Hidden History of East Meadow

Part I

FARMS AND ESTATES

Winter Gardens at Brookholt, north of Front Street. Art Kleiner.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND OUR HAMLET’S NAME

East Meadow is an unincorporated hamlet within Nassau County’s town of Hempstead. This means that it does not have its own governing body like a village or city and is a census-designated place by virtue of having institutions named East Meadow by which its residents identify. These include the school district, a post office, a fire department and names of businesses. There is no establishment date of East Meadow because it has never been incorporated. The use of the name goes back hundreds of years—not long after the establishment of Hempstead Town in 1644.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the earliest residents of the Hempstead Plains were tribes of Algonquian Indians. The name Merrick (alternatively spelled Meroke, Merioke and Mericock) stems from a reference to the plains themselves. In the Massachusetts language, the term means bare land. The land was certainly bare! The East Meadow area was almost completely devoid of trees; some of our oldest trees were imported from places as far as England. The land was covered with brush, however, which led some early settlers to call the place Brushy Plains.

In November 1643, the land now encompassing East Meadow was sold to Englishmen John Carman and Robert Fordham by members of the local Massapequa, Merrick and Rockaway tribes. Carman and Fordham had arrived in the Dutch colony from Connecticut and obtained permission from Dutch Director-General William Kieft to purchase the land from these Algonquian peoples. During the British colonial period, Hempstead Town was part of one of the original New York counties: Queens. (It was not until after the 1898 incorporation of western Queens County into Greater New York City that Nassau County was born.) Hempstead is likely a variation of a word for town-spot, suggesting its central importance as a settlement in Queens. Both English and Dutch settlers lived on Long Island. The East Meadow of the Hempstead village was convenient for grazing, and town residents held the area in common for their cattle, sheep and other livestock. The earliest recorded use of the name appeared in town records in 1658. William Jacocks and Edward Raynor were authorized to keep cows in the East Meadow from spring to fall.

During the American Revolution, the British held New York City and much of Long Island for the entire war. Local residents’ loyalties were divided, although some men took up the cause of independence. Hempstead Town’s Richard Gildersleeve, for instance, signed a declaration on July 19, 1776, promising to obey the orders of the Provincial and Continental Congress in defense of liberty, never to fight against the Americans or help the British. Those residing in the southern parts of Hempstead were generally Loyalists, supporting the British Crown; those residing in the northern parts of the town were generally Patriots, heralding the cause for independence. This rift was so significant that the town split after the war ended. In 1784, North Hempstead Town was established by its proud Patriots. The non-seceding southern part, with its East Meadow, was known as South Hempstead before reverting to Hempstead in 1796. The federal census of 1790 clearly enumerates the population of the township of South Hempstead (3,826 people, including 326 slaves), but the 1800 federal census lists 4,141 people in the town of Hempstead, with a note that it is synonymous with South Hempstead.

RURAL LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1850 federal census was the first to collect detailed information on each person living in a household (and not just the head of that house), including, for the first time, local civil divisions. Therefore, the difficulty of genealogical research in hamlets such as East Meadow increases prior to 1850.

In 1821, Samuel Carman, Benjamin Spragg and Robert Van De Waters raised $10,000 and incorporated the East Meadow Canal Company. The idea was to build a canal through the East Meadow Swamp in order to bring water from the Hempstead (East) Bay via Merrick to East Meadow and the Hempstead Plains. The city of Brooklyn was growing exponentially in the mid-nineteenth century and was thirsty for water. In March 1854, Brooklyn’s Water Committee presented a plan that would create a series of canals and conduits to bring fresh water from rural Long Island streams to the city’s residents. One of those waterways was the East Meadow Brook (or Creek), which was expected to provide 7 million of 32.5 million total gallons of water each day. Water in the creek, which ran south toward Merrick, was relatively pure at two grains of impurities per gallon. Brooklyn moved forward with its plan, purchased ponds and lands near the future South Side Railroad of Long Island paralleling today’s Sunrise Highway and built conduits through Queens and Kings Counties (hence the names Conduit and Force Tube Avenues). The city completed the initial project in 1862 but did not utilize the East Meadow Brook until 1889, when it built pipes as far as Massapequa. When the city of Brooklyn consolidated with New York City in 1898, the supply became the New York City Water Works. Not all residents were thrilled with the plan, and some believed that the waters would run dry. Freeport residents unsuccessfully sued the company in 1904 for damage to their oyster businesses. It was not until the 1953 extension of the Meadowbrook Parkway, however, that the East Meadow Brook was seriously threatened. In the East Meadow area, the brook remains a shadow of its former self and is dry in many places. Farther south, the brook still runs into ponds.

