Carmans River: A Human and Cultural History

The Carmans River flows south through a gap in the Ronkonkoma moraine fromits headwaters located in the area of Artist Lake in Middle Island.

Only one Native American tribe lived on Long Island – the Algonquians. Throughout the Island, they spoke the same language and shared cultural and religious beliefs. They were the Long Island confederacy of the Delaware Indians. About 6,000-7,000 Algonquians lived on Long Island in the 1600s when the first settlers arrived. They were known for making fine wampum, the currency used by all Indians east of the Mississippi river.

About 1,000 BC, Long Island’s Algonquin people began using horticultural techniques, and small permanent villages evolved across the Island, mainly along the shores. The main local village was along Unkechaug Creek in today’s Shirley (where Tobaccus, who signed many of the land sales, was buried in 1700). It is said that one of their meeting places was at today’s Indian Landing on the east side of Carmans River.

By 1700, most of the local Delaware-Algonquins – called Unkechaugs, those who lived between Bayport and Eastport – were decimated by disease. Not understanding the white man’s idea of land ownership, they gave away their land, as well as their right to hunt and fish on it, for mere trinkets. Like Natives elsewhere, most turned to wage labor, mostly obtained by going to sea. They often married with Black slaves and thereby sacrificed their legal freedom.

The Native Americans called it the Connecticut, meaning long river; the settlers called it the East Connecticut, the West being today’s Connetquot River. In this 1797 map, which shows the inlet that opened in 1772, the highlighted areas shows the land that was most valuable to the settlers, that which was salt hay meadow.

In 1657, Narcomac meadows was the very first parcel of land on the Carmans River that the white settlers in Setauket bought from the Unkechaugs.

Nearly the whole upper river, as well as about 2 miles of the west bank of the lower river, was purchased, first from the Long Island Algonquin sachem Wyandance in 1664, and again in 1671 from the local Algonquin leader Tobaccus, who was unhappy that he wasn’t included in the original deal. The last piece of the river purchased was Yaphank Neck in 1688.

Map delineated by John Deitz

The location for these photos is at the end of Beaver Dam Road. From about 1873 to 1905, the land was owned by Joseph Carman, then by Carman Lush who sold the 50- foot wide strip of land to the Town circa 1909. The Town then extended Beaver Dam Road to the river. In 1917, James Post bought the 13 acres along the river to the south of the road

(Squassux Landing) from Mr. Lush, to quietly let the community use it for their boats. All salt-haying photos courtesy of the Post Morrow Foundation

Salt marsh meadows were precious to the early settlers because it was land that they didn’t have to clear and cultivate to provide grazing for their cattle . Salt hay, which initially bought the settlers down from Setauket, was also used for insulation in housing and for ice houses in which winter ice was stacked and where perishable food was stored.

All photos of salt haying in this presentation were taken by artist Fredrick Kost circa 1900 and are part of the Post Morrow Foundation’s collection.

Many of these photos were made into oil or watercolor paintings by Fredrick Kost and are still in the community. Mr. Kost lived at 298 Beaver Dam Road

until his death in 1923.

To regulate the taking of salt hay, the Town declared the second Tuesday in September as “Marshing Day.” In this circa 1900 photo, Wallace Swezey (179 Old Stump Road) is shown with his harvest.

Although feudalism had already been abolished by parliament in England, Long Island was still considered personal real estate of the sovereign and considered the property of King William and Queen Mary. In 1687 Colonel William Smith purchased much the land outlined above and in 1693 was granted a patent for the Manor of St George. The portion of this map from west of the Carmans River is inaccurate and not part of the Manor.

This photo of South Haven mill was taken before 1875. Probably built by Samuel Terrell circa 1740, it was located where Sunrise Highway is today and was in operation until 1910. The building on the left was the planing, or saw mill, and the building on the right was the fulling (processing of cloth from flax so that it thickened and shrunk) and grist mill. The mill was purchased by John Havens in 1745 and later owned by the Carman family.The lumber mill was removed in 1875, when Henry Carman sold the land it was on to the Suffolk Club.

