The George McKesson Brown Estate, aka Coindre Hall is an example of a Gold Coast mansion built around the turn of the century as a summer residence for wealthy entrepreneurs. Coindre Hall’s history is similar to that of other mansions of its time.  Built during an era of great opulence, the estates eventually became untenable due to economic changes and increased taxation. Eventually the mansions and lands were sold off piece by piece by owners and descendants due to unaffordability and disinterest. Many were sold off to developers and torn down, others became public buildings or museums. Many languish as a tug of war between various community factions with differing agendas for their use.

George McKesson Brown, heir to the McKesson Pharmaceutical Company fortune, purchased 135 waterfront acres facing Huntington Harbor. In approximately 1906 Brown commissioned architect Clarence Summer Luce to design a mansion inspired by chateaus he had seen while on vacation with his wife in the Loire Valley. The French Chateau style in architecture became popular in the United States around the late 19th century. This style reflected 16th century French chateaus with gabled roofs, conical towers, spires and arched entryways.

Notwithstanding the occasional snowstorm, winters have been getting warmer and wetter.  In the past winters had more frequent single digit temperatures and several snowstorms a season.   The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported for the 2022-2023 season the average temperature was 2.7 degrees above average, and the precipitation average made it the third wettest winter on record.  The east coast had one of the least snowy seasons, but plenty of rain.
In addition to the famous March snowstorm of 1888, the Great Christmas Blizzard of 1947, the blizzards of Feb 2006, and January 2016 a sampling of Huntington’s previous winters as recorded in the Long Islander illustrates the contrast between past and present weather. Although greatly inconvenienced by the storms the populace often took joy in the fact that the conditions afforded great sleigh riding.

1839- It snowed for three days rendering all roads impassable, but “We now have fine sleighing and our citizens both old and young are proving by actual demonstration the country sleigh rides in winter are nothing to sneeze at!” (Long Islander 12/27/1839.)
1853-A large snowstorm completely stopped the Long Island Railroad for five days.  However “The beautiful sleighing has been well improved by our citizens...the streets are filled with fine teams, handsome sleds filled with gay flowing robes and jingle bells.  A party of eighteen sleds from this village and Cold Spring Harbor made a visit to Hempstead on Tuesday.” (Long Islander 1/21/1853)
1865-Extremely cold weather, temperature hovers around zero with very little variation since December. The sound was frozen over “...as far as can be seen from the necks.” Long Islander 2/17/1865
1866-temperatures ranging from ten to thirteen below zero for consecutive days, and fourteen and fifteen below in New York City and Brooklyn.  “...almost everyone was willing to admit that it was cold, and if they were not, their frozen ears and noses attested to it.” (Long Islander 1/12/1866)         
1896-The long Islander reported an unusual snowstorm in May. Due to the raging snowstorm, a schooner was driven onto Little Reef to the east of the Eaton’s Neck Lighthouse.  “The waters of the sound were lashed into a fury by the gale and four of the five men on the vessel, fearing she would go to pieces, launched the yawl boat...the boat was swamped and two of the men drowned.  The fall of snow was followed by a storm of sleet afforded an unexpected opportunity for sleigh riding.”           
1936- Long Islander reported that Huntington Harbor was completely covered in ice from shore to shore, the thickness approaching 16 inches.  (Long Islander 2/21/1936.
In light of the recent earthquake in Queens and on Roosevelt Island, a slight digression.  In August 1884, an earthquake hit Long Island.  According to the Long Islander, the shock was felt in Washington D.C., Canada, Ohio and the Atlantic Coast.  “Crockery and glassware were shaken on tables...doorbells in several houses in our village rang violently...Some clocks were stopped... and chairs were moved with persons in them...one lady Mrs. Pettit eighty –two years of age was rolled from here bed.  Several persons fainted and sick people were very much affected.  ...the death of Mrs. Almed Tillot was very much hastened by the shock as she was suffering from a nervous affliction...others were greatly affected in their heads.” (Long Islander 8/15.1884)