Life in East Meadow before the Civil War was based almost entirely on farming. News of the antebellum period often highlighted the local misfortunes that occasionally plagued agrarian life: barn fires, thefts, mischief and curiosities such as the white wild geese flock that landed in 1833. Marriages were celebrated of men and women who found partners quite locally. Only a handful of surnames were common in town, many tracing back to the earliest European settlers in Hempstead. By midcentury, the hamlet was not immune to the greater threat tearing apart the nation, however, and bravely sent sons into battle. The 1863 draft, which prompted bloody riots in the streets of New York and other cities, affected those living in the countryside as well. Twenty-five East Meadow residents were conscripted into military service:

The Civil War and Reconstruction period did not fundamentally alter agrarian life, and newspapers continued to report on farming matters. The 1863–64 season was bad for keeping cows, as at least three of the valuable animals wandered from home (those of Ezekiel Abrahams, Mary Noon and William Seaman), necessitating $5 rewards for their return! Samuel and Jeremiah Post’s barn near Prospect Avenue burned down in 1864, but they were only insured for half the $400 loss. Hector Curtis’s barn was burned down by children in 1865. In 1866, John Place’s six fowls were stolen from his home near the current-day fire department headquarters. John Smith (who lived near current-day Prospect and Chambers Avenues) lost twenty. Sealey/Seeley Sprague’s chickens and turkeys disappeared from his farm. Lott Carman lost thirty. Other big news included wedding announcements, farm foreclosures and real estate transactions. In 1882, pickles—yes, pickles—made the news when East Meadow farmers would not agree to the terms of the Pickle Company of Jerusalem’s payment plan. The following year, a historic tornado leveled barns all over the community. In 1910, wild dogs were to blame for killing pets and chickens of Amos Rhodes, Elmer Stringham and George Littleton, all of whom worked the land near the corner of North Jerusalem Road and Bellmore Avenue. Rhodes had been arrested in 1890 for stealing a hive of bees. Baseball was popular in the 1880s, and East Meadow had two clubs: Red Stars and Hempstead Blues.

East Meadow’s popular name never changed but became known differently with changing times and shifting economies. The East Meadow, described in by Richard Bayles in 1885 as smiling with abundant crops, was perfect for the farming period. When the Meadow Brook Club entertained the local high society members in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (annual membership fees were $5,000 to $6,000!), residents used Meadow Brook or East Meadow Brook as a synonym for East Meadow (especially when referring to the western part of the hamlet near the Barnum property and the brook itself). The area near the intersection of current-day Newbridge Road and Old Westbury Road was a neighborhood called New Bridge. This designation was also used south toward North Jerusalem Road. Documents from as early as 1821 refer to the road as New-Bridge Path. As the village of Hempstead grew in importance following World War I, East Meadow was often synonymous with East Hempstead (a description also used for Uniondale). The place names were used interchangeably, particularly when discussing the Hempstead Turnpike/Front Street area.

HEMPSTEAD-BETHPAGE TURNPIKE

Hempstead-Bethpage Turnpike started out as two turnpikes. In nineteenth-century America, roads were generally inadequate for long-distance travel. Early in the century, the National Road was built as a taxpayer-funded experiment, but canals and railroads were king when it came to 1800s infrastructure. The main roads constructed at that time were private (toll) turnpikes, built and maintained by corporations. Hempstead Turnpike was an early example and came about through New York State’s passage of the Turnpike Acts of 1807. In 1812, the route was incorporated by Samuel Carman, Joseph Pettit, Abraham Bell and Laurence Seaman. The road followed old Native American trails, as did so many other routes in the New York region. The Hempstead Turnpike Company, as established in March 1812, was authorized to run and operate a turnpike road from the Village of Jamaica to the Village of Hempstead in perpetuity. The collection of public town roads that made up the turnpike at its inception were turned over the company for improvement, widening and maintenance.

Similarly, Bethpage Turnpike Company was incorporated April 1829. Rulef Dureya, Richard Willets, Daniel Raider, John Powell, Albert Hentz and Benjamin Thompson were authorized to essentially extend Hempstead Turnpike (Fulton Street) from the Presbyterian burying ground east to Bethpage and beyond.

