolk County had practically seventy
thousand dollars invested in the business. Fifteen years
later, at the zenith of its development, the county boasted
no less than twenty-five shipyards. Catboats, fishing-
smacks, sloops, schooners, brigs, and barks in all stages
of construction stood in the stocks of the Long Island
beaches. The heavier vessels were built on the fiords of
the north shore and the smaller craft on the southern
bays. The H. 8. Marlow was typical of the best boats the
Long Island builders turned out. When, in 1869, this
double-decked, three-masted schooner slipped from the
ways at Port Jefferson, she measured in the keel one hun
dred and ten feet, with twenty-three feet in the beam, and
sixteen feet in depth.1 During the busy years of the fifties,
when there were ten and twelve yards in this harbor,
i Thompson, I, 432, 434, 436; Long Island Farmer, XIX (1851), no. 27;
French, Gazatteer of the State of New York (1860), pp. 549, 633, 634, 636,
639; New York State Census (1855), pp. 416-430, (1865), 498-511; Beeves,
Bicentennial of Suffolk County (1883), pp. 62, 64, 121-123; Hall, op. cit.,
pp. 17, 18, 23, 25, 117-118, 119-120.

SEA TEADE AND SHIPBUILDING 129
there were times when as many as seventeen boats, many
of them of the class of the H. 8. Marlow, stood on the
stocks at once. These were days when the pull of the
sea was felt throughout the length and breadth of
America, when American boats were fastest and Ameri
can seamanship ablest. It is not surprising that Long
Island, whose people had been reared for generations
within smell of the salt water, and whose wooded hills and
quiet harbors lay so close to the great commercial centre
of New York, should feel to the full the dominant trend of
the times and should make use of almost every available
cove and beach in furthering the great national develop
ment. In the middle years of the nineteenth century, the
American merchant marine reached the culmination of its
development and passed to a swift decline. During its
rise, the development of the competing steamboat had
been steadily under way. In 1814, seven years after Ful
ton's Clermont had puffed for the first time up the Hud
son, a clumsy steamer, the Nassau, was making little
excursion trips out of Brooklyn. It was a novelty, like the
first excursion aeroplanes a century later. By 1820, a
regular steamboat line had been established between New
York and Flushing. Fifteen years later, side-wheelers
were churning the waters considerably farther to the east.
In 1844, the main line of the Long Island Eailroad was
built to Greenport. At once a steamer was put on to ply
between that terminal and Stonington, in order to com
plete the route between New York and Boston. With the
opening of the railroad the eastern villages were invig
orated with new fife. A demand for steamer transporta
tion appeared. Sag Harbor needed a boat to ply across
Peconic Bay to make a connection with the railroad. Be
fore many years, the steamer to Stonington was given up
and in its place a boat made regular trips between Hart-

130 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
ford, New London, Greenport, and Sag Harbor. The
next step in the development was a steamer sailing be
tween the eastern villages and New York. By 1860, two
boats, the Massachusetts and the Cataline, were making
regular trips from the eastern ports to the New York
docks. Thirteen years later, a ferry between Port Jeffer
son and Bridgeport on the Connecticut shore established
regular and easy communication across Long Island
Sound. Since that time, there have been but few impor
tant changes in this transportation system built up in
the years immediately following the decline of the mer
chant marine of wooden sailing vessels.1
The changing life of Long Island was reflected nowhere
better than in its shipyards. After the turn of the cen
tury, the whale fishery came to a speedy end. No longer
was there any call for whaling ships and boats. At the
same time the steamer was supplanting the sailing craft
in the taking of both menhaden and oysters. Sometimes
the Long Island yards built these but, more often, the
work of these yards was confined to repairing. The cover
ing of the Island with a network of railroads and the im
proving of the highways caused a great falling off of the
farm products carried by water. The coastwise-carrying
fleet sank into insignificance, the steamboats doing most
of the business. In spite of the changes in the fisheries
and the farms, however, the shipbuilder and the marine
railway did not cease to exist. In the latter years of the
century, the shores of the Island came to be covered with
summer people. The demand for pleasure boats steadily
iLong Island Star, VI (1814), 268; XX (1829), no. 46; Long Island
Farmer, XVI (1848), no. 31; Thompson, I, 436; Sag Harbor Express, I
(1860), nos. 22, 49; XXI (1880), nos. 33, 42; Long Island Traveler, XV
(1885), nos. 7, 14; XX (1892), nos. 3, 5, 14; XXIX (1900), no. 42; Long
Island (1900), p. 41; Summer Homes on Long Island (1900), p. 6; Brook
lyn Daily Eagle, LXI (1901), no. 74; Long Island, Illustrated (1905), pp.
141-142; Home Builder on Long Island (1907), map.

SEA TEADE AND SHIPBUILDING 131
grew. Where, years before, the sturdy sloop had plied
back and forth along the shore, now could be seen the trim
lines of a yacht scudding before the wind. The building
and repairing of these kept the old ship-carpenter at his
work. Through the changing times came further manifesta
tions of the pull of the sea, which has lost none of its
power. It influences the life of the Island even more than
in the days of Captain Kidd. It is true that the carrying
trade has declined, and that the ocean has not been able
to stand against the competition of the railroad and the
automobile. Yet the steamboat and the sailing vessel still
persist. Only weathering skeletons on the beach and the
tales of old men can serve to recall the days that have
gone.

CHAPTEE XII
WAES AND EUMOES OF WAES
The railway era came to Long Island early. In 1828,
near Baltimore, "the venerable signer of the Declaration
of Independence, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, placed
the foundation stone to commemorate the commencement
of the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad, first of the iron
bands between the east and the west." Four years later,
the Brooklyn and Jamaica Eailroad was chartered and
construction almost immediately begun. With a caution
that reflected the uncertain ideas of the times, the legisla
ture of New York introduced into the charter a significant
limiting clause which would enable the state after a cer
tain specified time to buy up the corporation and turn it
into a state-owned utility.1
The railroad, however, did not come to Long Island
primarily for the sake of the Island itself. The year 1832
was an important one in early railroad building. Proj
ects of some magnitude were in the air. In this year,
Philadelphia was attempting to increase its hold on
Pennsylvania by means of the Philadelphia, Germantown,
and Morristown Eailroad. At the same time, New York
was pushing toward Albany and the Mohawk with the
New York and Harlem, and was reaching toward Phila
delphia itself with the Camden and Amboy.2 All these
projects were small in realization but large in prospect.
In the same class was the Brooklyn and Jamaica. The
i Hinsdale, History of the Long Island Railroad (1898), p. 1.
2 Dunbar, A History of Travel in America, III, 976-986.

WAES AND EUMOES OF WAES 133
opening of the route to Philadelphia stimulated the men
of that time to believe that still greater feats were possi
ble. A rail route to Boston was dreamed of, though the
rough hill country and broad rivers of New England were
believed to render forever impossible an all-rail route be
tween Massachusetts Bay and the mouth of the Hudson
Eiver. A road from Boston to Stonington, the Boston
and Providence, had already been put under way. A road
from Brooklyn to eastern Long Island where passengers
and freight could be ferried across to the New England
line seemed the ideal solution for the problem of com
munication between Boston and New York. The feasi
bility of the project was set forth by the promoters of the
scheme. ' ' The public mind is quite familiar with speeds
of twenty to thirty miles per hour and numerous locomo
tives in various parts of our country are wheeling daily
over their respective tracks, at these rates, without a
murmur of alarm or disapprobation, I think it not un
reasonable therefore to assume five hours as a fair aver
age trip from Brooklyn to Greenport. . . . The Ferry
will then occupy two hours, but by making the Ferry Boat
a convenient Hotel, with proper arrangements for rest
and refreshments, this will prove only an agreeable and
profitable relaxation. The remainder of the trip [from
Stonington] to Boston will be performed easily in four
hours and a half, so that only eleven hours and a half will
be required for the entire journey from New York, or
Brooklyn, to Boston. ' n It was a large project for those
early railway days. The Long Island Eailroad was one
of the great ventures of its time.
With minds fixed upon the requirements of the Boston
trade, the promoters of the railroad considered possibili
ties for the location of the road. At the outset the claims
of Sag Harbor, the largest of the eastern villages, to be-
i Engineer's Report to the Long Island Railroad (1834), p. 10.

134 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
come the terminus of the road were rejected. In its stead
the tiny hamlet of Greenport on the other side of Peconic
Bay was chosen. * "The maritime position of Greenport,
its convenience as a harbour, unobstructed at all seasons
of the year, and the facility with which it can be made by
ships coming on the coast in certain states of wind, these
and other considerations of a like kind, give it an interest
ing relation to the city of New York as an outpost and
harbour of safety."1 The great consideration, however,
was the fact that the ferry to the New England coast
would be materially shorter from Greenport than from
the more southerly Sag Harbor, a vital point in the laying
out of a route to Boston.
For the Island itself three possibilities were con
sidered. The first was an extreme northern location
which would touch the villages on the harbors of the north
coast. The second was a more central route to follow the
top of the ridge which extends the length of the Island.
This location would have kept the tracks very close to
the Middle Country Eoad, and would have taken them
through a productive farming country. The third or
"southern" route, to be laid out five or six miles north of
the south shore, would pass through the "unimproved
pine plain country." It would follow the northern edge
of that smooth apron of glacial outwash that slopes
gradually from the hills of the terminal moraine to the
sea. Of all the routes the last was the cheapest and most
easy to build. The handicap of passing through an un
settled region would be more than counterbalanced by the
increased speed that could be developed by fast trains in
passing over a flat country with neither hills nor rivers
to obstruct. The route to Boston was the dominant con
sideration. Faced with these three possibilities, the first
managers of the railroad made a choice which was pro-
i Engineer's Report to the Long Island Railroad (1834), p. 11.

WAES AND EUMOES OF WAES 135
foundly to affect the destinies of the Island. Subordinat
ing the needs of the region itself and adapting their road
to an environment in which Boston and New York were
the controlling factors, the directors of the Long Island
Railroad chose the "southern" route through the pine
plains country. This "main line" of the Long Island
Railroad still exists, a monument to the shortsightedness
of the founders of the company.
In 1844, the year of its completion, the Long Island
Railroad was one of the largest and best-equipped roads
in the state of New York. It had ninety-six miles of track
in operation, and a rolling stock which consisted of eleven
locomotives, twenty-two passenger cars and sixty-three
freight cars. The road possessed more locomotives than
any other in the state save the Utica and Schenectady,
and more freight cars save any but the Mohawk and Hud
son. Although the road was not open to Greenport until
July twenty-second, the income for the year 1844 totaled
$143,300 from passenger traffic, and $10,154 from freight.1
It was a large undertaking, and the beginning was auspi
cious. Difficulties, however, lay immediately ahead.
Into the antiquated villages of the secluded eastern
townships the railroad suddenly came, in the year 1844,
bringing with it the beginnings of a veritable social revo
lution. Since the earliest settlements these people had
been isolated. ' ' True, the facilities of traveling by water
have been considerable ; but this has always been attended
with a great expense of time, and with a degree of dan
ger, that renders it formidable to many. . . . Seclusion
from distant parts, instead of making them restless,
seems to have confirmed the habit of staying at home."
Into such quiet, old-fashioned communities puffed the
little locomotives of the new railway. "The inhabitants
1 "Annual Beport of the Secretary of State Belative to Eailway Statis
tics," New York State Assembly Documents (1845), no. 129.

136 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
have scarcely yet recovered from the consternation pro
duced by the actual opening of this Eoad. Though during
its, construction, its future facilities were often foretold,
multitudes regarded them as the vagaries of a disordered
brain ; or, more frequently, the wilful misrepresentations
of interested individuals, who wished to obtain a passage
through their stunted pines and sandy plains for a mere
song. But, until they beheld with their own eyes the
cumbrous train of cars, drawn by an iron horse, spouting
forth smoke and steam, passing like a steed of lightning
through their forests and fields, with such velocity that
they could not tell whether the countenances of the pas
sengers were human, celestial or infernal, they would not
believe that a Bail Eoad had power almost to annihilate
both space and time. ' ;1 Until 1844, New York City had
been three days away from these people. It was now five
hours. The first reaction of the people of eastern Long Island
to the noisy innovation was distinctly hostile. "When
the road was completed to Hicksville, and gradually ex
tended, into Suffolk, it was made for years a regular Sab
bath breaking concern. . . . The good people of the
eastern towns, instead of rejoicing in the secular benefits
. . . began to . . . pour out bitter lamentations in view
of the moral desolations that were to set in upon them.
But a brighter prospect is presented. The Eail Eoad has
been completed, and throughout its entire length, not a
car moves on the Sabbath-day."2 By this "important
concession to correct sentiment" the diplomatic managers
of the new road succeeded in avoiding the first of their
difficulties. More serious, however, were the great fires, kindled
by sparks from the unscreened locomotives. These swept
i Prime, History of Long Island (1845), pp. 55-57.
2 Ibid., p. 58.