If you are fascinated by cemeteries and love to spend time reading tombstone inscriptions, looking for the graves of famous people, or simply enjoying the verdant and peaceful surroundings of park-like burial grounds then you qualify as a true taphophillac (Taphophilla -ancient Greek taphos, funeral rites, burial, philia, love).
Genealogists, historians, and photographers are drawn to cemeteries for various reasons.   Both professional and amateur historians go to cemeteries for the information they can reveal about a town’s history.  For example, family names which coincide with names of local streets indicate those families were prominent in the community.  In the earliest burial sites, which were often in churchyards, the areas closest to the church, or those facing east were reserved for the more important citizens. Death rates and infant mortality can be measured.  Large groupings of death dates can indicate an epidemic or other natural catastrophe.
Genealogists can find previously unknown ancestors as family members were often buried next to each other or in mausoleums.  Birth and death dates can be compared to written records.  Because the census comes out only every ten years, tombstones may be the only record for a child who was born and died within that period.

Many cemeteries have ornate sculptures and elaborate mausoleums considered artistic architecture, which attracts photographers.  Older weathered tombstones have interesting textures and contrast creating pleasing images.  Park like cemeteries provide lush landscapes as well as being habitats for wildlife.
Burial grounds and grave markers have changed over the years.  In early colonial America, burial grounds were mainly in churchyards or in the center of a village, preferably on a hill. In keeping with strict puritan tradition, grave markers were plain usually made of fieldstone or wooden planks, with only the name and date of death.  Eventually sandstone and slate were used, etched with simple verse or something about the person’s life.  Images of crossbones and skulls were prevalent as reminders of mortality. Later on, more positive images of winged cherubs emphasizing the afterlife became popular.

As churchyards became overcrowded and real estate values rose, rural cemeteries were established on the outskirts of towns and cities. Not being associated with a particular church, many of these were public and non-denominational.  This led to more landscaped cemeteries that were garden- like. With winding paths, benches, and shade trees, cemeteries were now conducive for family outings and even picnicking.  Founded in 1831 Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts was the first rural cemetery in American.  Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn followed shortly after in 1838.

There are many historic cemeteries within the Town of Huntington for one to explore.  Four in particular are within the the village area. 
The Old Burial Ground- Located at 228 Main Street, the Old Burial Ground was founded in the 17th century and in 1981 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.  It is the former location of an English revolutionary fort.  After the American Revolution, the fort was dismantled and the burial grounds restored.  There one can find graves of Revolutionary and Civil War veterans.

When former Huntington resident Daniel Thomas Nauke discovered boxes of forgotten letters written between his parents during WWII, he brought the letters home and put them on a shelf. It took the COVID lockdown years later to prompt Daniel to finally read and organize the letters. He found they revealed not only a love story between his parents but also a story of immigrant families, a neighborhood, and life during WWII.
 
Using the letters as a springboard, Daniel began a research project involving old maps, censuses, and newspaper articles to recreate the time frame of the neighborhood and the families that lived there. The project evolved into the book Always Faithful Letters Between An American Soldier and His Hometown Sweetheart During WWII. The result of this research is a work that is not only a personal love story, but also an historical document of the times in Huntington Station.
 
By the 1920s, the streets in Huntington Station had been laid out, building lots were being sold and homes built.  Immigrants came to this area and eventually settled in the new community, creating a diverse neighborhood of Germans, Irish, Italian, and Polish families to name a few. This is where the author’s parents, Lee Alessio and Wolfgang Nauke, grew up across the street from each other on East 4th Street and Fairground Avenue. Lee was the daughter of Salvatore Alessio from Acri Italy, and Wolfgang immigrated with his parents from Dresden, Germany in 1923.
 
Interspersed with the letters, the author provides photographs, maps, postcards, and WWII memorabilia, as well as an extensive index of families and businesses that populated the area. This book illustrates that old family documents can be more than personal memories, they can provide historical insight of interest to everyone.

