Free Summer Concert, June 17th 2021

FREE Concert in the Park

Summer Concert 

 

Bayport Blue Point Heritage Association is proud to sponsor our first FREE Summer Concert of the year! We have finally received all of the permissions and permits and are excited to welcome all of you to Bayport Memorial Park on June 17th from 6:00-8:00 pm (weather permitting) for some wonderful music featuring Nina Et Cetera.

Please bring lawn chairs or blankets, refreshments and bug spray! This is for families of all ages! We can finally begin to enjoy activities again. The town is requesting social distancing and face masks as necessary.

We hope you can join us and enjoy this FREE concert!

Thursday, June 17th, 6pm

June 17th from 6:00-8:00 pm (weather permitting)

Bayport Memorial Park, Bayport, NY, USA

Get Directions

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June 2021 Newsletter

 

Hello June!

Welcome Summer! An exciting time for those of us on the BBPHA! Our weekend tours will begin on June 5th and continue every Saturday and Sunday through October. Meadow Croft has gone through some extensive renovations throughout the Covid shut down including new exhibits, repairs, painting, and new room displays, including some of the previously unseen servant's quarters. Check out the article below on the recent installation of authentic period light fixtures as well as a display now on exhibit.

We also have a few other events including The Islip Arts Council performance on June 19th (see more information below). We are awaiting on approval for others so stay tuned for more announcements in the near future!

A special Shout Out to local Boy Scout Riley Clare who, along with 2 other scouts, recently helped with some garbage removal and general clean-up at Meadow Croft. Thank you! Our heirloom garden is all planted and looking wonderful! Thank you to Ann Soper who always does such an amazing job. The Sayville Food Pantry has also done a fabulous job on their garden and all vegetables harvested will go directly to those in need. Stop by Meadow Croft and check them out!

The BBPHA is pleased once again to be awarding a $1000.00 scholarship to a deserving HS student from the BBP HIgh School. This award is given in the name of our dear friend, local historian, and former director, Gene Horton. More information in the July newsletter after the award has been presented later in June.

While there was no Memorial Day Parade again this year, the BBPHA presented wreaths in honor of all those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Thank you to Jerry McCloskey for doing the honor of presenting the wreaths at Bayport Memorial Park and Blue Point Cemetery in Blue Point. As John F. Kennedy had so eloquently expressed, "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter the words, but to live by them." .

Lighting Restoration at Meadow Croft

We are excited to announce the first phase of lighting restoration at Meadow Croft is nearing completion. Using money from our annual county grant, Erich Haesche and Frank Giebfried purchased numerous period gas and electric fixtures, focusing mainly on the upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms. The lighting dates from 1891 through 1915, and reflects what the Roosevelts would have had. Lenny at Orleans Lighting in Freeport electrified and converted the fixtures to allow for installation at Meadow Croft. The wall sconces have been mounted where the original gas fixtures were, so visitors will be able to see what the mansion was like when the Roosevelts lived here. The BBPHA would like to thank Richard Martin, the Director of Historic Services for Suffolk County Parks, for arranging for county electricians to install the fixtures. And a very special thank you to Erich for his knowledge and expertise. This project could not have been completed without his guidance, not to mention the generosity he showed in donating many pieces from his own collection to the restoration.

Let There Be Light!

Let There Be Light! Exhibit:

To celebrate the lighting restoration at Meadow Croft, Erich Haesche has curated not one, but two exhibits. The first exhibit focuses on early electric lighting, spanning the years 1879 to 1899. The displays consist of authentic period pieces and the history of the Edison Electric Light Company and the Bergmann Electric Company, as well as the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company’s lighting of the 1893 Columbia Exposition in Chicago. Early lightbulbs, lamps, switches, and a circuit break box are just a fraction of artifacts on display. There is even a section of the Edison Tube, a three wire cable that was installed in 1883 to deliver electricity from Thomas Edison’s first power plant located at Pearl Street in Manhattan!

