4

Changes and Growth

The first railroad was built through the center of Long Island in 1844, not to help the local residents and farmers, but to transport travelers across the island from Brooklyn to Greenport where they then caught a ferry over to Connecticut and continued on to Boston. Four years later a rail line was completed directly to Boston from New York City and the Long Island branch almost closed down. From then on up until about the 1860’s only two trains ran a day, of which just one made the full trip end to end. Though some farmers did take advantage of the new train to transport their goods to the city most found the line to far away to make use off.. The Brentwood Station was where people from Comac had to go if they wanted to use the train.

The railroad looking to survive on the island began in 1854 to construct two new lines along the north and south shores closer to the people and towns. And to help encourage more farmers to use the train they created flat cars specially made to hold wagons that would bring their crops right to the city markets. With the new route opening up so did the communities it passed through. Before the train came, a person may have gone to the city a few times at most, and many people had never traveled outside their own town. Few could afford the stage or boat fair. By 1867 the new rail line would reach Northport and the station was built on Larkfield Road.

Trains were new on the island and the standard mode of transportation was, and would remain for another half a century, the horse and wagon. Like the automobiles that would come later both of these needed regular maintenance. For the horse there was the local Blacksmith, and for wagon repairs a person would go to the Wheel-wright shop. In Comac these where located on Comac Road about a half mile south of Jericho Turnpike and Comac Corners.

The Ireland family had their Blacksmith and Wheel-wright shops next to each other and the house was just north of the Wheel-wright shop. The business was begun in the 1840’s by two of the brothers, George and Derrick. Together they continued to operate the shops with the help of Moses B. Wicks who was a teenage apprentice to George and lived with him and his wife.

The home George and Marietta Ireland lived in still stands today it is now the Karifune Japanese Restaurant. The Tringali family purchased the property in the 1960’s and later made part of the house into an Italian Restaurant. Clara Graf Tringali remembers that when the family began construction the main beams of the house were found to be hand hewn and petrified like rock. Cutting the wood with electric saws was long and difficult producing sparks from the saw blades the whole time.

Derrick, Charlotte, and later her mother Polly Smith, lived across the street in an old house said to date to the mid 1700’s. Fred Goldsmith mentioned them in his 1965 interview.

“Charlotte was Derrick Ireland the Blacksmith’s wife and lived in the house just south of Comac Corners. She was called Aunt Charlotte by everybody and sold potato yeast. Each week when it was time for bread baking I was sent to buy three cents worth of yeast to be put in a pail I had to carry and was told to “hurry home before it ran away.”

For well over fifty years the men ran the shops together, being joined in the 1860’s by their other brother John who was a Wheel-wright. He had a house nearby the others and after George died in 1886 moved in to the old house. Derrick and John continued the business until Derrick died in 1894. The Blacksmith shop was then taken over by a young German immigrant named John Gates, who had married in to the Hubbs family.

Another man by the name of Charles Velsor who lived in a small white house just north of the Irelands was remembered as a Carriage maker. Starting around the same time as the Ireland’s he made wagons for some thirty years until he met with an accident which left him almost crippled.

By the 1850’s the Carll farm was become so busy that a number of outside laborers and a servant were brought on to help. Silas, John, and Joshua along with their sisters ran the farm for their mother with the help of three other laborers and their families. They also had a 13 year old black servant named Oliver Cuffe.

Farm Laborers and servants were usually hired out from companies in the city that specialized in supplying various kinds of help. If a family came out to work then the husband would work on the farm while his wife kept the house, any children they had would help also whenever needed. By the late 1800’s a good farm hand could make $8 to $12 a week working on the island.

In 1858 the family celebrated John’s marriage to their good neighbor Silas Strong’s daughter, Hannah Elizabeth Strong. Soon afterwards he took over ownership of the Carll farm. Then two years later, in 1860, John had the original house his grandfather built one hundred years earlier torn down and a new larger house constructed in its place.

The house was a two story structure with six bedrooms, a dinning room, parlor, and sitting room. On the west side was added a very large kitchen with four more bedrooms over it for the farm laborers and their families. There was a side door that led into the kitchen for the workers to use and a small narrow stairway behind a door that led up to their quarters. In the kitchen there were cabinets and a double sink with a water pump next to it along one wall and a large open fire place along the other for cooking.

The family rooms of the house were exquisite for the time. The walls were all white plaster with fine detailed molding along the ceilings. Each room had a fire place with the ones in both the parlor and sitting room done in marble and costing over $1000 each. In the family room was a grand piano and other instruments, on the floor was a Bear skin rug. The walls of the house had period prints hanging from them. In the parlor was a large copy of the founding fathers signing of the Declaration of Independence. On another wall hung a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

John Call was remembered as a hard working man with a good farm, like many people he made money in many different ways. His main crops were hay, grain, and corn, plus fruit from their apple and peach orchards. He also raised cattle for dairy, had sheep, and worked with horses as well.

Owning large amounts of woodland lumber and cordwood were another side of his business. He sold railroad ties that had to be delivered by wagon to wherever the work was being done and then unloaded. The cordwood was cut and brought to the Brentwood Station for delivery to the city. Cedar trees were used for making fence posts since they wood didn’t rot in the ground. Later on he also sold poles to the telephone companies that were delivered by him, or taken to the station.

