Brief History of Heckscher Park

George Campbell Taylor was the son of the wealthy merchant and banker Moses Taylor. After acquiring the Plumb estate, George and his common-law-wife/housekeeper Betsy Head alternately stayed at the Plumb and Taylor mansions. They became despondent and turned to alcohol when Betsy’s eighteen-year-old daughter Lena married their gardener. Local lore has it that Taylor’s alcoholism became so acute that he was unable to climb the stairs to his second-floor bedroom and resorted to drinking himself into a stupor in a log cabin on the estate George and Betsy died in 1907 within three months of each other but not before disinheriting Lena, whose husband went on to be the foreman at William Kissam Vanderbilt, Jr.’s Lake Success estate 'Deepdale'.

When George C. Taylor died, his eighteen heirs decided to sell his estate. The originally agreed to sell the estate to the park commission. Neighbors opposed to a park, formed a land company and offered the same price, the heirs decided to sell to them instead. The park commission replied by condemning the place. The land company went to court to prevent the park commission from taking it on the grounds that, although the state had voted for the funds, it had not actually raised the money yet.

The court agreed with the land company and declared the condemnation illegal. While this trial was still going on, the land company brought up another suit, trying to force the park commission to get off the property and pay damages for having been there.

August Heckscher came to the rescue with a gift to the state of $262,000. The park commission once more condemned the land. The land company brought up another suit. One lawsuit followed another. Whatever one court decided, an appeal was made to a higher court. Before it was over, there were twenty-five appeals, the State Legislature had been called into special session, and the funds for the parks throughout the state had been shut off.

The biggest land acquisition fight in the United States at that time ended at the United States Supreme Court. The parks commission won and the park, named after August Heckscher opened in 1929.

Sources:

L., Zach. “Old Long Island.” The George C. Taylor Estate, 1 Jan. 1970, www.oldlongisland.com/2011/04/george-c-taylor-estate.html.

Overton, Jacqueline. Long Island’s Story. Ira J. Friedman Inc., 1961.