Pyrrhus Concer Home

And today, and action you can take. 

24 July 1899 | Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The Gold-Ship Sabina

The Sabina was a whaling ship brought from New York to the Port of Sag Harbor in 1844. Sag Harbor is at the eastern end of Long Island and at that time was a flourishing Whaling Port rivaling New Bedford and Salem. She made a successful voyage for whales to the North West Coast with Capt. David P. Vail as Capt. June 24, 1844. She returned May 27, 1847, with 60 BBL sperm oil, 1940 BBL whale oil, and 18,00 lbs. whalebone worth $25,000.

She was then purchased by a company of men known as “The Southampton and California Trading Co.” for a voyage to the gold fields of California. The company was made up of sixty men, and it was capitalized at $30,000. Sixty shares of stock were sold at $500.00 each. These were issued in Sag Harbor and were dated “This 20^th day of January 1849.” Of the sixty-seven men who had stock in the company and sailed on her, nineteen were whaling captains, including Wm. L. Huntting, Geo. W. Post, and Phyrrhus Concer (colored) on the crew. There were also seventeen who went as passengers. The entire list is from men of eastern Long Island, twenty-eight of which are easily recognized as from Southampton.

The Sabina sailed from Greenport, Long Island, “late on Wednesday the 14^th of February 1849.” The story of the voyage and subsequent experiences of the voyagers we are fortunate in having preserved to us through the letters of Albert Jagger of Southampton 1849-51. These were found some years ago in the attic of the Jagger home, carefully wrapped in the original canvas bag in which he had sent home his gold dust. They have been preserved to us historically by James Trusloe Adams in his Memorials of Old Bridgehampton, and are indeed a record of experience as thrilling as that of our present day adventurers by sea and air.

The brilliant hopes for fortune which had led them to the “golden land” were, in most cases soon dispelled. The company which started out together soon broke up. A very few found moderate fortune. Some of course never returned. Most of them came back poorer than they went, except for the experience, and a number, as in the three sons of Capt. George Post—Wm.  H., Nathan, and Charles Post—remained to make their home in a new land and form the foundations of a substantial citizenship so much needed in a country made up so largely of adventurers.

The Sabina with many other ships which had found port in the Harbor of San Francisco during those adventurous years, lies at the bottom of the Bay and the piers of that newer city have been built out far beyond her resting place. The adventurers who went out in her and returned found their way back by various routes. Some by ship around Cape Horn, others by Panama and Nicaragua, others across the continent. Some wandered for years and never returned, as must have been the case of J.B.H. [Job Hedges?] who made Bandolier, S.A., a port of call and in all probability never returned or his buffalo horn would not have found its way to England. Of course J.B.H. may not have been one of those who sailed in the Sabina but the fact that this is carved upon the horn would indicate at least an intimate acquaintance with her.

Lizbeth H. White

Southampton, Long Island, N.Y.

February 1, 1929

“Phyrrhus”

By Lizbeth Halsey White | Southampton Press | c1931

Our attention has been called to a copy of the Seaside Times of 1897, in which we find an article from the pen of Historian Wm. S. Pelletreau, entitled “Phyrrhus.” We find an interesting reminder of events which have made history in our community as well as a pleasant reminder of one, who though of humble station, enjoyed the regard and respect of all who knew him.

“Phyrrhus Concer was born March 17, 1814, a slave in the family of Captain Nathan Cooper. When five years old, he was purchased by Mr. Charles Pelletreau for the sum of $25.00; the purchaser receive a bill of sale as for any other article of personal property, but between the owner and the owned there was a strong feeling of personal regard that ended only with the death of the former. When he arrived at boyhood he worked on the farm during the Summer and in the Winter attended the village school in the ancient school house, and had practically the same advantages as other boys in the neighborhood. A few years later when whaling was in its glory he was shipped, at the age of 18, on board the ship ‘Boston,’ under the command of Captain Edward Sayre, who sailed from Norwich, Conn., and cruised in the South Atlantic, returning in seven moths and ten days, with a full cargo. His second voyage was in the ‘Columbia,’ with Captain William Hedges. According to the law of that time he would have remained a slave till the age of 28 years, but the day that he was 21 Mr. Pelletreau gave him a complete sailor’s outfit and some money and told him that he was a free man. He then went to sea, making several voyages on his own account.

