The Battle of Long Island

 The Battle of Long Island took place in August 1776 and was a victory for the British. In terms of troop deployment and fighting, it was the largest battle of the entire war.

General George Washington brought the Continental Army to defend the port city of New York, which was the southern end of Manhattan Island at the time.

In July, the British landed on Staten Island. They began to reinforce their troops with by ships in Lower New York Bay, bringing their total force to 32,000 troops. Washington moved the bulk of his forces to Manhattan, believing that it would be the first target.

On August 27, the British attacked American defenses on the Guan Heights. Unknown to the Patriots, however, Howe had brought his main army around their rear and attacked their flank soon after. The Patriots panicked, resulting in 20% losses through casualties and captures. The remainder of the army retreated to the main defenses on Brooklyn Heights.

Shortly after fighting began, the British cornered Washington and his men in Brooklyn Heights. He was surrounded on all sides with the East River to his back and no feasible means of winning the battle. Instead of surrendering, Washington evacuated the army and retreated to Manhattan. Washington’s failure there left New York firmly in British hands until the end of the war.

 

 

Sources Cited:

 “Battle of Long Island.” American Revolutionary War, American Revolutionary War, 13 Jan. 2018, revolutionarywar.us/year-1776/battle-long-island/

“Brooklyn Battle Facts and Summary.” American Battlefield Trust, www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/brooklyn

Milleridge Inn

 In 1672, a house consisting of two rooms and a central fireplace was built by Mary Willets in Jericho.  The house was used to quarter British & Hessian troops. The house was expanded, adding an upstairs, a scullery, and barns and stables. In 1770, Elias Hicks married Jemima Seaman, great-granddaughter to Mary Willets. In 1783, Elias opened his home to travelers. The food served was very simple: stews, fish, meat, and bread. After dinner, the travelers were invited to spread their bedrolls around the heart and spend the night.

A fire struck the house, with it being badly damaged and several members of the resident family perished. The original section of the house was relatively unscathed, but the top floor with the bedrooms needed to be completely rebuilt. The structure continued to be used as a family home as well as an inn until the 1900’s. The Milleridge Inn opened in what was once the historic wayfarer’s inn over 50 years ago. In 2016, Butch Yamali, owner of the Dover Group and attorney Anthony Capetola, who owns Carltun on the Park in East Meadow, bought the Inn and formed Milleridge Ventures.

The original rooms and fireplace still stands and can be seen ahead and to the left of the present main entrance. Over the course of decades, guests and staff have witnessed unexplained phenomena like doors closing, baby cradles swaying, chairs rocking, full apparitions manifesting, phantom touches and many other paranormal activity. There is a child’s footprint permanently marked in the hardwood flooring on the second floor, which staff claims it continuously reappears, even after the floor has been stripped, sanded and buffed, for many years.

 

Sources:

“Haunted Long Island: The Milleridge Inn.” The Witching Hour, 18 Oct. 2011, 4girlsandaghost.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/haunted-long-island-the-milleridge-inn

Hinko, Christy. “Conjuring Milleridge Inn Spirits.” Long Island Weekly, 20 Oct. 2021, longislandweekly.com/schellshock/. 

“History of Milleridge.” Milleridge, milleridgeinn.com/wp-content/themes/milleridge-child/History_of_Milleridge.pdf. Accessed 7 Aug. 2023

Winzelberg, David. “New Owners Take Over Milleridge Inn.” Long Island Business News, 4 Jan. 2016, libn.com/2016/01/04/new-owners-take-over-milleridge-inn

Halsey House

Thomas Halsey Sr., one of Southampton’s founders, and his family built the first farmhouse after arriving in 1640. The current house was built c. 1683 by Thomas Halsey Jr. who inherited his father’s property and used wood frame timbers from his father’s house to build his own. The house remained in the Halsey family for several generations. Visitors who pass through the weathered front door find the wide-planked floors, hand-hewn beams, furnishings, textiles and objects that were the backdrop for domestic farm life in colonial times. Outside, the culinary and medicinal plants that were once household necessities flourish in a replication of a colonial herb garden.

The 1677 will of Thomas Halsey Sr. describes his house as having a "porch chamber," which would have been the upper room of a two-story enclosed porch projecting from the chimney bay and containing the front entrance on the first floor. 