Back up in the hills across the way Amos Harned’s son Jacob had married the teacher from the South School Miss, Francena Conklin who came over from Smithtown were she had lived. The Harned family still has her original lap desk along with the ledger book of payments and expenses. They also have the old brass school bell that was rung to call the students inside for class. The Harneds cousin Ralph Moreland recalls his grandmother.

“My grandmother, she had a place over on the Nissequogue. That’s where she was born and brought up. She and her brothers used to rent boats to England. She grew up to be a school teacher. She came here from Smithtown, then married a guy named Harned, an old family name there.”

Francena Conklin may have come here around 1856 to replace a teacher who

had gone on to instruct in Bellport. Mrs. James B. Cooper wrote an article for the Brooklyn Eagle commemorating fifty years of teaching. Her first job was in Comac where she grew up and attended the South School.

Unfortunately she never gives her maiden name so we don’t know her family for sure, but Marion Carll in her speech for Joe Moreland’s retirement from the school board mentions that GloryAnna Rice grew up here and attended school as a student and then returned the following week as the teacher, as did Mrs. Cooper. David Rice and his wife GloryAnna Hartt, a relative of the Rev. Joshua Hartt, lived west of Selah Wick’s. He was a Mason and ran a brickyard of which there were still signs for years afterwards. Their daughter GloryAnna would have been about the same age as Mrs. Cooper when she began teaching. More than likely the two people are one and the same.

Mrs. Cooper describes the schoolhouse as being quite run down and standing on a sandy hill with little grass and barley a tree or shrub around it. The front entrance was also a coatroom, and used to store firewood which was brought in by the larger children. Inside the building had a stove in the center with benches surrounding it for the younger children to sit on. Along the walls were desks the whole length and benches for the older students. The teachers desk and chair were in the front corner and there was a board painted black on the wall. The chalk was purchased at the General Store, probably by the students. Class was held from nine to four everyday and half a day Saturdays.

Her teacher at the time was The Rev. B.F. Bowles a Minister from Massachusetts. He was retiring due to bad health and moving to Brentwood to be in the fresh air of the

pine trees. Looking for someone to carry on he heard about her wish to become a teacher and encouraged her, much to her parents dismay. She knew his teaching methods and the

children wouldn’t lose any time readjusting to a new instructor. Applying for the job she was accepted, not even 18, and a student just the day before, she was now the new South School Teacher.

During this time, the year consisted of four quarters with men teaching in the winter and women in the summer months. She taught her first two quarters and then another teacher Mr. Pomeroy came in for the winter month’s, at which time she returned to being a student. When the Spring came she was asked to teach there again and took the job until she went on to Bellport in 1856.

It was after this that Francena Conklin came here to teach here and then married Jacob Harned and had their first child Sarah, born in 1863. They were wed during the Civil War and the Harneds were said by Ralph Moreland to have gone into the maple syrup business since there was a ban on southern produced goods.

“The syrup from down south had a sweeter taste to eat but the stuff they made was good. You would put it on your pancakes in the morning because that’s all you had back then for breakfast everyday. There wasn’t a large choice of cereals like you have to day. Everyone ate pancakes because you grew your own corn and had it ground into meal. You would go into Smithtown to the Blydenburgh mill and have it ground. There was no refrigerators either so meat like ham, and sausage, you would put it on to give it a sweet flavor. It made it taste real good.”

Like all small towns across America young men were recruited out of Smithtown and Huntington and went off to fight in the Civil War and many families were affected in different ways by the great conflict. After marrying the widow Brown’s daughter, Paul Mangold moved to Madison Georgia where he taught music. When the war started he was exempted from duty because he was a teacher. The Goldsmith family stills has the paper issued to him from Morgan County Georgia stating he was a teacher for over five years and had 35 students at the time. Paul and Catherine, along with their nine year old daughter Emma witnessed Sherman’s march to the sea. After the war they moved back to Comac and often talked of what they saw while living down south.

During the war Walt Whitman from Huntington helped out as a nurse in the Washington area hospitals. John Harmon Mcelroy later published a book called The Sacrificial Years based on Whitman’s notes from the period. At one point in a diary he was keeping he mentions that he is seeing after a young wounded calvary solider and writing to the mans mother and family back in Comac.

“As I write I sit in a large pretty well filled ward by the cot of a lad of 18 belonging to Company M, 2d N Y calvary, wounded three weeks ago today at Culpepper, hit by a fragment of shell just below the knee-a large part of the calf of the leg is torn away, (it killed his horse)-still no bones broken, but a pretty ugly wound. I have written his mother at Comac, Suffolk co. NY. She must have a letter just as if from him, every three days, It pleases the boy very much. He has four sisters also that I have to write to occasionally. Although so young he has been in many fights and tells me shrewdly about them, but only when I ask him. He is a cheerful good-natured child, a country boy, always smiling and brightening when I appear.”

During October of 1863 the 2d NY calvary was skirmishing daily with the confederates around Culpepper Virginia. A letter from a soldier camped near by tells of “fighting for three days now with the calvary taking the brunt of the action. A cannonade from both sides went on all day yesterday.” Another soldier from the 2d NY artillery wrote of his time near Culpepper that the cavalry most be noted for their courage to stay in formation even under enemy artillery fire.

