OLD SUFFOLK NEWSPAPERS
Who would of thought that weekly papers located much further away from Mastic than both the Center Moriches and Patchogue were, would carry stories about the Mastic area and in far more sensationalized manner than either the Patchogue Advance, or Center Moriches Record and Moriches Tribune did ? I sure wouldn't. But the Suffolk News in Sayville sure did. It is only with the aid of the Suffolk Library Digitalization Project of historic newspapers, that these items mainly from The Suffolk News in Sayville, and The Long Islander in Huntington turned up. The Green Underlined Type is of course LINKS to pages with photos and more that relate to what is written.
FIRST UP IS :
Mr, Frederick J. Quinby The guy I like call Mister Early Shirley or The Tin Titan of Tangier if you will. It's obvious from this first article, that Fred caught the Suffolk County News' eye because of one of his many life long indiscretions occurred in their town in 1912 when Helen Quinby, his FIFTH wife and a bonafide Mrs F. J. Quinby since 1906, caught up with him. After that the Sayville based reporters never forgot him. I am glad they didn't either, as it solved the longtime mystery for me of exactly who Rose Quinby, the woman living in the Island View Manor house in 1920 was. It appears that Rose eventually became Mrs. Quinby # 6 , But in 1912 was thought to be just Mrs. F. J. Quinby, wealthy summer resident of Sayville. Her name was Rose Boyd and wealthy she was, but her last name then wasn't Quinby. Mr. Quinby soon took care of changing her name and her fortune .....
TWO YEARS LATER : A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME ........
And In 1915 Along Comes Mary... again. Mary Quinby was Mary Elizabeth Shaw, Mrs. F. J. Quinby # 3 from 1891 - 1899. Here the Suffolk News confuses her with Helen Quinby
A WHOLE LOT HAPPENED IN TANGIER BETWEEN 1914 - 1921
You can read about much of that here
Notice He's Back To Using QuiMby or was he just taking advantage of typos?
The Sayville News got a little confused once again in this next story , with as many women as Fred was involved with, it's somewhat understandable. They have Rose Quinby as the woman who came to Sayville looking for Fred. It was Helen Quinby. Rose then was the woman posing as his wife .... got that ?
MEANWHILE BACK IN TANGIER
and very timely, I might add
For my birthday today, 5/11/09, I received this very unique print from old school pal, Brookhaven hamlet historian Marty Van Lith. IT's A RAYMOND K. PERRY PEN & INK of Quinby's "Temporary" wooden bridge after the ice had done a number on it for the umpteenth time.
LONGTIME BROOKHAVEN RESIDENT FRED GILLESPIE, WHO WAS BORN IN TANGIER IN 1916 , IS NAMED AFTER FRED QUINBY AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT UNWITTINGLY WAS ONE OF THE MOST BENEFICIAL PEOPLE I WOULD MEET IN MY KNAPP RESEARCH FRED HAS THE ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATION IN HIS HOME. HIS FATHER MICHAEL STARTED BUILDING THE BRIDGE FOR QUINBY IN 1912. I VISITED WITH FRED GILLESPIE BACK IN 2004
You Can See Actual Photos Of The Ice Taking Out The Bridge In 1927 Here
1911 ONE YEAR AFTER HE WAS HIRED BY QUINBY
Landscape architect Robert Pope was one of the early guys who sued Quinby to get paid. There were dozens more He is also The Guy Who Laid Out The Entire Town Of TANGIER The Same Streets That Are Now Known As SHIRLEY
BUT AFTER THE SMOKE HAD CLEARED & THE MILLIONS OF $$$ WERE LONG GONE ALONG WITH F J QUINBY IN THE EARLY TWENTIES, ALL KINDS OF PLANS WERE MADE FOR BOTH THE BRIDGE & THE TANGIER PROPERTY. THE ENTIRE REPLACEMENT BRIDGE STORY "LONG WAIT FOR A SHORT BRIDGE" IS HERE
Here are some additional items about both
THE HOTEL IS PICTURED IN VARIOUS PLACES ON THE WEBSITE
LAND DEAL OF THE CENTURY!
ONE MONTH BEFORE THE UNITED STATES ENTERED IN WORLD WAR ONE
March 10, 1917
5,500 ACRES OF TANGIER SMITH FAMILY LAND FOR $1,631.00 !!!!
NO FREAKING WAY !!!