WAES AND EUMOES OF WAES 137
over vast regions of the forested country in the central
part of the Island, leaving black desolation behind. Lum
ber and wood in huge quantities were destroyed and the
game of the region perished. "Under these circum
stances, the great excitement among the people of Suffolk
county, is certainly no matter of surprise. . . . Had there
not been a strong . . . influence predominating in the
community, it is impossible to say what outrages would
not have been perpetrated."1 "A correspondent of the
Evening Post says that the Long Island Eailroad, having
been indicated as a nuisance, the rails thereof may be
taken up, and the tracks destroyed and the company can
only bring an action of trespass, it being no crime to de
stroy a nuisance. He intimates very plainly that the
tracks will be torn up unless the railroad company come
to some agreement in relation to the property destroyed
by fire from the locomotives. ' '2 Faced with such a situa
tion the road took vigorous measures to put an end to the
evil. In two years the situation was fairly well in hand,
but not, however, until many square miles of valuable
timber-land had been devastated.
The protests of the pious, outraged at the morals of the
road, and the threats of the irate owners of the burned
forests were, however, as nothing compared to the calam
ity which was about to fall. In 1848, the impossible hap
pened. In December of that year, an ' ' all-rail route ' ' was
opened up between New York and Boston.4 Only four
years after its completion, the Long Island Eailroad lost
irretrievably the business which had called it into being,
arid which had determined the location of its tracks. The
managers of the road turned to the people and to the
resources of the Island. It was then, for the first time,
1 Prime, p. 59.
'Long Island Farmer, XV (1845), no. 7.
3 Dunbar, III, 1005.

138 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
that they discovered the seriousness of their initial blun
der. There was scarcely a village of consequence on the
road beyond Jamaica. Sag Harbor, the metropolis of the
eastern townships, had only water connection with the
railway across Peconic Bay. Greenport, Southold, and
Eiverhead could together scarcely equal the business of
the vigorous whaling port then at the acme of its develop
ment. Farther to the west the situation was little better.
The farmers and the villagers of the north and the south
sides were compelled to drive to the interior from six to
ten miles over sandy forest roads to reach the stations of
the railroad. It is not strange that many preferred the
slower but cheaper transportation offered by the fines of
coasting vessels. The Long Island Eailroad, thrown back
upori the Island for support, found not only that it was ill
adjusted to the region, but that the economic development
of the area it served did not warrant so extensive an im
provement. In such a situation the inevitable occurred.
With the Boston trade gone, passenger receipts fell and,
with the loss in income, stocks dropped. In 1850, only six
years after the completion of its main line, the road went
into the hands of a receiver.1
It was obvious at this point that strong measures had
to be taken. A new policy was adopted, one which should
have been adopted at the beginning, of developing the
resources of the Island. For a few years there was a
struggle to obtain a sound financial footing. Then came
a period of cautious expansion. In 1854, tracks were laid
from Hicksville northeast to Syosset in the heart of a.
rich farming country. This branch tapped the trade of
a considerable part of the north shore, and, for many
years, Syosset remained an important centre for collec
tion and distribution. In 1860, a line was pushed through
from Jamaica to Hunter's Point, located on the East
i Long Island Farmer, XVIII (1850), no. 18; Hinsdale, p. 5.

WARS AND EUMOES OF WAES 139
River just north of Brooklyn. This move gave a second
terminus at the New York end of the line. In this same
year, 1860, the Long Island Eailroad began its long cam
paign to demonstrate the fertility of the ' ' Pine Barrens ' '
and its attempt to fill the region with settlers. All things
considered, the new policy brought results. ' In 1852, the
passenger earnings amounted to $142,741. By 1863, this
figure had risen to $227,000. During these eleven years
freight receipts increased from $58,000 to $121,000. The
future began to brighten.1
The year 1863 marks a turning point, not only in the
history of the Long Island Eailroad, but in that of the
Island itself. In that year Oliver Charlick was elected
president of the L. I. E. E. Charlick represents an inter
esting American type. He was born in poverty on Long
Island. His boyhood was spent at farmwork on some of
the less desirable land of the region and in the cutting of
wood in its forests. Like many another poor boy of his
day he went to New York to seek his fortune. Here, it is
said, he "made his start" by engaging in the "groggery
business in Coentrus Slip." As with the boy heroes of
the storybooks, fortune smiled upon him and he became
a man of wealth and power. Moreover, as the successful
hero should do, he returned to the land of his youth.
Charlick came back with the destinies of the Long Island
Railroad in his hands at the formative period in the his
tory of the Island. His power for good or evil was almost
boundless.2 With the advent of Charlick came an abrupt change in
the policy of the railroad. The farsighted plan for the
improving and upbuilding of the Island was discontinued
and a policy of exploitation inaugurated. The road was
turned into a purely money-making venture, a change full
iNew York State, Railroad Reports (1852), p. 64; (1863), pp. 265-270.
"Sag Harbor Express, XII (1871), no. 46; Hinsdale, p. 7.

140 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
of consequences, both for the railroad and for the people.
The Charlick policy did not mean that expansion had
come to an end. Branch lines were built where profit
seemed to offer. Unlike the previous decade, however,
when the people of the favored locality cooperated in the
building, there was now too often wrangling and misun
derstanding. In 1867, a line was extended to Northport,
but it would have nothing to do with the locally owned
Port Jefferson and Smithtown Eailway. Two years later
tracks were laid from Manor to Sag Harbor, opening for
the first time the Hamptons to direct rail communication.
In spite of these important improvements, however, the
murmurs of discontent grew loud. President Charlick
was attacked. His alleged refusals to accommodate pa
trons of the road were severely, sometimes coarsely, criti
cised. Whole localities became aggrieved, as was the case
with Sag Harbor. Animosity toward the railroad grew
until the situation became unbearable.1
' ' This is the period of railway agitation, of roads and
rumors of roads. Some plans are put forth to counter
balance other roads. Some are merely to affect stocks."
This remark of the £fag Harbor Express in 1871 was a
statement of 'a situation which had obtained in Long Is
land for a half dozen of years or more. Exasperated by
the Long Island Railroad and prompted also by a desire
for profit, Long Island people began to take matters into
their own hands. In 1866, the building of the South Side
Railroad began. It was the project of the citizens of the
villages along the south shore who refused longer to drive
to the middle of the Island for their railway facilities.
The road was quickly completed to Patchogue, and at
once drew away from the Long Island Railroad the busi
ness of a large area. Negotiations were entered into with
-i-Long Island Farmer, XLIX (1870), no. 15; Sag Harbor Express, XII
(1870), nos. 45, 46; XIII (1871), nos. 1, 11, 16; Hinsdale, p. 11.

WARS AND EUMOES OF WAES 141
the L.T. E. E. to receive the cars of the new company at
Jamaica, but President Charlick refused. The managers
of the South Side Eailroad, therefore, pushed their
tracks through Bushwick to Brooklyn. From the vantage
of a terminus of their own on the East Eiver, they began
a bitter war with their older and better intrenched rival.
It was of a kind with the wars that filled this period of
American railway history.1
The South Side Eailroad, however, was not alone in its
struggle with the old Long Island Eailroad. The people
of the north shore were also entering the lists. During
the sixties, a system was built up with its East Eiver
terminus at Hunter's Point, and its centre at Flushing,
whence radiated roads to College Point, Whitestone, and
Great Neck. A most important part of the system was \
the Stewart Eoad which, cutting diagonally across the
Island from Flushing to Babylon, tapped both the other
competing roads. Small though they were, the Flushing
lines cared for the most populous part of Long Island and
as a consequence presented a serious menace to the com
pany over which Mr. Charlick presided.2
During the first years of the decade from 1870 to 1880,
therefore, three well-developed railway systems carried
on a ruthless competition for the business of Long Island.
It was an impossible situation. President Charlick was
forced to withdraw, and a new management changed the
policy of the Long Island Eailroad. The fight, however,
still continued until, in 1874, it bore its inevitable fruit.
In that year, just eight years after its founding, the South
Side Eailroad became bankrupt, and on September six
teenth was sold under foreclosure.3
iNew York State, Railroad Reports (1868), p. 508, (1869), p. 636,
(1870), p. 751; Hinsdale, pp. 12-13.
'Long Island Farmer, XLIX (1870), nos. 4, 49; New York State, Rail
road Reports (1875), p. 412, (1880), pp. 205, 568.
s' New York State, Railroad Reports (1874), p. 770.

142 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
Two years after this failure came the first steps toward
bringing to an end an evil situation. In 1876, Conrad Pop-
penhusen acquired a controlling interest in each of the
three competing systems and united them by lease. His
attempt, however, came too late. Years of competition
had corroded too deeply. In spite of all his efforts, Pop-
penhusen could not avert disaster. In 1877, scarcely a
year after the merger, came the general collapse, and the
combined railroads of Long Island were put into the
hands of a receiver. It was the same cycle that was harry
ing the whole nation during the same years — cutthroat
competition, bankruptcy, and consolidation.1
In 1878, the receiver, T. E. Sharp, pressed vigorously
the old policy of the upbuilding and developing of the
Island, which had already been begun so many times.
This time the emphasis was most heavily laid on the pos
sibilities of the region for summer recreation. A veri
table campaign was inaugurated to bring to the attention
of the world the beauties of Long Island's bays and har
bors. Just as the new management was getting under
way, however, Austin Corbin, the owner of the great hotel
at Manhattan Beach, bought a controlling interest in the
combined systems and replaced Sharp as receiver. Cor
bin set out to continue and complete the policy of develop
ment. To Hinsdale, the road's attorney, was given a
tangled legal complex out of which he brought, by 1892, a
completely consolidated system; redundant lines were
abandoned and where necessary new branches were built.
In 1880, the south shore division was extended to East-
port. 'In 1892, the north shore branch was pushed on
from Port Jefferson to Wading Eiver. In 1893, the line
going southeast from Manor was extended from Bridge-
hampton to Fort Pond Bay on the Montauk peninsula.
By 1895, the Long Island Eailroad system was practically
i Hinsdale, pp. 24, 25.

WAES AND EUMOES OF WAES 143
complete. The old main line cuts through the central part
of the Island from Jamaica to Eiverhead and extends out
the north branch. Parallel to this and connecting with it
at frequent intervals, are divisions stretching the length
of either shore. It is an arrangement strikingly parallel
to the system of highways begun far back in the eight
eenth century.1
With the practical completion of railroad building on
the Island, one great problem remained. By 1900, the
business of Long Island had grown to such a volume that
the connection with New York City offered by ferries and
by the Brooklyn Bridge had become inadequate. On
April 29, 1899, the -legislature of the state of New York
passed the act giving to the Long Island Railroad the
right to build a subway under Atlantic Avenue in Brook
lyn, to tunnel under the East Eiver, and to erect a termi
nal station in New York. One year later, the independent
existence of the Long Island Eailroad came to an end
when it became a part of the Pennsylvania system. In
1907, the Pennsylvania management published the plans
for the great New York Terminal. A part of the scheme
was a connection with the Long Island Eailroad system
through four single track tubes under East Eiver.2
For passengers Long Island had ceased to be an island.
For freight however, the ferry boat was still a constant
necessity. In November, 1914, with the commencement
of the Hell Gate Arch Bridge, the longest arch in the
world, the last step in joining Long Island to the main
land was begun. The completion on March 1, 1917, of this
span, one thousand and sixteen feet in length, provided
a four-track connection between the Long Island Eailroad
and the New York, New Haven and Hartford system.
The cost of the huge steel structure, was more than six-
i Hinsdale, pp. 27-33.
"Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LIX (1899), no. 118; LX (1900), no. 124.

144 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
teen times the estimated expense of the whole railroad
and its equipment in the days when the first tracks were
being laid from Jamaica to Greenport. With the comple
tion of the Hell Gate Arch Bridge, Long Island has
entered upon a new phase. Five bridges span the East
Eiver and five tunnels pass under it. Long Island as an
island exists no longer. It has become a peninsula.
The railroad brought to Long Island the same changes
that it did elsewhere. With the laying of the tracks the
old environment was fundamentally altered. Men accus
tomed to think in terms of horse-drawn and seagoing
transportation were compelled to adjust themselves to
new conditions. Time and distance were profoundly
affected. For Long Island the most important change
was the multiplication of the power of the city of New
York. This great population centre, now only a few
hours away, filled Long Island with a life that it had
never known before. In a sense, the railroad brought to
an end the separate existence of Long Island and made it
a dependency of New York City. Through the influence
of that city every hamlet on the Island felt the giant
power of the hinterland. Yet the railroad did not dimin
ish the influence of the sea over the lives of the people.
To be sure the coast trade sank into insignificance. This,
however, was all. Every maritime industry save whaling,
about to disappear, was invigorated. Furthermore, the
sea appeared in a new role when the railroad began to
bring trainloads of campers and pleasure seekers to the
beaches. If the influence of New York City and the
hinterland was augmented, so also was that of the ocean.

