 |
| 49 No. Main Street | 1833-1940 | Southampton | Abigail Fithian Halsey |
by Lizbeth Halsey White
Paper read before a meeting of Southampton Colony Chapter,
Daughters of the American Revolution, on March 19, by Mrs. Edward (Lizbeth) P. White,
1929
In the earliest days of the village the triangle of land
bounded by Main Street, Bowden Square and North Sea Road was common land, for
some time after that on every side had been occupied.
Early in 1700 this was bought by Abner Howell, son of Col
Josiah, who lived on he Bowden property. Abner Howell divided it between his
two sons. To David he gave the south portion which included the plot where in
the early 1840s Capt. Daniel Jagger built his home. This is now the home of Wm.
L. Donnelly. To Phineas Howell was given the north portion of the Triangle. On
the west half of his lot he built a tan-yard, which he afterwards sold to
Ebenezer Jagger and removed from the village.
The Main Street part of the lot was purchased in 1788 by
Annanias Halsey, whose son Urah lived across the street in the Wilman Halsey
house and whose daughter, Susan, lived to very old age in the little house
which stood on the front of the lot now owned by Abigail Halsey. This house and
also the Nancy Sayre house is now in Tuckahoe.
On the Seven Ponds road to the Water Mill, on the edge of
the Piggery Golf Links, is a very charming little old house which about the
year 1800 stood beside the mill stream just opposite to the old Water Mill.
Into it came a young bride Phebe Rogers and her husband Charles Fithian Halsey.
They purchased a farm and he was miller in the windmill, (still standing) not
far from their home. Three boys and three girls came to them and the father
died. Desiring to give her boys a trade Phebe sold the farm and moved her
family to New York City—then a three-days journey by stage-coach. She
apprenticed the boys for four years to learn the mason’s trade. At that time
(1820) New York City had begun its phenomenal growth, thought it was still a
country village as compared with the city of today. Wall and Canal Streets were
being built up, and Greenwich Village was a residential suburb.
There in Grove Street in 1827 the youthful masons built a
home for their family use, and when Henry, the eldest son, returned to Water
Mill for his bride, it was in the Grove Street house that they made their first
home. But eastern Long Island beckoned and the family returned.
“Capt. Harry” Halsey in 1831 bought the plot on the triangle
owned by Annanias Halsey and built his home thereon. The house in Grove Street
is still standing and the wooden mantels and paneled and reeded casings of
doors and windows were exactly copied in the little parlor of their home in the
North End. In a room, now a part of the kitchen, “Miss Amanda” kept her Dame
school and there are a few still with us who remember her as their first
teacher. Opening out from the school room was a dark stairway where her pupils
were banished by way of punishment. While she was having recitations they would
pull off their shoes and steal to the kitchen chamber above and have no end of
fun, as children do, when they can find an attic to play in.
“Miss Amanda” loved poetry and flowers and the perennials
she planted still bloom in the little old garden. Some of her punishments,
after she had tried them out on herself, she abandoned. A big pewter horn hung
high in its place on the wall and nothing was allowed to break the routine of
the little schoolroom except when a whale-rally was on at the beach and “Capt.
Harry,” without ceremony, rushed in for the horn that he might do his part in
passing the signal which meant “Whale off shore! All hands to the beach!”
Both of Capt. Harry’s brothers became whaling captains but
he bought a farm and worked on at his mason’s trade. His title of “Captain”
came to him as wrecking master. Before the Life-Saving Service was established
(1876) and nearly all ships were sailing vessels, wrecks along the shore were
not infrequent and the wrecking crews were a necessary and important
organization.
For so many years when Sag Harbor was a prominent whaling
port and her harbor was busy with ships it became the Mecca of every man, and
especially of every boy, to go to the Harbor and see the ships.
Capt. Harry Halsey, when a boy of twelve years, had been
permitted to pay a visit to his cousins living there. A ship came in bringing
the news of the signing of the Peace between England and the United States,
after the War of 1812-14. His first impulse was to carry home the good news as quickly
as possible. So, in his boyish enthusiasm, he ran all the way to this home
crying “Peace! Peace!” and this is the way the news was brought to Water Mill.
The boy had been named for his great-uncle Henry Halsey who was Capt. of a
Privateer during the Revolution and who lost his life in the Battle of Groton
Heights. His name with other patriots who fell at that time is engraved on the
monument there. He with his brother Jesse, after hearing the news of the Battle
of Lexington, rowed across Long Island Sound in a row-boat and enlisted in the
Continental Army. Jesse Halsey served throughout the war and won the rank of
Captain.
In the April number of the Scribner’s magazine (1929) is an
article written by Thomas Boyd entitled, “How Mad Was Anthony Wayne?” The
article describes the evacuation of the City of Philadelphia by the British
Forces and the Battle of Monmouth Court-house. The incident described on page
436 verifies a tradition cherished by the numerous descendants of Jesse Halsey,
the Patriot, who at the time was near Gen. Washington and heard his reprimand
of Gen. Charles Lee for his disobedience of orders and his cowardly retreat. He
felt the reprimand, though severe, was just and well deserved.
He told also of the severe heat of that eventful day and
said that more men die from the intense heat than from the guns. This favored
the Americans for though many had frozen in their homespun garments during the
previous severe winter at Valley Forge, on this hottest of July days the
homespun-clad army had the advantage over the enemy. In their heavy and
much-decorated cloth uniforms.
Capt. Jesse Halsey, brother of Capt. Harry, built the house
which is now the home of Dr. David Hallock. The sister, Elizabeth, married
Capt. William Fowler and settled just north of the Burying Ground. Her husband
was a whaling Captain and he also spent several years in California during the
gold-rush. Three of their sons went on whaling voyages and never returned.
Dear Aunt Libbie Fowler! Who never heard the click of the gate without a throb!
She had an overwhelming sympathy for others in time of need. In sorrow and in
illness she became the neighborhood mother, and there are many who remember her
for her kindly deeds.
To return to the Triangle, the southern half of which had
been given to David Howell. It was he who about 1750 built the well-preserved
old house which long since became the home of the Herricks. David Howell was a
silversmith and just when he left Southampton we have no record. It is certain
that his house was occupied by the British officers during the Revolution, and
it is safe to assume that he was one of the many refugees to Conn. So many of
the homes of the villagers changed ownership after the Revolution. This, in
1772, was purchased by Col. Josiah Smith of Moriches for his daughter, Hannah,
who had married Elias Pelletreau. He was a merchant and the store which he
built remained for many years attached to the house on the south. His wife,
Hannah, was very deaf, caused by the effects of cold and exposure when
endeavoring to relieve her father who for some time was imprisoned by the enemy
in the Provost Prison in New York City.
She made very possible effort to relieve his distress, for
imagination would fail to reveal the miseries of an enemy prison during those
bitter years.
Courtesy Lizbeth Halsey White Files,
Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center
