6

Automobiles and Flying Machines

During the last year of World War One Commack saw something it would remember for along time afterwards. Eight year old Henry Shea was out in front of his house on Jericho Turnpike near Larkfield Road when he suddenly heard a far off rumbling coming from the west and steadily growing closer. Then from down the turnpike Henry saw the first truck, and another, then there came an endless line of army trucks carrying men and supplies. They turned north on Larkfield and entered the side gates of the William H. Randall farm and began spreading out. Almost across from the Shea’s house was going to be an airfield for training pilots going over to fight the war in France.

Henry Shea fondly remembers when the army came and opened the airfield and it’s a story he’s told over and over throughout his life. A number of times he told me of this special event he witnessed in 1918.

“Well the Brindley Field was a highlight experience. The first thing we knew of Brindley Field, or any activity of it occurring there, was in June of 1918. The first sight of any of this activity was a long line of army trucks coming up the old Jericho Turnpike with

soldiers in the them. To see a truck of any kind was a unique experience in those days, they just didn't exist in Commack. And they came around the corner into Larkfield Road, or it was known as Larkfield Avenue in those days, and pulled right into the gates of the property on the north east corner of Jericho Turnpike and Larkfield Avenue. Then we learned, or I did, that it was to become a training field for aviators to be sent to France in W.W.I to be fighter pilots.

The field itself consisted of ninety acres of land, with the buildings, and barns. One large barn, and several other storage barns of a smaller size, and other out buildings. The old farm house was immediately established as a headquarters for the field. From that time on, for the next month, or so, the place blossomed out into a tent city. I'd say up until the middle of July it was a tent city, with all the troops stationed there.

The first thing I remember being built in there, in the way of buildings, was the mess halls were the soldiers had to go to eat their meals. The next permanent buildings being built were the barracks for them to sleep in. In the beginning the tent city was used

as their sleeping quarters. I also remember the set up of officers tents, the medical

center was in a tent also.

The army provided medical officers there to take care of the troops health. One we knew, and became quite friendly with, was an older army officer, a Lieutenant Frachs who came from Missouri, a real old timer, a real army man. We became friends with a number of others in a period of three to four months that the field was in real full operation.

Then about the first of August they built quite a number of barracks. I think all together about twenty, sixteen, or twenty of them altogether. They were built along the north side of Jericho. The nearest barrack was just inside the fence line on the pike. Speaking of the barracks, the first electricity to reach Commack was brought to Brindley Field purposely to light up the barracks. That was a line that ran down Larkfield

Ave. The problem there was these high-tension lines were right in the path of some of the

take off points of the planes. The government got Lilco to move the high-tension lines

back west a thousand feet of the main road and that cleared the way for their take off. When the wind was to the west they had to take off in that direction and it wasn’t safe with the wires there. Those lines ran right down to the barracks, what a sight to see thousands of lights all concentrated in one area. It was quite a shocker so to speak. Up to that time we were using oil lamps for light.

The field was protected everyday by guards who would walk the parameter of the

of the field. After July there were no more visitors allowed inside the camp. I had some

access in the beginning being a kid, but they gradually phased me out.

Towards the end of that summer they found they needed more space so they rented some more land to the east. In one case they had to condemn the land from the owner, but only temporarily. They did some considerable clearing of woodland in the north east corner of the property, clearing that area of trees entirely. They cut them down, removed the stumps, and graded it off. That was quite a project. Then they felt they had enough safe room to feel satisfied.

In August of 1918 they started to build five big steel hangers, the nearest one was about one hundred and fifty feet from Larkfield Ave. They stood in a line behind the original hay barn that had been used to hold airplane parts at that time. They were for what we called Jenny planes at the time.

This was a satellite field of Mitchell Field in Mineola and was the last training field for flyers before they went to France. It was a very important field at the time and sometimes other planes would fly in for a few days. Some were the DH-4’s with the most powerful engines at the time. It was designed in 1918 by these five guys hired to make the

best engine they could for the war.

By September of 1918 the war was coming quite rapidly to a close and I can remember the news papers with the head lines and photo’s of who’s where, and what the army did. At this time in September some people rented some land from us on the west side of Larkfield Ave. across from the camp to open up an eatery for when the soldiers were off duty. They had a little building and sold food and drinks, and along with that newspapers.

In the last days of the war the news papers had more head lines of what had been accomplished. Then came the Amnesties in November and the people were quite happy.”

