Brookhaven/South Haven Hamlets

Carol Bissonette Replies

2009-06-04T20:20:00.001-04:00

Hi John,

Sorry for the delay in responding back to you, but I wanted to wait until I had additional information available, post our tour.

First of all, thank you so much for the amount of time that you, John, Ron and Mary Jane spent with me yesterday and for the wealth of information regarding the historic cemeteries you provided me with. Sans ticks, it was absolutely delightful and the highlight was our discovery of another historic tombstone that previously had not been found! Now that is teamwork.

Since we parted yesterday, I have been following up at my end and I am pleased to let you know that we will begin addressing each of the cemeteries by no later than mid-week next week. I will be showing one of our maintenance crews the sites and we will do them based on the priorities discussed.

Additionally, I have spoken with Greg Miglino regarding putting in a double gate at the rear of the Brookhaven Elementary School. Greg thinks this is a great idea and will be working closely with me on doing what we need to do to get that installed. I can't give you a definitive time frame as there are additional details that need to be worked out.

I will continue to keep you posted on our progress and thank you again for spending so much time with me. It truly is exciting to know that we have so many revolutionary and civil war heroes, as well as outstanding citizens who rest in peace in our hamlets and town.

Best regards,
Carol

Carol A. Bissonette
Deputy Commissioner, Parks, Recreation & Sports & Cultural Resources
Office#: 631-451-6112
Cell #: 631-831-3291
cbissonette@brookhaven.org

Bissonette Tours Hamlets Cemeteries

2009-06-03T15:29:00.006-04:00

Brookhaven Town Officials Tour Historic Brookhaven and South Haven Burying Grounds

After the successful restoration of the historic Rose Family Cemetery on Jared's Path during 2008, the Fire Place History Club and the Brookhaven Village Association are working to restore and conserve three additional historic cemeteries in the Hamlets of Brookhaven and South Haven -- the Azel Hawkins Cemetery on Stillwood Road, the Old South Haven Church Cemetery in South Haven, and the Carman-Miller Family Cemetery, also in South Haven. Funds for this work are being provided by a Caithness Grant from the Town of Brookhaven and community contributions through the Brookhaven Village Association Cemetery Fund.

For this work to have a sustaining success, routine grounds maintenance of these cemeteries, as well as other burying grounds in the two hamlets, needs to be conducted by the Town of Brookhaven as required by New York State law. Accept for two highly visible cemeteries in Brookhaven Hamlet, this work has not been conducted in the recent past. After some three years of efforts to obtain Town compliance, a group of citizens in Brookhaven Hamlet have notified the Town that they will file an article 78 action at the end of June against the Town to force their compliance with the law. An article 78 action is a procedure under New York State Law which allows citizens to sue a Town for compliance with State law.

On Wednesday, June 3, 2009, members of the Fire Place History Club conducted a tour of historic cemeteries in the two hamlets for Carol Bissonette, Deputy Commissioner, Town of Brookhaven Parks Department. In addition to the three cemeteries scheduled for restoration and conservation this year, the group also visited other cemeteries as examples of sites in need of routine grounds care -- the Miller and Corwin family cemeteries in Brookhaven, and the David Hawkins Cemetery in South Haven/Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge.

In general, we were well pleased with the interest Ms. Bissonette expressed in conserving these historical assets and the commitments she made on behalf of the Town Parks Department to maintain the cemeteries. The proof, of course, is in the pudding.

Azel Hawkins Cemetery, Stillwood Road

This burying ground is scheduled for conservation and restoration during the Summer of 2009 using a Caithness Grant from the Town of Brookhaven.

Marty Van Lith, Fire Place History Club; Mary Jane Cullen, President Brookhaven Village Association; Ron Kinsella, Fire Place History Club; Carol Bissonette, Deputy Parks Commissioner, Town of Brookhaven; and a Brookhaven Town Parks Maintenance Supervisor.

Old South Haven Presbyterian Church Cemetery

This burying ground within the South Haven Suffolk County Park (old Robinson Farm) is currently being restored with a Caithness Grant from the Town of Brookhaven.

Carol Bisonette, Deputy Commissioner, Town of Brookhaven Parks Department; Marty Van Lith; and Hollis Werner, proprietor of the Peconic Monument Works, Riverhead. Hollis is providing stone repair and resetting of the monuments. The Suffolk County Department of Parks is providing new fencing; and the Town of Brookhaven is providing lawn care and routine maintenance.

Old South Haven Church Cemetery

Carol Bissonette examining a headstone under repair by Hollis Werner.

Carman-Miller Cemetery, South Haven

This cemetery contains graves of the Carman and Miller families of 17th and 18th century South Haven. The Carmans River gets its name from a member of this family. This cemetery is an island within the South Haven Suffolk County Park. Headstones are currently being restored using a Caithness Grant from the Town of Brookhaven.. The Suffolk County Parks Department will be providing fencing. The Town of Brookhaven Parks Department will be providing routine mowing and maintenance.

Ron Bush, owner of the nearby Bush Farm and private farm implements museum, and Carol Bissonette discuss the condition of the cemetery.

Carman-Miller Cemetery, South Haven

Eric Crater, Assistant Director of Historic Services, Suffolk County Parks; Ron Bush, Marty Van Lith, Ron Kinsella, and Carol Bissonette discuss tasks required to conserve this historic cemetery.

Long Island Advance: Fish ladder wins award

2009-05-02T10:33:00.003-04:00

An article in this week's Long Island Advance (April 30, 2009, p. 6, click link) reports that the fish ladder at the Hard's Lake Dam has received an award from the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Coastal America Partnership for "helping to restore the local eco-system" by "helping to rebuild the native fish population."

This effort is certainly worthwhile. And the article itself is carefully written. But like many essentially publicity pieces, it is weak on providing hard evidence that the goals of the fish ladder project are successful.

How successful have alewives and brook trout been in navigating to the upstream Carman's River? And how successful have they been at spawning?

As I understand it, alewives spawn during March and April. And this is the first spawning season after the fish ladder has been in place. Has there even been time to conduct and analyze a census to measure the ladder's success?

There is also the implication that the Hard's Lake dam is a major factor in the decline of alewives and brook trout along the Eastern seaboard. While allowing its navigation may provide some incremental improvement, it can't be blamed very much for the decline. There has been a dam at this location for at least 260 years. And alewives on the lower Carman's River were plentiful through the 1930s (and perhaps latter).

