Hats Off to Peconic — A Hamlet Before Its Time
By Danny McCarthy
All aboard! Before the late 1800s, what is now known as Peconic was called the Hermitage and Peconic Lane was referred to as Hermitage Lane.
According to Rosalind Case Newell in her book spotlighting Peconic titled A Rose of the Nineties, Peconic had been originally called Hermitage because of an eccentric old man named Daniel Overton who lived alone as a hermit in a little shanty house near the site of the Long Island Rail Road. Eventually, tracks were laid right alongside his little cottage despite his vigorous fight with the LIRR. Daniel was a rhymist who composed jingles to fit characters he knew. One of his simple rhymes is: “Mrs. Perkins goes in royal state, Aunt Patty stops to the gate.” Today a commercial building stands on the sight of the hermit’s little shanty. The historical committee of the Southold-Peconic Civic Association (which later became the Southold Historical Society in 1960), placed a marker on this structure commemorating the homesite of the “old Hermit.”
The railroad had been through from New York to Greenport in 1844. For some time the trains did not stop at Hermitage. Author Rosalind Case Newell shared in her book A Rose of the Nineties that several men had made frequent trips to the city and were annoyed at having to go to Southold, the next village, as that would mean having to take a long carriage ride to get . The story goes that a few conspirators applied quantities of goose grease and skunk oil to the rails about a mile west of the village. The funnel-stacked engine and small wooden cars would the slippery rails and the wheels would spin helplessly and the train would coast until it came to a stop just at the spot where the Peconic folks wanted a station. It took many hours of wiping before the train could get traction again. Old Peconickers claimed that soon afterward a station was built and Hermitage was made a regular stop. The name was changed to Peconic in 1876. The demise of the Peconic depot in 1942 left the North Fork hamlet with a small shed, rickety platform, and a bumpy main . Some time after 1963, the depot, wood platform and other reminders of a once viable stop were demolished.
The hamlet’s post office was initially established as Hermitage Depot on May 14, 1847. The name Hermitage had already been claimed in upper New York State! The name was then changed to East Cutchogue on January 28, 1848, to West Southold on June 7, 1851, and finally to Peconic on January 13, 1859. Today, what was once the old Jefferson Store, the post office. In 1855, lumberyard owner . Horace F. Prince constructed the building. Capt. Prince used his sloop to transport lumber across the Sound from Connecticut for his Hermitage lumberyard. The store knew several owners before 1870 when Robert Jefferson and his son Louis became associated with both the building and the business. Those were the days of the and of tall tales told by old Peconickers. Years ago, the top floor was used as a dance hall and young people came from near and far, for it was considered one of the best on the East End of Long Island. Both the Jeffersons were appointed as postmasters and it was in this building that the post office was located. The office was in his store until Annie Prince was appointed when it was moved to her . When Katherine Wolosik was appointed, the office was in a building north of the railroad on the west side of the street. Later it was moved to its present location in the building of Smith’s store.
Peconic was laid out in an H with the North and South roads running parallel east and west and being connected by Peconic Lane. The railroad bisected the lane at the crossing where a few stores were centered and the stood quite together. The rest of Peconic was scattered farms and in the 1890s. The lane continued north as Mill Road winding around the tree-laden shore of Peconic Inlet also known as Goldsmith’s to Long Island Sound. Running south off of Route 25 are Wells Road leading to Richmond Creek and Indian Neck Lane winding down to Little Peconic Bay.
The old Peconic District School stood on the same site for 50 years on Peconic Lane as a wooden structure. A modern brick building now takes its place. On the Wrecking of the Peconic Schoolhouse in 1938 was a poem written by Evelyn Corwin Smith. There is a framed version of that poem hung in the new school building.
Frank Davis Smith was a tailor and he was also known as the “Man Milliner of eastern Long Island.” He was born in Peconic and lived there for 80 years. His hat shop was one of the unique places for more than half a century. It was the mecca for ladies all over the East End, north and south side! Hats were to be chosen and planned for at Frank Smith’s. Within a week, there would be a return for the fitting. It was no wonder that the Peconic Milliner became a magnet for the sake of friendship as well as hats. Frank and Minnie Terry Smith were married for 42 years. To many they were “Uncle Frank and Aunt Minnie.”
A long line of carriages from Jefferson’s store way down past the schoolhouse on Peconic Lane saw a large group of eager ladies outside Frank Smith’s millinery hat shop, which was right next door to the Jefferson homestead (the of Henry J. Smith). After his hats had been in Peconic, Frank Smith would take them to Orient where he would have days or even a week taking orders. Then he would hurry back to Peconic, and with his niece Geneva Sayre to help him, he would start making the hats on order ready for trying on. As you entered the shop, you stopped into the front room, which was a rather dark room, with glass cases filled with hat trimmings and other things needed by his customers, and chests of drawers filled with more of the same. All around on stands were hats on order in various stages of completion. Then you head into the back room where you would find Frank and Geneva busily at work. Frank would jump up with a cheerful greeting and your hat would be ready to try on. Frank Smith would be asking about your family and telling a good story that would finally have you in gales of laughter. That really was a kind of an era.