The second exhibit highlights three forms of lighting at Meadow Croft from 1900 to 1915: kerosene, gas, and electricity. The display showcases Tirrill’s Equalizing Machine, the powerplant that supplied gas to the house, and includes period examples of the unique Tirrill sconces that would have lit the rooms. In addition, fans, toy trains, toasters and many more early electric items are included.

Erich will be at Meadow Croft on the first Sunday of every month to discuss the exhibit and answer your questions. So come down for a tour and enjoy these wonderful displays!

Cleaning Day at Meadow Croft

Thank you to all the volunteers who came out to Meadow Croft, on Saturday, May 22. The BBPHA board members and other volunteers came with dust rags, polishes and their own vacuums to chip in and shine up the beautiful old home too to get it ready for opening day on June 5.
Without volunteers like these we would be sunk. Thank you to everyone who helped out. Meadow Croft is now clean and ready for tours every weekend from 2:00-4:00. Hope to see you all there this summer.

 

 

Concert at Meadow Croft

As part of the Islip Arts Council program – Art and Music in Historic Houses, there will be a concert on Saturday, June 19th, from 2-3 pm, featuring the violinist Yeou-Cheng Ma and pianist Elinor Zayas, at historic Meadow Croft. The duo will feature works by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Faure, Fritz Kreisler,Carlos Gardel, Gluck, Astor Piazzolla, Vecsey, Viardot, and Von Paradis ( the latter two being female composers whose works were published and performed during the time period of the occupancy of Meadow Croft by the Roosevelt family).

The program concludes with the lively Czardas by Monti.

The program is made possible through a grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. Islip Arts Council will cover 10 historic houses in the Town of Islip. The presentations will be videotaped docent led tours of the homes along with musical accompaniment. Some of the historic homes, Meadow Croft included, will be subjects of virtual art exhibitions. The tour of the home, the musical performance and the art exhibitions will be featured on IslipArts Live – Islip Arts YouTube channel and Islip Arts Council website. Each home will also be given a videotape for visitors to view. Enjoy this exciting event!

Meadowcroft will be open for tours on the day of the concert. Enjoy!

If you would like information on the other homes or about the programs of the Islip Arts Council, please visit Isliparts.org or call or email Lynda Moran, Executive Director at Lynda@IslipArts.org, 631-566-4179.

Membership Now Due

It's that time of year! The BHA is now requesting your membership dues. If you would like to pay for this year, please mail payment to:

Bayport Blue Point Heritage Association

PO Box 4

Bayport NY 11705

Please include your name, address and email on all correspondence. Make checks payable to Bayport Blue Point Heritage Association. You can also make payment directly from our webpage which can be found here . Any questions can be directed to bbphistorical@gmail.com. Your membership dues goes a long way to support and maintain our mission of preserving our hamlet's heritage. Thank you to all of our generous members! New members welcome!

Membership Type

Annual $25.00

Senior $10.00

Corporate $100.00

Donation $___

Bayport Memorial Park

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.

February 2010

Bayport's Memorial Park is located on Middle Road and the Esplanade just west of the downtown village of Bayport. Today it is the site of Bayport's Memorial Day ceremonies. Memorial Park is dominated by a pretty Victorian-style gazebo and a massive flagpole (possibly the tallest flagpole in Bayport). The Park is also site for Bayport's Veteran's Memorial listing the names of all of Bayport's war veterans from the American Revolution through the Vietnam War.

Memorial Park traces history back to the years immediately following World War II. It was dedicated as a community park on Memorial Day, 1947. Ernest Stoll served as the first president of the Bayport Memorial Park Association. Besides Mr. Stoll, the members of the Memorial Park Committee were James Alvarez, chairman, Charles Bogel, Edward J. Frieman and James Wilson Young.

In the 1947 Dedication Ceremonies, a boulder bearing a bronze plaque with the names of Bayport victims of World War I and World War II was unveiled by Girl Scout Norma Auwaerter and Boy Scout George Ruse. The inscription on the stone read: This Park was established by the people of Bayport in grateful memory of our young men who gave their lives for us and the Nation. It lists the names of the brave men who paid the ultimate sacrifice during World War I and World War II.