Originally the camp was to be named Chapman Field after Lt. Col. C. G. Chapman who died while fighting in France. The name was then changed just before it opened to Brindley Field in memory of Major Oscar A. Brindley who had just died testing a new plane and was considered at the time to be one of the best pilots.

Planes were still new at this time and crashes were often seen around Commack. It wasn’t uncommon to occasionally have a plane land in someone’s field as they were plowing. Most times it was nothing serious, like when the plane landed in the Johnson’s field one afternoon due to engine troubles. Albert Johnson recalled the time when the plane came down.

“It was in the afternoon and they were flying around when the one had engine trouble and came down across our field. The two pilots got out and waited for a truck to arrive there, which came shortly after. Some men worked on the engine in the field for awhile but could not fix it. The pilots were ordered to stay with the plane overnight and

another truck came back later with mattresses for them which they placed under each wing.

We had all come out there by now and were talking with the men and somebody had brought a camera with them and they took some pictures while out there in the field. One was of my sister Edna sitting in the plane, and you can see the front panels removed and the engine all taken apart. There also was another photograph of the pilots sitting on the mattresses by the plane. The next morning they came back and fixed the plane and the pilots flew off from our field.”

There was once a quite serious accident that took the lives of both men in the plane. Henry Shea also remembered this day.

“They had dog fights in their training, over the field, and surrounding areas. One of the most serious accidents happened while they were having dog fights over the Havemeyer property east of town line road. Two pilots were killed when their plane

crashed into the ground after loosing control. What happened was one of the wings crumbled. It was the only death during all that flying time.

I can actually remember when the accident happened because someone had come to our house and told us that there had been a crash over in east Commack. In their

hurry to get there the rescuers tried to go straight instead of taking the roads and that was a mistake because they ran into hedgerows and had to take down fences. But it was no use to save them because they were both killed outright.

There was quite a service held for the two pilots at Mitchell Field, and then they were shipped by train, one to California, and the other to Pennsylvania.”

The two men were 2^nd Lt. Harold F. Maxson, and photographer 2^nd Lt. G. S. Gideon. They had been flying around a mock seventeen plane dog fight when their wing gave way and broke into pieces sending the plane spinning towards the ground. Many people were watching the planes when they heard the loud cracking and turned to see the wing falling and the plane start falling from the sky. The plane came down in Havemeyers hay field sinking into the ground on impact and killing the two men.

Oscar Nolt Jr., just twelve years old, was the first person on the sight. Soon after that the area was closed off and nobody was permitted near the crash scene. A large depression was left after the wreck and it was one of places you went as a kid when you had nothing to do. Charlie Harned’s brother Amos used to take him there to see it.

“I don’t remember much about the airfield, just that one plane crash. There was an imprint in the plowed field and my brother took me up there with his friends once past the cemetery to see it, and they told me a plane had crashed there.”

Brindley Field and the pilots there were welcomed in the community. Sunshine Acres was used as a entertainment hall for the soldiers, and in the hotel William Malher hung a large wooden biplane over the bar. But it’s said curfews were set for the men to be back on base by evening to help protect the integrity of the young women of Commack.

Ann Goldsmith Lindstadt says the soldiers often came from the base calling on her two aunts and then standing on the front lawn talking. She also said that her mother used to walk up to the field and watch the planes and get the baby out in the carriage. Then sometimes if it was getting late the men would give her a ride home in one of the trucks.

The Carll’s had the first tractors in the area and they had them delivered to Brindley Field since they could have large machinery brought in, otherwise they would have been dropped off at the East Northport train station. Later they sold one of them to the Havemeyers.

After only a years service the airfield closed soon after the war ended. Some of the barracks were said to have been taken and converted into houses in the area. Sunshine Acres is thought to have used one for their dinning hall.

Sunshine Acres was a Baptist Fresh Air Camp almost directly across from the Methodist church. Nobody knows when it first started but the main house on the road was

that of Dr. Darling B. Whitney who was the town doctor during the mid 1800’s. I was

told by Henry Shea that they would come out from the city for about a week at a time and have camp prayer meetings. “They came in open air rubber neck buses and would set up their tents and be down there all day and night singing and making a ruckus.”

On the south side of Commack the Stillwellite church which had broken away from the Methodists in 1830 and had become a Presbyterian Church recently, was now finally closing in 1919 due to a lack of membership. Three elegant red chairs from the altar were given to the Methodist Church for their use. The building was then converted into a two family apartment with separate entrances in front.