CHAPTEE XIII
THE PASSING OF MUD
In writing the story of a people it has too often been the
habit to omit any but the slightest reference to the high
ways. Yet, as Charles Sumner once remarked, ' ' The road v
and the schoolhouse are the two most important agents
in advancing civilization." Highways are the arteries
for the life of the community. Good roads and bad roads
have invariably given an unmistakable cast to the regions
which they served. Although the canal and the railroad
appeared to solve special problems in transportation, the
true function of the highway has not been altered nor has
its unique importance been impaired. Perhaps, for this
reason, it may not be without value to tell the story of the
Long Island roads. The problems which the people of
this region met differed little from those faced elsewhere
in the nation. The phases in the road development on
Long Island suggest the phases in the evolution in the
larger area.
The village streets in the tiny frontier hamlets were the
first American highways. From them, as field after field
was cleared, were pushed paths to connect the cabins with
the farms outside the stockades. "Ordered that there
shall be a highway between Thomas Baker's and William
Mulford's lots"; "Ordered that there shall be a highway
in the vacant lot by Gardiner Price's straight to the
swamp"; "Ordered that a cartway be built over the
swamp to the plains." So they were pushed farther and
farther on as the village grew. These cartways seem to

146 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG TSLAND
have met only the needs of the particular hamlets they
served. There was almost no effort to connect one village
with its neighbors. Such travel must be by the sea. The
first "highways," therefore, represented the simplest of
direct adaptations to a primitive environment.1
It must not be believed that these "highways" were, in
any way, comparable to the roads of a later time. They
were little more than paths set aside for the common use.
Along them the village herdsmari drove the cattle and
sheep of the community and men walked to and from their
fields. A few carts jolted over them, but roughhewn
sledges were probably more common. Eoads which car
ried such simple traffic needed neither improvements nor
uniformity. Some were three "poles" and some five
"poles" wide. Some were rented out to local husband
men and others were kept open for use. These were
pioneer days, not only in farming and fishing but in road
making.2 The year 1724 seems to have marked the beginning of a
new epoch in Long Island road building. By that time
the number of people and of villages had so increased that
the plan for a local road system serving only its imme
diate community was proving inadequate. Highways .to
break down the isolation of the villages were becoming
essential. In 1724, the general assembly of the province
of New York passed an act providing for the laying out
of roads in Suffolk County and the appointing of commis
sioners to take charge of the work.3 The first work of
the new officials was to revise the local road systems. Old
highways were abandoned and new ones laid out. The
newly surveyed roads numbered, in East Hampton, thir-
lEast Hampton Records, I, 32, 59, 60; Huntington Records, I, 259;
Hempstead Records, I, 74; Documentary History of New York, I, 161.
2 Southold Records, p. 188 ; East Hampton Records, III, 448.
3 East Hampton Records, III, 440.

THE PASSING OF MUD 147
teen, and, in Smithtown, seventeen.1 The policy of laying
out highways merely to meet local needs was abandoned.
In its place was inaugurated the plan of developing a
road system for the Island. At this point the geographic
characteristics of the region came sharply into play. The
people who were filling the Island were concentrated
mainly at the eastern and western ends. Connecting these
areas was a small fringe of settlements along the north
shore. The problem was to establish communication be
tween the two main population centres. About 1733,
three trunk roads were laid out to be completed many
years later. The "North Country Eoad" was surveyed
to pass from the head of one harbor to another along the
north shore of the Island. The "South Country Eoad"
was to follow the southern beaches. Between these, and
roughly parallel to them was the "Middle Country Eoad, ' '
laid out along the crest of the morainic ridge that runs
through the centre of the Island. It was a road system
that has persisted without fundamental change to the
present time.2
The nineteenth century had not yet opened when a new
era in American road building was ushered in. The prob
lem of the pioneers was to lay out the roads. That of the
new generation was quite different. By the end of the
eighteenth century, cities had sprung up. Transporta
tion, not only between one urban centre and another, but
between the city and the farm, became essential. The use
of wheeled vehicles for freight and passenger transport
was spreading with great rapidity. The Conestoga wagon
and the other improved conveyances of the day made the
development of better roads inevitable. The colonial road
without improvement and with hardly any bridges had
become a drag on progress. In 1792, the Lancaster Turn-
lEast Hampton Records, III, 440; Smithtown Records, pp. 87-88.
2 French, Gazatteer of the State of New York (1860), p. 632.

148 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
pike Company was incorporated by the state of Pennsyl
vania. It was an epoch-marking event. This road was
the first of the turnpikes, which themselves were the first
manifestations of a craze for internal improvements. The
new road, moreover, marked the emergence of private
capital as the dominant factor in highway improvement
in the more settled communities. From this time on for
many years, the best roads in America were privately
owned, managed, and maintained. No man was free to
travel without paying his toll. The traveler, therefore,
and not the taxpayer was the ultimate source whence the
money for building and maintaining the new roadways
was obtained. The states, occupied in pushing improve
ments into the undeveloped West, seem to have been quite
willing to leave improvement in the East to private enter
prise. It is also more than probable that the "fascinat
ing project of speculating in turnpike stock" did not act
as a deterrent to the spread of the "spirit of turnpik-
ing. ' J1
In 1801, with the incorporation of the Flushing and
Newtown Bridge and Turnpike Company, the good roads
movement came to Long Island. The first important
stimulus to improvement, however, was the result of the
demand of fashion. One of the great watering places of
the time was at Far Eockaway. Every day, during the
summer season, great numbers of gigs, carriages, and
coaches bearing the polite society of New York, could be
seen crossing the ferry to Brooklyn to make the drive to
the shore. These people demanded better roads and, in
1806, work on the Jamaica and Eockaway turnpike was
begun. Three years later, the improved route to the
shore was made complete by the incorporation of the
Brooklyn, Jamaica, and Flatbush Turnpike Company.
iNew York Society for the Promotion of Arts, Agriculture and Manu
factures, Transactions, II (1807), 196-198.

THE PASSING OF MUD 149
Society from the city could now enjoy a smooth "pike"
all the way to the beach.1
In 1807, the state of New York, with nine hundred miles
of turnpike roads completed and three thousand more
projected, passed its first general turnpike law for the
standardizing of the regulations governing the new type
of road.2 From this point the development of Long Is
land turnpikes was mainly in the interest of the farmer.
Wherever the turnpike came, rural isolation began to
break down. Decade after decade, in the first half of the
nineteenth century, saw the pushing of good roads east
ward. In the forties, the development came practically
to an end, when the Long Island Eailroad completed its
line to Greenport. By that time, however, the system was
extensive. The two East Eiver terminals were Brooklyn
and Williamsburg. From each of these cities extended
a turnpike to Jamaica, the most important highway centre
in the western part of the Island. From this place
branched the trunk roads, the Middle Country and the
South Country roads. By 1845, the South Country Eoad
had been turnpiked through Hempstead to Babylon, and
the Middle Country Eoad east as far as Jericho. Along the
north shore, however, stretched the greatest turnpike of
all. Beginning- at Williamsburg, the North Country Eoad
stretched its improved surface eastward through Flush
ing, Oyster Bay, and Huntington to its terminus at Smith-
town.3 Year after year, longer and longer caravans of
farmers' wagons rolled over these new highways to the
markets of New York. It must be remembered, however,
that, although in other parts of the United States the
turnpike had practically no competitor until the coming
iLong Island Star, I (1809), no. 26; VI (1814), no. 261; VIII (1816),
nos. 376, 395.
'Ibid., VIII (1816), no. 395.
'Long Island Farmer, IX (1829), no. 5; VT (N. S.) (1837), no. 37;
X (1840), no. 10; Thompson, I, 300.

150 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
of canals or railroads, on Long Island the small sailing
boats that plied in steadily increasing numbers along both
shores were competitors of serious importance. The
rivalry of the turnpike and the sea continued until both
were temporarily checked by the building of the railroad
in 1844.
The value of these turnpikes, however, was not limited
to the users of the roads. The promoters of ventures
received their return. Within three years of its incorpo
ration,' the Brooklyn, Flatbush, and Jamaica Turnpike
Company declared a dividend of seventy-five cents per
share. Two years later, in 1814, the dividend was eighty-
five cents per share. Nor did the profits decrease with
the passing years. In 1837, the value of the North Coun
try Eoad was suggested by the six hundred and fifty-three
dollars which comprised the year's income for the short
piece of road from Flushing east to North Hempstead.
Seven years later the annual tolls had passed the mark
of thirteen hundred dollars. The turnpike builders of
these early days had their reward.1
At the very culmination of the turnpike era, and after
the first reaction resulting from the building of the rail
road had passed, came a small movement looking toward
a still further improvement of highways. On March 16,
1850, the legislature of the state of New York passed a
general plank road act, and, on May 4 of the same year,
books were opened to plank the highway from Brooklyn to
Jamaica. The movement seems to have sprung up sud
denly in Long Island. With the development of the saw
mill, the use of planks on highways appeared in many
places in America. In the years 1850 and 1851, proposals
for no less than ten different plank roads were being dis
cussed in the villages of western Long Island. The net
i Long Island Star, VI (1814), no. 261; XX (1829), no. 48; Long Island
Farmer, XIV (1846), no. 11.

THE PASSING OF MUD 151
result of the agitation, however, was to lay planks on the
turnpike from Brooklyn east to Hempstead, and from
Williamsburg to Flushing. If the turnpike in its day had
solved in part the question of bridges and of grades, the
plank road was one of the first serious attempts at a solu
tion of the problem of mud. To construct a highway with
a surface permanently smooth and hard had become the
vision of the road builders of the middle years of the nine
teenth century. The plank road experiment, however,
proved void of permanent result. Lumber became too
expensive, and the road was not as desirable as had been
hoped for. By 1870, failure was evident, and the planks
were removed from the turnpike between Jamaica and
Hempstead. Nine years later, the planks were cleared
from the whole length of the road. But the experiment
was not entirely in vain. Wood, it is true, could not be
used, but the idea of a permanent hard surface had come
to stay.1
During the height of the plank road experiments a
change of attitude toward improved roads appeared
among the people of Long Island. In 1869, a significant
note was sounded in one of the local papers. "For years
past the people of Queens County have been agitating the
subject of abolishing toll gates that flood almost every
road in the county. The time had been when it was neces
sary to give encouragement to the building of roads by
allowing the builders a remuneration for their invest
ments in this particular. But toll gates have become so
numerous that they are positively becoming a drawback
to our prosperity, and a nuisance to the increasing mul
titude of travelers. It will be seen by the call in another
place, that the agitations against toll gates and toll
i Long Island Farmer, XVIII (1850), no. 1; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LIII
(1893), no. 329; LVII (1897), no. 252. In 1850, there were 2100 miles of
plank road in New York State. Long Island Farmer, XVIII (1851), no. 46.

152 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
bridges are taking shape, and that the people are on the
eve of inaugurating a movement that is likely to lead in
due time to the abolition on just principles to all con
cerned, of the numerous franchises that are so inimical to
the prosperity of the county. ' n The improvement of one
generation had become a drag on the next. The agitation
continued and grew in volume. By 1892, it had borne its
fruits. In that year the board of supervisors of Queens
County began the expenditure of several hundred thou
sand dollars in the macadamizing of the main roads of the
region. The day of private ownership of highways had
passed, and that of public management supported by
taxation was ushered in.2
The coming of this last movement for improved roads
was contemporaneous with an important development in
American life. About 1876, the old style, high-wheeled
bicycle was first introduced into the United States from
England. In May, 1880, the League of American Wheel
men, the "L. A. W." as it came to be called, was founded
at Newport. On June 27, 1887, the ' ' Liberty Bill, ' ' which
gave to wheelmen the right of highway, became a part of
the law of New York State. About 1890, the "safety"
bicycle began to supplant the earlier model, and the pneu
matic tire displaced its hard rubber predecessor. The
advent of the bicycle marks a turning point in the history
of American highways. A new class of urban people be
came interested in better roads. The significance of the
change is well set forth in an official statement printed by
the " L. A. W. " in 1895. ' ' Within the last year our State
Division has distributed ten thousand illustrated pam
phlets, describing the best methods of making and main
taining country roads ; it has secured the passage of a law
for the erection of guide boards at country road crossings ;
i Long Island Farmer, XL VIII (1869), no. 36.
2 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LII (1892), no. 334.