“The most remarkable episode in his life was his visit to Japan. When Captain Mercator Cooper, in the ship ‘Manhattan,’ was cruising in the North Pacific, he rescued the crew from a waterlogged Japanese junk, just ready to sink. This led Captain Cooper to exclaim, ‘Now I have a good excuse to visit Japan.’ At that time this was about the same as if a man should congratulate himself as having a good excuse to visit the crater of a raging volcano. He would undoubtedly see things he had never seen before, but whether we would ever return to tell of them was another thing; but such a trouble as that did not disturb the mind of Captain Mercator Cooper. The story has been so often told that it is needless to repeat it here. It is sufficient to say that they entered the harbor of Yeddo, but every precaution that the jealous mind of the Japanese government could devise was used to prevent any of the ship’s crew from putting their foot on shore and the common people from visiting the vessel. One thing that Phyrrhus especially noticed was that every Japanese that came on board was armed with two swords.

This is now sufficient evidence that none but the highest officers were allowed the privilege. The ship was very fortunately permitted to return in safety, but the captain was given to understand in the plainest manner that he must never attempt to repeat the experiment.

“At the time of the excitement caused by the discovery of gold in California in 1849, Phyrrhus was one of the crew who worked his passage to San Francisco in the good ship ‘Sabina,’ carrying 83 men from Eastern Long Island—Southampton, Bridgehampton, East Hampton and Sag Harbor—sailing around Cape Horn to the gold fields of California.

“Among his fellow sailors was the late Hon. Stephen B. French of Sag Harbor, and between them sprung up the strongest feelings of mutual respect and esteem. As Phyrrhus said, ‘When Stephen B. French was on the ship’s yard, there was a man there who knew exactly what to do and how to do it, and was afraid of nothing.’ Mr. French once told the writer that Phyrrhus Concer was one of the few men he had known who never did anything to be ashamed of, and that he never heard from his lips any word or expression that would bring a blush to the cheeks of modesty. Upon one occasion when Phyrrhus was a witness in a suit at Riverhead, and applied for a room at a hotel, the uppish clerk refusing in an unpleasant manner with the pretext of ‘all full,’ was speedily brought to his sense, when Mr. French exclaimed in a tone that commanded instant attention: ‘Put him in my room.’

“Returning from California with a modest competence the remainder of his life was employed in honest industry; as his former owner and friend expressed it, “There is no lazy blood in Phyrrhus,’ a fact that was fully demonstrated. During a religious revival he joined the Presbyterian Church and was ever after on of its most consistent members. One of his strongest characteristics was the utmost regard for the Sabbath. To him the fourth commandment meant all that it said. On Sunday his place was in the church and the pretext that Sunday was the only day in the week when there is time for recreational enjoyments, found no response from Phyrrhus. His Sabbath belonged to his Maker, to be used for spiritual improvement and no inducement of either business of pleasure could turn him from his purpose.

He passed away leaving behind him an honorable reputation, and if his life had no other moral, he was a living proof that a colored man can command respect when he deserves it.”

To Mr. Pelletreau’s tribte we may add that after many years spent on the seas, Phyrrhus and his good wife Rachel made their home in the little cottage, still standing near the head of Lake Agawam. Just opposite, on the lake, was the tiny wharf or “dock” from which he sailed his boat up and down the lake to the bathing beach for a ten-cent fare, children half price. There were few cottages along the lake at that time, but there were several boarding houses in the village and these with the few villagers who could find the time to go to the beach, kept the little ferry busy. The odd jobs he could pick up between times gave a competence sufficient to supply the simple needs of the old couple, who were so warmly regarded by all who knew them.

In the southwest corner of the old North End Burying Ground we find a stone placed there by his friend and next-door neighbor of “the Ox Pasture,” the Hon. Salem H. Wales, bearing this inscription:

            Phyrrhus Concer

            Born March 17 1814

            Died August 23 1897

            Though born a slave, he possessed those virtues without which even kinds are slaves.

Text courtesy Lizbeth Halsey White Files, Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center

from "Job’s Lane, Southampton, 1663-1927: Part C"

by Lizbeth Halsey White | March 24, 1927

As this is history and we must be impartial, let us know cross the square to the opposite corner on Pond Lane. Here for many years stood the little old shop where drinks were sold by one known as “Old John Ware,” which name may not have been so much indicative of his age as that much popular opinion was against the business in which he was engaged.

