Bayport Blue Point Heritage Association: April 2021

A year later....

“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good.”
― Elizabeth Edwards

We hope you all remain healthy and safe as we head into the Spring. We here at BBPHA continue to plan for the upcoming season, making improvements, cleaning, cataloging, and are optimistic for a bright future ahead! Keep on the lookout for approval for our general membership meetings to start again and our Meadow Croft house tours to start in June.

Luck of the Irish Raffle winner!

Congratulations to Sylvia Skillman on winning the Luck of the Irish Raffle! And thank you to our generous community for supporting the BBPHA. Please know all monies collected go right back into making improvements, scholarships and the up-keeping of Meadow Croft. We continue to preserve our past to enrich our future.

Thank you Mary Lou!

~ written by BBPHA President; Mary Bailey

I would like to take a moment to recognize and say thank you to our very own Mary Lou Cohalan.

Mary Lou has been a part of Meadow Croft since the very beginning. She has seen Meadow Croft at its worst and more importantly, at its very best. Still today she gives 100% of herself to helping and volunteering her time to the Bayport Blue Point Heritage Association and Meadow Croft Estate. A truly knowledgeable Meadow Croft docent, her accounts of the estate history and of the Roosevelts are simplifying, dazzling!

She has knocked on doors throughout Bayport and Blue Point gathering information, history, and photos of our Historic Barns. She then volunteered her time to recount her findings with the many photos and stories she gathered. I am sure anyone who attended her lecture at the BBP Library, drove around town to see if they could find these historic beauties.

Mary Lou also volunteers her time at The Parrish Art Museum, The Carriage House of Stony Brook, Sayville Food Pantry and The Islip Arts Council. She has also been an editor/publisher (partial owner) for the Suffolk County News and The Director of the Girl Scouts of Suffolk County. She has so much knowledge to share and is always ready with a story or two about “old times around town” or how something came to be or why it is not anymore. You can often find Mary Lou at Meadow Croft sitting on the porch doing some sort of research or sharing a story.

As of late she volunteered (and we were more than happy to have her knowledge and abilities) to archive and curate all the antiques and collections at The Meadow Croft Estate which were acquired over the last ten years or so. Because volunteer organizations have board members come and go, continuity is an ongoing challenge. Things can be forgotten if not kept in good record. Thanks to Mary Lou’s tireless energy and willingness we are discovering things that otherwise may have been lost and preserving history for the next generations.

It is because of volunteers like Mary Lou Cohalan, that we can continue the great work of sharing and preserving our hamlets shared heritage and the history of Meadow Croft for future generations.

THANK YOU, MARY LOU!

Driveway at Meadow Croft

The wicked winter weather had certainly created havoc on the entryway to the Suffolk County Park and entrance to Meadow Croft. Snow, rain and ice are no friends to a dirt driveway! Large ruts and what felt like moon craters greeted visitors upon arrival and certainly gave your cars' shock absorbers a run for their money!

Thank you to the Suffolk County Parks Department who heeded the calls and fixed the terrain to a level entrance for safe driving once again. Meadow Croft is once again ready to accept visitors for weekend tours starting in June. Enjoy the grounds of the Roosevelt Estate, the hiking trail and Loughlin Vineyards.

Shore Front, Bayport, L.I.

A new feature in the monthly newsletter. These short articles were first printed in the monthly Bayport Blue Point Gazette. They were written by Gene Horton and reprinted with permission.

July 2014

In this old postcard (c.1905), the view is looking east along the bay front in Bayport between Ocean Avenue and Gillette Ave. The Smith-Stoppani summer estate, "Arcadia," built around 1885, is seen to the right of the large flagpole.

The so-called "White House" is seen beyond the Stoppani place. And, way off in the distance, barely visible, is the long-gone 1901 Gillette Ave. dock and pavilion. Ahhh...summer time at the shore in Bayport long ago!

Also, right along the shoreline in the old photo notice all the groins extending into the Great South Bay. Such groins were intended to hold back erosion and to keep the sand from washing away. I showed this old Bayport photo postcard to Bayport resident, Professor Phil Linker, at the LI Maritime Museum. He immediately identified the groins in the old photo and told me how seaweed was used in the old days for home insulation and garden mulch. He told me that the Latin name for seaweed is AMMOPHILIA BREVILIGULATA.

At the local Roosevelt estate, "Meadow Croft," they still use seaweed as mulch in the rose garden. There's a lot of detail and history in this old photo of the Shore Front in Bayport!