"there are hair cloth trunks which will give forth costumes of past generations"

“With rich local history surrounding every American village or country, it is a great pity not to make your own pageant and present to the people pictures from the pages of their own living history which shall give to every child present some understanding of his goodly heritage. The local history of every village is so related to the national history that it is possible to gather outstanding facts of the town history and give them a national significance. There are always old people who can tell you what happened in their grandfather’s time. There are further sources of information to be found in church records, town records, old diaries, old account books, even; and sometimes a chronicle of events compiled by some local historian is available. There are attics which contain spinning wheels, quilting frames, candle moulds; there are hair cloth trunks which will give forth costumes of past generations; there are woodsheds in which lie dusty vehicles. All these can help to make vivid many an event of long ago.” -- "The Historical Pageant in the Rural Community" by Abigail Fithian Halsey published in the Cornell Extension Bulletin, June 1922, Issue No. 54, Publishedby the  the New York State Collegeof Agriculture at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

Big Block Party At Southampton

25 August 1920 | Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Miss Hattie's House

"she came and scrubbed and washed when Bill went"

Jan. 1931 | Jesse Halsey to Abigail Fithian Halsey

275th Anniversary of Southampton | 1915

 

"the place for their descendants to possess both freedom of body and mind--Long Island."

Brooklyn Daily Eagle | 14 March 1915

The Christmas Driver

Abigail Fithian Halsey "Thanksgiving 1890"

49 No. Main 1833-1940

Abigail Fithian Halsey | Christmas 1940

"Where the hearth is warm and friends are near . . ."

Abigail Fithian Halsey | 1923 | Southampton

Jesse Halsey notes on the back of the card that: “Dr. John Withrow Pres Cin Board of Education christened her 'Happy Halsey' when she taught in Cin Univ School.”

"Home Songs"

January 1944 | Abigail Fithian Halsey to Jesse Halsey

Sunday Afternoon

Dear Jesse,

Well, this week our good friend Dr. Nugent left us, the funeral was yesterday. He has been bed ridden and I guess stricken on one side since Nov.—Only last week I went in and he said, “Come up.” He and Helen and I had such a good time. I had had a call from Ada Bishop and regaled him with her account of Henry losing his false teeth at night. He lay prone on his bed, but chuckled away and enjoyed it. Helen has been so fine all thru and called me and asked me to write an article for the Press—says it is one of her greatest comforts, it’s so like old times.

I told her I tried to write something he’d like to read and that she and Liz would approve of.

I’ve been shut in the house all week with bronchitis—that ends in a wracking cough, but it’s letting up and I shall get out tomorrow. Jerry had chicken pox and now Jean is down with it, well broken out. Ibby is the valiant one of us all, but is expecting her call any time, is very well. Jerry was home Thurs. after working all night and so tired he slept most of the day. But a great comfort to Ib. to have him come.

The Rulands celebrated their January birthdays by going to Tobey’s (Camp) for supper last night and took Jerry with them. The Herricks are happy today with John and Dorie and Connie all at home. Adelaide spent a day with us and is grand and Ethel takes lovely care of her going and coming. They came in after Dr. Nugent’s funeral Friday.

Dan Halsey and all of them were sick but are better now, also Mr. Van Brunt. Days are very late in the morning, but the sun stays up a little longer.

Let me know your plans, when and where you will be coming out next month—would you be home sometime to get some oysters if I could get any to send? Henry hasn’t been along for two weeks, but the ice must be out now for it is mild for a change.

I have loved Dunnybrook and wish Adelaide Wentworth [of Cincinnati] were here to read of her Kittery. Of course, you knew Dr. Kennon Dunham’s son [Harry] was lost in aviation [while serving in New Guinea]. Sarah Withrow’s letters are full of it, says Mrs. D. stands it wonderfully, Dr. Dunham not so well. A lovely letter finally from Mrs. [W. E.] Stilwell [in Cincinnati] who is broken hearted over the University School going out.

So ends my weekly chronicle with my love for you and all, am anxious to know Abbie’s plans. I hope you all are well and I look forward to being with you all, but feel I am in the right place, and Ibby is certainly fine. Ed is in Wash. And last week had Eddie and Helen and Anita Howell down to N.Y. for a lovely weekend all together Eddie was in and looks well, goes into the Navy tomorrow. Take care of yourself and take time to rest.

Lovingly,

Abbie

Francis Hartman Markoe

11 Sept. 1935 | Brooklyn Daily Eagle

14 April 1949 | Jennie Lawton Scarsdale to JH re AFH

April 14, 1949

Scarsdale, N.Y.

Dr. Halsey:

Brother of my very dear friend Abigail Halsey. My dear Sir: just last Christmas I first heard of your sister’s death through the kindness of her Attorney-at-Law, W.B. Platt, who upon request sent me your address. For the past few years neither of us had written letters and I deeply regret this as only in this way did I keep in touch with her .

Several years ago 1919-’21, I was closely associated with her. I was in Social Hygiene mode with the Government and my duties in connection with the Camp Upton covered Suffolk Co. travel orders over Long Island, office in Patchogue. My headquarters in Southampton were the Post House and I knew and loved dearly the White family. All a vivid happy memory. Abigail Halsey was the first President of the Social Workers Club and I Vice Pres. My home is in Athol Massachusetts but during the past winters I have lived with my brother—Arthur L. Lawton, 80 Anderson Ave., Scarsdale, N.Y., and am at that address at the present time. Both your sisters Mrs. White and Abigail motored to Athol and we had a lovely time together in my home next to Cong’l Church in the Upper Village. This note can only express to you the deep loss I felt at losing such a mutual friend, that her beautiful expressions in verse and in many letters revealed the greatness of a noble woman and that the great blessing that came with my life by knowing her.

