Pepperidge Hall - Oakdale

Pepperidge Hall was the estate of Christopher Robert in Oakdale. The house was built in 1889 for his bride at the cost of $1,500,000. The Robert home was one of the three most famous residences on the South Shore.  A large inner courtyard with a 30′ by 50′ pool and fountain dominated the plan, and a 109-foot glass conversancy stood on the west side of the rectangle. Stepped gables, turrets, bay windows, numerous chimneys, stables, a dairy and carriage house were showcased. The house itself consisted of four wings with 67 rooms and accommodations for 20 servants. A conservatory was built to the west of the house. The Roberts lived at the estate for seven years before selling it.

The Roberts were the first and last to live at the house, It passed through the hands of numerous caretakers through the years. The house was used for a time as a hunting lodge and for an experiment in the raising of silk worms indoors directed by Dr. Ludwig Harpootlian.. Several silent films utilized the mansion as a backdrop, including “Lady Slippers”, “To Hell with the Kaiser”, and “Dead Men Tell No Tales.”

In 1939, it was supposed to be acquired by the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians as a rest and study retreat for its members., but that fell through. The house and property were finally sold in 1941. The house was razed and the property was cut up into building lots.

Sources: 

"METAPHYSICIANS BAR DEAL: PURCHASE OF PEPPERIDGE HALL IS DROPPED IN CONTRACT DISPUTE." New York Times. December 10, 1939

“Proud Suffolk Chateau Doomed by Progress.” Brooklyn Eagle. January 19, 1941

"To Raze Old Long Island Home." New York Times. January 11, 1941 

“2D Estate Bought by Metaphysicians; Pepperidge Hall, Once Famous Long Island Residence, Is Purchased for $15,000 to be a New Haven. The 65-Acre Tract Is Near the Vanderbilt Property Acquired by Society Last Year.”  New York Times. August 4, 1939

“A Vanished Gilded Age Mansion - The Saga of Pepperidge Hall.” The Abandoned Places, 23 Mar. 2021,   theabandonedplaces.com/a-vanished-gilded-age-mansion-the-saga-of-pepperidge-hall/

The Cuban Giants Baseball Team

The Cuban Giants were the first African American professional baseball club. The Giants were formed in 1885 at the Argyle Hotel in Babylon. The team took its name because it played in Cuba during the winter of 1885-1886 and the winter of 1886-1887. The team featured many players who would go on to play in the Negro Baseball Leagues including Ben Boyd, Sol White, Abe Harrison, Clarence Williams, and George Williams among others. During the spring of 1886, the Cuban Giants were bought by Walter E. Simpson who played at the Chambersburg Grounds in Trenton, New Jersey.

During the summer 1886, the team was sold to Walter L. Cook. During that time, the Giants signed legendary pitcher George Washington Stovey but he played only one game with the Giants. Like many owner-managers of this era, Cook took over the job of booking games for the team. The average pay for pitchers and catchers on the team was $18.00 per week. Outfielders and infielders made around $12.00 per week. During the winter of 1886, Cook arranged for the Giants to play in Cuba.

In June 1887, J.M Bright bought the team from Walter Cook. During the same year, the team would become colored champions for 1887. A year later, they would win the colored championship again when they defeated rival teams including the Pittsburgh Keystones, New York Gorhams, and Norfolk Red Sox. In 1889, the Cuban Giants joined the Middle States League, an independent minor baseball league. In 1890, the team name changed to the Colored Monarchs of York, Pennsylvania because they moved there. A year later, a portion of the Cuban Giants went to a rival team called the Gorhams who was managed by S.K. Govern. In 1896, the team was bought by E.B. Lamar Jr. and became the Cuban X-Giants. 

The Cuban X Giants became a dominating force at the turn of the century. Led by a young pitcher named Rube Foster, they won the Colored World Championship in 1903, defeating the Philadelphia Giants, five games to two. Foster pitched in four of those victories, and he would later become more widely known for his executive contributions to the sport, eventually earning the moniker, “Father of Black Baseball.”

