A Brief History of the Village of Woodsburgh by Millicent D. Vollono
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Centennial Anniversary 1912-2012 A Brief History of the Village of Woodsburgh by Millicent D. Vollono VILLAGE OF WOODSBURGH 2013 ELECTED OFFICIALS MAYOR LEE A. ISRAEL DEPUTY MAYOR GARY GOFFNER TRUSTEE CARL CAYNE TRUSTEE LEE A. ISRAEL TRUSTEE EDMOND MUKAMAL TRUSTEE JACOB HARMAN OFFICE STAFF VILLAGE CLERK MICHELLE BLANDINO DEPUTY VILLAGE CLERK JANICE BRENNAN SECRETARY MARY LONG HAENLEIN VILLAGE COURT VILLAGE JUSTICE, ELECTED BRIAN ZIEGLER ACTING VILLAGE JUSTICE CAROL F. ISAAC COURT CLERK JANICE BRENNAN DEPUTY COURT CLERK JANICE BRENNAN PROSECUTING ATTORNEY STANLEY KOPILOW Culluloo Telewana Monument, Wood Lane, Woodsburgh According to a New York Times article (9/15/1895) Culluloo Telewana, believed to be the last of the Rockaway Indians, taught local boys woodcraft and fishing and conducted them through the forest during the early years of the Nineteenth Century. When Abraham Hewlett became a successful businessman, he resolved to commemorate the life of his friend, who died in 1818 and was buried in an unknown place in the woods. The monument was completed in 1888, the same day that Abraham Hewlett died. Originally located at Broadway near Linden Street in Woodmere, where Culluloo’s hut had been situated, it was moved in 1901 with the development of the surrounding land by Robert Burton. Local historian William S. Pettit convinced William Howes Burton, Robert’s brother, to deed over a small triangle of land on Woods Lane in Woodsburgh and the monument was relocated. Historians now question whether Culluloo was native American or an escaped black slave, known as “Colored Lou.” The inscription on the 8- foot tall obelisk-shaped granite stone reads: Here lived and died/"Culluloo Telewana,/A.D.1818/the last of the Rockaway/Iriquois (sic) Indians/who was personally/known to me in my boyhood./I, owning the land, have/erected this monument/to him and his tribe./"Abraham Hewlett,/1888" At the end of a life reminiscent of a Horatio Alger story, entrepreneur Samuel Wood (1795-1878) left an estate of about $2 million. It was quite a fortune for a man who had been raised on a farm in the Rockaways on Long Island’s South Shore. Samuel and his three brothers had lived on their family’s Rockaway farm before they departed in 1814 to make their fortune as successful Manhattan liquor merchants. The brothers pledged to never marry and, as each died, to bequeath his property to the remaining brothers. Samuel inherited the fortune in 1868 and began to acquire Rockaway farmland in the area known as Brower’s Point1 to fulfill his dream of improving the community of his childhood. Prior to the Civil War, the rural Rockaways were connected to main population centers by a stage coach route which followed old Indian trails. The expansion of the South Side and Long Island Railroads coupled with the establishment of service to the beach resorts in the Rockaways were the catalysts for the development of communities along the railroads’ “Rockaway Branch.” Samuel Wood joined other major landowners such as the Hewlett family, the Marsh brothers (Samuel and Thomas) and the Lawrence brothers (Newbold, Alfred and George) in donating land to the South Side Rail Road. Between 1868 and 1869 the wooden stations erected on that land ensured that their communities would be stops on the new route. Those locales today comprise the area known as Long Island’s Five Towns, encompassing the municipalities of Hewlett, Woodmere, Cedarhurst, Lawrence and Inwood. Wood’s station was known as Woodsburgh until the establishment of a post office in 1890, when the name “Woodmere” was adopted to avoid confusion with another Long Island village. But for most of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these were known as “The Branch.” As Wood’s vision for the improvement of Woodsburgh progressed, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle chronicled the hiring of work crews for the project, which would engage Wood for the rest of his life, beginning with laying out the Boulevard, which stretched from the main thoroughfare (Broadway) to the bay.2 One hundred and fifty men worked steadily through the winter of 1869-70 so the resort could be opened the following summer. The first structure to be built was a board and batten railroad depot, followed by the Grand Hotel or Pavilion, a smaller hotel (later called the Neptune), and five cottages. The Pavilion, a handsome and well-appointed hostelry in the fashionable French Second Empire mode with encompassing piazzas, could accommodate four hundred guests, while the Neptune across Broadway lodged a hundred. .At least twenty 25’ x 40’ cottages were built on either side of the grand Boulevard. A half mile long and eighty feet wide, with sidewalks and shade trees on both sides, the graded road was the first of many