Though he sold whiskey and gin to their fathers he also sold candy to the children and fire-crackers too on the Fourth of July. He was patriotic for he erected a flagpole across the street on the hill in front of what is now the Legion property. A little old cannon was there also where the boys celebrated on patriotic occasions. One Fourth of July morning, we are told, John Ware poured into the cannon such a charge of powder that it below itself to pieces and so great was the concussion that windows in the shop were broken. One stormy night when the snow lay deep on the square the little old shop went up in smoke.

from Southampton Magazine c 1913

In the old North-end Cemetery, well down to the west end, there is a double stone engraved with the names of Benjamin and George Ware who gave their lives for the Union. These were twin sons of “Old John Ware.”

His successor was “John Hen” who had a real saloon on the corner facing Job’s Lane, and whose jovial dispositions helped the business to flourish. He called his corner “Hell’s Half-Acre” and the sign over the door read in acrostic “John Hen’s Place.”

In 1870 or 1872, the Howell Brothers built their grocery store and Job’s Lane began its career as a business centre. The Post Office was also here when there came a break in the Republican administration long enough for a Democratic Postmaster to be appointed. Mr. George R. Howell filled the position as Postmaster most acceptably.

In 1876, the centennial of our country’s birth, the erection of a Liberty Pole by the Village was deemed a very appropriate and desirable way in which to remember the event.

The year before (1875) there had been wrecked off Shinnecock Point a vessel loaded with salt. Her name was the Annie C. Cook and her timbers lay on the beach for she was a total wreck.

Through the enterprise of some public spirited citizens among whom were Edgar Greene, Charles Bennett, Moses Phillips, Phyrrhus Concer, and Capt. Charles Goodale, one of the masts of the Annie C. Cook was brought from the beach and set up on the common at the foot of Job’s Lane, now known as Monument Square. Mr. Sylvanus Bennett contributed the topmast and his son Charlie made the cross trees.

The pole blew over once in a storm and was reset in concrete and the vessel’s spar stands today, proclaiming old Glory to the breeze as staunch and firm as when placed there fifty years ago.

Text courtesy Lizbeth Halsey White Files, Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center | Historic images courtesy Southampton Library

from "A Dry Skin Whale—A Rally and Capture Way Back in 1873"

As told by Samuel Berry to Lizbeth Halsey White

April twelfth, 1873, was a beautiful day. The farmers were getting their ground ready for the oat crop and some were sowing oats; others were working on the steamer Alexander LaValley—the French steamer that came ashore at Southampton the twenty-third of January that year. The wages the men got working on the wrecked steamer paid better than farming.

Edgar Green was aboard the wreck. He looked south over the ocean and thought he saw a whale spout. He kept looking and he was sure there was a right whale. . .

I steered Captain Barney Green that day. Our boat’s crew was made up as follows: Captain Green boat herder, Samuel Berry boatsteerer, James A. Hildreth, Edward J. Halsey, Emmett Sayre, and Edward H. Foster.

….

On that twelfth of April in 1873 the boats kept chasing the whales but could not get near her. The men were getting discouraged. Captain Green and the boat crew held a council of war and we made up our minds that we could chase that whale till doomsday and then not get her, so we started in towards the shore. We went about a mile and a half from the other boats and lay there, lighted our pipes, and had a good smoke.

I was just about turning around to ask the captian to go alongside the wreck and get some beer to put new life in us. What is that ahead of us under water? There is the whale. Pull ahead.

….

Some wanted to take boats out and try to get the whale but it was foolish to think of such a thing, the sea was too rough. Pyrrhus Concer, a colored man who had steered one of the boats at the time we killed the whale, took the train to Westhampton and got Capt. Frank Jessup to take him over to the beach. He found the whale and was just in time for a few minutes later a boat came from Pine Neck and if they had found the whale first probably we would have had to pay salvage. Of course our harpoon was in the whale but the could have cut them out and we had had one case of that kind and that was enough.

When Pyrrhus left for Westhampton he could have bought whale shares cheap but after he got back and told about finding the whale there was great rejoicing.