In the winter of 1903, the club became the first African-American professional baseball team to play in Cuba, and two years later it became the first black baseball team to defeat a Major League team. While they ended up splitting a two-game series against the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Cuban X Giants sent a message by outscoring their MLB counterparts, 8-3. The team became a founding member of the National Association of Colored Baseball Clubs of the United States and Cuba, established in 1906. The team continued to exist until it was disbanded in 1915.

Sources:

Cuban Giants (1885-1915) | Blackpast.Org, www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/the-cuban-giants-1885-1915/. Accessed 1 Aug. 2025

“The Cuban X Giants of the Negro Leagues.” MLB.Com, www.mlb.com/history/negro-leagues/teams/cuban-x-giants. Accessed 1 Aug. 2025

Box Hill Estate - St. James

 Box Hill was an estate owned and designed by Stanford White with the help of McKim & Mead between 1884-1906 in St. James. White had married Bessie Smith of Smithtown in 1884 and purchased a small house in neighboring St. James. White apparently later regretted not tearing the house down to begin with and starting fresh but would go on build numerous additions over twenty years.

The house was originally a farmhouse. Stanford enlarged it several times after his wife received a large inheritance, around 1884. In 1903, he covered the entire building in “pebble dash” (rocks pressed into mortar). When it came to the interiors, Stanford was a compulsive purchaser. He collected temple ornaments from Japan, carpets from Turkey, tiles from Holland and mashrabiya screens from Morocco. Then, he filled rooms with as many pieces as could fit. 

The dining room is covered in anaglypta, which is paper pressed to look like paneling. Repeated freezing and thawing - Box Hill had no heating system until 1938 - caused the paint on the anaglypta to develop a crackle finish. 

The estate features a one-story verandah defined by a range of fluted columns. Also on the property are a cottage, barn, carriage house, stable, and water tower. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Its current owner is Stanford’s great-grandson Daniel White, who bought it from his parents and has been restoring it for more than 20 years.

Sources:

Bernstein, Fred A. “Tour the Houses of Stanford White with the Revered Architect’s Great-Grandson.” 1stDibs Introspective, 13 Feb. 2021, www.1stdibs.com/introspective-magazine/samuel-white-stanford-white/

“Box Hill Estate.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Jan. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_Hill_Estate

L., Zach. “Box Hill.” Old Long Island, www.oldlongisland.com/2010/05/box-hill.html. Accessed 10 July 2025

Jackson House - Wantagh

Robert Jackson came from Connecticut to Wantagh around 1644 and had acquired land in the area and for three centuries it remained in the family.  

The Jackson homestead, which sits on 1542 Wantagh Ave., was built by Samuel Jackson in the mid-18th century and was the main house on the farm. The home features a main central hearth with a room on each side and a sleeping loft.

Elbert Jackson acquired the property in the early nineteenth century and enlarged the house by attaching a much larger, 2-story wood frame house in Greek Revival style to the south end of the original farmhouse. The new part of the house allowed for more formal spaces with a central hall layout. A kitchen wing was added onto the north end of the house in the early twentieth century, and the main entrance was framed by a small classical looking porch with a pediment and two columns.

Elbert’s wife Elizabeth inherited the house and it was sold out of the family in 1899 after her death. After a series of short-term owners, Charles Bradley purchased the house in 1909 and added the large bay window and interior partitions with Corinthian columns. In 1936, Bradley sold the house to another family, the Hummels, who lived there until 1967. After that point, the parcel was sold to a developer who subdivided its associated land for new residential construction.

The Samuel and Elbert Jackson House stands on the last remnant of the Samuel Jackson farm; the rest is essentially now a residential subdivision of mainly twentieth-century homes. The Jackson House was listed for sale and was purchased in December 2020. The 5-bedroom, 3.5-bath house was described as a center hall federal period colonial with 4 fireplaces, a home office, wide plank pine flooring, and secret gardens on the circa half-acre lot.

 

Sources:

O’Connor-Arena, Melissa. “The Jackson Homestead.” Wantagh-Seaford, NY Patch, Patch, 19 Nov. 2010, patch.com/new-york/wantagh/the-jackson-homestead.