It was a long and arduous drive to the New York City area. Traveling to and from East Meadow in the early nineteenth century was dependent on private stagecoach lines going east. Timetables were published in local newspapers. Miller and Carman ran a stage line from their Long Island Hotel at 13 Old Fulton Street in the city of Brooklyn every Tuesday and Saturday in 1841 at 1:00 p.m. In 1842, Bedell’s Stage ran every Tuesday and Saturday at 2:00 p.m.

Bethpage Turnpike and vicinity, 1859. Library of Congress.

In 1852, the stockholders of Hempstead Turnpike Company sold the road to the Hempstead and Jamaica Plank Road Company. Improvements would come through the setting of wooden planks over the dirt, as supported by New York State’s Plank Road Act of 1847. Although rudimentary by today’s standards, this innovation was popular before the Civil War and greatly improved transportation along the turnpike. The New York State legislature passed a law in April 1859 that authorized the company to collect higher fees as soon as planking was completed along the route. The law stated that for each mile traveled by wagons, or otherwise, drawn by one horse, mule or ox, the sum of one and one quarter cent per mile, and for each additional horse, mule or ox, the sum of one and one-quarter cent per mile. It was common for turnpikes to collect tolls on animals and not people, as many people used the roads to drive their livestock. The number of chickens, sheep or other animals one had with him determined the amount. The toll booth in East Meadow was run by the Carman family and was located on the north side of Hempstead-Bethpage Turnpike, just west of Carman Avenue.

In March 1882, the charter of the Hempstead and Jamaica Plank Road Company expired, and the original Hempstead Turnpike corporation met to try to reorganize. A lengthy court case ensued over its ownership; by 1891, the road seems to have been public once again. It was further modernized through macadamizing, which is the laying of crushed stone as pavement, and became a county road in 1896. Bethpage Turnpike Company surrendered its charter to the town in May 1888 and was incorporated into the county system in 1897, paving the way for an improved gravel roadbed. By the time the U.S. Highway System was established in the 1920s, public roads had become the norm. New York State incorporated Hempstead-Bethpage Turnpike as Route 24 into its new state highway system soon thereafter.

COMMON LANDS NO MORE: STEWART’S PURCHASE

For about two hundred years, local farmers kept their livestock in the Common Lands of the Hempstead Plains, a tremendous area of native grasslands. The Plains stretched across the center of eastern Queens County, and the lands were owned by the Town of Hempstead for public use. The common lands were shared for grazing purposes in the East Meadow Hollow, through which the brook flowed. The first land division took place in 1647, three years after the town was established with all lands held in common. Sixty-six men received the first allotments, with further divisions of the remaining 6,213 acres authorized after 1723. Townsfolk did not rush to divide the land but rather advertised privilege of Common when selling farms as private property. From 1659 on, landowners on the edge of the Plains were required to keep gates and fences around the Common Lands in good shape and were rewarded with grazing privileges proportionate to the number of sections they maintained. A law that year stated that all the fences of ye frontiere lotts that runne into ye fields, shall be substantially and sufficiently fenced or fines would be imposed.

Each year, East Meadow farmers let their cattle and sheep roam freely within these fences until the last Monday in October. On Parting Day, as it would come to be known, farmers collected their animals for the winter. In colonial times, the town supported a Cow-Keeper, paid in butter and money, to oversee the distribution based on officially recorded earmarks. The hamlet would prove essential to townsfolk because the commodity and advantage of the Inhabitants greatly depends on having access to the Publick wattering-places at the East Meadow. Such a bold statement from 1761 Town of Hempstead records caused leaders to act, authorizing paid positions to protect grasslands and lay out public highways there, for there is some probability of Incroachments being made by some persons for their private Interest in Stoping up and Imbarrising the water to the great Damage of the Publick.

In 1862, a state law permitted towns to sell their common lands, but Hempstead Town’s settlers were unconvinced of the benefits. It was East Meadow’s most well-known woman, Sarah Ann Barnum, who orchestrated the sale. Known as the eighth [honorary] member of the Queens County Board of Supervisors, her considerable political influence is notable. She was responsible for convincing settlers to approve the sale of the Hempstead Plains that would pave the way for considerable East Meadow, and Town of Hempstead, development in return for a large sum of public money for school and welfare purposes. The public needed to decide whether to sell the public lands to speculator Charles Harvey for $42 per acre or wealthy New York City businessman Alexander Turney Stewart for $55 per acre. The main difference, aside from a price difference of $97,500, was what each purchaser would