THE PASSING OF MUD 153
it has aided in the raising of funds for the construction of
the cycle path from Prospect Park [Brooklyn] to Coney
Island [the first highway in America wholly devoted to
wheelmen] ; it has successfully opposed the obnoxious
bills introduced in the legislature at Albany for the unfair
curtailment of wheelmen's rights on the public highways
and streets ; . . . and has issued five thousand tour books
for the use of wheelmen and horsemen describing the
most delightful and popular tours in the United States."
To the influence of the organized "L. A. W." was added
that of every individual wheel owner in the state. The
result was inevitable. Better highways were demanded
and these must have a surface permanently smooth and
hard. The dream of the plank road builders of a former
day was about to be realized.1
In its inception this movement for improved highways
presented two distinct phases. In the counties of Kings
and Queens, close to the growing city of New York, public
authorities in the last decade of the nineteenth century
began the construction of a complete system of macadam
roads. Suffolk County, however, with its vast extent of
"Pine Barrens," was too far removed from the city to be
affected at once. The people of this county were not
ready to expend for "county roads" the vast sums which
were being laid out in Kings and Queens. On the other
hand, the demand of the multitude of local cyclists was
insistent. As a consequence, in Suffolk a compromise was
effected. If the devotees of the "wheel" desired smooth
highways, they must defray the cost of the improvement.
Every bicycle was compelled to have a license, and the
license tag must be carried on the machine. The money
thus obtained was turned over to a " Side Path Commis
sion," by whom it was expended in the construction of
smooth, hard bicycle paths along the sides of the main
iMimsey's Magazine, May, 1896, pp. 136-156.

154 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
thoroughfares. By 1900, a continuous path stretched
along the south shore from Amityville to Amagansett,
and on the north side from Greenport to Eiverhead, and
again from Port Jefferson west to the macadam at Smith-
town. Besides these main lines, many cross paths made
the Island a veritable gridiron.1
The coming of the automobile with the opening of the
twentieth century carried forward the movement inaugu
rated by the introduction of the bicycle. In the business
of constructing improved roads, the county which had
initiated the improvement gave place to the state, and the
' ' state road, ' ' built and maintained by the state, came into
being. Among favored sections of the Empire State,
Long Island has been one of the most fortunate. Eoads
have been improved to such an extent that at the present
time from Brooklyn to Orient or Montauk points, the
Island is covered, as few areas in America are, with a net
work of the best of modern highways. The new roads and
the new vehicles have vitally affected every Long Island
industry. The truckloads of poultry and produce rolling
into Brooklyn and New York are evidence of the revolu
tion that has come to agriculture. The long night trip to
market has ieen shortened and the farmers of the eastern
end have shaken off vtheir dependence upon both sea and
railroad. Moreover, other industries have felt the change.
Motor trucks can now handle the catches of the fishermen
and the oystermen. Perhaps most important of all, the
new roads and the automobile have brought the beaches
of Long Island close to the homes of a great city and have
made the camper a familiar figure. Nowhere more clearly
than on Long Island have prosperity and highway im
provement gone steadily hand in hand.
In looking back over the long years of development of
i-Long Island Traveler, XXIX (1899), nos. 4, 5; Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
LX (1900), no. 284.

THE PASSING OF MUD 155
Long Island transportation, the ocean appears as the first
highway for the people of that region. Not only did it
connect them with distant places, but, in the beginning,
furnished practically the only means of communication
among the little frontier villages themselves. For a cen
tury and a half, the sea retained an ascendency that
amounted almost to a monopoly. With the building of
turnpikes, however, in the first half of the nineteenth cen
tury, the development of an artificial, man-made environ
ment began. The growth of the industries of the region
was so great that both sea trade and road traffic steadily
increased. The advent of the railroad in the middle years
of the century brought great changes. From that time
on, the coast trade declined until it sank into relative
insignificance. As the trip from Montauk to New York
shrunk from a long to a short haul, the sea as a highway
was forced to give place, in large measure, to other more
efficient forms of transportation. Although the railroad
checked for a time the good roads movement, it did not
bring it to an end. The old turnpike movement merged
into the plank road craze. This, in turn, gave place to the
county and state road movements which began in the clos
ing decade of the nineteenth century. Along with the
highways, the railroads were developed as soon as it be
came clear that neither the road nor the railroad could
perform the other's function. The development of these
two has completed the "artificializing" of the Long Is
land environment.

CHAPTEE XIV
THE "PINE BAEEENS"
The greatest enigma in Long Island history is the exist
ence in the centre of the Island of an area several miles in
width and scores of miles in length that is uninhabited
and uncultivated. The markets of the great city of New
York have grown to huge proportions. The railroad and
the macadamized highway have made these accessible to
every Long Islander. The gardener has covered both the
western and eastern ends of the Island with his farms.
He has surrounded but not penetrated the forested region
in the centre. Almost from the beginning, ill report has
dogged the progress of the central plains of Long Island.
Concerning this apron of glacial outwash, covered with
' ' scrub oak, ' ' much that is evil and little that is good has
been said. It is a veritable terra incognita, concerning
which speculations have been many and disputes sharp.
To tell the story of a controversy fought for more than
half a century over this region and to describe the battle
of words between those who have defended it and those
who have detracted from it seems worth while, for the
"Barrens" are yet unsettled and the problem which they
present to the people of Long Island is yet unsolved.
The ill repute of the central plains seems to have had
its beginning almost in the days of the first settlers. As
early as the year 1691, a governor of the province of New
York stated in a formal report to the Board of Trade that
' ' The middle of the Island is altogether barren. ' 'J Three-
i N. Y. Col. Docts., Ill, 797.

THE "PINE BAEEENS" 157
quarters of a century later, on the eve of the war of the
Revolution, another royal governor reported that prac
tically all the land on the Island which could be improved
had" been taken up and was being tilled.1 "Altogether
barren," yet the region was covered with forest as were
the other parts of the new country. This is the enigma of
the "Pine Barrens."
Paradoxical though it may seem, the "Barrens" early
began to produce a revenue. At first isolated cabins and,
later, little settlements of woodchoppers appeared in the
forests. The product, laboriously worked up for the fire
places of New York City, was hauled over almost indis
tinguishable wood-roads to the "landings" which dotted
both north and south shores. Here it was picked up by
the many sloops and schooners engaged in the wood busi
ness and transported to the dealers on Manhattan Island.
At the time of the second war with Great Britain, Brook
haven township was estimated to be exporting annually
no less than one hundred thousand cords of wood. The
business grew as the market at the mouth of the Hudson
grew. The mosquito fleet of wood-boats became more and
more numerous and the ' ' landings ' ' plied a steadily busier
trade. By the middle of the century, cordwood had be
come one of the important resources of the Island.2
A serious reversal, however, occurred, when, in 1844,
the Long Island Railroad pushed its right of way through
the heart of the wooded country. Unprecedented forest
fires followed in its wake. ' ' The extent of these conflagra
tions," wrote a local observer, "can scarcely be conceived
of without ocular examination. To talk of thousands of
acres, is scarcely an approximation to the reality. In
i N. Y. Col. Docts., VIII, 441.
2Dwight, Travels in New England and New York (1822), III, 302-303;
Spafford^ Gazatteer of the State of New York (1813), p. 282; New York
State Census (1865), p. 414.

158 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
several places entire forests for eight or ten miles in
length and from two to four in breadth have been com
pletely swept over by the devouring element."1 The
name, "Barrens," took on a new and sinister meaning.
Great as was the devastation, the industry did not dis
appear. As late as the close of the Civil War, Suffolk
remained the first wood-cutting county in the state. But
the latter years of the nineteenth century saw a decline.
The fleet of small wood-boats gave way before the compe
tition of the railroad, and the woodchoppers in the
"scrub oak" became less numerous. They never disap
peared altogether and, today, piles of wood, still found
at the sidings of the little Suffolk County stations, bespeak
an industry that still exists to turn one of the products of
the "Pine Barrens" into revenue.
About the middle of the century, a few years subse
quent to the ravages of the forest fires, began the contro
versy as to whether the lands of the "scrub oak" could or
could not be cultivated with profit. Men interested in the
region proclaimed its inherent fertility. Others were
sceptical. The Sag Harbor Express, at the eastern end
of the Island, had been watching, during the few preced
ing years, an effort which was being publicly made to
spread the report that the "Pine Barrens" could be made
productive. In 1850, Mr. Starr, editor of the New York
Farmer and Mechanic, visited the wild lands about Lake-
ville and pronounced them fertile and tillable. Other men
began to assume the same attitude. It seemed time to
give the public the facts in the case as viewed by farmers
who had been brought up within sight of the "Barrens"
and who had shot many a squirrel and partridge in its
fastnesses. The Express, therefore, in an elaborate arti
cle summed up its conclusions as follows : "Much has been
said of late years concerning the adaptability of these
i Prime, p. 59.

THE "PINE BAEEENS" 159
waste lands for agricultural purposes ; many bitter disap
pointments and heavy pecuniary losses have resulted
from incorrect or partial information on this matter, fur
nished chiefly by those who were pecuniarily interested.
The truth of the matter is this : the soil is very variable
even in the same neighborhood, some portions being a
deep loam, while at no great distance it may be thin,
gravelly and poor. The labor necessary to clear it is very
great, $30 per acre being the lowest sum at which it can
be done, so that if purchased as low as $5 per acre, by the
time it is fit for cultivation and inclosed, it will have cost
[more] than good tillable land can be obtained for else
where. . . . That farms can be made from these waste
lands is certain, as the thing has been done . . . but the
thing won't pay at present."1
In the following year, no less a paper than the widely
read farm journal, The American Agriculturist, entered
the Long Island controversy and exposed, for the benefit
of its readers, what it considered a serious real estate
fraud. "For some years past there have been extensive
efforts to bring into favorable notice certain tracts situ
ated on Long Island. These efforts have consisted of
advertisements in distant agricultural and other news
papers . . . the good qualities of a majority of the mag
nificent farming lands advertised there . . . are on
paper."2 Apparently the "Pine Barrens" were not
always fortunate in their early promoters. Such attacks
as these of the Agriculturist and the Express did not tend
to diminish the odium which already rested upon the
region. In the same year that the Agriculturist issued its warn
ing against real estate "sharpers," appeared the first in
a considerable list of earnest and able defenders of the
ii (1859), no. 14.
2 XIX (1860), p. 134.

160 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
wild country. In that year, 1860, W. C. Watson, owner
of a farm in the "scrub oak," published a pamphlet
entitled The Plains of Long Island. It breathed an opti
mism like that of land booms on a western frontier.
Within "a few years a new epoch seems to have opened
upon the scene. . . . Productive farms and highly culti
vated gardens are springing into existence and beam
amid these wilds like oases in a desert." Watson, point
ing to the "Hempstead Plains," once considered infertile
and now covered with farms, urged men to come to the
central plains and bring about the same transformation
there. Here- was a sharp reply to the opinions of the
sceptics. About the time of the appearance of the Watson
pamphlet, the management of the Long Island Eailroad,
just entering upon a policy of developing the resources
of the Island, began to consider the possibility of filling
the extensive area of the "Pine Barrens" with settlers.
A committee, sent into the region, reported that the lands
between Farmingdale and Yaphank, "particularly those
between Deer Park and Lakeland, are superior in natural
soil to any lands now under cultivation on the south coun
try road or through the old settlements south of the mid
dle country road . . . and that with the same amount of
tillage and manuring the yield would be equally as great
if not superior. ' n
This first effort of the railroad seems to have been pro
ductive of little result besides the report itself. Nineteen
years went by and the "Barrens" still remained unoccu
pied. Again the road, under a new management, made an
effort to advertise the possibilities of the "scrub oak"
country. An elaborate pamphlet, The New Long Island,
picturing the opportunities offered by the central plains,
iLong Island Eailroad Committee on the Wild Lands of Long Island,
Report (I860), p. 11.