For perhaps 200 years, brook trout were not "native" on the upper river, but were farmed for the benefit of the wealthy sportsmen of the Suffolk Club. I'm told that brook trout are extremely sensitive to environmental stresses, and that maintaining an adequate supply from the on site hatchery required highly skilled husbandry -- even in the 19th century.

I'm personally not very optimistic for the rivers and streams of Long Island. The rape has already occurred. Increasing population, developer greed, and governmental collusion have done their deed.

John Rose Offers Reward

2009-04-17T22:47:00.001-04:00

The following is interesting because of the size of the reward that was offered. John Rose must have been a very frugal man.

The Corrector (Sag Harbor), August 29, 1846, p. 3.

1 CENT REWARD---Run away from subscriber, on the 14th inst, an indentured boy, aged 15, by the name of Augustus Stevens. Whoever will return said boy shall receive the above reward, and all persons are hereby forbid harboring or trusting said boy,

JOHN S. ROSE.

Fireplace, Brookhaven, Aug. 18th, 1846

South Haven Cemetery Work Starts

2009-04-17T22:00:00.001-04:00

Work has started on the South Haven Church Cemetery!

On the first really fine day of Spring, with the temperatures near 70, members of the Fire Place History started preparation work for the South Haven Presbyterian Church cemetery restoration. Betty Budney, John Deitz, Eben Ludlow, Diane Martens, Richard Thomas, and Marty Van Lith are seen here excavating stones in preparation for their repair (where possible), and resetting.

Our stone mason, Hollis Warner of Riverhead, has straightened things out with the Town of Brookhaven and is ready to go -- but he is going on vacation next week, probably won't start until the week after, about April 27. In the meantime, community folks will need to excavate, clean and mark the location of the stones. If you are interested, contact Marty Van Lith, vanlith@optonline.net,

Hollis also has to get back to the Town with a cost estimate of Carmans/Miller and Azel Hawkins burying grounds, the other two sites he's contracted to do by December 31.

John Deitz, supervising; Eben Ludlow, workingg

Dian Martens and Betty Taylor Budney, probing for fragments
As a youth, Betty lived two houses from the cemetery.

Richard Thomas

Eben Ludlow, uncovering what at first appeared to be a buried headstone
but when excavated contained no text.

John Deitz, still supervising
Supervising is a tiring job!

Carman's River Fish Ladder

2009-04-04T15:23:00.004-04:00

Alewife are anadromous fish; they spend most of their lives in the ocean, but return to fresh water to spawn. An important food fish, bait fish, and favorite prey of striped bass, their runs are said to have been declining along the Atlantic coast partly due to construction of barriers on spawning tributaries. To combat the declining number of alewife and other native fish, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) has constructed on the Carmans River Long Island’s first permanent fish ladder.

The fish ladder is said to permit fish to move upstream beyond a previously impassable barrier into Hards Lake in South Haven County Park, connecting two now isolated parts of this South Shore Estuary. Alewife and sea-run brook trout (a.k.a. "salters") now have access to spawning areas above the Hards Lake Dam. The Carmans River, which flows from Middle Island in the north to Bellport Bay in the south, holds the largest remaining population of brook trout on Long Island.

The barrier dam at South Haven is not new, at least on a human scale. A mill dam was first constructed there in the early 18th century. Several other early mill dams remain along the river, including two former mill dams at Yaphank and smaller weir dams built by various tenants principally to enhance fishing. Since the early 19th century, brook trout has been farmed in fish hatcheries for the stocking of the river. One can still visit a hatchery originally built by the Hards for their Suffolk Game Farm (see Suffolk Club & "Fireplace" Hard Estate) and I believe still maintained by Suffolk County.

Probably the most famous story of fishing on the river from the early 19th century concerns Daniel Webster. The river was very popular among well-heeled sportsmen. A huge trout had become legendary and Webster was determined to catch it. One Sunday, during services at the South Haven Presbyterian Church, one of Carman’s servants slipped in and whispered to Webster that the fish had been seen in the pond below the dam. Webster and Samuel Carman (owner of the dam, mills and surrounding land) sneaked out. Other congregants got the message and began to leave. The minister, seeing the hopelessness of continuing, ended his sermon and the whole congregation watched Webster catch the fourteen-and-a-half pound trout. The much celebrated trout lives on as a wooden replica on the weather vein of the church even today. The event was also memorialized in a Currier & Ives print. It is still said to have been among the largest brook trout ever caught.

A native South Haven resident, who was a young girl in the early 1930s, 200 years after the original mill dam was constructed, remembers the alewife runs as being enormous. They would come up the river and pool at the pond below the dam. They would be so dense that they would jump out of the river onto the shore. She remembers collecting them in baskets and wheelbarrows, and her mother would use them as fertilizer in the garden. She remembers that they were also smoked for human consumption, but were not to her taste.

I have visited the area below the South Haven dam many times, and have never noticed the alewives. This will be the first year that it has been in place during the Spring run. I'm sure someone will be keeping track of its effectiveness.

And maybe someone will explain to me how the little buggers know that climbing the ladder can be a good thing.

Concert: Opera, Organ and More

2009-04-02T11:39:00.002-04:00

Opera, Organ and More
with Mihaela Buhaiciuc, Robert Price, Leon Livshin and Michael Douglas Jones.
Saturday, April 4, 5 pm
Old South Haven Church, Brookhaven Hamlet
Corner South Country & Beaverdam Roads
Benefit Summer Music Scholarship Program, of the Becker/Gambles Music Fund, South Country Education Foundation.
Tickets are $20 and available at the door.

Residents of our communities will have the opportunity to attend a wonderful and unique concert on Saturday, April 4th. The concert "Opera, Organ and More" is being presented by the Becker/Gambles Music Fund Committee of the South Country Education Foundation, Inc. The concert will be held at the historic Old South Haven Presbyterian Church in Brookhaven Hamlet (at the intersection of South Country Road and Beaver Dam Road across from the Bellport High School) at 5:00 p.m. The Church dates back to 1828 and, in addition to its architectural elegance, holds the wonderful story of Senator Daniel Webster sneaking out of a service to catch the famous 14 ½ pound trout in the nearby pond, a replica of which can be seen as the weathervane on the Church spire. The Church now is the home of the Hinners Organ which was built in 1913 for a church in Sayville, and had several homes prior to being installed in the Old South Haven Church in 1961. In 2006, the organ was fully renovated by the Odell Organ Company thanks to a bequest by a former member of the choir, Roger Kickerer. The organ will be played at the concert by Robert Price who holds his Masters degree from the Mannes College of Music. He has been employed as an organist for over twenty years, and holds the prestigious certification by the American Guild of Organists.