Paonessa, Laurie. "Samuel and Elbert Jackson House." Clio: Your Guide to History. May 7, 2021. Accessed June 21, 2025. https://theclio.com/entry/133236

“Wantagh Preservation Society.” Wantagh Preservation Society and the Wantagh Museum, www.wantagh.li/museum/. Accessed 21 June 2025.

D-Day Anniversary

 

In 2019, we had the honor of interviewing two World War II veterans. Sharing these interviews in honor of the anniversary of D-Day.

 

           

      

edward dionian   
August 10, 1921 - August 3, 2021
Interviewed July 18, 2019

https://nyheritage.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15281coll40/id/409/rec/4

 

SALVATORE CITRANO

SEPTEMBER 30,1925 – MAY 3, 2021

INTERVIEWED JULY 9, 2019

 

https://nyheritage.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15281coll40/id/362/rec/2

St. Andrew's Dune Church - Southampton

Originally created as a Life Saving Service Station, St. Andrew’s Church was saved in 1879 by five families. The founders, Dr. T. Gaillard Thomas, William S. Hoyt, C. Wyllys Betts, Frederic H. Betts, and Dr. Albert H. Buck, changed the name, by resolution, to Saint Andrew’s Dune Church in 1884. To this day, the church interior includes passages of scripture that remind parishioners of the building’s original purpose. For 141 years, the church has been open for sixteen weeks during the summer season.

The church was incorporated under the laws of the state of New York in 1854 as a free church. The Shields on the wall have been given in memory of deceased Trustees, whereas the Memorial Tablets are devoted to family members and distinguished former parishioners. The American flag at the altar has only 45 stars because it was a service flag from returning soldiers of World War I. 

The stained-glass windows range from breathtaking opalescent-glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany and John La Farge to Pre-Raphaelite-inspired panels by the British firm Heaton, Butler & Bayne to lushly floral windows by Bostonian Wilbur Herbert Burnham, and Stephen Hannock’s opalescent-glass landscape window, installed in 2020

In September of 1938, a hurricane slammed into the East Coast. It passed directly over the church and the church was almost completely wiped out. Many pews and the organ were washed into Lake Agawam across the street and several stained-glass windows were lost, including two of the eleven original signed Tiffany windows.

In 1995, the church was moved slightly to the north and west and placed on a new foundation. 

The land surrounding the Dune Church represents some of the last surviving dunescape in the Village of Southampton. The grounds of the church are planted under the direction of the Southampton Garden Club.

Source: 

“History.” St. Andrew’s Dune Church, www.standrewsdunechurch.com/history. Accessed 23 May 2025. 

Farmingdale Little League

 

 

This was from the July 17, 1952 Farmingdale Post. On June 28, 1952, opening ceremonies were held, starting with a parade. The teams were organized into Major and Minor Leagues. About 200 boys signed up that year, with four teams in the Major League and four teams in the Minor League. Republic Aviation sponsored a team and lent the services of their recreation director Oscar Frowein.

The league caught on immediately and in the years 1962-1964, 2,400 boys enrolled in the program. In 1954, a second league was formed, known as the American League. The original group was known as the National League. Shortly after, both leagues were expanded from four teams each to six teams. A third league was formed in 1956. There were 18 teams total in the group. There were also 18 teams in the “AAA” group and Class A group.

By 1967, two programs were designated for specific age ranges. The Pony group consisted of 13 & 14-year-olds, while the Colt group consisted of 15 &16-year olds. The group that controls the leagues was re-named the Farmingdale Baseball League Inc.

There are also five Softball Leagues starting with Farm for 5& 6 and 7 & 8-year olds and then Girls Minors, Girls Majors, Girls Seniors, and Girls Inter-League. There is also a special league called the Greendogs. The Greendogs are comprised each year of a select group of ballplayers who not only excel on the baseball diamond, but have also shown outstanding sportsmanship, determination, and a true commitment to the game. The Baseball groups range from 7-13-year olds and the Softball groups range from 8-16-year olds.

 

 

Sources:

 

“Farmingdale Baseball League.” https://fdalebaseball.com

“Little League.” Farmingdale Post. May 29, 1952

“Little League Season Will Open Officially on June 28.” Farmingdale Post. June 12, 1952