NOT AS LONG AS CLARENCE G. T. SMITH, WHO WAS A LAWYER ,WAS ALIVE AND KICKING. PRESIDENT WILSON COULD FORGET ABOUT COMMITING TROOPS OVER THERE, HE WOULD HAVE A MAJOR BATTLE OUT ON LONG ISLAND WITH CLARENCE, WHO IS NOW VERY WELL ARMED ....
CLARENCE SIDED AGAINST HIS BROTHER AND SISTERS BACK IN 1910 WHEN THEY FIRST SOLD THE LAND TO QUINBY.
Don't Trifle With Clarence G T Smith , just ask Lydia Smith Floyd... She was Egbert T. Smith's sister and obviously you can't as like Egbert Lydia is long gone too .....
LYDIA WAS CLARENCE'S AUNT OF COURSE AND WAS MARRIED TO DAVID GELSTON FLOYD,WHO WAS A BROTHER OF KATHERINE FLOYD DANA
Or Clarence's Brother & Sisters
Once around the turn of the 20th century, Clarence Got BOUNCED out of a Patchogue Dance Hall. The reason he was thrown out of the joint isn't stated, but it probably wasn't because he was doing The Twist. He sued them for his admission ticket price & defamation of his character!
SO MR. TOLFREE HOW MUCH WILL YOU OFFER?
$750,000.00 .....
NOW YOUR TALKING $EN$E
NOVEMBER 27 , 1925
THIS & THAT
THE GREAT PUMPKIN!
WILLIAM WOULD OF BEEN MIGHTY PROUD
This next one is a little hard to read, but has details about the making of Dana's Island, I have never seen before in the Moriches or Patchogue paper. It also clarifies which Mr. Penney it was who worked with Clarence Ross to build it. I originally assumed it was Clarence Penney,it wasn't. There is some movie footage taken by Bill Dana in the 1920's at the island and his home on Forge River here In 2005 I visited Dana's Island with old pals Marty Van Lith, Kenny Vitellaro. Those photos are here
IT ONLY TOOK 36 MORE YEARS AND MILLIONS MORE $$$ TO DO IT
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CAR WRECKS
I was around 5 years old, when the first car wreck I ever saw in Mastic Beach happened right in front of my eyes on the corner of Elm & McKinley It was a real doozy and resulted with a big '40's Chrysler winding up on it's roof on our lawn. What was even more amazing is the tiny car that hit the big Chrysler was able to drive away. The full story and pics are here
Here are some wrecks that happened out there starting as far back as 1914
You can see the actual car Mr. Dana had in 1914, along with others from the Mastic area
Paul "Schultz" Was Paul Schulte Of Course The Colorful "Mayor" Of Mastic Beach, The Papers Never Seemed To Spell His Name Right , Sometimes it would vary within the story itself, Shultzee, Schuett, etc. You can read the menu and see his hotel the very first business in Mastic Beach here
JUNE 30, 1933
Cornelius Vandenburg has often been called the first postmaster of Mastic Beach. He was actually the second, but the first to have his General Store on the corner of Whittier Dr and Aspen Rd that contained the Post Office photographed for Post Cards. The store continued as Vandenburg's for a time with his widow becoming the postmaster, while she let others like James Chester run the store. Cornelius Rd. in Section Nine between Jefferson & Monroe Drives is named for him.
Al Raynor was the first postmaster of Mastic Beach in 1930 and ran it out of his small luncheonette on Birch Rd Raynor's Rest was on location (#5 IN THE AERIAL PHOTO) that Sal Azzatto would build SAL'S IN 1938 aka the Sand Bar that is still there.
AND BECAUSE THERE IS ALWAYS A KNAPP CONNECTION ON
THIS WEBSITE
These papers have stories about the Knapps from when they lived in Bellport, Greenlawn, Mastic & More
In short The Knapp's Lived Here ...
JUNE 1911 THE WHOLE STORY IS HERE
Along with much about the Knapp Days in Bellport 1894 - 1912
MASTIC & BELLPORT
DANA & KNAPP
Ethel Dana Shepherd aka Daisy was William Shepherd Dana's Mother That's not a typo
You can read about how Shep got his name flipped when you visit the Moss Lots pages
THERE IS A RATHER LARGE & LENGTHY HORSE SHOW STORY IN BROOKLYN FROM SEPT 1912 THAT WOULD TAKE UP TOO MUCH ROOM TO POST BUT IT HAS BOTH MOTHER & DAUGHTER SYLVIA & CLAIRE KNAPP WINNING MULTIPLE EVENTS WITH THEIR MOUNTS "BOOFULL" "STAR WILLY" & "ZULAL" CLAIRE WON MANY SHOWS & RACES WITH ZULAL.