The concert’s vocal portion will be provided by local artist Michael Douglas Jones, bass, and Mihaela Buhaiciuc, soprano, a native of Romania who currently teaches voice at the University of Mobile, Alabama. Mr. Jones and Ms. Buhaiciuc will sing both art song solos and duets, including a duet from Don Giovanni by Mozart and from Don Pasquale by Donizetti. Michael Douglas Jones made his New York City debut in Madame Butterfly, and has sung many operatic roles for several opera companies including those in Victoria B.C., Anchorage, Sarasota, El Paso, and Montreal. Mr. Jones won the prestigious Jessie Award for "outstanding performance by an actor in a leading role" for his creation of the Marquis in 120 Songs for the Marquis de Sade by Hannan. Ms. Buhaiciuc graduated Summa cum laude from the Brasov Music Conservatory in Romania and holds a PhD from Stony Brook University. In September 2008, Ms. Buhaiciuc gave a solo concert at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. In addition to concertizing, she is active in music education outreach programs, including giving Master Classes at the South Country Schools and the Port Jefferson Schools.

Mr. Jones and Ms Buhaiciuc will be accompanied by Leon Livshin who studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory before coming to the U.S. on a full scholarship to study piano at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. He has an active soloist and chamber music schedule, and teaches at Stony Brook University.

Tickets for this concert will be available at the door for $20. Proceeds will go to the Becker/Gambles Music Fund to support summer music scholarships for students in the South Country Schools. In addition to wonderful music, you have the opportunity to dine at The Bellport which is offering concert attendees a prix fixe dinner for $22 (For dinner reservations, please call 286 7550.)

Visit South Country Education Foundation at http://www.scefonline.org/

Bellport High School Students Visit Wertheim Refuge and Robinson Farm

2009-04-01T10:49:00.009-04:00

On Tuesday, March 31, 2009, students from the Bellport High School, accompanied by their teachers/advisors Andrew Budris and Dennis Pluth, were led on a "historical" tour of the Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge and the Robinson Farm (now owned by Suffolk County). The tour was let by Marty Van Lith, Brookhaven Village Association historian and Fire Place History Club convenor. He was assisted by Jen Clements.

They first visited the David Hawkins family burying ground off Old Barto Road on the old Hawkins farm. They then continued hiking south on the Old Barto Road [picture], across the Long Island Railroad tracks to a Refuge road along the south side of the tracks to the old Homan farm road, then back north across the tracks to a trail east to the southeast field of the Robinson farm.

After crossing the field, they visited the Carman/Miller family burying ground where Samual Carman, Sr. and family members are interred [picture].

Afterwards they visited the old South Haven Presbyterian Church cemetery where John Deitz, and elder of the church and a member of the Fire Place History Club, talked of some of the people buried there [picture].

They then finished the tour at the former Hard estate/Robinson barn, where the current owner, Ron Bush, gave a tour of his extensive collection of old farm equipment [picture].

Cemetery maintenance - Update (from the Town)

2009-03-27T19:23:00.002-04:00

The following was posted with Carol Bissonette's permission:

Good Afternoon Everyone,
I just wanted to provide all of you with a quick update on the on-going cemetery project. It is as follows:
1. The Parks team assigned to visit, locate and photograph ALL recorded cemeteries in the town have gone through the complete list, Parks list. There are quite a few that have NOT yet been located and a second go round will be done after collating all the data they brought back, cross-referencing against the Town Historian's List and the Town Assessors list.
2. Inventory forms will be entered and photo's with maps (refer to sample provided to you previously) will be the next inventory phase of the project.
3. On those located, we will pull together a maintenance needs/requirements list and begin addressing them as quickly as possible. As a matter of fact, routine maintenance is already underway at some of the cemeteries as we have crews available in the districts to do them.
4. Upon completion of the data entry, photo and map entry and secondary check to find those we can't locate, you will receive copies of the survey forms along with a summary listing of maintenance issues to be addressed such as fence replacement, tree/shrub pruning, headstones that need to be reset, etc.
I hope you will find the above information helpful and we are working as quickly as possible to pull the entire package together with accuracy.
I would like to extend large thanks to Ed Gregory and his team for following through so diligently on physically locating the cemeteries, documenting and photographing them. This has never been done before and they did a really fine job.
If you have any questions or if I can be of further assistance regarding the above, please let me know.
Thank you and regards,
Carol

Carol A. Bissonette
Deputy Commissioner, Parks, Recreation & Sports & Cultural Resources
Office#: 631-451-6112
Cell #: 631-831-3291
cbissonette@brookhaven.org

Another round for Beaver Dam Creek

2009-02-06T20:12:00.004-05:00

New York Department of Environmental Conservation finally attends a meeting

From the Long Island Advance. November 5, 2009

Story By: LINDA LEUZZI, Staff Writer

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) was finally at the table on Jan. 23, a first since the Beaver Dam Creek Water Quality group has been meeting with Brookhaven Town and county officials to address the leachate plume emanating from the town landfill. The town’s search for monitoring wells had also been tackled. This is the group’s fourth meeting since it first gathered to grapple with solutions in September.

“Chart Guthrie, New York state DEC fisheries manager for Region 1, reported that an invertebrate study was done in Beaver Dam Creek in both 2003 and 2008 but did not have the results with him,” said Marty Van Lith, who represents the Open Space Council.

Of the 51 people identified within the path of the plume, 21 were residing southeast of the landfill and 30 others were south of Beaver Dam Road. Van Lith said the town reported that currently well over 20 of the people contacted within the plume’s path were already using water from the Suffolk County Water Authority. The remainder of those in its path are getting notices by Suffolk County Department of Health, which is sending representatives door-to-door to test the wells. Those not receiving SCWA water will be given the chance to switch for free if they are on well water within the area.

Of the six wells SCDH tested, none showed contamination of leachate indicators, Van Lith said.