The Bayport HS band, its four drum majors and color guard led the 1947 Memorial Day parade along Middle Road and into the new Memorial Park. The Bayport Fire Department and Ladies Auxiliary participated as did the various corps of Bayport's Red Cross division. Bayport's Girl Scouts ad Brownies as well as the local Boy Scouts also marched int he parade. In 1947, Rev. Theodore Bennett offered a prayer, James Wilson Young, President of the Bayport School Board addressed the crowd as well as James V. Fallon and former Congressman John J. O'Connor.

At the conclusion of the 1947 dedication, Bayport Boy Scout Richard Bernhard sounded "Taps."

BBPHA

Facebook @BayportHistory

Follow us on Social Media to get the latest info on upcoming events! Now on Instagram: @bbpheritage

Meadow Croft Estate, 

Middle Road, Sayville, NY, USA 

  bbphistorical@gmail.com  

631-472-4625  

BayportBluePointHeritage.org

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May 2021 Newsletter

 

Tours are back!

Starting June 5th, tours at the historic Meadow Croft Estate will resume. As of now, regulations are set at 50% capacity but the rules seem to be changing rapidly so stay tuned as we get more information form the NYS government, CDC and Suffolk County. Either way we are excited to welcome you back!

We have been busy with painting and repairs to the plaster in the hallways and a restoration of a downstairs bathroom. The work is coming along nicely and we are excited to show it to you! The grounds remain open for your enjoyment. The Sayville Food Pantry has begun their spring ritual of planting a gorgeous vegetable garden with all that is harvested going directly to those in need, right in our own backyards! And our heirloom garden has gotten the spring clean-up and our master gardener, Ann Soper is ready to dive in!

Exciting things happening and more announcements to come! Stay tuned and stay healthy!

Membership now due!

It's that time of year! The BHA is now requesting your membership dues. If you would like to pay for this year, please mail payment to:

Bayport Blue Point Heritage Association

PO Box 4

Bayport NY 11705

Please include your name, address and email on all correspondence. Make checks payable to Bayport Blue Point Heritage Association. You can also make payment directly from our webpage which can be found here . Any questions can be directed to bbphistorical@gmail.com. Your membership dues goes a long way to support and maintain our mission of preserving our hamlet's heritage. Thank you to all of our generous members! New members welcome!

Membership Type

Annual $25.00

Senior $10.00

Corporate $100.00

Donation $___

Thank you! A special Thank You to the Bayport Blue Point Library for generously agreeing to put our newsletter in one of their Story Walk boxes in the Blue Point Preserve. Gail Silsbe, Head of Children's Services has agreed to display it for the community each month. Thank you Gail and the BBP Library for all you do to support our communities!

Christmas at Meadow Croft

Yes! You read that correctly! It may be early May but our awesome holiday planner, Leanne Berg is starting her planning for Christmas at Meadow Croft. As we mentioned earlier, rules for capacity are changing rapidly and we will be following all guidelines for indoor gatherings but our planning has begun. The theme this year will be: Dashing Through The Snow!

If you would like to help volunteer in any way, please email us at the email in our contact info below.

Suffolk Traction; First Street Car

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.

December 2010

This old postcard shows THE FIRST DAY OF SERVICE for the SUFFOLK TRACTION streetcar; July 1, 1911 with opening day service between Patchogue's Four Corners and "downtown" Blue Point.....fare; five cents.

Within a few years, the tracks were extended to Bayport and then to Sayville. This old postcard view shows Suffolk Traction Streetcar Number One boarding passengers on the east side of Blue Point Avenue across the street from Rocky Moore's general store (today's Firehouse Deli).

By 1916, SUFFOLK TRACTION expanded to four streetcars and there were days they carried 1,000 passengers. The streetcars were battery -powered and traveled at a speed of about 15-20 mph. From Patchogue, the route ran along the Montauk Hwy to Blue Point Avenue; down Blue Point Avenue to Maple Street (which becomes Railroad Avenue in Bayport) then down Oakwood Street in Bayport to Middle Road and thence into Sayville.