There is one gravestone in the Comac Cemetery clearly marked for Civil War veteran William H. Nichols that now lies on the ground almost covered in grass. In August of 1862, at the age of 18, Nichols enlisted in the United States Army at Huntington. He joined the infantry division of Company E in the 127 New York Volunteers, and was then transferred to Company D in which he served throughout the remainder of the war.

His first assignment was the defense of Washington, then after a few months the 127 was sent to South Carolina to help at Charleston Harbor. They were involved in

minor conflicts and skirmishes in the area for awhile then saw their fist real action quite by

accident in November of 1864 at Honey Hill, South Carolina. While on a mission to destroy the railroad near Grahamville they became lost and behind schedule. By the time they found the right road and began towards the town a Confederate battery of 7 cannons had taken position across the lane and they marched right into them. Taking heavy casualties they held their position until nightfall then retreated into the darkness.

They saw more action after that including the fall of Charleston which they were personally assigned by General Sherman to hold due to the Company’s good record of discipline amongst it’s soldiers.

William H. Nichols served until the end of the war and was mustered out of the Union Army at Charleston in June of 1865. Like many veterans he returned home with more then a life time of stories to tell until he died in 1913.

Henry Shea recalled that his Great Uncle came to live on his Grandmothers farm here after the war. “He had been severely wounded in the battle of Cold Harbor but survived and later came to live here for ten years, or so, on the farm.”

Frank Otten who later ran the general store for some years also served in the war. His obituary in the July 23, 1920 Long Islander notes him as being one of the last Civil War veterans in the area when he died at the age of 78.

Orlando Hubbs was one person who decided to pack up his carpet bag and relocate down south to North Carolina to try to make a fortune as a merchant after the war. He then helped to organize their Republican Party and went on to become a Congressman for the state. Years later he would return home to live in Comac.

After the war there was a large movement of blacks from the south to cities in the north.. A women named Mrs. Sarah A Tillman from Manhattan was the widow of a pastor who felt that society wasn’t doing enough for the black people after the war and so began to take the orphan children into her apartment. By 1866 she had started The Howard Colored Orphan Asylum from her home. When there were twenty children living in the apartment she moved, with the help of the church and other groups, to a larger place in Brooklyn and continued taking in more children.

The Rev. Dr. William A. Muhlenberg was another person with visions of helping people. At the age of 81 he was a well respected man who was credited with establishing St. Luke’s Hospital, The Lancaster Pennsylvania public school system, and many other institutions that are still around today. He always dreamed of bringing together all of his work in educating and caring for people in a grand scale, an entire village based on good Christian values. A place where orphan and handicap children would be cared for, elderly destitute men looked after in their later years. Poor boys and girls would be given an education and a chance to learn useful trade skills. A place where descent working people could escape from the tenements of New York City and rest for awhile. A place where one could enjoy the fresh air and all its healing qualities.

The village would be supported, it was hoped, by generous donations from New York’s wealthy, and gifts from social groups and private organizations as well. A person could choose to sponsor either a single child, or an entire family, for a few months to a year. Companies could pay to build small cottages where they would then send their tired workers for some well needed rest.

The families, and children, sent were expected to work towards the good of the community while here, and return to the city when they were able. It was made clear from the beginning that this was not a place for people to move to permanently and live, except

for the crippled and elderly. Everyone here was encouraged to help the entire group as best they could, and those who did not try would be asked to leave. Anybody wishing to

send a family member there, or themselves stay for awhile, had to apply with the applicant

present, at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City. Every request would be reviewed by the superintendent before being admitted.

There then began a search of the Long Island countryside for the right place to establish this new community to be called “The Society of St. Johnland.” By October of 1865 Rev. Muhlenberg had found a quiet farm along the north shore just east of Sunken Meadow belonging to Abram Smith, the brother in-law of Matthew Gardiner through their marriage to the Bunce sisters, and purchased the four to five hundred acres of land for $14.000. With much of his own money, and that which he received from contributions, the work soon started on the houses and the small village began to take shape.

At first there were just a few cottages and small buildings. In one of these the superintendent Mr. J. J. Golder using his skills from his previous job set up the “Orphan Boy’s Press,” a print shop where they were taught the trade of stereotyping. Shortly after they began to receive regular work from publishers in the city.

A two story house was then built partially in an old apple orchard called ‘The Home for Crippled Children.” The house had three dorm rooms and separate sleeping quarters for the sisters who cared for them. The boys and girls were aged four to sixteen with the older boys sleeping in a smaller cottage near by.

Then there was the “Saint John Inn” for old men. This was a large two story structure with wings on each side where the men lived. The middle section of the building had spacious sitting rooms upstairs, and a kitchen, dining hall, and offices on the main floor.

In the center of the community was a small white church which was the focal point of the society. The village was based on Christian theology and it was here the children and adults would attend Mass on a daily bases. It was hoped that many of the young people after living here would be inspired to continue on working with the church, and that some of the boys might go on to pursue a life in the Ministry. Muhlenberg’s plan was to someday build a Seminary nearby for this purpose, but until then residents would draw their inspiration from sermons heard at the “Church of the Testimony.”