Carrie Carll’s two son’s John “Howard” Carll and “John” Sherman Carll were both married in 1919. John “Howard” married Clara Ketcham and they eventually moved to Connecticut. His sister Edith had married Hiram Ketcham, Clara’s brother, in 1909. “John” Sherman wed Alice Bennett from Northport and they where remembered by Ann Lindstadt

“After Alice and he got married they lived up there, and the Bennett’s lived across the street. Alice Carlls parents lived in the white house next to the nursery, they built that house. She was a very sweet person with a high voice. She would come to see my mother all the time and sit and talk.”

When they where married Alice Bennett’s parent’s moved to Commack and built a

house just north of the Carll’s and her father farmed some land there. The two lived at John’s mothers house for some years and had a daughter who died young, and son Sherman. Later on they moved into Alice’s parent’s house where Sherman lives today.

Down at the crossroads there was a change taking place as well that year. William Malher, who had built the Commack Hotel some years before was selling it and moving away. One story was he had met a local girl and got married, another is he may have moved to Northport and opened a restaurant.

The Gordon’s were the new owners and renamed the place The Gordon Arms Hotel. Charlie Harned remembered Mr. Gordon’s Franklin car as being big and fancy with wooden tires that each turned on its own and if you got up next to a sidewalk you were stuck and had to push the car back away.

Even though Brindley Field was now gone it left behind something that helped Commack out of the dark ages, electricity. When the camp was built lines were run from Northport to the air-field for lights and radios. A year after the camp closed the lines were extended down Jericho to Commack Corners. John Carll is said to have placed his own poles down Commack road and ran the first wire to the Carll farm for electricity. Ann

Lindstadt remembers her family as being one of the first to have electricity on the north

side of Commack. It was her grandmothers house which had just been built four years

earlier by her father Fred Goldsmith and his brother Paul, “before that they used oil lamps

which my mother used to have to fill.”

Alfred Johnson along with his five brothers were buying large farms in the area now. Henry established his on Cedar Road in 1921 and later built a house and added more barns to the property. Eventually the Johnson brothers combined land would stretch from Jericho Turnpike north to Clay Pits Road and also contain many acres on the west side of Larkfield road as well. Today his son Howard still operates the farm on their last two remaining acres on Cedar Road.

Just over twenty years after building the frame school on Jericho Turnpike to meet the demands of a growing community once again the number of children had become more then the school house could handle, even the fire house was being rented for a classroom. Albany objected and stated that the conditions were not adequate enough and that something had to be done by the board about the situation. The three members Herbert J. Harned, Oscar Nott, and Fred Goldsmith began looking for a new place. They picked a two acre site on Townline Road for $1,000 as a good place for the new school. However the community was against their spending that much money and were being led by Senator Burr who cried “I was educated in a little red school house and if that was good enough for me then it’s good enough for future Commack students,” and “the trustees were going into real-estate and are more interested in their commissions than in the school.” The

residents turned out for the vote on the land purchase and the proposal was firmly

rejected. The next day all three board members resigned from their positions.

Something still had to be done and it was finally decided that a new larger school would be built on the site of the current one. The frame school was to be moved across the street and become the new fire house and a large brick school would then be built.

The first job was to actually move the wooden school which ended up taking over a week. The building was literally dragged by teams of horses across Jericho Turnpike during the winter, for awhile leaving almost the entire road blocked. When it was placed in its new location the original fire house, or “The Hall”, was added onto the rear of the building. On the front the entrance vestibule was removed and double barn doors for the fire truck were put in, and a single entrance door to the left.

Across the street work began on the new brick school. The teachers and students of the old frame school decided to place a time capsule in the foundation of the new building. A number of small things were collected to be placed in the box including a short hand written history of the school district by Miss Hubbs along with a pledge by the students to do their very best signed by all the children, and their teachers, Helen Clerke, Grace L, Hubbs, Alice Demont, and Mary P. Kilts. There was also a Bible, 48 star flag, and a masons symbol. The time capsule was placed in the corner stone where it sat for seventy years until the school was torn down in the spring of 1992.

Fred Jaeggi Jr. was in the forth grade at the time when the new school was being built and his father Frederick Sr. was the head of the Masons union. The family had a large farm across from the Methodist church where they raised chickens and Guernsey cows. His father set the corner stone with the time capsule in it and told him he should be there if they ever open it in the future. Working in the city Mr. Jaeggi took the train in everyday and upon returning in the evening he would always stop by the construction site and see how the building was coming along that day.

Once when playing Jack in a school play of “Little Jack Horner” Miss Hubbs asked Fred what his favorite pie was, and when he said pumpkin, she made it for him.