Next three photos courtesy Post Morrow Foundation

T. R. Bayles, “Early Mills, Roads, and Industries in Brookhaven Town,” 1976: “The South Haven mill, located just north of the ‘goin over’ of the Montauk highway, and was in operation in 1745, and contained the large mill stones between which the grain was ground, until it was torn down by the extension of the Sunrise highway in 1958. Water still poured through the mill race as it did before the Revolution, but the mill wheels had long been silent. As with the Yaphank mills this was a grist and saw mill. Sam Carman conducted a tavern and general store just to the west of the mill, and with the meeting house across the road built in 1740, this was the center of life in this part of Brookhaven town in those years."

This picture of the mill, taken before 1875, is from the north side looking downriver. The Carman family, who also owned the Tavern and general store just in front of the mill along South Country Road, was a shareholder in the mill from 1780 to 1875. All photos of the Carmans mill courtesy of the Post Morrow Foundation

Postcard from the first half of the 20th century

Picture taken for Mrs. Florence Hard, circa 1936.

Simultaneous with the establishment of the mill in 1740 was the building of the second church in Brookhaven Town, the Old South Haven Presbyterian Church, directly across from the mill on the banks of Carmans River.

In 1780, 40 years after the mill and church were built, the new owner of the mill, Sam Carman, built a tavern, inn and general store directly in front of the mill, and South Haven became the Colonial center of the south shore of Brookhaven.

Although the area referred to as “the plains” was part of the “Old Purchase at South” in 1664, it wasn’t until 1720 that the Town began dividing the land into lots in soon-to-be-named Millville.

Beginning in 1740, a community dependent upon the mills for their livelihood developed between the two mills that lie along today’s Main Street, as indicated on this 1873 map.

There were several Millvilles on Long Island, and that caused postal problems. So, in 1845, the community was renamed Yaphank, after the name of the eastern boundary line. Yaphank is a Native American name meaning “the bank of a river.”

Known as the Sweezey Mill or Upper Mill, the original Yaphank mill was built by Capt. Robert Robinson and was in operation circa 1740. By 1815, the mill changed hands to the Christopher Sweezey family, who tore down the original mill and replaced it with the saw mill shown above. This saw mill remained the family business until circa 1900. It burned down circa 1914. Photo courtesy of the Yaphank Historical Society.

Sweezey’s Mill, date of photo unknown

Photo courtesy of the Yaphank Historical Society.

Photo courtesy of the Yaphank Historical Society.

Photo courtesy of the Yaphank Historical Society

Sweezey Mill Dam. Photo courtesy of the Yaphank Historical Society

The current upper lake dam, circa 1930.

Photo courtesy of the Yaphank Historical Society

In 1762, John Homan built a saw mill about a mile downstream of the Sweezey mill, and, in 1771, added a grist mill to it. In 1821, the Homan family sold their mills to Robert Hawkins, who tore down the original mills and replaced them with a larger saw mill. A decade later, Hawkins’ nephew, E. L. Gerard, took over his uncle’s mill, which he operated until his death in 1899. Gerard’s children continued the operation for a while and, sometime before 1917, sold it to the Suffolk Club. The mill burned down in 1919. Photo courtesy of the Yaphank Historical Society.

Gerard’s Mill, date unknown. Photo courtesy of the Yaphank Historical Society.

Gerards Mill

In 1792, Ebenezer Homan built a fulling mill about a mile north of the Sweezy Mill. This mill apparently didn’t last very long, perhaps only 20 years. There are no known photos of it except of the above remains. A fourth mill site, a saw mill, was built about half a mile below Gerard’s Mill but was abandoned before long. Photo courtesy of the Yaphank Historical Society

1815: All Roads lead to Carmans and the Yaphank mills.

This 1900 survey, filed in the County Clerk’s office on June 6, 1904, file number 29, shows that the Tangier Smiths owned the river bottom and all uplands on the east side of the river, about 7,000 acres, from Montauk Highway south to the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1910 Fredrick J. Quinby created the Tangiers Development Corporation and purchased nearly 7,000 acres along the east side of Carmans River, today’s Shirley, from approximately Montauk Highway south to the Great South Bay.