By 1919, however, a bus line and the popularity of the automobile put SUFFOLK TRACTION out of business. Next year, 2011, will mark the 100th anniversary of SUFFOLK TRACTION.

Facebook @BayportHistory

Meadow Croft Estate, Middle Road, Sayville, NY, USA  

bbphistorical@gmail.com 

  631-472-4625  

BayportBluePointHeritage.org

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April 2021 Newsletter

 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!

BBPHA

Facebook @BayportHistory

Follow us on Social Media! 

 

Meadow Croft Estate, Middle Road, Sayville, NY, USA  

 

bbphistorical@gmail.com 

 

  631-472-4625  

 

BayportBluePointHeritage.org

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~ Raffle Reminder, March 2021~

 

Friendly reminder...

Our St. Patrick's Day raffle is going on now! A HUGE basket filled with many, many goodies, including gift certificates, food items, alcohol and more! (must be over 21 to purchase tickets). Please consider purchasing a ticket to support our Heritage Association.

Please see information below to get your chances. The drawing will be held LIVE on our Facebook page at 3:00 on March 28th. facebook.com/BayportBluePointHeritageAssociation

We hope you have the Luck of the Irish! Good luck to all and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

BBPHA

Facebook @BayportHIstory

Happy St. Patrick's Day and good luck to all who have purchased tickets! Thank you for supporting the BBPHA!

Meadow Croft Estate, Middle Road, Sayville, NY, USA 

bbphistorical@gmail.com 

  631-472-4625  

BayportBluePointHeritage.org

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March 2021 Newsletter

Welcome March...

“In March winter is holding back and spring is pulling forward. Something holds and something pulls inside of us too.”

― Jean Hersey

Hoping everyone is staying safe and healthy! Spring, daffodils and longer warmer days are on the way! Our BBP St. Patrick's Day parade has been cancelled for March but the spirit of this festive event lives on. The BBPHA continues to upgrade and maintain the inside of Meadow Croft. We have recently completed a large plaster project with new painting as well as restored a ground floor bathroom. We are also planning a "Luck of the Irish" holiday Raffle Basket and information can be found below!

We are excited to have you back to Meadow Croft come June when weekend tours will begin again. Until then, stay healthy and safe!

Luck of the Irish Raffle....

Are you feeling lucky?? Take a chance on another incredible raffle to support the BBPHA. You don't even need to be Irish to enter ....or win!

Tickets will go on sale March 1st, 2021 and will be sold until the day of the drawing on March 28th, 2021. Tickets are $20.00 per chance. The winning ticket will be drawn LIVE on Facebook on March 28th. Check our website and the flyer below for more information.

Grand prize basket valued over $100.00! Stuffed with all kinds of goodies and treats.

Tickets can be purchased on our website: www.bayportbluepointheritage.org

OR by mailing your entry to:

BBPHA

PO Box 4

Bayport NY 11705

Include your phone number so we can call you when you win!

Don't miss your chance! Good luck to all!

(must be over 21 to purchase raffle tickets)

Can you help us identify these Bayport homes?

The BBPHA in a partnership with the Bayport Blue Point LIbrary, have begun digitizing photos of historic homes and images in the Bayport area. Once identified, these homes will all be available for public viewing through a link on the BBP library webpage. The homes will be listed by street name and address when the project is complete.

Located in the archives and files at Meadow Croft, the BBPHA original membership took hundreds of photographs to document the beautiful and historic homes in Bayport as this association was originally; The Bayport Heritage Association. Many of these beautiful homes have street numbers and addresses located on them, however some do not.

To date, Frank Giebfried and John Amato, current members of the BBPHA, have been going through the photographs and have identified hundreds of homes and images currently located in our community. As you can imagine, many of these original photographs from more than 40 years ago look nothing like they do today! Whether it was an extensive remodel, an act of nature or a terrible fire, some of these homes have gone through complete makeovers. That is why we need your help!

The two photographs below are of homes in Bayport. Remember, these photos are from the 1980s. If you can correctly identify these homes, please send an email to johnfamato@optonline.net with the street name and the house number. We thank you in advance for your anticipated help and cooperation!

Help wanted...