The original farm house on the property was a substantial building of two to three floors and was nicknamed “The Mansion.” Here lived Rev. Muhlenberg when he was visiting as well as Sister Anne Ayres who oversaw the daily operations of St. Johnland. She had been a student of his, and a nun for many years, and was very much respected by the Reverend for her ability to lead. It was here also that many important guests stayed and were entertained during their visits to the society.

There was also a school house on the grounds and the society hired the best teachers they could. Educating the young children was the second major goal after establishing good Christian morals. Unlike the schools that most boys and girls attended in the area for eight hours a day here most children were free to come and go a little more easier do to their particular ailments. Equal time was given to exercise and playing outside on the rolling lawns, or running trough the woods along the bluffs over looking the sound.

During the summer a camp was setup on the beach and for a few months many of the children got to live down by the water. Others due to their conditions were brought back and forth for shorter periods of time. Here they enjoyed swimming and boating and just being as Rev. Muhlenberg would say “out in the fresh air.”

Across the road was located the farm and fields. The idea originally was that food

would be brought in for the residents but the quick growth of the society soon showed this was not practical. There were too many people to feed and transportation at that time was slow. The train would not reach this area for several more years. Soon crops were being grown and cows were in the pastures. Now agricultural skills and animal care were taught to the boys as well.

For years St. Johnland prospered and grew into a well known institution supported by many friends of the society. By 1871 the railroad had reached the community and a station was built for them. Needing a name for the depot they used the unofficial nickname of the area “St. Johnland.” Hearing about the success Rev. Muhlenberg was having out on the island representatives of King’s County Hospital took the train ride out to see what was going on. Impressed with what they saw being done they soon purchased a number of farms in the area to start their own institution.

With so many people talking about The Society of St. Johnland a writer for Harper’s, Samuel Osgood, who was also a friend of Dr. Muhlenberg’s, decided in June of 1874 to take the train from the city and spend some time there. When his trip was over he wrote a lengthy article about his visit and what a pleasure it was.

Osgood arrived on a Saturday evening at the station and was taken by horse and

carriage about a mile to the village. The first thing that struck him was the lack of

elaborate Stone structures, but instead plane wooden buildings with a small white church

in the middle. At the main house he was welcomed, given a chance to freshen up, then joined the Superintendent Sister Anne Ayres for supper. This was followed by the evening prayer to which all were called with the blowing of a horn.

He writes there were a number of small cottages for families, or widows with children, and some larger houses for the orphans where they lived under a parental type supervision. It seemed only good could come from being raised in the country with fields and woods to play in. And to be given a chance at going to school and church everyday plus to be taught a trade. The farm also was of a good size and produced 16,600 quarts of milk for the some 150 children.

On Sunday the whole village turned out in their best which made for a very pleasing sight. Both the morning and afternoon masses were filled with a mix of old men, boys and girls, and small children. He wrote “To see so many young people all well dressed and cheerful, and with the most pleasant manners would surely make the Lord rejoice.”

First the morning service was read along with hymns sung by everyone accompanied by an organ and the voices of the children. Then a visiting minister gave a sermon on how man can not live on bread alone.

After the mass, Mr. Osgood along with many of the children, took a ramble through the woods and down the long staircase to the beach where they ran and played. Then it was time for him to leave.

Richard M. Bayles wrote a book Sketches of Suffolk County in 1874, which he had published himself in Port Jefferson, telling the history of each town and village in the

eastern half of Long Island. Here we have one of the earliest historically written descriptions of Comac.

“Comac is a pleasant crossroads village on the middle country road partly within

the bounds of Smithtown. It is an ancient settlement, and is located in the midst of a agricultural district, and nearly every acre improved and under a high level of cultivation.

The village contains two hundred and fifty inhabitants, two churches, two schools, two stores, two hotels, a post office, and the celebrated horse training establishment of Carll Burr.”

Since the opening of Joseph Whitman’s general store two hundred years before a community slowly grew up around it. Although most of the two hundred and fifty occupants were either farmers or farm laborers there was a variety of other trades being carried out in the area.

The old hotel at Comac Corners had been run over the years by Oliver Conklin and his wife Cornelia along with the help a bar keeper, Stephen Osborn, and an old laborer. The business then passed on to Archibald Janison who with his family, and son Charles as the clerk, operated the Inn until they sold it to Ralph Bates in the 1860’s. Bates was the proprietor of the hotel when Richard M. Bayles wrote his book in 1874.

The General Store across the road at the time of Bayles book was once again owned by the Whitman family. After running the store for almost twenty years, raising a large family, and doing quite well for himself, James Waters sold the store to Zebulon B. Whitman in the 1860’s. At first Whitman ran the store alone with the help of his family but soon brought in a young couple, James and Mary Jewell, as boarders and the husband also worked in the store and rode a wagon around town making the deliveries.