THE "PINE BAEEENS" 161
was distributed far and wide. The railroad offered free
transportation and a fifty per cent freight reduction on
east bound traffic to all new settlers coming into the
region. The road seems to have gone so far as to try to
interest financiers of New York and Brooklyn in a project
for utilizing the waste lands for villages for mechanics
and laborers who would commute into the metropolis. In
spite of all efforts, however, the second attempt bore little
more fruit than the first.
By the year 1880, the discussion concerning the avail
ability of the "Pine Barrens" had become of sufficient im
portance to attract the attention of a prominent eastern
agriculturist, D. D. T. Moore, editor of Moore's Rural
New Yorker. He felt that lands lying so near the New
York City markets should be developed, if possible. Two
or three times he visited the area, making careful examina
tions of the soil. He "did not discover an acre that was
not susceptible of production." He did find, however,
that public opinion was "strongly against the lands."
"Rarely have I spoken with a native of the island or to
a New York or Brooklyn man who has not denounced the
lands in the most unmeasured terms." Moore deter
mined to take part in the controversy and, on August 24,
1882, published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle not only an
account of his investigations but other facts which seemed
to him conclusive proof of the productivity of the region.
He referred to the heavy crops raised with little fertilizer
on the Suffolk County Poor Farm, in the heart of the wild
country, and he pointed out the significance of the appear
ance of a chain of eleven villages which had sprung up
along the main line of the Long Island Eailroad in the
centre of the "Barrens." This seemed to him sufficient
evidence that the "scrub oak" area was fertile and pro
ductive. To all appearances, however, the effort was use-

162 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
less. The scepticism of the local farmer remained un
broken and the enigma of the "Pine Barrens" unsolved.
The nineteenth century passed into the twentieth with
the central plains still undeveloped. Of prospects for an
immediate change there were none. For the third time
the Long Island Eailroad bestirred itself to effort.
"When Mr. Ealph Peters became [its] President . . . ,
his inspection tours of the Island showed him much to be
done, and most forcibly brought before him the fact that
the vast acreage of idle land . . . must be developed for.
its own sake and for that of its railroad. ... As practical
demonstration is vastly superior to written statements,
the President determined to establish Experimental Sta
tions at various points on the Island and to give the public
the results of the work." The development of these
demonstration farms was given into the hands of H. B.
Fullerton. "Early in August, 1905, the following mes
sage came from Mr. Peters 'Find the worst 10 acres on
the North Shore upon which to establish Experimental
Station No. 1.' M1
The first farm was located near Wading Eiver and the
second at Medford. In less than half a dozen years each
was changed from a "scrub oak" waste to a garden
covered luxuriously with every kind of fruit and vege
table that Long Island afforded. In the raising of three
hundred and eighty varieties of plant growth on the Wad
ing Eiver farm during the first year after it was cleared
the fertilizers used were limited to stable manure, wood
ashes, and a rye cover crop. And this was in the heart of
the "Barrens." In 1906, Edith Loring Fullerton pub
lished The Lure of the Land, A Call to Long Island, which
gave an account of the undertaking. Three years later
the little volume went into a second edition. Moreover,
for a time the work of the experiment stations was made
i Fullerton, The Lure of the Land (1906), pp. 9-11.

THE "PINE BAEEENS" 163
known to the farmers of Long Island and to any others
interested, through a small publication known as The
Long Island Agronomist. Attracted by the publicity thus
given to the demonstration and by interest in a contro
versy more than half a century old, hundreds of visitors
came to the farms to examine them. The undertaking
seemed from every angle a success.
To the observer from the outside it would seem that
Fullerton had proved the case for the productivity of the
"Pine Barrens." The fact remains, however, that, al
though more than a decade has passed since the founding
to the Wading Eiver station, the "Pine Barrens" still
exist, a great expanse of practically unoccupied forest.
Although the case is proved, it may be that the problem
is yet unsolved. An analysis of the forces at work at the
present time in the "scrub oak" country may serve to
clarify somewhat the difficulties in the way of solving this
problem of its development.
The one great factor which dominates the future of the
"Pine Barrens," as it does so many phases of Long Is
land life, is the steady eastward growth of the giant city
of New York. During the last fifty years, it has overrun
Kings County and extended its buildings and pavements
far into Queens. In front of the advancing city has been
driven an ever increasing multitude of truckmen and gar
deners, whose land is constantly becoming too valuable
for agricultural use. These men have been crowded into
the narrow strips of farming country that fringe the two
sides of the Island and in great numbers have been
pushed against the western end of the "Barrens" them
selves. . The result has been the shoving back of the
border of the "scrub oak" country, a little at the north
and south and several miles on the west. Eelatively few
of these dispossessed farmers have been bold enough to
venture into the interior of the wild country. The move-

164 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
ment has been directed, in the main, against the periphery.
In this way, pressing economic necessity has, for the first
time, begun to play an important part in the history of the
"Pine Barrens."
In the interior of the central plains the growth of New
York City has had a somewhat different result from that
at the outer edge. On the wooded acres of the "scrub
oak" country, "cities," broadly laid out and attractively
named, have made their appearance. In 1896, Hyde's
Map of Long Island showed six such ventures, but in its
edition of 1915 no less than thirty-eight "cities,"
"manors," and "parks," could be counted between Eon-
konkoma and Eiverhead. The effect of this increase in
real-estate speculation has been immediate. Large areas
of the most desirably placed land, which might otherwise
have been turned into farms, can now be purchased only
as. "city" lots at an inflated valuation. Although the
actual area occupied by these projects is large, their influ
ence is even greater. The inflated valuation of the "city"
property has communicated itself to adjoining lands,
until almost imperceptibly the selling price of the greater
part of the "Pine Barrens" has been artificially raised.
This increase in the initial investment presents a serious
obstacle to the agricultural settler, who desires to estab
lish his home on a little farm which he must clear himself.
Not only does it hinder agricultural development, but the
questionable character of so many of the real-estate ven
tures tends to keep alive the ill repute of the region and
to act as a further deterrent to settlement. Not all of the
real-estate projects are the schemes of unprincipled
"sharpers." Some of these "cities" have already built
houses for their people. A few of these projects are
bound to be profoundly affected, as the villages of Queens
County have been, by the eastward growth of New York.
It is this uncertainty as to the future of the real-estate

THE "PINE BAEEENS" 165
program that makes the problem of the "Pine Barrens"
so complex.
Leaving out of consideration the new element intro
duced by the establishment of Camp Upton at Yaphank,
it may be said that two antithetical forces have appeared
in the "scrub oak" region. One is the real-estate specu
lator in the interior and the other the garden farmer at
the outer border. The eastward advance of New York
City is a powerful stimulus to each. That, in time, the
"Pine Barrens" are doomed to succumb seems indispu
table. Only the future can reveal which of these two
factors or what sort of combination of both will conquer
That broad stretch of plains country now under the do
minion of the ' ' scrub oak. ' '

CHAPTEE XV
THE DISCOVEEY OF THE OUT OF DOOES
There is a phase in the development of Long Island life
that is full of significance for one who desires to under
stand Americans of the present. We are today a people
of games, sports, and out-of-door pleasures. The ten
sion and strain of a hurried life is relieved on the golf
links, in the trout brook, or on the diamond. We have
learned to.play. In this respect, however, there is a strik
ing contrast between the common man of the twentieth
century and his forefathers of a hundred years ago, a
contrast not without meaning for the present generation.
In a peculiar sense, play has come to be an important
part of Long Island life. Lying at the doors of the Ameri
can metropolis, the Island has become the playground of
New York. The story of how the people of this great
centre of life and civilization came out on it for pleasure
differs but little from the larger story of how the whole
nation came out to play. The details vary with the pecu
liarities of the locality, but the main phases of the Long
Island and the national movements are the same. Many
volumes on our shelves record the long and complex his
tory of the methods by which the people of our country
have got a living. Few men, however, have had time to
tell the story of the evolution of fun. Perhaps it will not
be out of place to pause for a moment to trace some of the
phases in a development which, some day, will be recog
nized as one of the great revolutions in American life.
The Eevolutionary War left the American people

DISCOVEEY OF THE OUT OF DOOES 167
young in national life and buoyant in national hope.
Tasks of almost limitless extent lay before them as they
chopped away the forests of the Atlantic seaboard and
blazed trails through the valleys and passes of the Ap
palachians. They were, in the main, a farmer and a sea
going folk with little wealth, little social intercourse, and
practically no leisure. There was little play because there
was no time for it and, also, because the austere creed of
New England openly frowned upon it. Men's lives were
spent in making a living, as they battled with a primitive
environment. Only in relatively few instances did they
acquire sufficient capital to secure opportunity for breath
ing spells. Such a life, barren of the lighter things, must
not, however, be misunderstood. Tasks and standards
differed then from those of a later time. There were
parties and assemblies. There were training days and
festivals. In the larger towns could be found an occa
sional show place. There were, however, practically no
sports and no organized games. Life itself was the great
game and success the prize it offered. Perhaps it was
inevitable that across such an existence, unrelieved by
the vicarious joy and suffering of the world of sport,
should be cast the dark shadow of excess. Drinking was
a fundamental part of the social fabric. In the gray
barrenness of this life, however, were bright spots, here
and there. The nineteenth century had scarcely begun,
when, among Long Island people, appeared three distinct
developments that were destined to lay the foundation
for the evolution to come.
One of these was the turf, that sport which has quick
ened men's blood and lightened men's purses since the
time of the Eomans. On Long Island, horse-racing was
born before the end of the seventeenth century. The
worthy burghers of New York were wont to repair to a
plain "toward the middle of Long Island ... 16 miles

168 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
long and 4 broad, where you shall find neither stick nor
stone to hinder horses heels, or endanger them in their
races. ' ' During the eighteenth century the people of New
- York, like the gentlemen planters of the southern colonies,
established racing on a secure footing. There were annual
racing events first on the Hempstead Plains and later at
Beaver Pond in Jamaica. The silver cup of the early
days was replaced by purses which sometimes amounted
to as much as one hundred pounds sterling. The gentle
men and ladies of the small city at the southern end of
Manhattan Island, traveling on horseback or in chairs
and chaises, came in what seemed prodigious numbers to
view the spectacles. Two or three thousand persons were
large crowds for those primitive days.1
It may well be said, however, that the first quarter of
the nineteenth century saw the turf become the national
sport of the young United States. The planters of the
cotton country, the gentlemen of the new state of Ken
tucky, and many men of the commercial Middle States
aided in its advancement, with a generous expenditure of
time, money, and interest. "In his old age Diomed, who
had won the initial Derby at Epsom Downs in 1780, came
to America to breed a great family of racing horses on a
Virginia stock farm. ' ' With the passing years, two types
of horses began to appear. The South bred for speed and
the North for "bottom." Mason and Dixon's line took
on a new significance. Sectionalism appeared and led in
evitably to an "irrepressable conflict." March 27, 1823,
saw the first trial of strength between the North and the
South. On the aptly named Union Course at Jamaica,
Long Island, the sporting world was "gratified with the
greatest match race ever run in the United States. The
i Quotations from the New York Post Boy, June 4, 1750, the New York
Mercury, October 9, 1764, and the New York, Journal, August 8, 1794, all
found in The History of Queens County (1882), pp. 57-59.

DISCOVEEY OF THE OUT OF DOORS 169
stakes were $20,000 each side, making $40,000 dependent
on the issue, independent of private betting, which was
great. The assemblage on the ground was immense, and
we understand strangers from very distant parts of the
Union had come to witness the sport. Van Ranst's horse,
'Eclipse,' who stood, as a racer, the highest in the coun
try, was matched by Long's horse, 'Henry,' the pride of
the southern sportsmen." Rufus King, the statesman of
• the Empire State, and the fiery John Randolph of Vir
ginia, sitting side by side "under the big tree on high
seats," looked down upon a crowd of forty thousand peo
ple that cheered "Eclipse" to victory. A nation before
the days of the telegraph awaited the news of the outcome
with some of the excitement that attends the decision of
a world series. The sporting blood of America was be
ginning to stir.1
Once begun, the rivalry between the sections increased.
Two more meets were held on courses outside of Long
Island. Interest grew apace. It reached a climax in the
greatest race of all held again on Union Course, May 13,
1845. "Peytona," of the South, before a crowd of seventy
thousand persons, met and vanquished "Fashion," the
pride of the North. ' ' The shout that rent the welkin was
the signal for the transfer of at least one hundred thou
sand dollars from the pockets of the North to the pockets
of the South. " " Peytona ' ' won not only the race but the
series.2 It was the last contest. A different form of the rivalry
between the sections was taking a sinister turn. Polk had
been elected president in the previous autumn on a pro-
Texas platform. The ugly possibility of a war with
Mexico for the purpose of conquering more slave terri
tory was daily becoming more apparent. There were
iLong Island Star, XIII (1823), no. 721.
"New York Tribune, May 14, 1845.