If you are interested in purchasing this book when it becomes available, please contact [email protected].

The period from roughly 1877 to the early 20th century demarks the era known as the “Gilded Age.” The term Gilded Age was first coined by Mark Twain who, in his usual ironic fashion, used the word gilded to denote something that was shiny on the surface, but corrupt underneath.  

The Gilded Age coincided with a period of vast social and economic restructuring known as the Second Industrial Revolution. Urbanization and innovations in transportation, communication, production techniques and cheap immigrant labor opened up markets and allowed for the quick delivery of goods over vast distances. This growth in production created great wealth, but also great inequality and poverty, rendering the economic system inherently unstable, and culminating in the crash of 1929.

The industrialists of this period - the railroad men, the oilmen, the steel men and the bankers -epitomized the lifestyle of the Gilded Age. Luxurious houses along Fifth Avenue were furnished with rich fabrics, marble, gold, carved ornate furniture imported from Europe and expensive antiques and art collections. Many mansions had ballrooms that hosted parties for hundreds of people. With an abundance of disposable wealth, families such as the Fricks, the Morgans, the Vanderbilts and the Coes built weekend or summer homes along the North Shore of Long Island, known as the Gold Coast.

One such industrialist, Walter Jennings (1858-1933), built his estate in Lloyd Harbor. Jennings was the son of Standard Oil co-founder Oliver Burr Jennings, and was a first cousin to William, Percy and Geraldine Rockefeller. He was a director of Standard Oil New Jersey, president of the National Fuel Gas Company, director of the Bank of Manhattan, and trustee of the New York Trust Company, eventually to become Chase and Chemical Banks respectively.

Beginning in 1895, Jennings began buying property in Cold Spring Harbor* (in buying 374 acres Jennings also acquired the Glenada Hotel, which he tore down). In 1898, he engaged architects Carrere & Hastings to design a Georgian mansion and the Olmstead Brothers to create the formal gardens.  Carrere & Hastings had both apprenticed to Stanford White, and among their impressive achievements in Manhattan are the main branch of the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue, The Standard Oil Building, the Henry Clay Frick House and the Cunard Building. The Olmstead Brothers’ famous creations include Central Park, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Forest Park and Prospect Park.

Jennings and his wife, Jean Brown Jennings, and their three children made Burrwood their summer residence. In retirement, Jennings moved permanently to Burrwood where he enthusiastically engaged in farming activities.
In a little over 50 years’ time, many of the Gold Coast Mansions were abandoned or torn down. The Great Depression, increased income taxes, rising land costs, high maintenance and personnel costs contributed to their demise as the cost of maintaining the estates became prohibitive. Some families lost their fortunes, or subsequent generations had less disposable income or simply found the style of the mansions not to their taste. Many estates were subdivided due to social and economic changes such as the movement to the suburbs of a growing middle class creating a demand for land to build single-family homes.​

Jennings died in 1933. His will stipulated that his wife could continue to live at Burrwood, while leaving the estate to his son. After Mrs. Jennings’ death, The Industrial Home for the Blind purchased the mansion and 32.5 acres for $90,000 in 1951. In 1952, it opened as a residence for the blind, but by the early 1980’s the maintenance and personnel costs became too expensive. Additionally, the resident population was decreasing due to more community support services enabling the disabled to remain in their homes or with family. After the remaining residents relocated to nursing homes or other housing programs, the property was sold in 1987 for 5.5 million to a New Rochelle developer who intended to restore the mansion to a single family home and subdivide the rest of the land to build 10 homes. 

However, the deal fell through and the mortgage holder seized the property. Another development company bought 10 lots and built houses. Unfortunately, there were no buyers willing to restore the house, and the Village of Lloyd Harbor had no landmark preservation ordinance in place that would have prevented destruction of the mansion. Burrwood was torn down in 1995. Property taxes at that time assessed at over $100,000 as well as 6.5 million dollars for restoration.