“The town agreed to put in a new well for the HOG (Hamlet Organic Garden) Farm and the question is where to put it,” said Tom Williams, vice president of the Post-Morrow Foundation. “They also found 70 percent of the monitoring wells, more than they thought.”

In an e-mail, Ed Hubbard, Brookhaven’s commissioner of waste management, said that the town was willing to help with the installation of a new well for the HOG farm. “I understand that the HOG farm has hired a hydrogeologist to work towards locating the proper placement of a new well and the proper depth,” he said. “Once we do a sample round or two in that area, we will have data that could be useful to begin relocation of the well.”

Hubbard confirmed about 60 or so wells had been found and looked to be in good shape. “Within the next two months our consultants will go out and redevelop the wells and begin taking groundwater samples,” Hubbard said. “Redevelopment involves making sure the well casing is secure and at the proper height and purging the water that is in the well to get clean samples.”

Claire Goad, president of Friends of Wertheim, said that the surface waters of Little Neck Run, Beaver Dam and Yaphank creeks had been tested in November. “But it takes three months to get the results,” she said. “(The town) agreed to test these surface waters every three months and the monitoring wells will be tested every six months.”

Another hopeful sign was the town’s recommendation that the current working group, chaired by Councilwoman Connie Kepert (4th District), is to be formalized by town resolution. Currently, Williams, Van Lith, Goad and Mary Jane Cullen, president of the Brookhaven Village Association, are the Brookhaven hamlet contingency. While Van Lith said they weren’t euphoric, the cooperative mood since they first met had improved and was more constructive and they cited some of Hubbard’s efforts.

Hubbard said additional gas collection piping and the installation of additional clean out chambers to jet out and clean the older leachate lines had been undertaken under his watch over the last few years. Two brand new leachate collection tanks that can hold about 50 percent more leachate than the old tanks and have a leachate aeration system built in were also added. “The current tanks are getting old and are on the future footprint of the landfill and would need to be replaced some time in the future,” he said. “I accelerated this part of the project in order to get additional capacity and to be able to clean out the old tanks and segregate the leachate by cells.”

George Costa, president of the Art Flick Chapter of Trout Unlimited, commented there still was no concrete solution proposed. “Our question is what (is the town) going to do about the plume?” he said. “Are you going to continue doing studies? Chart Guthrie (DEC) said the ammonia levels were a thousand percent above what they should be and that it is affecting the insect life and the fish and plant life. It’s not just fish. It’s all intertwined.”

Hubbard cited the DEC requirements to cap cells 1-4 to cut off leachate over time, which was done, as well as town funds for public water and the HOG Farm and increased frequency and locations of surface water sampling. “Any remediation effort would be problematic and most likely not very successful,” he said. “However, we are exploring options. We may install groundwater wells at one point but right now we will be installing geoprobes instead. Currently we are installing between 10 to 13 geoprobes at various locations.”

Beaver Dam Creek Water Quality group

The Beaver Dam Creek Water Quality group consists of Tom Williams, Post-Morrow Foundation; Marty Van Lith, Open Space Council; Claire Goad, Friends of Wertheim; Mary Jane Cullen, Brookhaven Village Association; George Costa, Trout Unlimited; Adrienne Esposito, Citizens Campaign for the Environment; Sean Pilger, Hamlet Organic Garden; David Tonjes, Stony Brook University; Suffolk County Legislator Kate Browning; Ed Hubbard, Brookhaven commissioner of waste management; John Turner, Brookhaven director of environmental protection; Wertheim National Wildlife Preserve; South Shore Estuary Preserve; Suffolk County Department of Health; NYSDEC; consultants David Tonges, Stony Brook University; and Dvirka and Bartilucci

More Caithness money awarded

2009-02-06T09:17:00.003-05:00

Citizens Advisory Committee doles out $110,400

Fire Place History Club and Brookhaven Village Association receive grants.

The Fire Place History Club in Brookhaven Hamlet has been awarded $11,000 for the restoration of seven historic cemeteries. Professional stonemasons will replace and fix damaged and broken stones in the cemeteries. In addition, the Brookhaven Village Association has received $5,000 to continue their program of replacing dying and damaged trees throughout Brookhav3n Hamlet in public spaces and along roadways.

The grants were among those approved by the Broohaven Town board to disburse $110,400 of the Caithness Host Community Benefits Package.

The Fire Place History Club is an informal association of community members interested in preserving the cultural heritage of the Brookhaven and South Haven Hamlets. One of their principal projects has been conserving and restoring some 20 family burying grounds within the two hamlets, some dating to the Colonial era. See Cemeteries for additional information.

The grant requests were presented by the Post-Morrow Foundation on behalf of the history club.

More information on these grants may be found at the Long Island Advance, February 5, 2009. Other stories on the activities of the Fire Place History Club may be found in this blog.

Bring Back Wild Dogs or maybe wolves

2009-01-08T13:42:00.005-05:00

From today's L.I. Advance, From the Archives of the Long Island Advance, 75 Years Ago:

" While motoring along South Country Road near Yaphank Avenue a short time ago, Norman F. Nelson Jr. saw a young deer emerge from the woods followed by two dogs, one of which was attacking the deer's haunches. Mr. Nelson left his car and advanced toward the dogs with a stick. To his surprise, the deer rushed towards him, to within 10 feet, apparently fearing him less than the dogs. Then it bounded across the road and escaped its pursuers. Deer used to be a common sight in the Southaven woods, but few have been reported recently."

There are two items of modern (2009) interest — deer are now plentiful and a nuisance; dogs running wild are rare. My contention is that one of the reasons for the proliferation of deer is that dogs are no longer allowed to run wild.

A neighbor has suggested "It's wolves, not wild dogs, you want to bring back. They've been successfully reintroduced many places out west. Can you imagine the howling (from the public) if you suggested that for Wertheim [Wildlife Refuge]? "

1983 Brookhaven History Talk Rediscovered

2009-01-05T11:53:00.005-05:00

Thanks again to Marty van Lith, a 1983 talk given by Janet Reddall and Alfred Nelson to the Brookhaven Free Library Association has been rediscovered and posted on the Brookhaven/South Haven web site. In the talk, Janet and Al recall the community they knew in the early 20th century. Their remembrances provide human faces to many of the families, residences and events of the time.