Frank collected bits and scraps of velvet left over from his creations and made a quilt out of them in a cabin-style. That quilt is in the of the Southold Historical Society. A pulpit was dedicated at the Southold First Universalist Church in loving memory of Frank Davis Smith in August 1943, as he was a very special member who served as trustee. For 40 years, he served as superintendent of the Sunday School and also formed the Young People’s Society.
Winter 2014 Southold Historical Society Newsletter
Download the link below and then scroll down for my From the Archives column regarding the Frank Davis-related entry:
The first American-made telescope lenses were made right here on the North Fork with hand and foot-powered machines. Peconic resident Henry Fitz began making telescopes as a hobby in the 1840s. His contribution to science in the United States took on national significance when he entered the American Institute Fair in New York in 1845. He exhibited a six-inch achromatic refractor telescope that had his own design and was the first successful refraction telescope to use American-made glass. He won a gold medal in that exhibit. Fitz became the leading American manufacturer of achromatic refracting telescopes in the 18 years that followed that fair. At the time of his death in 1863, he had developed a 17-inch lens and was working on a 24-inch model, which was the world’s largest.
Henry Fitz was born in Massachusetts in 1808. He learned the locksmith trade as a boy while living in New York City and then traveled for 10 years. In 1839 he visited Europe and studied the work of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. Fitz made a camera upon his return to the United States that is believed to have taken the first photo portrait ever made in America. That camera is now in the Smithsonian Institute. He became interested in astronomy and telescopes and from that time on gave up photography, filling orders for telescopes that included a 12-inch one made for the city of Pittsburgh, a 12-inch one for Vassar College, a 14-inch one for West Point, a 16-inch one for a private observatory in Buffalo, plus many others. Henry Fitz built the telescopes in more than half of the important observatories in the United States before his untimely death at the age of 55. Many of the telescopes he designed are still in use even today. Did you know: In New York City during the summer months as you walked along the northerly side of 42nd Street just north of the public library, you may have spotted an automobile with a large telescope on its roof? A sign invited you to look at the stars through a “genuine Henry Fitz Telescope.”
Henry Giles Fitz, who was better known as “Harry,” was the eldest son of camera and telescope maker Henry Fitz. Harry was born in 1847 in New York. When he was not yet 17 in 1863, as a result of the death of his father, he carried on the telescope business and completed his father’s contracts. After being the main support of the family for a number of years, Harry moved to a farm in Peconic. At the age of 23, he was sent to Italy with the United States Expedition as chief photographer to study the total eclipse of the sun.
When he reached his thirties, he put to use a talent that had long been a hobby — the teaching of drawing. Harry had filled notebooks with sketches as a child. He and his brother Ben had often sketched together as they grew up. Under the watchful eye of the Peconic District School teacher, Miss Hattie Fanning (who later married Ben Fitz), Harry obtained his license and earned a position as a teacher of drawing in a New York City public school. He was the instructor in free-hand drawing at the Harlem Evening School and he also taught and supervised drawing in many parochial schools in the city as well. He married Mary Richmond of Peconic in 1887 shortly after his work as drawing teacher began. His only son was a veteran of World War I who died in 1922.
Harry Fitz had little formal schooling as a child. He had some years at the old Fifth Street Public School in Manhattan and two or three years at Miss Mapes’ school in Cutchogue. His mother was Julia Wells Fitz and she taught in the Southold Academy. His father wanted to make Harry a first-class telescope maker. If Harry ever wanted a toy or any item, his father would say, “Make it.” Harry would make his item with little instruction and would have the material and tools available. Among his family acquaintances was an amateur astronomer and patron of science, Louis M. Rutherford, who brought interest and influence to the Fitz telescope business. Harry was present at Lincoln’s Cooper Union address. He was a charter member and past president of Custer Institute. Harry died at the age of 92 in 1939 after having lived in his dearly loved Peconic home.
The Workshop of Henry Fitz became a new exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in August 1959. The equipment in this replica was taken from the original workshop of Mr. Fitz when he had his shop in New York City from 1845 to 1863 to when it was moved to Peconic where his son, Harry, carried it on until 1880. Mrs. Louise Fitz Howell, granddaughter of the late Henry Fitz, donated the instruments Fitz used to develop the achromatic lens that were preserved and handed down from generation to generation to the Smithsonian Institute and the Custer Institute of Southold as well. History is in the making you see and the legend of the first commercial telescope maker that was from Peconic lives on!