Courtesy Lizbeth Halsey White Files, Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center

Phyrrhus Concer

On May 8, 1848, Captain Mercator Cooper, aboard the ship Manhattan, left Sag Harbor for a whaling voyage in the Northern Pacific that had unanticipated consequences. His boat steerer for the voyage was Pyrrhus Concer, a former slave belonging to the Pelletreau family who went to sea at the age of 18.

from Southampton Magazine | c 1913

The signal even of that voyage was recounted in Concer's obituary, which appeared in The Southampton Sea-Side Times of August 28, 1897:

"As the vessel neared the Island of St. Peter's, a few degrees south of Nipon, a number of shipwrecked Japanese were discovered. At first the Japanese were fearful that they would be massacred by Captain Cooper, but they were soon made to understand that they would not be harmed. Mr. Concer said that the Japanese showed a friendship for him, while they expressed great fear of the other members of the crew.

from Southampton Magazine | c 1913

from Southampton Magazine | c 1913

The shipwrecked Japanese, eleven in number, were taken aboard the whaling ship and carried to Japan. While en route they picked up another lot of shipwrecked Japanese, whom they also conveyed to their homes. The rescue of these Japanese afforded the crew of the Manhattan the privilege of obtaining a sight of Japan, which up to that time had not been viewed by foreigners."

Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center

Notes on Old Southampton

"Please make nor request any business calls on Sunday." –Daniel Wells, architect and builder

Wm R Post whale baron moved to North End and transformed [an] old salt box house into a castle with spiral stairway, full front porch, three-and-a-half stories, hipped tin roof, cupola with bell and much grandeur. Formerly the property of Capt Parker, the master of one of Mr Post’s ships. He was [an] elder in the church and as supt. for forty years (likely), notary public and local surveyor. His chains for that purpose were lying around our shop when I was a boy. My father had helped him survey Bib Fresh Pond–eighty acres as I remember. When LE Terry bought the big house (long unoccupied) there was a vendue or auction and a shop full of gadgets and everything else on the place was sold. I had asked my father to buy the bell in the cupola (the mornings of July 4^th I had shinned up the lightning rod and rung it). It was struck off to John Fournier for eighty cents, who sold it to Bill Enoch, who sold it to Mr Salem H Wales, and for years it hung under the wide eaves of his house on the NW corner. It was a ships bell, bronze off one of Mr Post’s whalers and likely weighed twelve pounds or twenty.

SH Wales was one of the first ‘yorkers’ to adopt SHampton; he had a large house on the hill at the NE end of the town pond, looking toward the beach. His son-in-law was Elihu Root whose house stood next door to the south, each place had a considerable acreage surrounding.

Next to the north of Mr Wales lived Pyrhus Concer, [sic] a coal black African who had engaged in whaling and now owned a sail boat which plyed the length of the lake (a mile) taking passengers to the beach at five cents a trip. Everyone respected Pyhrus; he had been the shipmate of many in the village and had sailed with the crew to California in ’49 with the ‘old Sabina.’ He had a pew in the church (rented in those days) about a third of the way up on the north side. A Scotch nurse name[d] Jean Taylor and her neice kept house for him after his wife Rachel died. On his gravestone Mr Root had carved the following text (from Tacitus, I think): “Though born a slave he had those virtues without which all men are but slaves.”

-- Reverend Jesse Halsey c1920

The Old Streets of Southampton

by Mrs. Edward P. White | circa 1932

OLD TOWN ROAD. When the first settlers came to Southampton in 1640, they followed an Indian trail from North Sea to that part of the Village called today Old Town. The site of their first homes in marked near the Southampton Hospital. These homes were probably cellars dug in the ground with rafters overhead covered with boughs or sod. Twenty men and their families with all “Their worldly goods” made their way through the forest, built their homes and their church, and lived there eight years.

Of these twenty only the names of Howell, Sayre, Walton, Halsey, and Terry are found in Southampton today. A little later came Bishops, Burnetts, Cooks, Fosters, Goldsmiths, Hands, Herricks, Hildreths, Jaggers, Moores, Piersons, Posts, Raynors, Rogers, Roses, Smythes, Wells, and Whites. These inhabitants outgrew the settlement around Old Town Pond, and in March, 1648, held a town meeting to consider “A town plot and home accommodations that shall be most suitable to the comfort, peace, and welfare of this plantation.”