The other Hotel and store in town were located on Burr Road where the Burr family was making quite a name for themselves in the horse training business. Smith Burr who had started out as a farmer for many years took an interest in horses that was passed on to his son Carll. When Carll S. Burr then opened his horse training academy in the 1860’s Smith Burr turned the old Burr homestead into a hotel and became an Inn Keeper. By the 1870’s business was so good that Smith Burr’s sons Andrew, and Brewster were also training horses. And Carll S. Burr now had five man working for him to help handle the many horses he was training.

After having been an Blacksmith’s apprentice to George Ireland for a few years Moses Wicks moved to Burr Road where along with Smith Burr’s son George they started a Blacksmith and Wheel-wright shop next to the Inn. For awhile the Gildersleeves had some shops near by too.

The other Blacksmith and wheel-wright shop was that of the Irelands on Comac Road just south of Comac Corners. The two brothers Derrick and George had been operating the shops for almost thirty years when Bayles wrote of Comac and by this time their younger brother John had come to help as a wheel-wright.

Between the Irelands shops and Jericho Turnpike were a few small houses where lived Charles Velsor, a carriage maker, Samuel Brush the Tailor, and Isaac Tillotson a shoe maker. Around the corner on Jericho was Ira Hubb’s the Butcher and Samuel Brown the old tollgate keeper was now a carpet weaver. Across the road was Dr. Darling B. Whitney who was the town physician for over forty years before moving to Connecticut.

It was to this small town in America that Clement Moreland decided to bring his family in 1872. Ralph Moreland, his grandson, told of his family’s early history here.

“My father, John Moreland, was born in Ireland and came over when he was nine years old. They had a farm next door over the hills. There were about ten kids I think? My Grandfather, Clement Moreland, was the captain of an Irish boat that sailed across the sea, and he married an Irish girl. So they came over to some relations and did all right. My grandmother, she lived well into her nineties. I don’t know how they raised a family in such a small house, but they made a living farming.”

The house the Morelands moved in to when they arrived here was formerly that of David Rice the mason, and who’s daughter GloryAnna became a Comac school teacher. Rice was now in his 80’s and may have passed away and the home came in to the possession of one of the Morelands relatives.

In 1874 Caleb Smith III died and the farm was passed on to his son Robert. He was also buried in the cemetery in the back corner of the property. Robert never married

and continued to live on the farm with his mother and aunt for many years. Like his fathers before him he was well liked in the community and had many friends.

Another well respected man died around this time. Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg, the father of St. Johnland passed away in 1877 and after services in New York City was taken by train out to the island to be buried in the small cemetery behind the white church. The man who had started numerous churches, schools, colleges, hospitals, and more had died. Here at the village that he had built to help so many people, where he was like a father to all the children, and a friend to the old and crippled, they waited for him to come home for the last time.

At the station many of the boys waited for the train to arrive, and as the sun set it pulled in. A hearse carried the casket slowly back to the village with the youths walking behind followed by some of the people who had come out from the city that evening. As they approached St. Johnland the constant toll of the bell mixed with the crying from groups of people in front of the buildings. The Reverend was placed inside the small church and it was filled all through the night with mourners. After the morning train arrived, overflowing with passengers including Bishops, clergy, collage professors, family and friends, the funeral took place. As he had requested there was a simple mass followed by a hymn. Then the old men along with the children led everyone to the small burial ground behind the church where the Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg was laid to rest.

Two years later Mary Collins Cutting died in 1879 and was buried alongside her husband Charles in the Methodist Church cemetery. It had been seventy years since she had played the piano for others and then had it stored away in the attic. After her death her nephew Capt. Smith removed the piano from the house and gave it to his daughter. Unfortunately what was thought to be the oldest piano on Long Island seems to be gone now since nobody knows what became of it after that.

In the world of race horses Carll Burr was by now considered a leader in breeding

and training, and his customers were some of America’s richest and most powerful men. Among those who did business with him were, August Belmont, Wm. H. Vanderbilt, H. O. Havemeyer, J. P. Morgan, Wm. C. Whitney, and others. Many of these people were often said to be guests at the Burr house when they came out to visit, or do business here.

It was on one of these trips that the Burr’s good friend H. O. Havemeyer decided to buy some land and start his own horse ranch called The Maverick Stock Farm. The ranch consisted of some two hundred and fifty acres and was located just south of Burr Road on the east side of Townline Road. The street today that bears his name was originally the two lane entrance to the property. Here he had a simple country farm where he could come to get away from the bustle of the city. Many weekends were spent out here pursuing one of his favorite past times, hunting.

Wm. H. Vanderbilt purchased a race horse named Maud S. He took her to Carll Burr who worked with her. She had a bad shoulder and he treated it for the winter. Burr found her easy to drive and often having the speed of a freight train. Maud S. would

go on to set a new record in Ohio that was said by Carll Burr Jr. to be the direct result of her careful attention while under the care of the Burr’s

It was wealthy people like these that Rev. Muhlenberg was hoping would take heart and help support his community of St. Johnland. In 1881 Mr. And Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt offered to build a home for orphan girls. They wanted the society to have the house in memory of their daughter who died in 1878. It was built in a Queen Anne style at a cost of $20.000 and became one of the most notable homes in the village.