Note Advertisement in Times Square

Fortunately for Carmans River, the Tangiers Development Company failed, and by 1917, the 7,000 acres had resorted back to the Tangier Smith family.

250 years after Colonel William Tangier Smith purchased approximately 10 square miles of Brookhaven Town and was granted a feudal patent, the Tangier Smith portion of the Mastic peninsula remained largely undeveloped.

Currier and Ives’ depiction of Daniel Webster catching his famous 14-1/2 lb. trout in Carmans mill pond, circa 1821. Sam Carman may not even have been the major shareholder in the mill, but he and his descendants became rich and famous because of the businesses they ran from directly in front of the mill: a store, post office, tavern and Inn. All of the “men of the day,” mostly members of the exclusive Suffolk Club, would come to hunt and fish at Carmans. The Suffolk Club, whose members would include Martin Van Buren, August Belmont and Teddy Roosevelt, as well as Webster, would lease the rights to Carmans River for 25 years at a time. In 1875, they bought approximately 1,200 acres from Henry Carman, mostly on the west side of the river, all the way from Yaphank down to the Great South Bay. The Tangier Smiths still owned the east side of the river from Montauk Highway south to the bay.

Circa 1900, the Suffolk Club began selling off some their holdings along the southern portion of the river.

Anson Hard, circa 1924

Circa 1920, Anson Hard, stockbroker, member of the NY Stock Exchange and Suffolk Club member, bought the outstanding shares from the remaining members of the Suffolk Club and made it his own personal hunting lodge for himself and close friends.

The Hard Estate was more than 1,000 acres, straddling 4 miles of Carmans River all the way from the Lower Lake in Yaphank to the Montauk branch of the LI Railroad in South Haven.

Anson Hard’s home along the west bank of the river, near the original site of the Suffolk Clubhouse, burned down in 1936.

The Hard home was rebuilt circa 1937 and is today’s Suffolk County Parks Department headquarters.

The Hard Estate would also include all but two of the buildings shown in this circa 1938 photo looking north over Montauk Highway. Not shown in the above picture is the mill, which the dirt road goes to, as shown in the following slide. The Carman Tavern was torn down in 1936 by Charles Robinson, and the lumber from it was used to build some of his duck houses.

Mill

Equipment barn

Horse barn

Storage shed

House owned by Hard

Suffolk Lodge

Photo: Mrs. Florence Bourne Hard with Kenneth B. and his sister, Florence, 1927

After Anson’s death in 1939, the estate was left to his wife, Florence, and their six children. When their youngest child, Kenneth B., returned from the navy after WWII, the family decided to let him use the estate because he wanted operate it as a game preserve.

Ken Hard grew up on the estate and to him this was home.

In 1946, Ken Hard married Leona Robinson, whose family owned the duck farm across the street. Together they raised four children on the Suffolk Lodge estate.

Ken Hard’s Trout Nursery

1958 was the beginning of the end for Suffolk Lodge with the Sunrise Highway extension. A few years later, Suffolk County condemned the rest of Ken Hard’s property, which became South Haven Park, the County’s first park.

Suffolk Lodge, 1960

The Mainline Railroad, at the time called Boston Line, was completed in 1844.

Photo from Steel Rails to the Sunrise by Ron Ziel

In 1881, the South Side, or Montauk branch, of the Long Island Railroad was completed.

South Side Railroad bridge as seen from the Wyandotte spur in 1942.

The “going over” on South Country Road circa 1880. This narrow point on the river is still there today, about 100 feet north of Montauk Highway.

Picture circa 1920. With the advent of the automobile, a better bridge was built about 100 feet south of the original, where the current bridge is today.

The first duck farms appeared on the Carmans River in 1921 along Little Neck Run, thereafter to be called “Runny Nose Creek” by some locals.