170 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
recriminations and heartburnings in both North and
South. It became difficult for gentlemen from the two
regions to meet any longer in friendly contest. With the
severance of turf relations between the estranged sec
tions, the role of horse-racing as the national sport came
to an end. It had, however, served its purpose. It had
stirred the souls of rich and poor alike, and had driven
street urchin and statesman into an abandon of joy or
grief as the idol of his fancy won or lost. Although horse-
racing was to continue and even increase, it played its
most significant part in the first half of the nineteenth
century. In those years it aroused an interest in sport
which was to be the foundation of the games that were to
come after the Civil War was over.
To believe that the term "age of sports" adequately
describes the revolution that was to come to American
life in the latter part of the nineteenth century is to mis
understand the whole movement. The increase in games
and sports was only a part of a greater development.
This was nothing less than a discovery of the out of doors.
Americans, from the beginning of their history, have been
an out-of-door people, living and working in the open air.
Originally a nation of farmers and seamen, they knew
little of the restrictions of indoor fife. With the first
years of the nineteenth century, however, a change ap
peared. Industrialism began to make itself felt and the
young United States groped its way toward economic
self-sufficiency. The large city, a factor hitherto almost unknown in
American life, made its appearance. The factory worker
and the office man became familiar types. A large and
rapidly increasing group in a people, born and bred to the
open, were finding the out of doors a luxury. The new
urban environment, moreover, was often far from attrac
tive. The arts of city-making and city-managing were

DISCOVERY OF THE OUT OF DOORS 171
being learned by costly experience. New York City was
little different from the rest. Its cobblestone streets wereV
lighted only at infrequent intervals by dim and flickering
lamps. Its closely huddled structures of wood had only
the most primitive fire protection. The water supply
came mainly from the householders' wells. These early
cities were breeding places for disease. Within such an
environment the movement back to the out of doors
began. So far as Long Island was concerned this move
ment had two quite distinct phases, represented, on the
one hand, by the man who went into the woods to hunt
and, on the other, by the society that sought the watering
places. Few areas in the East were better adapted for shooting
and angling than Long Island in the first half of the nine
teenth century. The unbroken forest which stretched for
more than fifty miles through the heart of the region was
full of game of all varieties. The tale is told by a local
rhymster. ' ' The grouse, the pheasant and the quail
In turn we take by changes,
Or hunt the buck with flippant tail
As through the wood he ranges.
"Sometimes the tim'rous trout we wait
Along the streamlet's border,
With well dissembled fly or bait,
And tackle in good order.
"Or catch the huge enormous bass,
Be his course e'er so drastic
While sitting on the verdant grass,
Close by the groves at Mastic. ' '
Mastic, however, was famous for more than bass. To
gether with the whole south shore, it was the haunt, at

172 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
certain seasons of the year, of numberless wild fowl. The
geese, brant, and ducks which collected in great flocks
along the marshy shores of the southern bays offered
sport to hundreds of men and boys.
To the woods and streams of Long Island came in great
numbers hunters and fishermen. Some of them were local
farmers, bred to the rod and gun since pioneer days.
Others were merchants and office men from the rapidly
growing city at the mouth of the Hudson. The hunting
or fishing excursion into Long Island was as familiar in
those times as the trip to the north woods is today. These
men who came out of the stuffy city were simply reassert
ing the natural instincts of an out-of-door people. They
were the advance guard of that army of pleasure seekers
that one day was to invade the region. In the forties,
however, the movement came to an end. Forest fires
swept the game life from the Island, except the wild fowl
which came to the south shore. The hunter was forced to
seek his prey in other haunts, but he had done his work ;
he had brought back to the early city a point of view and
a body of information that was to aid in the stimulating
of the later camping movement.
Not all of the people of New York who were interested
in the out of doors, desired to go into the woods with a
gun. There were some who sought the shore where the
surf of the Atlantic fringed the sloping sands with white.
The first of these were of the very small leisure class of
the city that was beginning to appear as wealth increased.
Far Rockaway Beach was neither so far from the city as
to be inaccessible nor so near as to be overrun by the com
monalty. Far. Rockaway became one of the earliest
watering places of New York and of America. Before
1810, a turnpike connected Brooklyn with the beach. Over
this "Appian Way" rolled the carriages and cantered
the horses of New York's elite. Beautiful ladies and

DISCOVERY OF THE OUT OF DOOES 173
polished gentlemen met and met again as they flitted along
the turnpike to and from the fashionable resort. By
1811, stages were making regular trips and were adver
tising special accommodations for the convenience of the
week-end visitor. In those days, when it was five hours
from the ferry to the beach, "by far the greatest portion
of the genteel company from New York and elsewhere
chose this watering place in preference to any other in
the United States."1
Greatness, however, still lay in the future. The beach
developed with the city. As the fame of New York was
noised abroad, so, also, was that of Far Rockaway. Dur
ing the thirties, when crowds of the "best" people were
seeking the little peninsula to enjoy the ' ' sublimity of the
situation," Far Rockaway reached the dazzling climax
of a career of splendor. On the first day of June, 1833,
was laid, "with appropriate ceremonies," the corner
stone of the Marine Pavilion, soon to become a name to
conjure with. It was a spacious structure, "built by an
association of between 70 and 80 of the most distinguished
families in the city of New York. ' ' For nearly a decade
and a half, this ' ' splendid edifice ' ' symbolized the glory of
Far Rockaway and the magnificence of its society. Then,
of a sudden, it burned. From the smoking ruins the devo
tees of yesterday turned away as courtiers from fallen
greatness. Far Rockaway, an object of pride no longer,
slipped back, unnoticed, into the commonplace.2 The elite,
more interested in fashions than in nature, worshiped
new sublimities. The Far Eockaway episode was, after
all, but a bit of froth on a great stream. It served to
show, however, which way the current was running. The
iLong Island Star, II (1811), no. 102; Mitchell, The Picture of New
York (1818), p. 325.
2 Thompson, II, 44; Long Island via the Long Island Railroad (1868),
pp. 45-46.,

174 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
people of the cities were beginning to grow restive under
the limitations of urban life. Although society at first
insisted upon artificiality, the time for the wholesome ap
preciation of the out of doors was not far distant.
The decade of the forties saw a distinct turning point
in the play-life of Long Island. During those years, the
Marine Pavilion, with all its splendor burned. The con
flagrations, lighted by the locomotives, swept the game
life from the forests. And the last of the great races be
tween the North and the South was run. These three
Long Island developments of the first half of the nine
teenth century, hunting and fishing, horse-racing, and the
fashionable watering place, were, however, the first im
portant steps away from a life in which there were few
games and little play. They were the beacons lighting the
way for the changes to come.

CHAPTER XVI
THE NEW CIVILIZATION
The appropriation of the wild country of America has
awaited two things. There could be no considerable de
velopment of mountains, lakes, or seashore until a large
percentage of the people of the nation lived in cities. Fur
thermore, there could be no development until the wild
country was made accessible to the urban centres by
quick and cheap transportation. It would be reasonable
to expect, therefore, that the out-of-door movement
would begin in the sixties and the seventies, for it was
in those years that America began building up with such
tremendous rapidity that great business and industrial
organization which called the monster city into being. In
those years, also, thousands of miles of rails were being
laid and the railroad fragments which had existed before
the Civil War were being consolidated into great systems.
One of the very factors that was causing the growth of
the indoor population in America was at the same time
giving those people a chance to escape from their new en
vironment. The reason that the Far Rockaway develop
ment came so early is to be found in the fact that New
York City was one of the first big population centres and
Far Rockaway was near enough to its cobblestone streets
to be readily accessible by way of the turnpike.
The first real manifestation of the new era in Long
Island life was the country home. Back in the days of
Robert Livingston and Ezra L'Hommedieu the gentry of
America had been to a large extent a landed aristocracy.

176 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
As the years of the nineteenth century passed, wealth
shifted from the farm to the city. With the shift came the
captains of industry and the giant fortunes. There were
some among these men who chose to signalize their suc
cess by acquiring estates and building country homes.
They wished to combine the advantages of the city with
the beauty and wholesomeness of the country, but could
not do so until the railroad had made the country home
accessible from the office. As soon as the tracks of the
early roads were laid, the villages to the east of Brooklyn
felt the stir of the new life. In Jamaica and Hempstead,
but more particularly in Flushing and the towns of the
north shore, homes of the wealthy .began to appear. The
Civil War was barely over when the beautiful hills of
Shelter Island, topped with a great-armed windmill, be
gan to be covered with exquisite gardens and houses. As
the unsightly menhaden factory disappeared from the
beach, this ancient refuge for the oppressed Quakers
started upon its career of greatness. The completion to
Greenport of the old main line of the Long Island Eail
road made the change possible.1
Branches running to other parts of the Island brought
further development. From the escarpment of the north
shore many a villa looked out over the Sound, just as the
home of many a country gentleman of England looks
down upon the Channel from the shoulder of the chalk
cliffs. Other estates hid their gardens and buildings in
the wooded country that borders the South Country Eoad
near the quiet waters of Great South Bay. Perhaps the
finest of all were the Hamptons. East Hampton, the home
of Payne and "Home Sweet Home," began to feel the
change in the seventies.2 Southampton was quick to fol-
i SpafEord, Gazatteer of the State of New Yorh (1824), p. 177; Thomp
son, I, 473; Hough, Gazatteer of the State of New York (1872), p. 547.
"Sag Harbor Express, XIII (1871), no. 11; XIV (1872), no. 10; XXI
(1880), no. 30.

THE NEW CIVILIZATION 177
low. The ancient villages of fishermen and farmers un
derwent a change seldom found outside the Arabian
Nights. With what amazement would the early settler
have beheld the cabin-fringed streets of their frontier
hamlets now bordered by all the beauty that wealth and
good taste could create. These country homes which are
to be found everywhere on the Island are some of the most
beautiful in America. In reality they are part of the
great city at the mouth of the Hudson. Primitive Long
Island has ceased to exist.
But wealth has not usurped the whole of the beautiful
Island, which is famous for its poor as well as its rich.
The same out-of-door movement which created the coun
try estate brought into being Coney Island. The signifi
cance of Coney Island is great, not only for New York,
but for the nation. It is the forerunner and originator
of the American White City. The story of this pioneer
amusement park is not without its value.
When the Marine Pavilion at Far Eockaway was yet a
blaze of glory, and the development of country homes had
not yet begun, Coney Island was ' ' a place of great resort
for strangers in the summer season." Year after year,
picnickers and bathers came in greater and greater num
bers. The shifty sand dunes of the little island began to
be covered with decrepit bathhouses, and the stunted bay
bushes of the region to "bloom out riotously during the
summer months with bathing outfits hung upon them to
dry." The Coney of the sixties and the seventies was a
curious and picturesque rendezvous for the less attrac
tive people of the great city. "At the lower end of the
island there is a wharf to which the steam boats come,
and when one of them has disgorged its contents, very
motley is the crowd that winds its way along the rush-laid
path that leads to the beach. The women and children
usually outnumber the men, and, as is generally the case

178 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
in New York assemblages that do not rally round the
standards of fashion, the German element is largely
represented in the throng. . . . Holiday attire, not gay,
but of the picnic kind is the rule. . . . Several flashy men
are to be seen in the crowd; men with velvet coats, and
having Alaska diamonds stuck in the breasts of their
filagree shirts, men curled and oiled within an inch of
their wild lives. These are gamblers from New York,
though they usually describe themselves as 'sports,' and
they do a stroke of business at the island in more ways
than one. . . . Out of the bathing houses come tumbling
indiscriminately, men, women and children. . . . The
women flap about in the water and scream like fowls to
which that element is natural. . . . Numbers of the men
lie wallowing for hours in the sand, in which they roll like
wild beasts, rubbing it madly into their hair and plaster
ing themselves all over with it. . . . The scene upon the
beach and in the water alike is a very rough one."1 So
went the day until the late boats took the merrymakers
back to the tenements of the Bowery and the East Side.
The reputation of the beach was such that a trip to the
island was an adventure not to be related in polite society.
In 1874, the "development" of Coney Island began.
The surf, the beach, and the fresh salt air proved insuffi
cient to meet the demands of the jaded throngs who came
out to play. Sensations and the glare of lights must sup
plement nature. So it happened that, in 1874, Coney Is
land took the lead in the development of cheap and gaudy
amusement — a place which it has maintained to this day.
In that year, when its reputation was so foul that his best
friends prophesied failure, Mr. Culver began laying the
tracks of the Prospect Park and Coney Island Eailroad.
Two years later, he acquired the great steel tower which
had been one of the features of the Philadelphia Centen-
i Shanley, Atlantic Monthly, XXXIV (1874), 310 ff.

THE NEW CIVILIZATION 179
nial of 1876. This was the first of the entertainment fea
tures that, within a few years, brought revolution to
Coney. By the middle of the eighties, the new Coney
Island was well on its way to fame. The scraggly sand
dunes were covered with a city of amusements. There
were shooting galleries and spaces marked off for archery
practice. At the beach an "Aquarium" was built. Near
it were the flaring posters and hoarse barkers of a "Mu
seum of Living Wonders" and a "Sea Side Museum."
Above the welter of eating places, dancing pavilions, and
dram shops rose the steel tower of the observatory from
which also sublimities could be seen. Greatest, however,
among the marvels was the famous ' ' Camera Obscura. ' '
It was a black, boxlike room into which the light was ad
mitted through a narrow slit and images cast on a screen
opposite. It was a veritable pinhole camera in which a
dozen or so people could sit and, on the screen, watch the
"moving pictures ' ' of beach and boulevard. ' ' To particu
larize the wonderful variety of ' side shows, ' games, min
strelsies, 'cheap Johns,' and entertainment of every sort
. . . would be impossible. It is a veritable Vanity Fair. ' "¦
After the completion of the "Culver Eoad," the rise of
Coney was rapid. In 1877, a company was formed for the
erection of a steel pier for the landing of steamers. In
1883, the Iron Steamboat Company advertised its boats.
During the nineties, new roads were planned and built.
New York City belched forth its multitudes to swarm over
the island in unrestrained search for new and greater
sensations. In these later years, Coney changed with the
changing times. The ' ' Camera Obscura ' ' has given place
to the "movie"; the great tower has been superseded by
the roller-coaster, the last word in the manufacture of
thrills. But the bathhouses, the shooting galleries, the
i Collner's Coney Island Pictorial, I (1881), no. 2; Stillwell, "History of
Coney Island," in Stiles 's History of Kings County (1884), I, 196, 203, 204.