Janet Ewing Reddall was 82 at the time of the talk. She died in 1995. Alfred Nelson was 80; he died in 1988.

I have annotated the text with hyperlinks to pages about individuals and buildings where additional information may be found.

We are fortunate that the talk was transcribed for the Library Association by Regina David, a Library trustee and my neighbor.

Composition by Irene Hawkins dated January 20, 1880

2009-01-02T21:23:00.003-05:00

Marty Van Lith found an interesting composition by then 15-year Irene Hawkins at the Post Morrow Foundation. Neat handwriting, bright kid. The last sentence of the composition on the second page is on top of the page.

Legend reads:

"Composition by Irene Hawkins dated January 20, 1880. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Cherrington to the Brookhaven Free Library in 1983. They received it from Ernest Hawkins, nephew to Irene Hawkins.

"Irene Hawkins was born in 1865, became a teacher in the Brookhaven School, later married the principal, Jesse Johnson, and resided in her family home (now #311 Beaver Dam Road)."

The link is to Irene's data sheet in the site Hamlet People Database, where a link to the essay may be found.

Union Dime Club, Brookhaven, NY

2009-01-01T14:32:00.002-05:00

Thanks to a collection of historic memorbelia from Barbara Kresse, we learn of the social life in Brookhaven Hamlet in the 1880s. An article from the Patchogue Advance, February 7, 1952, reveals activities of a community social group called the Union Dime Club which held dances and other socials widely attended by community members. Hyperlinks are provided within the article to people and residences mentioned.

Beaver Dam Creek Water Quality Group

2008-12-16T23:14:00.002-05:00

Some action (and frustration) at meeting
Beaver Dam Creek group meets for third time about plume

Patchogue Advance, 11 December 2008

By LINDA LEUZZI

The third meeting of the Beaver Dam Creek Water Quality group, which took place Dec. 5 with the town to address the leachate plume emanating from the landfill, nailed down some specific actions. The next; meeting will take place on Jan. 23.

Fifty-one people with wells in the path of the plume have been identified, said Councilwoman Connie Kepert (4th District), who is chairing the group. "Most people have (Suffolk County Water Authority) water (But) we're giving it (free) to anyone in the path of the plume. SCWA is knocking on doors to see if they're interested and if they're interested, they'll be hooked up. That is our first responsibility, to protect public health.

"The next is to protect the environment. That's a more difficult prospect" Kepert added. "Surely this has taken place in other towns and I want (Brookhaven Town) to look at best management practices elsewhere. I've asked for a report on what could be done.

"I thought the most alarming thing is that there are 51 wells that are being impacted by the plume;" said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, who attended the meeting. "They identified 21 southeast of the landfill in one section and then 30 south of Beaver Dam Road. The search for the monitoring wells was supposed to have begun. At the meeting we heard it would start mid-December. This is the cash cow for the town and they're afraid of any impact on that."

Kepelt said there were 27 monitoring wells at the perimeter. Robert Waters, Suffolk County Department of Health supervisor of Bureau of Marine Resources and principal author of the July Beaver Dam Creek report, said the town presented a plan via consultants. "They followed through my recommendations to locate some of the old wells to continue monitoring and come up with a work plan to characterize the extent of the plume." Waters said. "They're going to increase sampling in Beaver Dam Creek, survey and rehabilitate the existing monitoring wells, monitor them, then develop a work plan of results of the samplings. The end product will be a plume characterization report, that is, where is it, what depth is it at, that's what we asked for."

Waters said SCDH is going door to door to sample the private wells on 50 parcels. "We've sampled six and knocked on a few more doors," he said. "Some of those wells are on vacant land. Folks we can't get in touch with, we're sending letters. We're leaving notes in doors now (to contact us). SCDH agreed to do the lab samples for the wells."

Tom Williams, vice president of the Post-Morrow Foundation, said he was being hopeful. "They said there will be a full study and plan (to address the leachate plume) the end of March."

But the meeting wasn't without its frustrations.

"The reason we had the meeting on Dec. 5 is that the town was supposed to have gone out to look for the wells and have some data on those closest to the landfill and they did neither of these," said Brookhaven hamlet resident Marty Van Lith. "That fell off the charts." Van Lith also commented there seemed to be no real concern on the consultants' part. "They use words 'may intersect' and 'potential of leachate' and 'suggests.' There is a constant effort to divert the topic from leachate to other sources of contamination. The biggest disappointment is that they said, 'We've known about the plume and ammonia in surface water contamination in the 1990's. So we asked, 'Why didn't you do anything about it?' Their answer was they filed a report in the library."

"Shouldn't someone have been alerted?" Van Lith asked.

Van Lith said Post-Morrow and the local groups requested the town utilize an unbiased consultant from the Environmental Protection Agency. "They (the town) said, 'All of this stuff is reviewed by this agency and that agency.' Well, they weren't notifying anybody."

Brookhaven Landfill Contaminates Groundwater & Beaver Dam Creek

2008-12-16T12:13:00.003-05:00

Health officials eye private Brookhaven hamlet wells
BY JENNIFER SMITH jennifer.smith@newsday.com
Newsday, Long Island, NY
6:24 PM EST, December 14, 2008

Suffolk health officials are knocking on doors in Brookhaven hamlet, telling residents with private wells to have them tested for traces of a plume that originated decades earlier at the town landfill.

First discovered in 1980, the problem is believed to stem from failed landfill liners that released leachate, water that percolates through landfilled trash, into local groundwater. The plume contains ammonia and volatile organic chemicals such as chlorobenzene, an ingredient in some pesticides, and tetrachloroethylene (PCE), used in dry cleaning, according to town monitoring reports.

Water samples from Beaver Dam Creek and an irrigation well at the Hamlet Organic Garden indicate the plume has traveled southeast and is moving toward the Carmans River. Brookhaven officials said they were taking steps to map the extent of the plume, which has not been done since the 1980s.

While the contamination doesn't appear to exceed drinking water standards, some fear the ammonia could harm brook trout and other marine life. "It's very toxic to fish," said Robert Waters, supervisor of the Suffolk health department's marine bureau.

No drinking water standards have been set for ammonia and no health effects have been found in humans exposed to typical environmental concentrations, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Some residents were taken aback by the news of the contamination, made public this summer in a county report on water quality in Beaver Dam Creek. Others who already knew about the plume said more should have been done to track its progress.