The house was three stories high and could sleep up to twenty six girls. In the main hall was a fire place with blue and white tiles, each picturing a different event from the Bible. There were also Tiffany stained glass windows with different proverbs along one wall for the girls to learn from as they passed. The main parlor had two large windows overlooking the trees and pond across the road, and it was here that morning and afternoon prayer were held. In the dining room a bell sat on the mantel and an engraving of “The Last Supper” hung over the fire place.

During these times illnesses were quick to claim the lives of many young and old, but children seemed the most susceptible. For parents this must not have been easy and they would often go to great lengths to take care of their children.

An interesting story was told by Charlie Harned about his grandmother Francena Conklin Harned who was the mother of four. Two of her children Minnie and Ralph came down with Tuberculosis when they were in their teens and became quite ill. By herself she loaded up a wagon and took her two sick children out west to Arizona in hope that the dry air would help improve their breathing. A diary was kept by her the whole time that she was there and included short note “Brought a small red ribbon at the store today,” probably for her hair to cheer her up maybe. She stayed out there for a few years but the two eventually died and she returned home again in the wagon.

John Carll who had married his neighbor Hannah Elizabeth Strong in 1858 was now a widower, and had also lost three of his four children, two by the age of ten. His only surviving daughter, Fanny Strong Carll, grew up to become a nurse. She lived and worked at the state psychiatric hospital in Brentwood. Fanny often wrote home to her father.

“ I will try to make it home sometime in the Spring if the roads are not that bad. I wish I could come visit more, I know the last time was at Christmas, but I am so busy here. It’s hard to believe the number of people that need help, there’s so many. I try to do the best I can for them. The doctors that I work with here are all very good.”

When Selah Wicks died in 1881 his children were left alone and with little money, their mother Juliana Smith Wicks had died earlier in 1876. For the next few years they tried to get by the best they could, but could not make ends meet. They were now about to lose the house and most of the family had decided to move into Brooklyn to live with relatives. Carrie A. Wicks wanting to stay in Comac married John Carll in 1884 bringing together two of the oldest families in the area. With in a year they started a family with their first daughter, Marion E. Carll, followed by another daughter and three sons, Howard, Edith, John, and Ralph.

A few years later Francena Harned returned in the covered wagon from her

stay in Arizona and the two children were buried alongside their grandfather Amos. Jacob Harned then purchased the Selah Wicks farm and they moved in with their two children, Sarah, and Herbert to start anew. With over one hundred acres they planted crops, and tended to livestock. The remaining few acres of this land is today the site of the Harned sawmill and is still being operated by their great-grandsons Doug and Dave.

Herbert J. Harned would eventually run the Whitman’s General Store at Comac Corners. He boarded in the house and operated the business, for years it was known as the Harned store. It was a regular thing for people to have tabs at the store and the Carll’s still have theirs from when Herbert Harned was running the general store.

On the north side of Comac they were celebrating the wedding of Frederick Goldsmith to Emma Mangold, granddaughter of the Widow Brown. After the Civil War Paul Mangold and his wife returned from Georgia to live here, and now in 1884 were celebrating their daughter Emma’s wedding.

Christian Goldsmith had been the proprietors of the old hotel on the corner since taken it over from the Bates in the late 1870’s. For many years she continued to operated the Inn until it was destroyed by a fire in 1895.

Gone was Comac’s old hotel built sometime before the Revolutionary War, the place where the militia trained, and the community met to elect the first school board in the early 1800’s. The Shea’s still have in their possession the original drinking cup from the public well that stood in front of the building.

The Shea’s came here in 1890 to live on John’s mother’s farm located near the north west corner of Jericho Turnpike and Larkfield Road. Mae Shea soon found herself interested early history of the area and became an avid collector of photo’s and documents pertaining to local people and events.

A new hotel was built on the south west corner of Jericho Turnpike and Townline Road by a man named William Malher who came here and married a local girl sometime between 1890-1900. The building was two stories high with a porch along the front and east sides. The entrances were all double doors which opened into the large bar room on the first floor. There was a small office in the back that some say may have been used as a barbershop for awhile. On the upper level were some four to six rooms, and Malher may have lived here, but later lived down the road near the Randall farm.

A large hotel was built about the same time near the St. Johnland Station by

George Cusick in 1892 to accommodate visitors to the two care establishments there. Since the Kings County Farm became official in 1885 the area had been slowly developing to now contain four large buildings and over thirty small cottages. People were beginning

to associate the two facilities as one. Many thought the psychiatric hospital was a branch of the Society of St. Johnland.

This confusion can already be seen in Judge Lawrence Smiths narrative of the Society when he writes for W. W. Munsell’s “The History of Suffolk County” in 1882.

“The domain of St. Johnland proper is to be distinguished from the settlement which is growing up near the railroad station and post office, and from these deriving the name of St. Johnland.”

The society wishing to put an end to the situation finally approached the railroad about renaming the station. They agreed and it was officially changed to Kings Park in 1891. A few years later the state stepped in and took over control of the farm and by 1900 there were over two and a half thousand patents being cared for at the Kings Park State Psychiatric Hospital.