Charlie Harned had also started his education in the frame school and continued on to the brick building when it was finished.

“I went to the school that was across from the fire house. That was grade one and two, then they built the brick one. When I graduated there were eight boys and three girls in my class.

Miss Helen Clerke was my 1 & 2 grade teacher. Miss Grace Hubbs was 3 & 4. Miss Dolittle was 5 & 6, and there was also a Miss Cavalairy, and Miss Edna Johnson.

The principal was Miss Emma Lounsberry, she also taught grade 7 & 8. Then she married and became Mrs. Fibbin. She really got us ready for high school with all the math and algebra. She was a good teacher, she took a real interest in the students. When

we played basketball during lunch she would eat her sandwich real fast and then come and referee the game.”

When the school was finished it was large enough for all the students. Now there were four separate classrooms, two on each side, and an auditorium in the center, with another room above that and there was an office in the front. The bathrooms were along the back of the building. On the roof was a new bell tower and the old brass bell that had first hung in the second north school was placed in it.

The school in those days still had no cafeteria, or gymnasium, and the children ate their lunch at their desks, or in the warmer weather they would sit outside. There was a lunch stand run by Milo Kerns on the other side of Jericho just west of the school.

Bill Brandsma remembered lunch and recess at the brick school and what the youngsters in the area used to do for fun when he was younger.

“I went to school in the brick building but I remember the frame school and it had two out houses in the back, one for boys, and another for the girls. Mrs. Hubbs was one of my teachers, and Edna Johnson was another. There was no gym back then, but we got enough exercise just from climbing trees, and running around.

You had to bring your own lunch. Back then, there was no such thing as a cafeteria. You brought your sandwich in a bag, or a lunch pail as we called them. Sometimes you would go and get some hot soup over at the Kerns stand across from the school on Jericho. Milo Kern’s, and his wife, had a roadside stand there, and sold soup, and sometimes maybe sandwiches. It was a real small building, it's where the sign shop is,

that’s the building. But that wasn't that often, no one had money back then, everyone was

poor. We were farmers you didn't get money for lunch when you left for school.

When I was growing up Florida Avenue used to go back past our farm and into another, then end right at the back gates to Hoyt farm. After we sold the property we still used to go up there as kids. There was an area where they had a bunch of old Model T Fords, and we would play on them. A couple of guys pushed while one drives around. Sometimes we would get some gas, usually by siphoning it out of something on the farm, and then get one of the cars started and drive it around up there. The adults must have known what we were doing, but we were just having fun.

There was a big pond back there we used to skate on too, and another large one near Huntington, on Mediville Farm, that might still be there. We used to play baseball a lot back then also. There was a field up where Otten Pontiac is on Jericho that was across from the school. Then they moved it down to Commack Corners. That was the bigger kids, the farmers, they had a team, and the people from out of town would play them.”

Two of the children that had signed the pledges were Carl and Frederick Graf who had just moved here with their family from the city, there was also their parents, grand-parents, and older brother Clarence. The Graf’s brought a house and some land on the south side of Jericho Turnpike west of the Van Brunt’s.

Clarence’s wife Clara Graf tells about when the family came here to Commack and how they began their business.

“The Graf’s moved here from the city, and Clarence was always called a city slicker. There was his parents, and two brothers, and the grandparents lived with them too. They had a house on Jericho. His father died just after they moved out here, and Clarence being the oldest had to drop out of school and work to help the support the family.

Before that Clarence used to walk to high school in Northport, but then found out he could catch a ride on the bread truck that was going east down Jericho to Smithtown. So he went to high school in Smithtown were the old school is by the railroad bridge on main street. The bread truck was going back to the bakery in St. James that’s now the general store.

Mrs. Graf made the front porch of her house into a road-side dinner, it started as a screened in porch with picnic tables. She would sell home baked pie, and something to drink. Clarence had the gas tanks put in next to the house. He would sell gas, and fix cars on the side. He called it "The Apple Tree Garage" because they had orchards on their property. He would park the cars under the shade of the trees and work on them. His name was Grease Monkey, and his office was a small shed on the property.

There was always something going on at the house, people were always there. When Clarence and his brothers were young there friends would hang out at the house. On weekends there was always a card game being played in the kitchen. Aunt Mime, as

we all called Mrs. Harned, would always call looking for Charlie. She knew if he was playing cards over here he was all right.”