MAIN STREET. The Main Street of Southampton retains to this day divisions made at that time, although many changes have been made in the ownership—home lots of three acres. Each house holder’s portion was: --his house lot, twelve acres of farm land, about thirty-four acres of meadow and upland, and a certain number of shares in undivided common land. These shares were given according to the amount of money a man had pad toward the expenses of the settlement. All this land except the Indian fields had to be cleared. The woodland north of the village was divided into The North and The South Division and each man was given his share.

MEETING HOUSE LANE. After the Main Street, or Town Street, as it was called then, Meeting House Land was opened. The oldest church Meeting House stood near the present rear entrance of the Southampton Hospital.

TOYLESOME LANE. The road from the old town to the new was “The Land called Toylesome,” and opposite its entrance on the Main Street was Horsemill Lane. Just when this was closed, we do not know. What fun it would be to be able to walk down Main Street to the beach and point out the houses where the first settlers lived. This is possible for old maps show who owned the land in those early days. Thomas Sayre lived north of the present library.

JOB’S LANE. Job’s Lane, “opened 1664,” was then the cow path down which young Job Sayre drove his cows every morning to pasture. Walking south, the Presbyterian parsonage stands on exactly the same plot of ground that was allotted for the house of “Ye Minister,” in 1648. The second church building stood just across the street from the minister’s house, and in the old graveyard we may still read the names of some of the earliest inhabitants. The old house called the Hollyhocks is the oldest of the original houses remaining and was built by Thomas Halsey about 1660. On the opposite side of the street, the house now owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution was built about 1790 by the Foster family. The old Mackie house, which is across the street from the Episcopal church, was built by John Mackie who came from Scotland and copied, in shingle, the stone house he had left in Dundee.

YE MILL PATH. Ye Mill Path (we call it Bridgehampton Road today) was the road to Edward Howell’s watermill. The mill was built in 1644, and is still standing, and from it Water Mill Village takes its name.

THE ROAD TO WICKAPOGUE. The Road to Wickapoque is one of the early ones. The name is first found in the division of land in 1688, “Thomas Goldsmith at the end of his home lot, the rest by Goodman Halsey’s a Weequapoug.” The name means “at the end of the pond or waterplace,” and the Ponds of Wickapogue are there still as they were in 1688.

LITTLE PLAINS ROAD. The Little Plains were fields where the settlers tilled their land. Always in the early days, one man stood watch while the others cultivated the fields, Each man took his turn. Little Plain was bounded on the east by Old Town Pond, on the west by Town Pond (Lake Agawam), on the north by Frog Pond, and on the south by the beach. This tract of land was originally three lots deep north and south. The ocean has encroached upon the land so much since the settlers came, that Frost Pond is now under the water. I can remember heading my grandfather say that the hitching posts that stood north of the beach banks when he was a boy are now in the breakers.

GREAT PLAINS ROAD. The Great Plain was farm land west of Town Pond (Agawam). It was called also the general field. First Neck, Cooper’s Neck, Halsey’s Neck, and Captain’s Neck were parts of it and are kept in our memories today by the road bearing their names.

OX PASTURE ROAD. The Ox Pasture was in two divisions—north and south, and its use is known today by its name. Ox Pasture Road was its southern boundary and the main highway to Shinnecock, its north.

Let us walk through the village to trace the old streets. It will not be hard. As we have seen Main Street follows the same course today that it did in 1648. When it was laid out, most of the people lived in the south end of the town. We can trace, if we will, in many places the three acre home lots, and if we look in Howell’s Early History of Southampton, we can find a map that will show us where Edward Howell, the leader of the little colony, lived. We can trace the path where Job Sayre drove his cows to the pasture by the Town Pond. We can find the place where the wife of Thomas Halsey was murdered by the Indians. We can walk with the people on Sunday morning to their Meeting House. We can go with the children on Monday morning to their schoolmaster, Richard Mills. We can see the settlers at work on the Little Plains, the watchman standing on guard to give the alarm if anything goes wrong. Perhaps we see a man riding down the mill path with his bags of grain to be ground into flour at the watermill or a man building his house from forest trees in the new part of the town called Jagger Lane. If we follow the trail to North Sea, we may meet an Indian. Fortunately, the Shinnecock Indians are friendly to the white settlers, for we must go to North Sea.