"It is something that was known many years, and there was a study that pointed out where it was going to go," said Thomas Williams, vice president of the Post-Morrow Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving the character of Brookhaven hamlet. The county did the water quality study at the group's behest.

The portions of the landfill where the leaks were thought to originate were capped in the 1990s to prevent more water getting in. Contamination concentrations closest to the source have since declined, town officials said.

"Eventually the leak will be cut off completely," said Ed Hubbard, Brookhaven's commissioner of waste management. "It's a 260-foot waste mass, so it's going to take some time to drain out."

The state Department of Environmental Conservation did not require further remediation because the plume not classified as hazardous waste, DEC spokesman Bill Fonda said.

The town has monitored groundwater at the landfill for years and also tested Beaver Dam Creek for traces of the contamination. Public water was extended to neighborhoods below the landfill in the late 1980s, but some property owners may not have chosen to connect at that time.

Manager Sean Pilger had both wells at the organic garden, known as the Hog Farm, tested for a wider range of contaminants than usual this year after learning of the plume's progress. Chemicals matching those in the landfill plume showed up in the farm's north well, although levels were still within drinking water standards. Pilger said the farm is drilling a deeper well to bypass the contamination.

Officials are investigating 51 properties in the potential path of the plume that may still use well water. About one-third have already been determined to be on public water and test results from six wells are pending.

The DEC will conduct a survey of Beaver Dam Creek next year to determine whether the plume has affected brook trout or other marine life.

Brookhaven Landfill Leachate Contaminates Beaver Dam Creek

2008-12-16T11:03:00.005-05:00

Brookhaven hamlet residents Marty Van Lith and Tom Williams, members of the Beaver Dam Creek Water Quality Working Group, are hoping for plume remediation. ADV/Leuzzi

Some hopeful solutions
More steps taken regarding Beaver Dam Creek plume
Long Island Advance, Patchogue, NY. 4 December 2008, p. 5

By LINDA LEUZZI

It is ironic that this almost ethereal area that is Brookhaven hamlet is wrestling with an unsavory plume that has made its way to the local waters. For one thing, it has its own non-profit preservation organization, the Post- Morrow Foundation Inc. that earnestly purchases open space to help maintain the rural character of the neighborhood. Many of its residents are at the very least conservationists as well as members of such environmental organizations as the Open Space Council. Dennis Puleston, the beloved naturalist, author, founding member of the Environmental Defense Fund which would become the EPA and unofficial guardian of the osprey, whose work helped save their population, came to live here from England after World War II until he died in 2001. His family is still anchored to the neighborhood.

"We never asked for this," said resident Tom Williams, treasurer and vice president of Post-Morrow Foundation Inc. looking at the Beaver Dam Creek, which runs past the foundation's headquarters.

No one did.

Williams is perplexed and so are others of what has transpired. What started as a restoration effort, to monitor the wildlife that had returned to Beaver Dam Creek, resulted in a July 2008 Suffolk County Health Department report stating that ammonia levels for at least two of the samples taken on the creek in 2000 were 500 times greater than the acceptable limit from a leachate plume that emanated from Brookhaven's town landfill. A 2001 draft environmental impact statement prepared for a proposed expansion of Brookhaven's Sanitary Landfill cited the. ammonia samplings were well within the New York State DEC acceptable limits. The math mistake, made via confusion over parameter units, went undetected right through a 2002 Final Environmental Impact Statement for the landfill expansion. SCDHS found the error during research for its study, which began in 2002. The report was released the end of July this year.

This Friday, Dec. 5, the Beaver Dam Creek Water Quality group, including local, state, town and environmental officials, will come together for its third meeting with the town in attempts to work out a solution that will help their water body and ensure the health of their residents. The first meeting gathered on Sept. 26; the second was Oct. 24.

Councilwoman Connie Kepert (4th District) commented that Brookhaven Director of Environmental Protection John Turner had determined there was a possibility of 21 homes with wells along the plume's path that could he affected. "It could be less but we think there is a maximum (number) that should be hooked up," she said. "There may be some homeowners that don't want to be. The town will offer them hookups to SCWA water. It will be free."

Kepert said additional funding had been identified in waste management to address the situation. "We're going to install additional wells to determine the current extent of the plume and determine the impact to Beaver Dam Creek," she said. "We are sinking additional (monitoring) wells and redeveloping existing wells. Some have collapsed and we're dedicating funding for that. We are also looking into pumping remediation," she said.

That was good news to Williams and Marty Van Lith, who have been carrying the gauntlet for their local group along with Mary Jane Cullen and Claire Goad.

"It was kind of the third option after the public safety factor and the monitoring wells," Williams said. "I hope they announce that Friday."
Van Lith said remediation had been on their minds. "There was no indication of that the last time we met," he said. "This is what we wanted all along. That's what we were going to ask for. Hopefully, they'll propose it first. One of the things we're also going to ask for is an unbiased consultant (to work with us with the town)."

But Ed Hubbard, commissioner of Wastewater Management, disputed in an e-mail what Kepert said about pumping remediation.
"There will be no pumping of the plume," he said. "It's simply not feasible to do so and unwarranted at this point. Keep in mind this is not something that just occurred. This was a plume that began almost 30 years ago and has been addressed by the NYS-DEC and the town of Brookhaven. The approved remediation effort by the NYSDEC was to cap the landfill and in doing so it would cut off infiltration of rain into the landfill mass and eventually cut off the now out of the landfill. The key word is eventually. The waste mass is 260 feet high and continues to produce methane gas (which is used to rum turbines to produce electricity), which is an indicator that there is still moisture within the mass and therefore still some small amount of leachate being produced. To completely shut down the internal system will take years, but it will occur, and results from groundwater testing, including the SCDHS report, indicate that the situation is getting better NOT worse.

"The town continues to collect the leachate from the older cells and we have seen decreases in the amount since the capping. Results of groundwater testing just down gradient of the landfill show declining concentrations of leachate, an indication that the capping is effective in reducing the plume and will ultimately cut it off completely. Similar results are seen at Beaver Dam Creek in our surface water sampling as well as in the short sampling survey that SCDHS did for their report. Brookhaven Town has enacted a plan to further delineate the plume, but that will take about a year before we have the data. In the meantime, John Turner is identifying homes that are within the plume boundaries and are still on well water. These homes will be offered the option to get on public water."

