Old Mastic

Here are some photos I took Saturday Morning, January 26th on my way to the airport. This area now known as Old Mastic, was once the Dana Estate. A wedding gift ? to Katherine Floyd when she married William Dana. The place was declared an historic district in the 1980's which has kept it out of the hands of developers who would just as soon carve it up into tiny plots. I'm happy to say the new houses that are being built in there are in keeping with what Ella Dana ( the last Mrs. Dana ) wanted for her property.

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With the exception of the new signs, this is how the entrances and roads to and in the Dana Estate looked when I was a kid .

 

The Gate House

Merritt Cash Penney (1854-1941), the Dana Estate Superintendant and his wife Adeliade Mellisa Penney, lived here according to the 1920 census. Merritt's sons , Clarence G., Willis O. (Claire Knapp's husband) and Leonard L. all worked on the estate too at one time as did their son's. Though the Big Dana House "Moss Lots" is gone, it's nice to know the smaller ones still survive and are being well cared for in private ownership.

 

 

Whenever I see a watertower in the woods, I always remember the first ones I ever saw. On the Knapp Estate and Floyd Estate in 1950. A house in the woods my kind of place. The horses seem to like it too.

 

HERE IS WHAT NEWSDAY HAD TO SAY ABOUT THIS AREA IN 1985

 

The Westbound Out Of Mastic Circa 1920

How The Dana's , Knapp's and everyone else got out of town

 

NEXT BROOKHAVEN & BELLPORT

The area J. P. Knapp and family first came to in the 1890's

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