The automobile was growing in popularity and more people were buying them. Most say that Senator Burr had the first car in the area and was fond of rounding up the children and giving them rides, especially Fred Jaeggi Jr. Joe Moreland had a Model T Ford that he drove to school in with his sister Edith. Howard was driving a 1912 Studebaker.

Henry Shea remembers the lack of stores in the area and when servicing your car was in its infancy and how you had to get your gas before they had stations.

“I can remember driving up to the side door of the General store in 1917 to buy gasoline for our car. You didn’t get gas from a pump, at that time they had it at the store in fifty gallon drums. You poured it in measures and strained it with a cloth into your gas tank to keep anything out of the tank, or fuel lines.”

When Clarence Graf rode to high school with Carlton Burr they once had fourteen flats in a day. There was a need for a place where people could bring their cars to have them repaired and get gas and oil.

While work was underway on the new brick school there was some construction starting on the Goldsmith’s property where the old hotel had been until it burned in 1895. Fred Goldsmith and his brother Paul were building a gas station on the corner. The station had an office in the front and a shop in the back for working on cars. Facing Jericho were the gas pumps under a long roof that extended out over them. This roof came down years later when a truck pulled in too fast and crashed into it.

Ann Goldsmith Lindstadt was Fred’s daughter and has a good memory of her

fathers Socony service station and growing up here in Commack.

“My mother used to be a substitute teacher here, She taught in New York, then was married in 1916, and used to teach here when I was a child. My father owned the Commack garage so my mother used to help him by keeping the books and that sort of thing. My father and my uncle owned it. My mother used to keep the books and send out the bills, because nobody had cash to pay for anything they all charged it every month, and the bills had to go out.

It was the only gas station around here. It had one of those roofs that went out over the pumps, that was an addition later. Originally it was a brick building with fancy bricks. They had a repair shop in the back and pumped gas in the front. I pumped a lot of gas at five gallons for a dollar. You pumped it the old way up into the glass on top.

Before the garage my father used to make money by moving trees for people. We called it instant landscaping. He would take a team of horses and pull the trees on

a wood platform with wheels. These trees were mostly red cedar and they had to be thirty feet tall. He took them out to a house in Oyster Bay once. I remember that took a whole day to do.”

1923 was also a good year for Edwin Hoyt, the hours of studying and hard labor were paying off. His orchards had reaped him $21,000, the house had expanded, and he now had four children. Ten years after leaving the city the Hoyt’s must have looked back and thought that life was good on the farm and they had made the right decision.

The toll house for the Motor Parkway at Commack Road on the north east corner was torn down in 1925 and in its place was built the Deer Head Tavern. The building consisted of one long room on the main floor with a fireplace at each end, and a bar running along the entire back wall. On the second floor were the living quarters for the people who ran the tavern.

It is said that when the toll house was torn down some of the locals took the wood and built houses with it. One of these is believed to have been a small red house on Commack Road. When I spoke with the owner he said that it was not, but the house was built around the same time. He does remember when the toll house came down and people taking the wood away for their houses.

When Frank Otten died in 1920 the General store was sold to two men named Kelly and Cress, who became partners in the business. Then in 1925 Cress decided to bring in his brother in-law Charles Werle. When everything was finally arranged Mr. And Mrs. Werle along with their son and daughter moved from their family farm in Canada to the small General Store at the crossroads of Commack.

Charles Werle Jr. was living in Huntington at the time I talked with him and he was quite happy to tell me about his family, the store, and growing up in Commack.

“My family came here in 1925 from Canada where we had lived for three generations. We were originally from Germany. My mother was born in 1886, and my father in 1887. I was born in 1914 up in Canada on our 110 acre farm, I also had a sister.

My mothers maiden name was Cress and she had a brother in Commack who

owned the general store with another man by the name of Kelly. They had a partnership

on the store. In 1925 we moved down here, I was 11 then, and my father became a third partner. He than bought out Mr. Kelly’s share in the store, and by the end of 1925 my Uncles share as well.

My father then joined with the Royal Scarlet store chain. That was a company that was formed to help small stores get products at a low price, and help compete with A&P and other larger stores. You would of course then carry Royal Scarlet brand goods.

We used to get things delivered to the store by truck on a regular schedule. Our meat came from Mineola, and the sausage came from a company called Mitchell. The milk was from different dairies, and we got our fruit and vegetables from Stackler. The bread came from Huntington, and was delivered fresh each day. Sometimes when the weather was bad they would send it by train to Northport, and we would have to go pick the bread up at the station, but that was only a couple of times at most.