which would link the Rockaway villages and bring visitors to Mr. Wood’s new paradise. Far Rockaway’s fashionable Marine Pavillion (1833-1864) had set the standard for the area’s luxury seaside resorts and for thirty years attracted the rich and famous to the area. Within a few years, neighboring Lawrence Beach boasted resort hotels such as the Osborne House (1884-1900) and the Isle of Wight Hotel, which eventually eclipsed the aging Woodsburgh Pavilion. Figure 1 Woodsburgh Pavilion (Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library Collection) As more of New York’s business community summered in the area, the Rockaway Hunting Club (founded in 1878 as the Rockaway Hunt Club) became the center of social activity. Originally formed around equestrian pursuits, the club’s elite membership included prominent figures in finance and industry. Since many resided in New York City, they stayed in Club facilities when visiting in the Rockaways. The original clubhouse, which was built in 1884, was destroyed by fire less than a decade later. The building which replaced it was designed by architect and club member James Monroe Hewlett. Considered to be the largest and best appointed clubhouse on Long Island, it overlooked a polo field, four-mile steeplechase course and Reynolds Channel. By the turn of the century, as the surrounding countryside became more inhabited, the nature of the club changed. Polo, golf and tennis replaced fox hunting when it was discontinued and, as the Club’s membership increased, more city dwellers discovered the beauty of Long Island’s South Shore. Summer rentals abounded as the elaborate “cottages” and accompanying amenities were marketed to affluent vacationers, and quickly established the area as a viable alternative to Long Branch, NJ and Newport, RI. In what Cromwell Childe refers to as the “third stage” of post-Civil War rural development3, many Club members invested in real estate and built their own country houses on the land surrounding the Hunting Club and the exclusive Isle of Wight in Lawrence. Although Samuel Wood had made provision for the posthumous establishment of a hospital and music conservatory, his will was successfully challenged in the decades following his death. By the time Abraham Hewlett, Wood’s nephew and heir, died in 1899, most of the estate had been consumed in legal fees. According to Bellot’s History of the Rockaways , the Woodmere Land Improvement Company was formed at this time to manage the interests of the various land owners. Local residents Divine Hewlett, Thomas W. Martin, Joseph S. Wright, George M. Hewlett, Edward Schenck and Julian T. Davies were active in the endeavor. Within a year Robert L. Burton, a Manhattan industrialist and Rockaway Hunting Club member, offered to buy the entire town from the company, ostensibly for his personal use4; and negotiations began in earnest. Events threatened to derail as some residents held out for better terms, but in the end, the transaction was completed at a cost of $130,000 and Burton expanded his initial purchase by procuring the adjacent Figure 2 Robert L. Burton (right) with his chauffeur, Michael Morrisey (photo courtesy of Nassau George Hewlett farm. Robert Lewis Burton was born in County Dept. of Parks, Recreation & Museums) New York City, on February 28, 1861, the second son of Josiah Howes and Lucia (Clark) Burton. After a public school education, he embarked on a business career and until his retirement from the firm in 1909, he was a partner in Burton Brothers, a textile firm founded by his elder brother, Frank V. Burton. While elaborate country houses had been built in the neighboring hamlets of Cedarhurst and Lawrence, the area formerly known as Woodsburgh had, by 1901, lost its panache as a resort and Burton decided to reinvent it by razing the hotel and demolishing or relocating the remaining buildings. The Pavilion, which had been closed for about four years, was torn down in July of that year and by August any homes which had not been demolished were moved to other sites in the village. Eight frame cottages, surrounding the pavillion [sic] have been moved back to sites near the railroad track and in their former sites five handsome modern brick and stone cottages, plans for which are already made, are soon to be built. This however, is but a beginning of the work to be done. Over a hundred men are at work laying out winding roads built of Peekskill gravel and serpentine walks. The whole tract will be seeded down into a velvety lawn, and trees and shrubs will be set out in all parts of the grounds.5 Burton built his own home, Albro House, adjacent to the Rockaway Hunting Club, around 1900. He lived there with his wife, the former Florence Southwood Crawford and their three children: Florence, Louisa and Crawford for at least ten years. John Howes Burton, Robert’s younger brother, is an interesting character in his own right.