Past remediation reported

By LINDA LEUZZI

On Jan. 13, 1983, The Long Island Advance reported on Brookhaven landfill plume solutions. An article written by Jo Ann McGrath stated that the plume had been traveling from the landfill through the groundwater system since 1977. Back then its location was reported as approximately 1,500 feet southeast of the site and about 800 feet from the house and well of a resident near Old Town Road.

Capping of the existing area, which was accomplished, was to be accompanied by stepped-up pumping of leachate, an operation that had been in effect since June 1982. The pumping reduced the seven-foot level of leachate by only a few inches, the article said, even with trucking to Bergen Point of 120,000 gallons weekly.

The volume was said to be reduced further, as the town had agreed that the Yaphank county facilities near the landfill, facilities that contained an undertilized sewage treatment plant, would be used to receive a similar quantity of leachate pumpings, as was transported to Bergen Point.
At the time, a member of the Brookhaven hamlet Liaison Committee, which was working with the town to address the leachate plume, also expressed relief that the town was assuring them public water would be made available.

More on Beaver Dam Creek here.

George Washing Lodge Preservation

2008-12-15T23:29:00.005-05:00

A graceful parcel up for preservation
Marist property in Brookhaven hamlet targeted for planning steps
Long Island Advance, December 4, 1008, p. 11

The Marist Brothers of the Schools Inc. property on South Country Road in Brookhaven has been unanimously approved by the county for acquisition planning stages. The town and Post-Morrow Foundation has committed funds for its purchase.
ADV/Leuzzi

By LINDA lEUZZI

The bucolic swath of land owned by the Marist Brothers of the Schools Inc. on South Country Road in Brookhaven hamlet, up for sale, has been targeted for preservation by the town, county and the Post-Morrow Foundation, The Long Island Advance has learned.

Originally 35 acres, the parcel was home to a man named George Washington who built his house around 1865 and had a menagerie of animals, said Tom Williams, vice president of the Post-Morrow Foundation Inc.

Over the years, Williams said, the property dwindled down to 9.5 acres and the house at one time was used as the Bay Community School. The Marist Brothers, a Catholic teaching order dedicated to the Christian education of children and young people, bought it in the 1950s.

"Right now it houses some retired teachers from Marist College," Williams said. "But they're thinking it's too much to maintain."

Post-Morrow approached county Legislator Kate Browning as well as the town to purchase the property about six months ago, Browning said. "Isabella Rossellini contacted us too," Browning said. "It's in the Beaver Dam Creek watershed and I want to pre- serve it. We don't need to pollute it with more cesspools." The acquisition proposal, introduced by Browning, was passed unanimously by the legislation Tuesday. "Now we'll go through the process of appraising the property and speaking ,with the owner about acquisition," said Browning's spokesperson Joshua Slaughter.

"We passed the resolution to purchase it Nov. 13," said Councilwoman Connie Kepert (4th District).

"The town is kicking in 40 percent. One of the nice things is that it's close to other preserved parcels, the Lohmann farm and the Dennis Puleston Nature Preserve."

The county and town will purchase 7.6 acres. "Post- Morrow will purchase the remaining two acres with the house on it," Slaughter explained. "They'll handle the demolition. The more environmentally sensitive land is what the county and the town are purchasing. It's categorized as passive park land with a public use where hopefully there will be nature trails in the future and people can walk and hike on it."

Williams said Post-Morrow would contribute 10 percent to the purchase of the property.

Besides its proximity to Beaver Dam Creek, Williams said there were specimen trees on the property and it was considered a wildlife habitat as well. "We did a small study and found sapsuckers and other birds," Williams explained. "It's a place where wildlife is abundant and it's adjacent to the Dennis Puleston Nature Preserve. Those were our major reasons. And we feel it's a significant piece in the hamlet."

A history of the Marist property, known as the Washington Lodge, and George Washington may be found at here.

Uncovering Lively Times, then and now

2008-12-11T12:44:00.003-05:00

Bellport High School History Club Restores Cemetery.

Long Island Advance, Thursday, December 11, 2008 Page 5

http://www.longislandadvance.net/index.php

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Documentary filmed

2008-12-11T12:35:00.000-05:00

The Puleston Farm, located in Brookhaven hamlet was used as the site for filming a PBS documentary on Joan Baez and the Cambodian refuges.

Article from the Long Island Advance, Thursday, December 11, 2008, p. 5

http://www.longislandadvance.net/index.php

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Fire Place History Club news

2008-12-03T23:21:00.000-05:00

Dear All,

Hoping everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving as we look forward to the upcoming holiday season.

We hope that you were able to attend some of our Fire Place History Club events during the past year. These included a presentation on the human and cultural history of Carmans River, the restoration and rededication ceremony of the Rose Cemetery, a bike tour of our historic cemeteries, and, just this month, John Deitz's "Brookhaven Hamlet Cultural History 101." We plan to do several new presentations in the upcoming year, and I will send you announcements beforehand.

The FPHC board has also been spending much of its time this year mowing, cleaning and maintaining the eight larger historic cemeteries – all work that Brookhaven Town is required by NYS law to do, but refuses to. Recently, we received some help from the Bellport High School History Club, and you can see pictures at this link:

http://brookhavensouthhaven.org/cemeteries/Barteau/08-11-23HighSchoolHistoryClub/Cleanup08-11-23/index.htm

We see the cemeteries as a vital component of our historical and cultural heritage, and we have submitted a grant proposal for $11,000 to repair and restore them. However, all of this money and work will be in vain if Brookhaven Town doesn't commit to a long-term maintenance program. Much of the deterioration to these cemeteries was caused because of the Town's failure to maintain them. We have been pleading with the Town to do this minimal maintenance for many years to no avail. Now we are asking for your help: Please, send either an e-mail or letter, sample below, to our Town Council members asking them to order the Town Parks Department to do their mandated job by mowing the lawns in our Brookhaven Hamlet historic cemeteries a few times a year and doing the minimal maintenance to ensure their conservation.

Sample letter or e-mail:

Dear Councilman/Councilwoman ________,

I am writing to urge you to preserve Brookhaven Hamlet’s unique history by ordering your Parks Department to do its job and maintain our historic cemeteries, which are deteriorating rapidly since the Town stopped maintaining them. If the 75 people employed by the Parks Department say that they don’t have enough personnel to do this, then the work should be done contractually.