Docents: From June through October tours of the historic Meadow Croft home are given every weekend by our small group of dedicated docents. We are always looking for new names and faces to led our tours. If you are interested, contact us below. Training provided.

Heirloom Garden: Who has a green thumb? Ok, not necessary but volunteering to help with Meadow Croft's Heirloom Garden will make your heart full and maybe turn your brown thumb green! All levels of experience needed. Join the fun!

Attention: All teachers.... FREE History classes!

The Gilder Lehrman Institute is offering six free courses for elementary, middle and high school students this spring!

The Spring 2021 HIstory School features presentations, hosted live on Zoom, that explore topics relating to HAMILTON, the Founding Era, the Cold War, and the AP United States History test. Course information and start dates are listed below:

Registration opens February 9, 2021 and classes begin March 6, 2021.

Please email: historyschool@gilderlehrman.org with any questions.

https://www.gilderlehrman.org/programs-and-events/history-school

Gerritsen Avenue: Bayport Street names

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.

June 2010

It's always interesting to learn how a street got its name. Gerritsen Avenue in Bayport was named in honor of William Gerritsen. He died in 1924 and is buried in Lodi, NJ, but his name lives on locally today thanks to the street that bears his name.

William Gerritsen was born on the island of Texel, in the Netherlands in 1867. He migrated to America as a young man. He lived for a number of years in Garfield, NJ, where he formed the firm of the Gerritsen-Stewart Lumber Company. The firm prospered. For the past few years of his life he made his home in Bayport. Mr. Gerritsen purchased a large and valuable tract of property in Bayport know as "the Cove." That property actually extended from Middle Road to the Great South Bay. The Gerritsen home was located on Gerritsen Avenue.

Mr. Gerritsen's wife, Joanna Gerritsen, survived him. She died in 1939. The Gerritsen's had four children; James, William and Henry and one daughter, Henrietta Pauline. As a side-light, the name of Paulanna Avenue can be traced to the names of Mrs. Gerritsen (Joanna) and the Gerritsen's daughter (Pauline).

An addendum to last month's History Page about GERRITSEN AVE: Many thanks to Flo Olsen for pointing out to me that the three cross streets between Gerritsen Ave. and Paulanna Ave. are named for the Gerritsen's three sons: Henry, James and William!! Street names are sooo interesting!

Facebook @BayportHistory

Share this newsletter with friends and family!

Meadow Croft Estate, Middle Road, Sayville, NY, USA  

bbphistorical@gmail.com 

  631-472-4625  

BayportBluePointHeritage.org

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February 2021 Newsletter

 Greetings and salutations!

Hope this finds our friends and membership healthy and warm this winter season! We've heard from some of you who have been vaccinated and it seems that relief is on the way. Continue to stay the course and wear those masks, wash those hands, and stay 6 ft apart until vaccinations become more readily available for the remaining population. All of us at the BBPHA look forward to getting back to our yearly routines and schedules to provide our communities with historical experiences. We hope to schedule general membership meetings again and open Meadow Croft to large groups and special events. Stay tuned and stay well!

Henry Betjemann

Henry Betjemann- Local Artist, Sayville and Blue Point Resident

~ written by John Amato

Generally, visual artists are not great self-promoters. They love to create and that is the source of their passion, not necessarily the recognition. I never met Henry Betjemann, but my guess is that he was just that kind of artist.

I first saw Betjemann’s sketches upon joining the board of the BBPHA. He produced many works of local barns, seascapes and other buildings along or near the south shore and several are in our possession at the BBHA. (see the two images below that include a pencil sketch of the Fortesque estate, home of Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, and a pencil sketch of "Deserted Barns" of Bayport dated 1956.)

Then, recently while moving items to another office area in the house, I came across a folder with more of Betjemann's work. I was taken, not simply by his obvious talent for the detail work in the sketches, but how they captured the essence of a slower, more serene time in Suffolk County. All of Betjemann’s drawings in our collection are done in pencil without color, the lack of which seems to allow the viewer to focus on the subject and the detail. Betjemann did watercolor paintings as well.