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River in 1921

Pictures: Little Neck Run duck farms, 1924

Little Neck Run, April 2007

Photo: Jen Puleston Clement

Robinson Duck Farm, South Haven, 1948. The Old South Haven Church in foreground is the last remnant of the former Colonial center. In 1961, the church was moved 4 miles to the west. Photo courtesy of Ron Bush

Carmans River Duck Farm, aka Robinson’s Duck Farm. View looking north from the feed mill. Photo by Ken Hard, 1949

Photo Ken Hard

The Robinsons duck farm was in operation from 1936 to circa 1980. During its most productive years up to 10,000 Peking ducks a week were processed here.

Photo Ken Hard

In 1938, banker Maurice Wertheim purchased 1,700 acres straddling the lower Carmans River, most from the Tangier Smith family, for his personal game preserve. In 1947. he deeded this land to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to become a wildlife Refuge upon his death. In 1974, some 600 additional acres were added to the Refuge, including a 260-acre donation by the Wellington family and the purchase of most of the land from Yaphank Creek west to Old Stump Road and south to the Carmans River, including Little Neck Run and Yaphank Creek.

By 1917, all four mills in Yaphank were gone. Roadways now cover over the original mill races of both the Gerard and Sweezey mills.

During the late 1930s several camps opened along the upper river, one of which was infamous. Today the former Camp Siegfried is a Brookhaven Town park.

In 1900, Sam Newey opened a ship building yard near the mouth of the river. Stephanie Bigelow writes: “Captain Sam Newey started to build boats in 1900. Having sold to the Vacuum Oil Company a 65-foot freighter he had built for himself, he subsequently built fourteen tankers which went to India and Africa. He built sloops, yachts, yawls; boats for ferrymen, boats for the oil trade; and commercial draggers equipped with heavy booms….”

Dick Tooker bought the boatyard in 1945 and ran it until 1975, then sold it to Bill Starke, who operated it until 1999. The Post Morrow Foundation now owns and operates a boat-building school at the boatyard.

Pictured circa 1940, Sam Newey (1865-1949) with local bayman Tom Poole building eel pots.

Squassux Landing, circa 1900, as a cow pasture. This may have been owned by either the Suffolk Club or by Joseph Carman at the time. This natural landing place near the mouth of the Carmans River has been used by both Native Americans and Colonists for centuries. Early in the 20th century, as land along the river became privatized, many locals, as well as a large New York City transient crowd bought on by the arrival of the railroad in 1881, Squassux Landing was the best and only place to access the river. In 1917 James Post quietly brought the 13-acre site to let the community use it as they wished. His heirs would deed the site to the Brookhaven Village Association in 1945.

Several competing ferries ran from Squassux Landing to the Smith’s Point House on Fire Island.

For the past 63 years, Squassux Landing has been used as a boatyard, park and fairgrounds for the Brookhaven Hamlet community.

Cathedral Pines, Headwaters ofCarmans River

Golf Course

Thanks to the efforts of Art Cooley and the Bellport High School students 40 years ago, much of the land bordering the river has been preserved, as will be shown in the following photographs.

Map courtesy of John Turner, Town of Brookhaven

Map courtesy of John Turner, Town of Brookhaven

Looking south over South Haven Park, Hard Lake in background.

Photo April 2007 by Jen Puleston Clement

Former 86-acre Robinson farm, now Suffolk County Parkland

Wertheim Refuge Headquarters

Photo by Jen Clement

Land that was targeted for acquisition if the 2007 Community Preservation Fund had passed.

Map courtesy of John Turner, Town of Brookhaven

Cabomba weed in Upper Lake, 2006

Milfoil in Lower Lake, 2007

Former canoe rental business; Brookhaven Town in contract to purchase.

The old “goin’ over”

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Mastic

Bellport

Yaphank

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FirePlace

Sunrise Highway

Rt 25, Middle Island

Flow rate = 35,000,000 gallons per day (USGS)

Flow rate = 46,500,000 gallons per day (USGS)

Flow rate = 15,600,000 gallons per day (USGS)

Flow rate= 2,500,000 gallons/day (Paul Grosser, engineer)

Presentation by Marty Van Lith, February 2008