Sincerely,

Our Town representatives can be contacted with the e-mail addresses below. Thank you in advance for your help.

--Marty

Brian Foley <bfoley@BROOKHAVEN.ORG>

Keith Romaine <councilmanromaine@BROOKHAVEN.ORG>

Jane Bonner <councilwomanbonner@BROOKHAVEN.ORG>

Constance Kepert <councilwomankepert@BROOKHAVEN.ORG>,

Steve Fiore-Rosenfeld <fiore-rosenfeld@BROOKHAVEN.ORG>

Jim LaCarrubba <jlacarrubba@BROOKHAVEN.ORG>

Kathleen Walsh <kwalsh@BROOKHAVEN.ORG>

Timothy P. Mazzei <TMAZZEI@BROOKHAVEN.ORG>

Fire Place History Club Urges Cemetery Maintenance

2008-12-01T10:37:00.006-05:00

The following letter was sent on behalf of the Fire Place History Club on October 10, 2008. As of December 1, 2008, no response has been received. This is not surprising, given the general nonresponsiveness of Brookhaven Town government, regardless of party, to citizen inquiries. I can assure you that if we represented real estate interests, we would have not have been ignored!

Supervisor Brian X. Foley

Town of Brookhaven
One Independence Hill
Farmingville, New York 11738

October 10, 2008

Dear Supervisor Foley, Members of the Council,

The duty of the Town, pursuant to Article 17, § 291 of the Town Law of the State of New York, is to maintain abandoned cemeteries or burial grounds.

The members of the Fire Place History Club have, for many years, been working to maintain historic cemeteries in Brookhaven and South Haven Hamlets, Town of Brookhaven, as a vital component of our historical and cultural heritage. We recently started a restoration program for these cemeteries, some of which have suffered significant deterioration. The community has been very supportive, both financially and in terms of volunteer work. It is our concern that, without appropriate long-term and consistent Town maintenance, they will again deteriorate after this work is completed. In perhaps another generation they will be lost forever.

As stated above, the Town of Brookhaven is legally obligated to maintain these cemeteries. We have met several times with officers and representatives of the Town expressing our concerns and reiterating the Town’s duty. As far as we have been able to determine, all the cemeteries and burial grounds of interest are under Town ownership. We have provided the Town Parks department with all the necessary information as to their locations and their needs, and have repeatedly asked that they receive the minimal maintenance required.

We know that the Town has many obligations, but we ask that the Town Board pass a resolution requiring the Parks Department to immediately implement a long-term maintenance program for the cemeteries in accordance with NYS Town Law, Article 17, § 291.

Please provide us with a copy of the plan or proposal for the long-term maintenance and safe-keeping of Town cemeteries, by January 1, 2009.

The need is urgent due to ongoing deterioration. Without corrective action, our commitment to those who rest in these burying grounds will impel us to file an Article 78 action so that this important cultural and historic heritage of our Town is not forever lost.

Sincerely,

Martin Van Lith
18 River Lane
Brookhaven, NY 11719

John Deitz
7 Locust Lane
Brookhaven, NY 11719

Ron Kinsella
Meadow Lane
Brookhaven, NY 11719

Eben Ludlow
1 Chapel Ave
Brookhaven, NY 11719

cc:
Councilman Steve Fiore-Rosenfel
Councilwoman Jane Bonner
Councilwoman Kathleen Walsh
Councilwoman Connie Kepert
Councilman Timothy P. Mazzei
Councilman Keith Romaine
Edward Morris, Parks Dept
Karen M. Wilutis, Town Attny.

Michael Ince Exhibition @ Scoto Gallery, NYC

2008-11-29T13:33:00.001-05:00

Visionaries and Outcasts

December 4, 2008- January 24, 2009

Reception: December 4, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Michael Ince, Olalekan B. Jeyifous, Pefura

Skoto Gallery

529 W 20th St, NYC

Skoto Gallery is pleased to present Visionaries and Outcasts, an exhibition of recent works by Michael Ince (USA), Olalekan B. Jeyifous (USA/Nigeria) and Pefura (France/Cameroon). The reception is Thursday, December 4th, 6-8pm and the artists will be present.

Despite their varied traditions and personal cultural backgrounds the three artists in this show respond to the challenges of developing strategies of survival and resistance in emerging societies, and in the process create aesthetic forms that respond to the consequences of political, economic and social crisis caused by policies of international financial organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank. Each of the artists explore issues such as the deterioration in the standard of living, environmental degradation, renewable energy, unemployment and migration that are likely related to the contradictory result of globalization due to policies that force these societies to devalue their currencies against the dollar; lift import and export restrictions; balance their budgets and not overspend; and remove price controls and state subsidies. This has led to the formation of mass movements and protests in every continent as people organize to combat the pillaging of the lands, resources and livelihood.

Michael Ince has always been motivated by a deep connection to nature, but over the years, the ability of social and economic policies to impact the natural world and its endangered state have become central to his practice. His sculpture installation River Bird Landing, 2008 is elegant in its poetic evocation of the fragility of our ecosystem as a result of the undermining of environmental rules and regulations. His forms, reduced to its essences are derived from nature and culture, and still suggest the actual objects to which they refer. They are the product of much thought and simple design that are meticulously crafted. He grew up in Brookhaven, Long Island where, when not in Paris, he lives with his family on a small farm surrounded by buildings of his making, planting carrots, rearing chickens, making prints and drawings, and birding. A 1964 graduate of Bowdoin College, he traveled to India as a Peace Corps, and has subsequently returned there on a major pilgrimage. He is widely exhibited in galleries around the US and in Paris; and in several collections.

______________________________________

The artist Michael Ince maintains homes with his wife Zabby in Brookhaven, Long Island, and Paris, France. He has had exhibitions at the A & E (Anson & Ellen) Atelier Gallery in Chelsea, and is currently working on several large commissions in Paris.

Bellport High School History Club Works at Historic Barteau Cemetery

2008-11-24T14:41:00.002-05:00

On Sunday, November 23, 2008, students with the Bellport High School History Club worked to clean up the historic Barteau Cemetery in Brookhaven Hamlet. The work was done under the auspices of the Fire Place History Club members Marty Van Lith and Ron Kinsella.