Isaac Halsey reconstituted his father's nine acre home lot when he acquired his brother's five-acre share in 1691. The house changed hands many times over the years.  In 1695, Isaac sold the southerly 2 1/2 acres of his home lot to Richard Howell. In 1697, Josiah Howell sold to Jonathan Raynor half of the 2 1/2 acres he had purchased from Isaac Halsey. Jonathan left all the land to his son Hugh. By 1800, Hugh’s son, James, owned the Halsey House. In 1812, James Raynor sold this twenty-acre parcel with the Halsey House to Elias Pelletreau. Maltby Pelletreau, who had inherited the parcel from his father, transferred the twenty acres in 1833 to a group of four men (Daniel Fordham, James Scott, Isaac Sayre, Jr. and Henry Reeves). In 1839 this group (now consisting of Henry and Emily Reeve, Isaac and Eliza Sayre, Jesse Reeves and Gilbert and Fanny Carll) sold the twenty-acre parcel to Oliver White. Thomas Nicholas White inherited the land when his father, Oliver, died in 1842. Thomas N. White and Nancy R. White sold a 2 1/4 acre parcel containing the Halsey House to Arthur J. Peabody on August 3, 1886. In 1958, John Tillotson Wainwright III, Arthur Peabody's great- grandson, sold the Halsey House on a .7 acre parcel to the Southampton Colonial Society.

During the late eighteenth-century, the Halsey House was remodeled. Casement windows were replaced with plank-frame windows having up-and-down sash and the interior was modernized with plaster ceilings and fielded paneling on the walls. The Southampton Colonial Society undertook a project to install new three-foot shingles on the Halsey House in 1999. By the fall of 2000, the frame was repaired and the new shingles installed.

The grounds are always open to the public from dawn to dusk but tours of the home are by appointment only. 

Sources:

Flanagan, Connor. “Halsey House - Historic Structure Report, 2014.” Southampton, 8 Sept. 2020, www.southamptonhistory.org/post/halsey-house-historic-structure-report-2014

“Halsey House & Garden: Southampton History.” Southampton, www.southamptonhistory.org/hhgarden. Accessed 28 July 2023

Brookwood Hall

 Brookwood Hall, a grand Georgian Revival house built in 1903, is now home to Islip town offices, the Islip Art Museum, and the Islip Arts Council, but was once a private home and then an orphanage. The orphanage, part of the Orphan Asylum Society of the City of Brooklyn, moved to East Islip in 1942. It closed in 1965 when foster homes became prevalent. 

Brookwood Hall was built next to a lake in 1903 as a summer home for the affluent Knapp family. It was designed by the renowned New York architectural firm Delano & Aldrich. The 41-room mansion’s site was over 80 acres.

 During the second owner’s residency starting in 1929, the Thorne family threw grand parties with live music in the ballroom. The town purchased it in 1967 to prevent its being torn down and developed. The 41-room Georgian Revival house fell into disrepair, with peeling paint and deteriorating structures. It was restored in 2019.

In the early ’70s, the Islip Art Museum was initially the Islip Art Gallery. Founded by Elizabeth Vaughn, an art patron from Islip, the original institution was located in a crumbling gatehouse at the entrance of Brookwood Hall. The gallery featured changing exhibits of contemporary art by Long Island artists. After the gatehouse burned, the gallery moved to the south wing of the Brookwood Hall mansion where it is still housed today.

The Town of Islip placed a historical marker at the site in 2001.

Sources: 

“Brookwood Hall.” Angie Carpenter, 19 Oct. 2019, angiecarpenter.com/brookwood-hall-a-ballroom-comes-back-to-life

“Islip Art Museum.” About IAM, www.islipartmuseum.org/about.html. Accessed 11 July 2023

Jacobson, Aileen. “Grand House, Home to Many, Reveals Itself.” The New York Times, 23 Oct. 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/nyregion/24artsli.html

Hempstead House

 Hempstead House is one of four mansions on the grounds of the Guggenheim Estate, which also includes Castle Gould, Falaise and Mille Fleur. The Tudor-style castle served as a summer residence for the family.

It was designed by architects Hunt & Hunt in 1912. This 50,000-square-foot three-story mansion is 225 feet long and 135 feet wide. It has 40 rooms, including a 60-foot-tall entry foyer. Inside the foyer, the imposing vaulted ceiling illustrates the extraordinary lifestyle of the roaring 1920s and 1930s. The foyer’s magnificent Wurlitzer Opus 445 Theatre Organ is fully restored. 

The library was copied from the palace of King James I and portraits of literary figures still decorate its ceiling. The Billiard Room originally featured a gold leaf ceiling, hand-tooled leather wall coverings, and carved oak woodwork from a 17th-Century Spanish palace.

The sunken Palm Court once contained 150 species of rare orchids, plants and potted trees. An aviary housed exotic birds in ornate cages among the flowers. On the mezzanine level is the Breakfast Room with leaded windows on three sides overlooking the park grounds. All of the rooms on the second floor have carved fireplaces and are detailed with plaster trim on the walls and ceilings, each in a unique style.