180 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
merry-go-rounds, and the dancing pavilions have re
mained and multiplied. Externals have been altered, but
through all the years of evolution Coney has, at heart,
remained the same ; cheap, gaudy, rough, sensational, and,
withal, a fraud.
"They used to talk of Bedlam and they used to talk of
Babel
In allusion to confusion of exaggerated style.
But in all the fact and fable, since the days of Cain and
Abel,
No metaphor is better for the same than is an isle
That I wot of, that I got of late so generous a lot of
That I recollect the style and charavari of that island
With a smile and shall do so for a while. ' '
The "Coneyizing" of the southern shore has continued
until the multitudes flock to the beaches as far east as
Eockaway. Bizarre, indeed, has been this result of the
out-of-door movement. But neither the amusement park
nor the country estate has been the centre of the great
development. They represent the extremes. The out-
of-door revolution did not really come until the ordinary,
humdrum citizen of the city began to send his f airiily away
from the hot streets in the summer months. As early as
the fifties and sixties, city people began coming to the
bays and coves of Long Island. The sea was entering the
lives of multitudes whose business was not on the ocean.
At first the people came as "boarders" and filled the
inns and many of the private houses of the shore villages.
Ambitious wives of farmers and fishermen found an op
portunity to increase the family income. Many a bay-
man himself found it profitable to turn entertainer in the
summer months and to spend his time taking out the sum
mer people in his boat for fishing or pleasure trips. As
railroad facilities increased, the summer hotel came into

THE NEW CIVILIZATION 181
existence. On Fire Island Beach, near the inlet, one of
the most fashionable was built. Not only was there a
splendid surf but the waters off this beach offered the
best bluefishing of the southern shore. After the pio
neer "boarder" had blazed the way, the cottager came to
appropriate the more attractive corners^ of the beach.
Then many a tent began to brighten the dull sand with
its spot of white. The men and women of the city were
reasserting the fundamental out-of-door instincts.1
The Long Island Railroad, during the last quarter of
the nineteenth century, made many efforts to bring to the
attention of urban people the opportunities for camping
that Long Island offered. These attempts were crowned
with undeniable success, though it was not the railroad
that played the leading part in the advertising of the
region. About 1890, the new "safety bicycle" began
rapidly to replace the high-wheeled type that had been
used for a decade and more. The new bicycle became
the craze of the day. Men, women, and children, the old
and the young, took to the highway with one accord. The
almost immediate result was better roads or "cycle
paths. ' ' Bicycle clubs were formed, not only in New York
and Brooklyn, but in practically every village on the Is
land. Patchogue became a great rendezvous for cycling
parties from the cities and the small towns. The bicycle
carnival held every year at that place during the latter
part of the nineties was an event long to be remembered.
Almost every hamlet on Long Island contained an ' ' offi
cial" hotel of the League of American Wheelmen as well
as a "consul" to look after the interests of members of
that organization. The bicycle, as nothing before had
done, took the people of America out of doors. Cycle
iLong Island via the Long Island Railroad (1868), pp. 19-53; French,
Gazatteer of the State of N-ew York (1860), pp. 547-632; Sag Harbor Ex
press, III (1861), no. 14.

182 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
parties left few corners of Long Island unexplored. After
men and women, coming on their "wheels," had actually
seen the attractions, it was but a small step to the cottage
and the summer camp.1
With the coming of the twentieth century, the automoT
bile has eclipsed the bicycle, though its function is the
same as that of its predecessor. By means of it the camp
and the countinghouse are but a few minutes apart and
the exploring excursion of a day or a week is within the
reach of everyone. Consequently there are few beaches
in the whole Long Island shore that do not have their
summer hotels or their campers. And with the rest, has
come the last development in the movement, the boys'
and the girls ' camps where children are trained, not only
to appreciate the out of doors, but to live, work, and play
in the wild country. A civilization which has developed
a highly artificial environment is, instinctively, returning
to the roughness and simplicity from which it came.
The campers, however, were but one phase of the great
out-of-door movement that changed American life in the
last quarter of the nineteenth century. During those
years, the people of America, for the first time in their
history, really learned how to play. After the close of
the Civil War, game after game was introduced or de
veloped. Long Island, at the outskirts of New York, was
quick to feel the new spirit. There is no space here for
details. The seventies saw the rise of walking and of
track sports. With these came roller-skating and the
establishment, on a nation-wide basis, of the national
game, baseball. In the early eighties croquet spread over
the country to be followed quickly by lawn tennis. In the
i Munsey Magazine, May, 1896, 146 ff ; Long Island Traveler, XXVI
(1897), no. 41; XXVIII (1899), nos. 42, 43; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, LIV
(1894), no. 100; LVI (1896), no. 161; New York State Division of the
League of American Wheelmen, Fifty Miles Around Brooklyn (1896).

THE NEW CIVILIZATION 183
resorts pf Long Island the new games were among the
earliest played. With these sports came another, limited,
in the main, to the people of the coast. In 1871, Long
Island had two yacht clubs, one at Flushing and the other
at Oyster Bay, the Seawanhaka Yacht Club, that later
offered the Seawanhaka Cup for international races by
small yachts. From these beginnings the sport grew
until, by the end of the century, there was scarcely a bay
or harbor along the shore that did not have its organiza
tion. Last of all the important sports was golf. In 1891,
at Southampton, the Shinnecock Golf Club was incor
porated, the first on the Island and one of the first in
America. Within nine years, the number of links on the
Island grew to twenty-four. The sport developed until
nearly every village had its club. In 1906, the zenith of
the Long Island development was reached when plans
were started for the construction in the Shinnecock Hills
of the famous links of the National Golf Club. The sports
that have been mentioned are only the more important in
that development of organized play which came side by
side with the camping movement. The people of Long
Island and of the great city of New York have been pro
foundly affected. And the development is yet going on.
What the end is to be only the future can tell.1
It is indeed a new civilization that has come to Long
Island since those days when its people labored "only to
get bread and clothing, without hopes of ever seeing a
penny of monies." During the years in which Buskin
was trying to point out to his English countrymen the
beauties of untouched nature, people in America were,
here and there, awaking to the value of the out of doors.
They began to go to the mountains, the lakes, and the sea-
iMott, Yachts and Yachtsmen of America (1894), I, 671-674; Brooklyn
Daily Eagle, LVII (1897), nos. 162, 163, 174, 233, 261; Southampton Maga
zine, II (1913), no. 2; Summer Homes on Long Island (1900), pp. 12-13.

184 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
shore. After work, they left their offices for the golf
links, the tennis courts, or the baseball park. Nature and
sport entered into the warp and woof of life. There can
be little doubt that this great development has introduced
a sanity and wholesomeness into our thoughts and point
of view which was beginning to be sadly needed. The
story of Long Island, which has become in these later
years one great playground, may not be typical of the
whole country. In its development, however, are to be
found the important phases of the revolution which is
renewing in the nation a clear brain and a sound heart.

THE GAMESTERS
So they have played the game from the beginning, the
land and the sea. The people of the Island have believed
that they were working out their own destinies. They
have been mistaken. They could not resist the call of the
ocean to work and later to play. Nor could they prevent
the creation, by the broad hinterland, of the great city
at their very doors. Canute could as easily hold back the
tide as they could exclude these two influences from their
lives. As their development has gone on, the sea has, in
the main, been the factor stimulating the variations which
are an inevitable part of any evolution. One after another
new vocations have appeared, whaling, fishing, oystering,
scalloping, caring for the summer visitors, and the rest,
almost all of them the result of the pull of the ocean. On
the other hand, the hinterland, acting through the city of
New York, has been the selective factor, choosing from
among the variations those which should continue and
those which should disappear. It has been the hinterland,
moreover, that has stimulated the conquest of the old,
primitive environment and the creation of the new, man-
made environment of the railroad, the macadamized high-

THE NEW CIVILIZATION 185
way, and the city. It is easy to look back at the simple
days of old and see these two great forces playing with
the men and women who struggled almost barehanded to
wrest a living from their primeval surroundings. It is
not so easy to realize, in the complexity and artificiality
of modern days, when man is raised on a scaffolding of
civilization far above the primitive struggle for existence,
that the, same natural forces are still playing the same
game. Yet, can anyone doubt that the sea, which brought
the first sturdy adventures to Long Island shores, has lost
any of its power in these latter days of the wealthy, in
corporated fishing company, the oyster and menhaden
steamer, or the hundreds of summer cottages that line the
beach? Can anyone look at the sky line of New York City
and believe that the great hinterland has lost its potency?
Long Island lies on the eastern frontier of one of the
world's two areas of most advanced civilization. Across
the ever narrowing Atlantic, Europe faces America.
Within sight of the shifting sand dunes of the southern
beaches pass countless ships in the most important of the
sea lanes that bind the old world to the new. Far out
toward the eastern peninsulas stand the towers of a gigan
tic radio station making yet more easy communication
across the ocean barrier. Long Island is of the flesh and
blood of America, yet its destinies are inextricably inter
twined with those of Europe. Two continents with their
mountains, their plains, and their teeming millions, when
taken together, form one of the two giant gamesters —
land. The broad Atlantic with its waste of water, its
ships, and its multitude of living organisms makes up the
other — sea.
There have been strong men who have played large
parts in the history of Long Island; but they have been
pigmies' beside the two giants that dominate the region.
These mighty gamesters are still playing as they have

186 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
played since the time when Long Island was but a bit of
sediment on the ocean bottom. They will continue to
play, no man can possibly think how long — the game is
yet young. Perhaps it has been worth while to pause for
a moment to watch their sport. Perhaps, also, it is not
amiss to wonder when the game will be over and what
will have been accomplished when it is done.

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTE
The published literature dealing with Long Island is very exten
sive. There are two convenient bibliographies (both incom
plete) : one in Martha B. Flint, Early Long Island, New York,
1896, and the other in Gabriel Furnam, Antiquities of Long
Island, New York, 1875, the latter compiled by Henry Onder-
donk, the most prolific of Long Island historians.
The most important general account of the Island is B. F.
Thompson, A History of Long Island, New York, 1st edition,
1839, 2d edition, 2 vols., 1843, 3d edition, edited with critical
notes, 1918, 3 vols. The work is important for its historical
-material, particularly when supplemented by the notes of the
third edition. Its chief value, however, as is the case with N. S.
Prime, History of Long Island, New York, 1845, is as source
material for the period of date of publication. Both works give
extensive descriptions of the Island at that time. Martha B.
Flint, Early Long Island, New York, 1896, and Gabriel Furnam,
Antiquities of Long Island, are of little value to the modern
scholar. The most important of the special accounts is R. M.
Bayles, Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Suffolk County,
Port Jefferson, 1874. Long Island Historical Society, Memoirs,
Brooklyn, 1867-1889, 4 vols., have valuable special material.
The more important descriptions of the Island by travelers and
others are : The Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680, edited
by B. B. James and J. F. Jameson, New York, 1913 ; Timothy
Dwight, Travels in New York and New England, New Haven,
1821-1822, 4 vols.; and William Cobbett, A Year's Residence in
the United States of America, New York, 1818-1819, 3 vols. S. L.
Mitchell, The Picture of New York, New York, 1807 ; H. G. Spaf-
ford, Gazatteer of the State of New York, Albany, 1813 ; T. F.
Gordon, Gazatteer of the State of New Y>ork, Philadelphia, 1836 ;
and R. S. Tarr, The Physical Geography of New York State,
New York, 1902, are all useful.