NORTH SEA ROAD. North Sea Road is the only way to reach the port where Captain Daniel Howe’s sloop lands, brining new settlers from the Mainland.

***from The Southampton Press

Southampton’s oldest thoroughfare is the North Sea Road, called in our earliest records “the North Sea Path.” This has been made forever sacred by the feet of those earliest colonists as they made their way through the dense forest to the ridge of land overlooking the ocean to the north of Old Town Pond, where they made their first settlement. The Indians living on fish and game, made their habitations around the creeks and bays of the north shore as we learn from the shell helps and the mounds which have been unearthed at various times in more recent years. When the settlers landed at North Sea they found it the camping ground of the Sachem of the Shinnecocks. The Indians knew the place where they could grown the best corn and had cleared land just north of the beach banks. The patch which the colonists trod on that eventful day in June, 1640, was without doubt the trail long made by the Indians to their planting land by the ocean. The vessel which brought the settlers from Lynn was to return, making three trips a year, brining inhabitants and goods, and for many years North Sea Harbor was the only outlet for the little colony in its isolation. The path hither soon became a well worn road. For 150 years North Sea was the port of entry for Southampton and fell into disuse only after Sag Harbor, (the harbor of Sagg) became a growing port. In 1726 we find a record when at a Town Meeting a complaint was brought that the road was too narrow, and a very definite description is given: “Beginning at Southampton Street one highway leading to ye harbor at North Sea, goes down by the house that was Heathcotes and is now the Townes.” This latter is the old North End Burying ground and the highway was laid out six poles wide all the way to John Rose’s at North Sea.

The forest through which our colonists found their way so long ago has remained unbroken these nearly 300 years, except for the axe of the woodsman who felled the trees for firewood and left the wood to grow for another generation and more. William Henry and Joseph Kiah have perhaps without intention become the  pioneers of the home development with has so recently overtaken the North Sea Path.

The State of New York during this past year has added the crown to this new development with the building of the concrete [highway?] which can now speed our way so smoothly and joyously; and in another five years or less, will have disappeared ,except in memory, the shady oaks through which we drove so contentedly our farm teams to the beach at North Sea.

THE MAIN STREET

Southampton’s Main Street was laid out in 1648, eight years after the first settlement at Old Towne. This for many years is known in the records as “Ye Towne Street,” and it was on this street that a “home-lott” of three acres was apportioned to each settler, with farm land in out lying districts. On March 27^th, 1648, “It is ordered that ye whole town shall be called together at ye settings of ye sunne to consider of a Town plot of such home accommodations as may be most suitable to ye comfort, peace and welfare of this plantation.” The “home-lotts” were laid out and taken up on both side of the street, beginning at the planting land at the Little Plains and extending north, “three acres to every 50 pound lot or share, to every man his proportion according to his taking up.”

The homes built along this street were no longer the rude cabins of the earlier settlement. Though of the utmost simplicity of design they were sturdy and substantial and a number of these have lasted on within the memory of the present generation.

“The Hollyhocks” built 1662, remains with its southern gable still unchanged, to remind us of the homes first built along “Ye Towne Street,”

In the hall of the Library entrance to the Colonial Room, may be seem a framed copy of the map of Southampton’s “Towne Street.” This map was compiled by Historian William S. Pelletreu and on it is indicated the home plots with the names of their successive owners, from the first laying out until very recent years. It is interesting to note that the surveys of today are still based on the boundaries established in that earliest laying out of the Towne Street.

HILL STREET OR SHINNECOCK ROAD. This street was laid out as early as 1650 and later became a part of the main highway running east and west down Long Island, which was known in Colonial days as “the King’s Highway.” Until very recent years, Hill Street, or “up the Hill,” as it was often called, was most appropriately named, for the road from the foot of Job’s Lane rose quite sharply and the grade was very much up-hill. The land on which stand the Irving Garage and the adjoining buildings was the hill where stood the windmill, which for 170 years ground the grist for the community, and was an outstanding landmark for miles around. With the moving of the mill (1888) and the disposal of the soil, a new level was created, and in 1906 the village so grade and improved the street that the name is now only a reminder of its earlier outlines. Hill Street fortunately has remained the wide thoroughfare so well suited to our modern needs.