Through out the 1890’s Carll S. Burr Jr. divided his time between the family business and politics. With his father they continued to raise and train horses together with the help of a black laborer from North Carolina named Richard Beard. Carll S. Jr. had a large hall added to the side of the Smith Burr Inn, and a one mile track constructed just off Townline Road a half mile north of Burr Road. Barns and corrals were built on the east end of the track, and a small house for the keeper to live in. Tom Hurd believes the old house and barn on Scholar Lane are what is left of The Indian Head Stock Farm. Mrs. Delkalsky who currently lives in the home confirmed that this was the only house and barn on the private road owned by the Burr’s when she moved here with her husband over forty years ago.

Although his father never became a politician, Carll S. Burr Jr. heard the call and joined the Republican Party. He worked hard to help both Harrison and McKinley become president, and was a good friend of horse riding enthusiast Theodore Roosevelt. Since the days of Ulysses S. Grant the Burrs have been strong supporters of the Republican Party and Carll Burr Jr. was elected to the New York State Assembly from 1896-1898.

Politics may have caused Herbert J. Harned to lose the General Store in 1900. He had hired Fred Goldsmith and another boy to help him run the place. At just fourteen Fred was actually in charge since Herbert Harned was always away dealing with local politics in Huntington, so he stopped going to school to help customers at the store. As hard as Fred must have tried to help though, eventually the store went bankrupt. The place was closed and an auction was held to sell off the contents of the store. During the sale Fred was spotted by the truant officer and told to get back to school, but instead he took a job Herbert Harned offered him working on his farm.

Herbert’s sister Sarah was married about this time to her neighbor John Moreland. She said that she had wanted to live in her grandfather’s house and so they moved into the old Amos Harned place. With in a few years they had three sons and a daughter.

There was plenty of work to be done on the farm and all the children were expected to help out. On the Carll farm John and his second wife Carrie were raising their five children. John Howard Carll remembers back to the age of ten and what he had to do to help out on the family farm.

“We're going back to the horse and buggy days when I was a boy and my father was

quite a businessman. He had a very large farm and summertime was harvesting the hay and

grain and corn and in the wintertime it was on to wood. There was cordwood, cross ties, and

telephone poles. The telephone poles used to go to the Babylon electric light company. The ties went to the Long Island Rail Road. Wood was sold on the South Shore and also by train, or by carloads, to New York.

When I was a boy, things were different than they are now. People worked longer hours and had less conveniences. I remember when I was a boy that I had certain chores to do when I was only 8 or 9 years old. The cattle had to be taken out of the fields where there was no water and led to, driven to, the ponds to fill up and then back into the pastures, And the haying, why I was always pitching hay on the lower ties, I had to pitch it, and I was supposed to keep it treaded down in the hay mows.

Everybody then used to have large gardens and raise their own vegetables. I remember the potato patches where I would take a milk pan and go along the rows and knock the bugs down into it. When I got a full pan I would put some kerosene on them.

Sometimes we had to shuttle cows over to the south side and deliver them. I would start them out and my father would do the driving. After we were gone for a while I would get in the carriage and ride with him. The people coming out for the summer would rent one for the season. They would pay $60 deposit on a cow and he would give them $30 back in the Fall when they moved back to the city. Then we would collect them up the same way and I would walk quite a few miles. He would sometimes overtake me and do business ahead then when I caught up I would be able to ride with him. He was surprised how far I would get sometimes.

There were Apple and Peach orchards up on the Selah Carll place, site of the

Northridge School today. Father used to pick the peaches up there and sell them on the South side. There was a house with a shed on the side that was the only building up there.

He used to take a cow that had a calf and tie the calf in the shed and turn the cow loose.

And she would eat around there and also go to the pond for her water.”

The following are a few of John Carll’s letters pertaining to business and life on the farm. We can see from these that transactions were carried out in a more casual manner then today.

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Smithtown

John Carll June 22/84

Sir

I most apologize for taking your horse in your absence but I thought you would approve of what I did. I left with your man a form of receipt and told him if you would send it to me by mail I would send you the check for $250 by next mail. I believe the receipt’s in the terms you agreed. I shall be at home Monday but am going to New York on Tuesday. You can send the receipt here tomorrow, or Monday. I shall return Tuesday night.

Allow me to congratulate you in your recent good. I am sure a man who gets so good a person for his wife as I learn yours is, is worthy of congratulations.

Very Truly

Lawrence Smith

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Wicks & Smith

Dry Goods, Groceries,

Boots, Shoes, Feed and Grain. Bay Shore, NY. Aug 28 1889

John Carll

Dear Sir

Please bring on Friday morning unless stormy,

5 (5) Baskets Peaches

2 (2) “ Pears

If very stormy will not want until it clears away.

Yours in haste

J. P. Smith

The family side of life on the farm is brought out in some of the personal letters sent back and forth between the Carll’s.

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Dear Carrie

I did not have any rule for the stuffed peppers as near as I can remember it was a little horse-radish, two or three onions & chopped cabbage, salt to taste fill the peppers and cover with cold vinegar. I don’t think they want to be stuffed to hard.

If you have not used all the white brandy will you give it to Uncle Tredwell to bring to me. I sent for some but there was a mistake and I fear my fruit will spoil before the second order is answered.

I could send you some red brandy by Uncle Tredwell tomorrow or white brandy the first of the week. I think we have some horse radish , if so will send you some tomorrow.