Later my father had the two gas pumps put in front of the store, one was regular, and the other was high octane. People would come to us late at night for gas on their way back from out east, after the Commack garage had closed for the night. So we would have to go out at nine o'clock and help them. What could you do they had no gas? We also sold motor oil, car tires, and tubes, even though the garage was next door. It was 15 cents for a quart for oil, and five gallons of gas for a dollar. We also used to sell kerosene that

we stored in a shed in the back of the house that he had built by Brandsmar and Jessie

Hubbs who were handy men.

The store was heated by a potbelly stove in the middle of the store. My father had Brandsmar put steam heat in the house and store. The boiler was in the house under the stairs, before that we had coal furnace in the basement, with the coal bin next to it.

The mail was being handled at the store then but we didn't have anything to do

with the it ourselves. The Postmaster would come down with the mail and put it in the boxes. They rented the space in the store for that.

Later on we put in the soda fountains, first it was up front, then we moved it to the rear of the store. It was nice. It had these two ivory fountains that the soda came out of. I was also the soda jerk at the time.

We were Lutherans, but attended the Methodist church here until they built the Lutheran Church in Huntington. My family was one of the original congregation. Mrs. Shea was the Sunday school teacher, and there was a priest. I liked him, he was very interesting. He had traveled all around the world. He helped us publish a small paper for the church, but we only did a few issues. I think then he went to another church. He was a good man.

I only went to the brick school that had just been built for a year and a half, then I went to high school in Northport. When I went to high school we had to walk or provide

transportation, then the last two years they started using buses.

We used to play ball in the lot on the south east corner of Jericho and Commack road. There was another field on Jericho on the north side where the bigger guys played, the local farm boys. They had a team here in Commack, and teams from other towns would play them on Sundays. On the west side of the field on Jericho was the Kern’s waffle stand, and on the east side was Shultz's farm stand.

During the winter we used to sleigh ride over on the motor parkway where they have the big hills. Joe and Howard Moreland had a bob sled and on a good day you could ride it for over half a mile over those hills. In the twenties we didn't have road plows, Huntington used to send out crews of men to shovel the snow on the roads. We used to have this Model T Ford with high pressure tires that were a couple of feet high, and we would put chains on the tires. The clearance of the rear end was about one and a half feet, so we could get around and deliver the groceries.”

Herbert J. Harned who had owned the General Store at the turn of the century died in 1926 leaving his wife Minnie Moreland Harned to take care of their two sons Amos and Charlie. Both of the boys did their best to help their mother with the farm. Amos soon began the saw mill, and Charlie being much younger helped with the chores.

Charlie Harned who later made his living running the saw mill on Harned Road recalled what it was like on his family’s farm, and the beginning of the saw mill.

“We had a farm and raised potatoes, cabbage, and corn. Back in those days you could make a living doing that. But when this new breed of farmers came along growing

potatoes, and using tractors they could farm all the land, even if it was hilly. That’s why

my brother Amos started the saw mill to make more money. Hoyt had a saw mill which my brother bought and started the original one with. I would say that was about 1928 or 29. He started it just as a side thing, then it built up. I used to work there as a kid when I was going to high school, and all the time it was growing bigger.

Over by where the fire house is now there was a big pond with a sluice that fed a smaller pond, then the parkway went right through it. There was another pond they made into a sump on the corner. They had goldfish in them when I was little and I would catch the fish and sell them on the side of the road in glass mason jars.

When I was small there was the Polio epidemic. My mother wouldn’t let me leave

the house. You couldn’t drive from here to Huntington with out getting stopped. The whole area was quarantined. You couldn’t travel because they didn’t know how it was transmitted, and they still don’t. It affected the children and that worried the people. You weren’t’ allowed out of your yard. The people on the next road got it. She just died about three years ago. She was hunch backed because of it.

One of the things we grew on the farm was cabbage. That required a lot of water and we didn’t have that much. We only had a few wells and cisterns on the farm. I used to

have to go down to the stream that was off of Jericho just before the Wyandanch Club. You would drive the horses in to the stream and the water was dammed so it would come up to the bottom of the wagon. It was easy to lean down and fill the pail, then you dumped it in the barrels, you didn’t have to climb over the side. I must have been about 14 or 15 and I would go do that by myself with the horses.”

Since the days of Brindley Field many of the young people in the area had taken an interest in airplanes. When the airfield was here it became a regular thing for Amos Harned and the Morelands to go over and watch the planes fly around. Later after the camp closed they would all take Howard’s car and drive to Curtiss Field and see the planes and talk with the pilots.