WINDMILL LANE. Windmill Lane dates back to the earliest days of the settlement, and is known in the early records as “Ye Weste Street.” A t that time the Town Pond extended low and swampy as far north as the higher land, which in recent years we know as Bowden Square. To avoid the water which in times of freshet was close up to the higher land on the west, the road for some time lay along the ridge. The present name is derived from the windmills which at various times through the years have occupied this higher land. The most prominent of these, built in 1713, stood on the corner of the lane and Hill Street. This mill is now in the garden of the Summer home of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur B. Clafflin on Shinnecock Hills.

Another mill which stood to the north of this is now the Summer home of ex-Congressman Lathrop D. Brown, on the cliff overlooking the ocean at Montauk Point. It was on “Ye Weste Street” that the first school house was built in 1664. This was a building 15 by 20 feet and stood a short distance south of the plot where 225 years later was built the Union School (1889). The first schoolmaster---Jonas Houldsworth—was to receive 30 pounds per annum with [?] 12 days in the year for his own “particular occasions.” Here for many years the county courts were held, and through the first little old school house has been several times replaced, each in a different location, children of the village have ever since been going to school on Windmill Lane.

JAGGAR LANE. The short street connecting Main Street and Windmill Lane is one of the very old streets of the Village. This was a lane through the home-lott granted to John Jaggar in 1651. The settlers whose farmland was to the west of the Town Pond very early felt the need of a nearer approach than to pass to the end of the swamp at Bowden Square. This lane across John Jaggar’s lot was established in 1653 and originally wound up over the hill crossing “ye West Street and coming out on Hill Street” before reaching the entrance to First Neck Lane, which was laid out in 1644.

This was very early in the history of the village, some years before the building of the mill and the lowering of “Ye Weste Street,” and Job’s Lane had not yet been opened.

During the years since, this little street has been known by various names, memories of those who have lived beside it-Hunting Lane, Captain George White’s Lane, Seymour’s Lane, and in the Village book (1908) we notice it is called School Street. When the Village Trustees, a few years since, renewed the street signs they returned quite appropriately to the name of the original owner through whose land the lane was first made.

NARROW LANE. We find a new sign along our highways, one we have not seen until recently, although the street it designates has been an open thoroughfare since the very early days of the village. Although connecting two important localities, yet is has remained so seemingly remote and so little used that it has escaped, until recently, the notice of the village fathers, who are seeing to tit that the streets of Southampton are so carefully and attractively marked. As we drive along our highways, the quaint old name are particularly in evidence and add a charm and distinction in keeping with its history, for Southampton will soon be celebrating it 300^th birthday.

This little street, true to its name, is at present quite isolated but it is destined in the near future to become a much-used thoroughfare. In Vol. V., pp. 178, 232, of the Town Records, we find that in 1676 Richard Howell sells to Obadiah Rogers “one-half acre of my Close land at Wicapogue, bounded west by land of Thomas Jessup, north by Obadiah Rogers, south by highway, and is to run north and south quite through the length of my said Close.” Dated October 14, 1676.

The notes added by W.S. Pelletreau, to whose careful transcriptions we owe six volumes of Southampton Town Records, tell us that the strip of land above is the Narrow Lane on the north side of Wickapogue Street. The home of Thomas Jessup is the property long since occupied by Moses Phillips, and on which his family still reside. Richard Howell was a son of Edward Howell, the leader of the Southampton colony. Obadiah Rogers was a son of William Rogers, who in 1645 was granted as his “home-lott” the land on “Ye Towne Street” for a number of years occupied by the late Samuel L. Parrish.

From the  record it is very plain that the narrow strip of land was purchased by Obadiah Rogers to afford a right-of-way to the land he owned just north of Richard Howell, and it was no doubt continued by him and adjacent owners out to the “King’s Highway,” or “the road to ye Watermill.” The lane may be as little used as in those early days when Obadiah Rogers drove his oxen hither to his farm land, and in driving through the lane one can easily imagine one’s self back in that early time, so isolated and shut away it seems from the present Southampton. We soon return to this however, as we approach the Frankenback gardens, and glad also of a swifter passage than that furnished by the equipment of an earlier day.

Let us cherish these ancient localities and keep alive the names given them so long ago, by those who laid for us such sure foundations.