188 THE EVOLUTION OF LONG ISLAND
Of the greatest importance in getting at the life of the people
are the newspapers. A list of the more important of those which
are to be found in the library of the Long Island Historical
Society is here appended.
Babylon :
South Side Signal, 1884-present.
Suffolk Democrat, 1859-1865.
Brooklyn :
Brooklyn Advance (afterwards Monthly Advance), 1882-
1886.
Brooklyn Citizen, 1866-present.
Brooklyn Daily Advertiser, 1844-1853.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1841-1848, 1856-present.
Brooklyn Daily Times, 1866-1873, 1876-1878, 1881-1917.
Brooklyn Daily Union (now Brooklyn Standard Union),
1863-present.
Long Island Courier, 1800, 1801, 1802 (odd numbers).
Long Island Star (after 1841 Brooklyn Evening Star),
1809-1863.
Flushing :
Long Island Times, 1864-1882.
Greenport :
Republican Watchman, 1864-1917.
Hempstead :
Hempstead Inquirer, 1851-present.
Jamaica :
Long Island Farmer and Queens County Advertiser, 1821-
1823, 1826, 1831-1833, 1835-1836, 1840-1847, 1850-
1872.
Southold :
Long Island Traveler, 1885-present.
Sag Harbor :
Sag Harbor Correcter, 1822-1841 (imperfect).
Sag Harbor Express, 1859-present.
Suffolk Gazette, 1806-1809, 1811.
Suffolk County Herald, 1802-1803.

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTE 189
The pamphlet literature of the region is voluminous and con
tains much valuable material, particularly concerning the de
velopment of the Island as a pleasure resort. The best collections
are to be found in the New York Public Library and the library
of the Long Island Historical Society. Those which have been
used in this work are referred to in the footnotes..
The most important manuscript material is the collection of
Onderdonk manuscripts deposited in the library of the Long
Island Historical Society. Its greatest value, however, is to the
genealogist and the historian of the Quakers.
Suggestions as to the more important material for special
topics follow. Geologic history : M. L. Fuller, The Geology of
Long Island, Professional paper 82, Washington, 1914; A. C.
Yeatch, Isaiah Bowman, and others, Underground Water Re
sources of Long Island, New York, Washington, 1906, each of
which contains a number of excellent maps. Colonial history:
E. B. O'Callaghan, editor, Documents Relating to the Colonial
History of the State of New York, Albany, 1857-1887, 15 vols. ;
E. B. O'Callaghan, Documentary History of the State of New
York, Albany, 1849-1851, 4 vols. ; and records of the local town
ships, most of which have been printed. Agriculture: L. H.
Bailey, editor, Cyclopaedia of American Agriculture, New York,
1907-1910, 4 vols. ; New York Society for the Promoting of Arts,
Agriculture and Manufactures, Transactions, New York, 1792,
Albany, 1794-1819 ; E. L. Fullerton, The Lure of the Land, New
York, 1906. Fisheries: E. G. Blackford, New York State Com
missioner of Fisheries (in charge of the oyster investigation),
first and second Reports, Albany, 1885, 1887, 2 vols. ; G. Brown
Goode, "A History of the Menhaden," Report of the United
States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, Washington, 1879 ;
J. L. Kellogg, The %Shell Fish Industries, New York, 1910 ; and
W. S. Tower, A History of the American Whale Fishery, Phila
delphia, 1907. Shipbuilding : Henry Hall, ' ' Shipbuilding Indus
try in the United States," United States Census, 1880. Trans
portation : E. B. Hinsdale, History of the Long Island Railroad
Company, New York, 1898.

INDEX

Agrarian, aristocracy, 41; awaken
ing, 35.
Agricultural, methods, 35-37, 45, 52-
53; press, 51; revolution (Eng
land), 43; science, 37, 40-41, 47,
56-57; tools, 39, 55-56.
Agriculture, 28-62.
Alfalfa, 44, 53.
American Fisheries Company, 86.
American life, 166, 167.
Angling, 171-172.
Anti-dredge act, 95.
Appalachian Mountains, 15-16, 17,
47, 167.
Appalachian Eevolution, 15.
Atlantic Ocean, 27, 76, 89, 107, 111,
112, 115, 116, 125, 127, 131, 144,
184, 185.
Automobile, 154.
Babylon, 99, 141.
"Backbone of Long Island," 19.
"Back country," 36.
"Barrens" (scrub oak area), 19,
88, 135, 139, 153, 156-165.
Baseball, 182.
Baymen, 91, 94-95, 97-98, 100, 102,
103, 108, 109.
Bay Shore, 99.
Bellomont, Earl of, 119, 121-122.
Bering Sea, 71.
Berkshire Agricultural Society, 50,
51.
Bicycle, 152.
Bluefish, 77, 113.
Blue Point, 90, 92.
Bordley, John B., 42, 45.
Boston, 28, 38, 117-118, 124, 127.

Boston and Providence Eailroad,
133.
Breukelen, 23.
Brookhaven, 98.
Brooklyn, 52, 57, 58, 129, 132, 133,
139.
Brooklyn Bridge, 143.
Camden and Amboy Eailroad, 132.
Carlyle, Thomas, 11.
Cattle, 30, 38, 39, 44.
Cenozoic Era, 17.
Charlick, Oliver, 139-141.
Chesapeake Bay, 103-104.
Clover, 44, 45, 53.
Coastwise fleet, 130.
Cobbett, William, 53.
Cod, 27, 113-114.
Coney Island, 177-180.
Connecticut shore, 104-105.
Corbin, Austin, 142.
Cordwood, 125, 128, 157-158.
Cornell Agricultural College, 57.
Country homes, 176-177.
Cow keeper, 30.
Crop rotation, 45.
Culver, 178.
Currency, colonial, 28, 31, 65.
Cycle paths, 153-154.
Dairying, 58.
Diomed, 168.
Dirt cliffs of north shore, 21.
Dongan, Gov., 118.
Duck farming, 60.
Dutch, 23, 26, 117.
East Hampton, 23, 26, 64, 65, 67,
112, 116, 125, 147, 176.

192

INDEX

East Marion, 108.
Eclipse, 169.
Eliot, Jared, 41.
England, 32, 38.
Englishmen, 23, 26, 39.
Erie canal, 48, 49, 57. v
Europe, 13, 185.
Far Eockaway, 148, 172-174.
Farm management, pioneer, 31.
Farmingdale, 160.
Farms, demonstration, 162-163 ; duck,
60; flower, 58.
Ferry, Greenport-Stonington, 133 ;
Huntington-Norwalk, 125 ; Port
Jefferson-Bridgeport, 130.
Fish traps, 114.
Fishermen, 112-115.
Fishing, 111-115.
Fire Island Beach, 21, 89, 113, 114,
181.
Flax, 31.
Fleet, coastwise, 130.
Flushing, 129, 141, 149, 176, 183.
Frontier, 36.
Forest, clearing of, 28-29.
Forest fires, 137, 157-158, 172.
Fort Pond Bay, 114.
Fullerton, Edith Loring, 162.
Fullerton, H. B., 162, 163.
Games, 167.
Gardening, 58-59.
Gardiners Bay, 81.
Glacial outwash plains, 19-21.
Glaciers, 19.
Goats, 30.
Golf, 183.
Gravesend, 25, 30.
Great South Bay, 21, 76, 89-90, 94,
97-98, 99, 100-102, 108, 113-114,
125, 127, 176.
Greenport, 58, 69, 80, 83-84, 87, 108,
113, 129, 133-134, 138, 176.
Guano, 80.
Gypsum, 45.

Haman-Seth Law, 104.
Hell Gate Arch Bridge, 144.
Hempstead, 25, 38, 176.
Hempstead Plains, 30, 38, 160, 168.
Henry, 169.
Hicksville, 138.
Highways, 35, 145-155.
Hinsdale, E. B., 142.
Hinterland, 12, 34, 35, 57, 115, 144,
184, 185.
Horse-racing, 167-170.
Horse rake, 55.
Hudson-Mohawk Gateway, 13, 57.
Humphries, Col. David, 43-44.
Hunting, 171-172.
Huntington, 25, 38, 112, 119, 149.
Indians, 24, 25, 26, 27-28, 64, 66,
71, 89.
Internal improvements, 37.
Iron Steamboat Company, 179.
Jamaica, 112, 132, 138, 168, 176.
Jamesport, 69, 108.
"Jingle shells," 111.
Kidd, Capt., 121-122.
King, Eufus, 169.
L'Hommedieu, Ezra, 42, 45, 78.
Labor, division of, 32.
Lakeland, 160.
Land, ownership of, 24-25.
Landings, 38, 124.
League of American Wheelmen, 152,
181.
Livingston, Eobert, 43, 44, 45, 51, 53.
Long Island, general description, 12-
13; geologic history of, 15-22;
settled, 23-25; pioneer life on, 25-
33; agriculture, 34-62; whaling,
63-75; menhaden fishing, 76-88;
oyster fishing, 89-1 05 ; scallop fish
ing, 106-111; fishing, 111-115;
smuggling, 116-120; piracy, 120-

INDEX

193

123; sea trade, 124-131; ship
building, 126-129; railroads, 132-
144; highways, 145-155; "Bar-
Tens," 156-165; sports and out-of-
. door movement, 166-184; conclu
sions, 184-185.
Long Island Eailroad, 58, 93, 129,
132-144, 160-161, 162, 176, 181.
Long Island Sound, 18, 81, 90, 103,
104, 117, 120, 125, 127, 128.
Lucern, 44.
Macadam highways, 152-153.
Mackerel, 114.
Maine Oil and Guano Association,
83.
Marine Pavilion, 173, 177.
Maryland, 103-104. #
Medford, 162.
Menhaden, 27, 39, 52, 60, 76-88, 114,
127.
Menhaden, fish companies, 79, 81;
oil factories, 80, 81, 84; steamer,
84.
Merchant marine, 127.
Mesozoic Era, 15-17.
Mills, grist, 33.
Montauk, 19, 20, 23, 30, 39.
Moore, D. D. T., 161.
Morrill Act, 56-57.
Musketo Cove, 119.
Nantucket Island, 67, 70.
New Amsterdam, 23, 117.
New Bedford, 68, 70.
New England, 18, 24, 25, 35, 38, 110,
117, 119, 122.
New London, 68.
New Suffolk, 69, 107-108.
New York City, 32, 33, 38, 52, 55,
57, 58, 87, 88, 93, 99, 107, 108, 110,
113, 114, 117, 119, 120, 124, 126,
127, 129, 136, 144, 161, 163, 164,
168, 171, 172, 173, 177, 178, 179,
181, 182.

New York Province, 32, 112, 118,
146.
New York Society for the Promotion
of Arts, Agriculture and Manu
factures, 42-43.
New York State, 96, 132.
Out-of-door movement, 166-184.
Ox, 31-32, 56.
Oyster Bay, 119, 149, 183.
Oyster, bars, 103; dredge, 93-94;
packing houses, 92; planting, 95-
96; tonging, 91.
Oystering, 89-105.
Paleozoic Era, 15.
Patchogue, 92, 99, 140, 181.
Peconic Bay, 63, 76, 105-107, 120.
Pennsylvania Eailroad, 143.
Peters, Ealph, 162.
Peters, Eichard, 42, 44.
Piracy, 120-123.
Popenhusen, Conrad, 142.
Port Jefferson. 20. 126. 12&-140. —
Promised Land, 84, 85, 87.
Puritans, 24, 120.
Eandolph, John, 169.
Eevolutionary War, 125, 166.
Eiverhead, 108, 138.
Sag Harbor, 67, 68-69, 70, 73-74,
108, 129, 133, 138, 140.
Sayville, 83, 99.
Scalloping, 106-111.
Sea trade, 38, 124-131.
Setauket, 119.
Sharp, T. E., 119.
Sheep, 30, 39, 44.
Shelter Island, 83, 89, 108, 176.
Shipbuilding, 126-129.
Smithtown, 25, 147, 149.
Smuggling, 32, 116-120.
South Hampton, 23, 64, 65, 67, 116,
176, 183.

194

INDEX

South Side Eailroad, 140-141.
Southold, 23, 30, 38, 116, 138.
Sports, 167-172, 182-183.
Standard Oil Company, 85-86.
Steamboat, 129-130.
Stony Brook, 126.
Swine, 30.
Tennis, 182.
Trade exchanges, Eastern Long Is
land-Boston, 28, 38, 117, 118;
Eastern Long Island-New York,
28, 38, 130-131; Long Island
Sound, 125-126, 129; New York-
Boston, 133-134, 137-138; Green
port - Sag Harbor - New London -
Hartford, 130.
Turnpikes, 52, 54, 148-150.

Underwood, William, 101, 102.
Washington, George, 41.
Watering places, 172.
Watson, Elkanah, 49-50.
Watson, W. C, 160.
Wells, D. D., 80.
West, 47, 48, 55.
West Indies, 118.
Whale oil, 117-118, 127.
Whaling, 63-75.
Whaling, companies, 66; ships, 70.
Windmills, 39.
Wisconsin Ice Sheet, 19-20.
Yale University, 56.
Yaphank, 160.
Young, Arthur, 43.

PEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA

YAtE UNIVERSITY

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