For awhile there had been some pilots gathered at the field talking of trying to fly the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, among them was Chamberlain and Lindbergh. During these trips out to the airfield the boys often talked with Charles Lindbergh and looked over his plane the Spirit of St. Louis. Both Ralph Moreland and his cousin Charlie Harned remember those rides out to Hempstead with their older brothers.

One of Lindbergh’s plans to make the flight across the ocean work was to lighten his load as much as possible. This was done by eliminating a navigator, parachute, change of clothes, and many more little things, including one small red fox.

The Moreland’s had a pet fox that they took with them to Curtiss Field one day. While talking to Lindbergh by his hanger they decided to offer him their pet to take along

on his flight across the sea to Paris. With much amusement he politely declined the boy’s request citing the fox’s lack of swimming ability and the amount of water he had to fly over.

Charlie Harned recalled those times in May of 1927 when they would go to see Charles Lindbergh at the field.

“We had all gone down there to see him and the Moreland’s brought their pet fox with them. That was Ralph who actually offered it to him to take along on his flight. I was there but didn’t see it, I was somewhere else at the time and they told me about it a little while afterwards. Lindbergh said that he didn’t think the fox would be able to swim if he had to land in the water.”

Then on the morning of the 20^th came the news that Charles Lindbergh had taken off from Roosevelt Field and had begun his cross Atlantic flight. Back in Commack Charlie Harned heard a plane and looked up to see the same one he had just seen at Curtiss Field recently with his brother Amos and the Moreland’s.

“That was right over Johnny Carlls where he had his airport. I was walking up the

road with my bicycle to the Commack elementary school when I heard this noise.

That morning I could recognize him as he went over. He was about five hundred feet over me, I could read “The Spirit of St. Louis” right on the side of it. There was a

Curtis plane following behind him with a news guy standing up turning a crank camera

in the back seat. It was a misty foggy morning he could hardly get across the field with all

the mud. He was running on all eight when I saw him, and he was flying low.

Before that my brother and his friends used to go down to the airport to look at the planes. Lindbergh was down there, and Chamberlain, as well as some others. They were all saying they were going to be the first to fly across the ocean with their planes.”

Albert Johnson was up early that morning plowing his field with a team of horses when he noticed the plane flying over Commack.

“It was all over the radio that morning that Lindbergh had taken off and starting his flight during a break in the bad weather we had been having that week. I was out working in one of my fields when I heard the plane flying over and stopped to watch. He had been flying real low, I would say just over the tree tops. I knew it had to be him because we heard he was flying that morning.

It was funny back then because a lot of people thought I looked like Charles Lindbergh and would sometimes mistake me for him.”

For Henry Shea it must have felt like the sky was the limit in early 1927 when at the age of 17 he got his first car. He remembers one of the first things he did when he got it was to drive up to the old Burr one mile track and see how fast he could go. By today’s

standards for automobile speed he said it really wasn’t that fast at all, but it was good enough for him. He remembered that the kids would always go up to the track and race

around. One time as a friend of his was coming around a turn the steering wheel came off in his hands and the car went straight through the bushes and they all had quite a laugh over it.

Not only did Henry get his first car in 1927 but almost across the street from his house was built a new garage. The Monaco family built a gas station on the south east corner of Jericho and Larkfield Road next to the American Eagle Bar called the Larkfield Garage. It was a brick building with glass windows in the front and the office door, the garage bay doors where in the back. There were four gas pumps in the front and they sold Socony gas like the Commack garage.

Just after they opened in May Henry stopped over and parked his car in front of the building and got out to take some pictures of the new place. He then got Mr. Monaco to come out and stand by the gas pumps for another photo. It is thanks to Henry Shea and his family that we have so many early photographs of Commack, much of which he took himself.

East of the Shea’s on Jericho just past the end of the old Brindley Field was the William Brush farm. The family had been living there for some years and Henry Shea

remembers their barn had a large Bromaseltzer ad painted on the side. The farm was sold

in 1926 to the Sauer family who came here from Wantaw.

Paul Sauer who was born and raised in the house tells about his family, and life in Commack then when he was young.

“My parents moved here from Wantaugh with my brother and sister in 1926 the year I was born. We had a house up on the turnpike by where the old state trooper barracks used to be. It was a big two story building that they later moved to the back of the road and made into an office. We had the house where the shoe store is now. The farm was made up of a house and a couple of barns with a large pond, and our property used to back right up against Bishop McDonnell’s Christian camp on Burr. Then my father lost the farm in 1943 during the depression.