POND LANE. In the year 1675, when the “Towne” purchased from John Cooper his house and lot for the use of the minister, an allotment of 30 acres of land in the ox-pasture was also made, these “to remain forever to the use of the ministry in this Towne.” The “Home-lott” is still the Presbyterian parsonage, and the land in the ox-pasture is known to us as the Summer home of the late Salem H. Wales.

This is one of several pieces of land which in the records is called “Parsonage land,” and it was expressly stated that cart-way should be left beside the Town Pond for passing to and fro and for the watering of cattle.

In 1701, “It is ordered James Cooper and Joseph Fordham shall take up fence from the old pound and carry it and set it up by Mr. Whiting’s cow-pasture, adjoining to the John Foster’s Close and Isaac Halsey’s, leaving a good highway between ye fence and ye Town Pond, for ye inhabitants of ye and Towne to cart, drive and water their creatures, and to find more fence so to finish and enclose said cow-pasture at ye said Towne’s charge.” The highway established at this time was to be 8’ poles in width between the fence and the pond. “Mr. Whiting” was the Rev. Joseph Whiting, sixth minister in the Church—1683-1723. John Foster’s Close is now the property of the Hon. Elihu H. Root. The narrow lane on the south and joining Ox-Pasture Road is first mentioned in 1676.

In the record of the Town survey of 1852, we find the road leading from the Country Road in Hill street to and along the Town Pond to First Neck Lane, near the house of John White, “laid out but not described of record.” The road by the pond was at this time narrowed to five rods. In 1888, after Mr. Wales had purchased the property, some changed were again made in the frontage on the pond. It was about this time that the Indian name Agawam was recalled for the Town Pond and it is interesting to be reminded that when Mr. Wales desired a name for his newly acquired property he used the name of “The Ox-Pasture.”

The name on the sign-posts of that highway as above described read “Pond Lane” and the date of its opening is coincident with that of the Parsonage allotment in 1675.

When the land on the pond ceased to be “parsonage land” we have still to discover, but until recent years the front along the pond has been common land used by the people for their pleasure and necessities. On the south hill of the “Parsonage land” were the big “try-kettles where the [whale blubber was boiled] in days of steamships, whales were much more numerous along the coast than now and the off-shore whaling was one of the earliest industries established by the settlers. It was an exciting time in the village when the rally sounded and everybody hastened to the beach to see the manning of the whale-boats and to watch the crews start off for the chase. It was a lively time also, when the crews returned and the monster lay on the beach (and sometimes more than one). The small boys as well as many others did not leave the beach until the whale was cut up and the blubber carted, and sometimes floated, down the pond to be tried out in the big kettles on the hill. Until recent years a point of land ran well out into the pond directly opposite this hill.

This was the swimming place for the boys in Summer and a harbor for the skaters in Winter. The Point was also convenient during the ice harvest and an ice house stood on the hill near the try-kettles, within the memory of several whom we have interviewed.

The pond north of the Point was thick with lily-pads and further north as far as Job’s Lane was a flaggy swamp. On this swampy land for a number of years was the little old shop where drinks were sold by one known as “Old John Ware.” Across the lane on the hill, which lately has been leveled to give place for the American Legion Community Building was a small liberty pole and an old cannon where the “boys” were wont to celebrate on patriotic occasions. One 4^th of July morning, we were told, John Ware poured into the cannon such a charge of powder that it blew itself to pieces and the windows in the shop were shattered, as well as in neighboring places. As a pleasant contrast to the above we like to remember the well-kept cottage—still standing, but beyond recognition in its concrete covering—where lived Phyrrhus Concer and his wife Rachel. To the little dock just opposite on the pond was moored the sailboat in which every day in Summer—except Sundays—Phyrrhus made as many trips to the ocean as the wind would allow, ferrying the Summer boarders and others to the bathing beach—but the story of Phyrrhus is a narrative by itself.

After the Summer residents began to build their homes along the Pond the sailboats became numerous and many a half-holiday was spent in watching the boat races up and down the Pond. (Has anyone forgotten the Bennett Catamaran?) After motors were used there was trouble for the propellers were constantly mixed up with the grass, which the swans in recent years were imported to diminish.

Courtesy Lizbeth Halsey White Files, Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center