This is a very poor expression and I can only ask that you will see beyond the writing and through it with an understanding of how much tribute I would like to give my dear, dear, Abigail.

That she is now with the Savior we loved and served and receiving the greatest blessings any of us can hope for, is a joy to me.

She spoke to me often about you and of her deep affection.

Most sincerely,

(Miss Jennie) E. Lawton

(80 Anderson Ave., Scarsdale, N.Y.)

"movement toward encouraging amateur dramatics"

10 Sept 1920 | Olean Evening Herald

Plan to Bring All Programs to Prevent Juvenile Delinquency Into One Bureau

 

"Miss Jennie Lawton, interdepartmental field agent for the Social Hygiene Bureau, expresses herself strongly in favor of the movement. The need for such a centralized authority in juvenile cases is greatly needed she says, and the extent of juvenile delinquency in the rural districts is more considerable than people dream of."

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle| 8 Dec. 1920

Social Hygiene Board

Suffolk County News | Sayville, N.Y. | 12 Dec 1919

from 100 Years: The Rockefeller Foundation

"From 1911 to 1934, the Bureau of Social Hygiene (BSH) funded research and sought to influence public policy on a number of issues related to sex, crime and delinquency. Although the BSH received contributions from a number of organizations, including the Rockefeller Foundation (RF), the Bureau was largely dependent upon the patronage of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who created the organization to address many of his own personal concerns and interests.

"The idea for the BSH originated in 1910, following JDR Jr.’s participation in a grand jury investigation of white slavery in New York City. Motivated by frustration with temporary public commissions that could only recommend governmental action, JDR Jr. established a permanent and private body to deal directly with a variety of social ills, including prostitution, corruption, drug use and juvenile delinquency."

Bald Hill School | Descendants of First Pupils Recall Events

August 23, 1929
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

"The only former pupil and teacher [present] was Mrs. Amanda Terry Ruland of Terryville. Among those present were . . . Mrs. W. G. Corwin, Mrs. Thomas Corwin, Miss Ethel Corwin, Miss Ethel Corwin, Mr. and Mrs. L.W. Ruland of Southampton . . .the Rev. Jesse Halsey and Miss Abigail Halsey of Cincinnati, Ohio; Mrs. Luella M. Terry of Patchogue."

"The Bald Hills Schoolhouse"

In eighteen hundred seventeen

When James Monroe was President and when

Long Island’s Middle Country road

Was but a footpath way,

The few settlers

In the shadow of Bald Hills

Built a schoolhouse for their children.

A good school makes a settlement,

And others came, and children grew

To womanhood and manhood

Making homes.

In eighteen fifty three the school out grown

Was sold to one James Clark,

And on this site

The present one was built:

‘Tis known today both far and wide as Farmingville.

My Mother went to school here,

I can see her now,

Little Melvina, trudging on between

Her brothers, Tom and Dan’l,

Holding by the hand

Her little sister, Lyd

Who grew to teach the school,

That is my story

Yours is just the same,

Each one of you who gather’s here today.

Your Mother went to school here or your Father –maybe both,

Their names are carved upon the trees and in the desks.

Their feet have worn the door sills, as with laugh and shout and lessons done they whooped their way to freedom through that door.

Their road, to knowledge, rough perchance, and steep

Grew many flowers of joy along its way

Whose odors sweet are wafted down the years.

Their fathers all were farmers,

Men who owned their land,

And every man a king in his own right.

And in this place they gathered on the Sabbath to acknowledge Him, the giver of all good—Almighty God.

They took their joys, their sorrows

And their planting and their harvests from His hand.

Their children growing here in this good land,

(Inhaling freedom in the air they breathed),

Grew up together making their own homes and teaching to their children

As their fathers taught to them,

Lessons of uprightness and thrift.

Some went away, some wandered far,

But once a year we all come home.

Here in the schoolhouse in the wood

We meet to pay homage due those noble souls

Our fathers and our mothers, true Americans

This is America

This spot of ground

Where freeborn men and women

Made their homes and reared their children

In the fear of God,

Afraid of none

And bound to none

And envying non:--

God save America

By Abigail Fithian Halsey

For the Fiftieth anniversary

Of the Farmingville Reunion Association, 1935

Zallah E Hawke to Jesse Halsey on Death of Abigal Fithian Halsey

25 September 1946

Shore Acres Revived

Brooklyn Daily Eagle | 1 Feb. 1914

Dr. John Nugent, Sr. | Obituary

The East Hampton Star | January 20, 1944

"Mother had died, quite young, when boy was five or less; father lived ever under its shadow; older sisters always thought that if father had been less stubborn (loyal) and had the new doctor who had come fresh from Ann Arbor and never lost a case of pneumonia, likely mother would have lived--who knows." --from "Hatchment" by Jesse Halsey

Women Should Wash, Iron, Cook, and Live Long

The Pittsburgh Press - Dec 4, 1912

The Pittsburgh Press - Dec 4, 1912

“Modern woman is dying because the life in her is becoming stagnant for want of real work. She ought to get down and scrub the floor, do her own washing, ironing and general housework, in order better to enjoy life. She ought to think for herself, also, instead of running to libraries to get out a book and find out what some one else has thought.”

“I know what I’m talking about,” Miss Page smiled-serenely, “when I urge women to work with their hands and work hard. For six years I was connected with a sanitarium for nervous invalids in Kingston, N.Y. The head physician and myself both came to the conclusion that what sent most of our women patients to us was not too much but too little work.”

“. . . It’s important to exercise one’s muscles, but it’s also important to exercise one’s brains. We moderns fall in the latter respect quite as often as in the former. We take our romance ready-made from the 15-cent magazine. And most of the rest of our thoughts and beliefs are hand-me-downs.”