If you send the brandy please tie a string over the cork.

??

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Brooklyn NY

June 8^th 1898

Dear Sister,

I now take time to drop you a few lines to let you know we are all well as usual except Linda and she is doing as well as can be expected. I will send your bridle out Friday by express to East Northport in care of the stage driver. Marion will find her long promised bridle in the same package. As for the bill it has been paid long ago with interest.

Enclosed you will find a bottle of Little’s Phenyl don’t hesitate to use it for hives, exema, or any eruption of the skin, it cured Ralph of the worst exema I ever saw. You can use it to bath the horse’s sores and blothes with great success.

Your Brother

R. V. Wicks

Marion don’t pull to hard on that Bridle till Gray gets used to it.

Marion was fifteen in 1898, since she was the oldest she had to ride a horse down to the General Store at Comac Corners to pick up the mail on the days that it came. Sometimes she would also have to stop on the way back and have the horse shod at the Irelands, or later John Gates, Blacksmith shop.

There was an article in an 1899 issue of the Brooklyn Eagle written by Mrs. James Copper, who was likely GloryAnna Rice, celebrating her Jubilee as a school teacher. She

talked about her early years teaching at the south school in Comac where she grew up. There was a detailed description of the school which she imagined at one point “must have changed some by now.”

There was now lots of talk about combining the two school districts and building a new larger centrally located school house, and Marion may have read Mrs. Copper’s article in the paper. In 1899 someone in the Carll family wrote a very detailed description of the old school house and what it was like growing up attending the South School. Marion used these notes, along with her own personal memories, years later to give one last glimpse of the old one room school house just before the turn of the century.

South Comac School of the 1890’s

This school stood on a little knoll on the west side of the present Comac Road. The building is still in existence but is in very bad repair. The small entrance served as a storage place for wood, and where the boys hung their coats. The girls hung their clothing just inside the building behind the door when open.

When entering the classroom one saw the teacher’s desk on a platform at the opposite corner of the room. The desk stood on four long legs and the top was slanted with a lid and railing along the front and sides. The teacher had a substantial captains chair. There were two black boards on the walls over the platform.

There were five stationary desks along each side of the room ranging in graduated size from the front of the room to the back. The top of the desk slanted towards the student and there was a shelf on the back to hold books, slate, paper and pencils.

By the mid nineties the tops of the desks had become so rough that a thin board was added to the top of all the desks, at the same time the walls were papered. Those repairs made the room much more attractive.

In the middle of the room was a rectangular wood stove with a large door on one end. The top would swing over so the wood could be put in from above. There was then a long pipe that ran to the end of the room and through the ceiling to the chimney.

Just to the right of the door was a stand where the water pail and tin dipper were located. Water was obtained from a neighbors well and brought up with buckets.

During my time as a pupil a case of maps on spring rollers was purchased which was hung on the wall. In the attic were some maps that were not used in my time and I don’t know what became of them.

There was a chart with many pages standing on three legs. It was from this chart that the beginners learned to read. I have quite a few of the books we used. There were Barnes’s readers as well as Barnes’s US History, Robertson’s Arithmetic, along with writing, grammar, and geography.

I went to school from nine to four, except on Fridays when school let out at three o’clock. There was an hour for recess at noon and fifteen minuets in the morning and then again in the afternoon. As for school events there was a Christmas show, as well as an Arbor Day program to which parents, mostly mothers, came.

Sometimes in the winter when the snow was good my father would take the school

for a sleigh ride. Straw was placed on the bobsled on which the children sat with a blanket

to cover their feet. In the winter there was also skating at noon time on a near by pond. In

the Summer the school would go on a May Pink excursion into the woods at noon and return in the afternoon. All came back with a bouquet of Arbutus.

Inside games were, Button Button whose got the Button, Stage Coach, and Hide the Stick. The outside games were, Annie Annie Over, a ball game, London Bridges

Falling Down, Tisket A Tasket, a ring game, Ball in the Ring, How Many Miles to

Babylon, Tag, Fox and Geese, Marbles, and Baseball.

At the north school house Miss. Minnie Van Brunt had been the teacher for many years and when the two schools were combined together in 1900 she would become the principle of the new large frame school built on Jericho Turnpike.

John and Mary Van Brunt originally lived on the south side of Comac Corners near the Irelands with their three daughters. Later they moved to a house on Jericho Turnpike just west of the Jeffery Smith farm. Minnie was a teacher at the north school by 1892 when a class picture was taken, and may have been teaching there for a few years already.

The Van Brunt’s had adopted a daughter named May, who born in 1875 was the youngest of the girls. The three remained maidens and lived together in the house on Jericho after their parents died. May became sick and passed away in 1914 at the age of forty. Henry Shea though very young at the time remembered her funeral.

“Back in those days people still held funerals in their homes and the person would be laid out in the parlor. Friends and neighbors would then stop in and pay their respects to the family.

I remember we had gone down there on the day of the funeral and there were a number of wagons in front of the house. I was very young at the time and stayed outside on the lawn with the other children.

There was a horse drawn Hurst and I remember the long line of wagons following slowly behind it as we went down Jericho Turnpike towards the Comac Cemetery where she was buried.”