Pre Moving Sale? Claire Knapp carried the name Clairedale Farm with her when she moved to Mastic in October of 1916. You can see her Greenlawn Place As It Exists Today & Then Here
I BET YOU THIS DOG WAS NAMED FOR TOM DIXON
COME FLY WITH ME
Although different versions of this story have appeared all over this website since its inception. And I can say without a doubt that I have more photos and info on my website about the exploits of the very obscure Knapp Sea Plane base aka Aerial Coast Patrol Unit 3 than both the US Navy & Smithsonian does, this is the first time I have seen any story to mention that J. P. Knapp threw in a $11,000.00 Curtis F-5 Hydro -Aeroplane with the deal. I am fairly confident it would be the one that his son Dodi used to learn to fly in. It was stories about the remains of that airplane base and wireless station that we found as kids in the 1950's that started this entire website almost ten years ago.
THE THREE HANGERS ARE PICTURED HERE
I had always wondered, just when the rapidly expanding Knapp Seaplane Base that started out in April of 1917 with 12 guys, would move most of the flyboys off the Knapp estate and over to the Tangier Hotel .... I thought it was around July or August of 1917......
Now I Know .... & Check Out The Date Of The Announcement !!!
I Bet Tom Dixon Stayed Back At The Mansion Though
Never saw this story before, There was a Mayor Walbauer in Patchogue in the 1950s. I take it George went up with one of the instructors? as the students had only been flying for about two weeks. One of them Harold Howe who is pictured here flew into the Tangier Bridge after a few months of training. He didn't get hurt but his " $10,500.00 machine" was destroyed. Unit 3's instructors Leonard Bonney & Kenny Jaquith both had been flying for many years, though both had many crack ups too. Here is just one of them
SEPT 1922
LIKE DOGS? THE WHOLE CLAIREDALE STORY IS HERE
And This Last One Really Knocked My Hat In The Creek !
Way back in 2001, when Darby Penney contacted me and relayed stories from her father Arthur Penney about both the Knapp and Dana estates in Mastic, I kind of figured that Willis Penney was introduced to Claire Knapp, via Arthur's older brother Clarence who was hired by the Knapp's to build their golf course on the south part of the Knapp estate in Mastic (Beach), Because I heard that Willis had been a chauffeur like his brother Leonard, that he was probably hired on by Claire or her brother Dodi to do that, although the sister and brother Knapp drove themselves for years quite nicely and in fine style thank you very much.
Arthur's stories about the wild courtship of Claire and Willis, with Willis leaping off the same Knapp mansion balconies, that we as kids did in the 1950s, that resulted in Willis and Claire eloping in 1925, and selling The Knapp Estate back to her brother did not have any of these details though, that were reported in December of 1924. Again these were kept out of the Patchogue and Moriches papers.
A couple of historical facts to "tamp down the sensationalism" : Miss Emma Lawrence was Emma McAllister Lawrence .who with her sister Elizabeth and brother Frank Mauran Lawrence , shared the Lawrence Estate that would become forever known as the Knapp Estate. Emma and Elizabeth both passed away in the 1900's . It was Frank and his wife Louise who sold the Lawrence Family Estate in October of 1916 originally to Claire's brother Joseph F. Knapp only to have Joseph "Dodi" sell it to his sister three days later. Both shared it until Claire left in 1925 . Judge John R Vunk , Dorothy Penney's lawyer in the above divorce suit, was one of the original 4 speculators of the C S R V Corp who purchased the Woodhull Estate alongside of the Knapp Estate in November of 1925 , and almost immediately flipped it to the Smadbeck's Home Guardian Co. thereby creating the brand new town of Mastic Beach.
PS :
Claire & Willis Lived In Stony Brook after Yaphank, from about 1929 - 1931 PEP was probably 40 or more feet according to what I read about it when "Lee Roy Ross brought down a very large motor yacht for Claire & Willis to Stony Brook from upstate NY in 1930". Claire Also Named At Least One Of Her Dogs PEP
THERE'S MORE TO COME ON OTHER PAGES. BUT THATS ENOUGH FOR NOW
I STILL HAVE TO FINISH THE MANUSCRIPT ON MY MASTIC BOOK
DID YOU HIT THE LINKS?
No telling what you will see