We used to have to burn wood to cook and heat the house with. At night you would heat a brick and stuff it in your bed to keep warm. All the woods around the motor parkway were owned by the Grace steamship company. Fred Goldsmith was the state fire warden, he was a real friend of the family, and he would let us go in there and cut dead trees for fire wood.

We had our own cows, chickens and things, and there was forty acres, it was a truck farm. We raised beets, carrots, cucumbers, corn, potatoes anything. We had a stand in front, and we used to go twice a week into the city to sell. There was a place called the Walderbart market were they used to have an auction and we would sell our surplus. We sold the cabbage to Rothmans Pickle Works in East Northport. They were located across

from where the train station is. Then there was another plant in Greenlawn called

Goldmans that we sold to also.

I only went to school here for the first four grades then we moved to East Northport when my father lost the farm in 1943. At the time each teacher taught two classes in one room. When you walked in the first and second grade sat on the right, and when you went to third grade you sat on the left and Miss Hubbs taught you. Then Miss Beck taught fifth and sixth and that was on the right to. In the back was the seventh and eighth grades taught by Miss Lounsberry, who was also the principal, and in the middle was the auditorium for the school. There were about thirty kids in each room.

When the weather was good we would go outside during lunch. The back property went way back and there were ball fields back there we would play on. I don’t know if she still lives there but Miss Beck’s property used to run alongside the back.

Where Otten’s Pontiac was on Jericho Turnpike, now Ford, that was the original ball field. I used to go with my brother there on Sunday mornings to help cut the grass to play ball. The second ball field was down at Commack Corners. Different teams would play East Northport had a team called the Boosters, and there were the Commack Cardinals.

On Saturday nights you would go and visit the families of other farmers. Somebody would bake a cake and we would all get together at someone’s house and play pinochle. You would go down to the fire house and play some Bunco, a dice game where you need to roll 21, or Bridge for fun. They would sometimes have little fund raisers

there, things to do.

Howard Moreland went out with my sister Caroline for a long time. It was after we had already moved. I think they met at the fire house at one of those card games. Howard was one of the original firemen. He was a nice man, very tall. He and his brother Joe never got married. They lived in the old house that they had. Joe was very easy going while Howard was always working hard on the farm.”

Ralph Moreland was the only one of the three brothers to get married. Afterwards he moved from the old Harned Moreland house to the yellow one today near Commack Road.

“I got married in 1928, and built this house with a $6.000 mortgage. The Depression came in 1933 and I was living on $12 a week. That made it awfully bad, and you never had a nickel. Then in 1940 the war started, but I didn't go in because I had kids.

My wife was a Hubbs. She came from Smithtown and was related to Grace Hubbs, and the others around here. My father in-law worked at the Commack church. We got married when she was really young, about 14 or 15. I was about 19 or 20. Then we had three kids right away and suddenly the Depression came and I was on welfare. To help the government held the mortgage on the house or I would have lost it. I had notes in the bank I couldn’t pay.

My brother Howard never got married. He had a hundred acres here and just

stayed on the farm and farmed potatoes and cabbage He also had pigs, sheep, cows and

horses. He worked up at the fire house also, and was into politics a little bit, not too much

just a little bit. He was never anything. It was just to give him something to do. He did

quite good with his farm though, a little better then the average man. He bought one of

the first cars, a Studebaker 1912, for $1200, there wasn't many cars back then only two or three in Commack. That was a lot of money then and I think he made most of it on

cabbage. He would sell it in East Northport at a sauerkraut factory. But they never did have that good land because they had no irrigation.

Now my other brother Joe never got married either. He liked to travel a lot, he went all around the world, like South America. He worked in Grumman, or some place, and then he retired, so he always had a little money. Everybody liked him. He could talk a lot. Even when they opened a new store in Commack or something he would represent Commack to the town board. He had away about him. He had some education.

Howard and Joe both lived in the old house together. My sister Edith lived with them and used to cook and take care of the house for them for awhile. But she had to move to Arizona to help her breathing, then she moved back here. She became very sick and died young of cancer.

I don’t know how they lived in that old house, they never finished the upstairs. It was just plaster on the walls. You could see the beams from a hundred years ago. They had old feather mattresses that they slept on. There was no heat and the bedrooms would be freezing, but if you were on a feather mattress you were warm. There was this big round table that they ate off of every day, that was a hundred years old.”