Betjemann was born in the Bronx and moved to Sayville with his parents in 1925 living to Garfield Street. He graduated from Sayville High School in 1934. As a teenager, Betjemann worked at the Swan Nursery in Patchogue where he met his future wife, Anna Lillian Sandilands, who went by her middle name, Lillian. The couple married in 1941 lived in Patchogue and then settled at 49 Nelson Avenue in Blue Point. There, they raised three children- two boys and a girl.

Betjemann worked for the JC Penney company in Manhattan as an architectural designer, a job he landed after taking some correspondence courses in architectural drawing and drafting. He commuted to the city for over 30 years. In a NY Times article in 1984 by Diane Greenberg, Betjemann remarked that he didn’t mind the commute as it gave him time to sketch especially when the trains were delayed.

His daughter Kathleen, a retired art teacher and member of the BBPHA, was interviewed for this article and said that her father would often take drives on Saturday morning to look for barns, buildings and scenes to sketch. She added that he would actually count shingles on buildings and once back at his office, would take measurements to ensure that each of the counted shingles would be included in the final drawing. He also had a studio at home where he would produce the final sketches.

Kathleen included a story from her childhood about one of her father’s drawings. One day her dad walked over to the Hudson River on his lunch break and proceeded to make a sketch of a tug boat in the famous Moran fleet of tugs working the piers. After completing the drawing, Henry contacted Mr. Moran at their Battery Park office and offered the drawing to him. According to Kathleen, “Mr. Moran was duly impressed,” and asked Henry if he would like to spend a day aboard one of the tugs. Henry jumped at the offer and asked if he could bring his family. Mr. Moran agreed and Henry, Lillian, Kathleen and her two brothers made their way to NYC and boarded the Doris Moran (named after Mr. Moran’s wife) for a day on the river. Kathleen described a memorable day which included a full gourmet lunch on board, a sail around Staten Island and up and down the Hudson. The kids were enlisted to help crew with work while underway. The most memorable of all was when the tug actually assisted the Queen Mary as she arrived in the harbor and docked. The tug’s captain invited Kathleen and her brothers to stand on the rail of the tug and actually touch the massive cruise ship on the bow.

In 1984, nine of Betjemann’s sketches were selected to appear in a calendar which Suffolk County created for its tercentenary. The calendars were free for residents who wanted them and 30,000 were produced. Throughout his career, Betjemann was awarded over 60 ribbons for his work in exhibits and shows.

Henry Betjemann is no longer with us but his work is so appreciated and treasured by our local community, the County and anyone who has had the privilege of seeing it. He passed in 2001 and is buried in the Blue Point cemetery. Thank you, Henry for what you left us.

 

 

Bryan's Bridge

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.

October 2017

Located on Middle Road, Bayport/ Sayville border

The plaque on this bridge reads: "BRYAN'S BRIDGE; In memory of Bryan E. Schneck; May 1, 1967-June 20, 1997; Friendly neighbor and Construction Superintendent for the Bridge Rehabilitation Project Completed June 16, 1997."

A Middle Road bridge has spanned Brown's River for well over a hundred years. Brown's River serves as the border between Bayport and Sayville. Immediately north of the bridge is 'Meadow Croft,' the 1891 summer home estate of John E. Roosevelt and family. The current bridge was built by Suffolk County in 1936.

The old postcard view (below) shows the view from this bridge, looking south, about 100 years ago. Over the years, the view from the bridge has not changed much.

The current bridge underwent major reconstruction 10 years ago (almost 25 years ago now). Bryan Schneck, a Blue Point resident, supervised the project. He graduated from Bayport-Blue Point High School Class of 1985. Four days after this project was completed, Bryan died tragically in a construction accident while working at Brookhaven National Lab. It was decided to name this span, "Bryan's Bridge" in his memory.

 

 

BBPHA

Facebook @BayportHistory

Stay healthy and warm!! Follow us on Social Media! 

 

Meadow Croft Estate, Middle Road, Sayville, NY, USA 

  bbphistorical@gmail.com  

631-472-4625  

BayportBluePointHeritage.org

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