After Daniel Guggenheim’s death in 1930, his wife Florence closed Hempstead House and built the fourth mansion on the property, Mille Fleur, a smaller waterside home for herself. Hempstead House’s furnishings were sold in 1940, and Florence opened the mansion to children evacuated from the war in Europe until foster homes could be found for them. In 1942, she donated 162 acres of the estate to the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences. The U.S. Navy purchased the property in 1946 for a Naval Training Device Center, and, in 1971, the property was acquired by Nassau County.

Today, Hempstead House is used for concerts, lectures, and private events, such as weddings.

Source:

“Hempstead House.” Sands Point Preserve, sandspointpreserveconservancy.org/about/hempstead-house/. Accessed 23 June 2023

St. George's Church Hempstead

St. George’s Church was founded in 1704 and was supported by the wealthy farmers in the surrounding countryside. The church’s early members included names are well known on Long Island: the Conklins and Carmans; Hewletts and Seamans. 

St. George’s consists of the church building itself, which was built in 1822. Across Front Street is the rectory, which dates from 1793. The church was first occupied by the Yankees early in 1776, then by the redcoats from mid-1776 until 1783. For much of the war, Hempstead was occupied by the British who apparently didn’t treat it well. A story told is that the church’s weather vane was used for target practice by Hessian soldiers. After the war, St. George’s changed both their name -from Anglican to Episcopalian and their service (for example, not having prayers for the King). 

Many of the most important figures in the history of Nassau County were members of the church and they were buried under it or on the grounds starting in 1724. Amy Vacchio, working at Rock Hall Museum became frustrated at the lack of knowledge of who was buried in the cemetery. Working with the Rev. Ajung Sojwal and Matt Longo, a part-time archivist at Rock Hall, Vacchio has established Friends of Historic St. George Cemetery. The church records were all digitized and placed online.

Vacchio and Longo are searching the archives of the church to identify many of the 700 people believed to have been interred in the cemetery and to decipher where they were buried; a task made difficult because of gravestones that are missing or severely damaged. From that, a map was being created of the cemetery and also placed online.

The current building contains oak interior columns that were dragged across the Hempstead Plains by horse, then hewn and installed in the sanctuary. More than one of the beautiful stained glass windows was designed by Tiffany Studios.

Sources:

Bleyer, Bill. “Volunteers, Church Work to Restore St. George’s Cemetery.” Newsday, 31 May 2022, www.newsday.com/long-island/li-life/efforts-revitalize-historic-st-georges-cemetery-r8hnpr9a

Hanc, John. “History and Time Flip the Script at Hempstead Church.” Newsday, 28 Jan. 2018, www.newsday.com/long-island/li-life/hempstead-st-george-s-church-n73143

“St. George’s Episcopal Church (Hempstead, New York).” Wikipedia, 12 Aug. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George%27s_Episcopal_Church_(Hempstead,_New_York)

Denton House/McDonald's

 

Long Island’s Denton House, an 18th-century farmhouse that was converted into a Georgian-style mansion in the 1860s, houses perhaps the grandest McDonald’s restaurant on the planet. Built in 1795 as a family dwelling, it once served as the farmhouse of Joseph Denton, a descendent of Rev. Richard Denton, one of the founders of the town of Hempstead, New York. The house served a variety of functions over the years, including a funeral home and a string of restaurants. The building, however, fell into disrepair in the latter half of the 20th century. In 1985, McDonald’s purchased the property and planned to raze the structure, but residents of the town and the surrounding area intervened, hoping to save the building from the wrecking ball.

By 1988, local preservations campaign succeeded in getting the Denton House designated as a historic site. Unable to demolish the building, McDonald’s came up with a brilliant compromise that made everyone happy: the company would invest several million dollars into restoring the house, in exchange for permission to build a drive-thru. The locals agreed, the permits were granted, and the transformation began.

Long Island’s most beautiful McDonald’s opened its doors to the public in 1991, with a fully refurbished interior that honored its history while still being a functional fast food restaurant. One of the highlights of the restaurant is the home’s veranda, which serves as a dining area and is sealed in with glass paneling. Even the drive-thru is unobtrusive and in keeping with the home’s overall appearance. 

 

Sources:

“Bite into History at the McMansion, Long Island’s Fanciest McDonald’s.” ABC7 New York, 2 July 2021, abc7ny.com/mcmansion-mcdonalds-the-denton-house-landmark/10851005

 “Denton House McDonald’s.” Atlas Obscura, 8 July 2013, www.atlasobscura.com/places/denton-house-mcdonalds

Robicelli, Allison. “Everyone Deserves to Know about the Long Island Mansion McDonald’s.” The Takeout, 21 Apr. 2021, thetakeout.com/long-island-new-york-hyde-park-mcdonalds-elegant-beauti-1846731301