If you still want to see a vestige of Burrwood’s opulence, you can take a stroll in the Elizabeth Street Garden in Manhattan’s Little Italy. Among various sculptures, you can sit under an Olmstead iron wrought gazebo from the Burrwood estate.

*The property later became part of the Incorporated Village of Lloyd Harbor.

The Huntington Historical Society received a $39,000 grant from the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research Materials Discretionary Grant Program to conserve and digitize 160 audio cassettes and 16 reel-to-reel tapes comprising the Society’s oral history collection. The goal of the audio preservation is to produce an accurate and intelligible reproduction of the source material and create accessible Mp3 files.
The collection was sent to the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Massachusetts where a total of 244 hours of recordings were transferred, processed, and repaired.


The interviews span the years from the 1950s to the 1980s, and depict through
first person accounts, the transformation of Huntington from an early 20th century rural community through the urban renewal efforts of the 1960s-1970s.
 Included in this collection is a special project developed in conjunction with the Town of Huntington entitled “Reaching for a Dream.” The project documents the history and contributions of Huntington’s local ethnic communities. Sixty-five persons from the African-American, Italian, and Latino communities were interviewed between 1987 and 1988. The preservation of these oral history interviews insures that a significant part of Huntington’s history, told from the standpoint of local townspeople, will now be accessible to the public.  ​

Reaching for a Dream Oral History

He returned to Paramount in 1929 and left in 1936 to begin work on special features for the New York World’s Fair. He created special motion pictures projected on the interior of the Perisphere, an enormous modernistic structure that served as the central theme of the fair. He built his first model for the Cinerama process but it was considered too expensive and radical at the time. During this period, he bought the Kenyon Instrument Company of Boston and relocated it to Huntington as the Kenyon Instrument Company. The new company produced nautical and aircraft instruments.


During WWII, he developed the Waller Gunnery Trainer, a simulator utilizing multiple cameras projecting pictures of moving planes onto a conclave screen. This resulted in producing realistic aerial battle situations, thus showing gunners how to hit them. The U.S. Air Force, Navy and the British Admiralty used the trainer, which is credited with saving over 350,000 lives during combat. ​

This law addressed the gap in care of the poor created by Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, as the monasteries had been the main source of charity.

The Elizabethan law established the precept of local control, meaning each village had the responsibility for its own poor. Local officials had the power to raise taxes and appoint an overseer to administer the charity funds. A later law, The Law of Settlement and Removal, empowered villages to expel persons back to their home village should they become dependent, insuring that “no vagabonds or beggars allowed. “

As early as 1687, the Province of New York passed a law mandating towns and counties take care of their own poor. Pre and post revolution New York continued to establish statutes such as binding out poor children as apprentices and servants, and the establishment of poor or work houses. Eventually children were removed from these institutions and placed in orphanages.

According to Huntington Town Records, the town trustees who acted as overseers evaluated destitute residents on a case-to-case basis. Eventually separate overseers were appointed. These individuals came from prominent Huntington families. Town overseer records show in 1763 the first overseers came from the Brush, Platt, and Wood families. Over the years such personages as William Woodhull, Solomon Ketchum, John Rogers, Israel Scudder, Hiram Baylis served multiple terms. As an interesting aside, it was not until 1921 that the first woman overseer, Maude E. Henschell, was elected. A Brooklyn Times Union article dated December 29, 1921 took note of her reelection: ​

For nearly 50 years, the Huntington Town House reigned as a celebrated venue for weddings, proms, bar mitzvahs, and anniversary parties. Politicians and celebrities such as the Beach Boys, Steve Levy, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump held events there.  More importantly, the Town House engenders memories for the thousands of people whose milestone celebrations were held under its crystal chandeliers.


The evolution of the Town House begins in the late nineteenth century with a restaurateur and hotelier family, the Gerards. William Gerard operated hotels in Cold Spring Harbor-the Laurelton on the west side of the harbor, and after he sold the Laurelton in 1880, he acquired the Glenda,