Land Ho! A Main Attraction - Featuring a Rather Definite and Rare Discussion of Southold Town Hamlet Cutchogue Personally by Me!
By Danny McCarthy
You’ll see that recognition of locations in Cutchogue have been entered here. This is just a glimpse of the hamlet that includes the extensions of Nassau Point and New Suffolk.
According to Cutchogue: Southold’s First Colony by Southold Town Historian Wayland Jefferson, Cutchogue caught the enthusiastic eye of leading founder and pioneer of Southold, William Wells. Jefferson reminds us that Cutchogue is derived from the Indian word Ketchi-auke, meaning “the principle place.”
The story goes that after 18 years of litigation between William Wells and the Town Fathers, Cutchogue was opened for settlement in 1667. William Wells had received Ketchi-auke from the Indians in settlement for his claim for oxen. However, William Wells claimed the oxen were “stole by the heethen.” The Town Fathers did not deny the justice of his claim but had continually refused permission for another independent settlement within their bounds since they already had experience with the people of Hashamomoque, which had brought bad news.
The Town Fathers declared a formal laying out of lots in the Cutchogue division in November 1661 and a year later owners’ names were posted on 44 lots for the Cutchogue “dividend.” William Wells was one such owner and he had three necks of land. They were named Quasha, Poole’s and Little Hog Neck.
The majority of the Cutchogue settlers were of the second generation. Broad Field was ready for tillage and guaranteed the residents food while they were making their farms ready. Broad Field was the largest area of cleared land in the vicinity and was parceled out to the settlers in 20-acre lots. (In the first plantation of Southold, the Oldfield was divided into one and two-acre plots.) There was a good bay harbor at Robin’s Island Neck (New Suffolk) as well as a port at the Sound in the Duck Pond of today, and a water supply in the Town Pond at the foot of Manor Hill.
Jefferson went on to say that a reason for coming to Cutchogue was economics. Only cleared land was taxed and in Cutchogue it would take several years for the collector to catch up with them even after the three-year tax-free period that was allowed by the New Haven Authorities.
Tobacco farmers had already taken up the land at the extreme end of the North Fork, and farms occupied the two great areas of Greenport and East Marion. Great Hogg Neck was officially reserved for the Indians. Even after a fence around Great Hogg Neck was built as specified by the Overseers, the Indians were not allowed to keep Great Hogg Neck.
Broad Field offered surplus crops. Among some were corn, wheat and French wheat (barley), which was shipped across the Sound. Horses could be sold. Mrs. Mary Wells garnished the reputation of being the largest breeder of horses in the whole town and her descendants, the Fleets, continued that ongoing tradition. Leather and furs were shipped to the Mother Country. Rum and sugar were exchanged with the West Indies as salt pork and apples were exported there. Mrs. Wells had 27 sheep in Cutchogue, Wayland Jefferson noted.
The men in the 1600s were able to take their horses and go where they wanted. Perhaps even taking boats to sail away to Connecticut or even to make time to join in with the military force. A woman’s sole opportunity to see the world was on a Sunday going to Church at Southold where she might have the chance to speak with her relatives in the parent village after either listening to the Rev. Youngs or the Rev. Hobart. There was no interchange of news available for women. However, there was “a merry meeting of gossips at a woman’s lying-in” – or at a gossiping.
Rosalind Case Newell of Peconic and her father went fishing on Peconic Bay. He would take her on a “launch” – “one of those first gasoline-engined open boats.” In those times, “Porgies, weakfish, kingfish and blowfish were plentiful. Dogfish were pestiferous bait stealers, and also the horrid-looking sea robins.” In late summer there were “gamey fighting bluefish.” In later years Mrs. Newell recalled that the Bay became a “Mecca for hundreds of ardent fishermen from western Long Island and the city.” She even went on to say that those who visited that did their fishing would say, “Oh, I’ve been out fishing from New Suffolk!”
In A Rose of the Nineties, Rosalind Case Newell wrote that the Peconic Bay pounding seas actually piled rows of seaweed along the beach. The windrows would include hundreds of escallops. She continued saying that the New Suffolk shore was lined with little grey-shingled escallop houses. The dredging, opening and shipping of escallops was an industry that was employed by many of the locals.
Here’s a recipe for success with good ingredients as taken from the pages of Rose Remembers by Rosalind Case Newell:
Dry escallops well in a cloth. You’ll have to change it once or twice. “A piece of old cotton sheet or whatever is much better than paper towels.” Crush 12 or more saltines to a coarse powder with a rolling pin. Saltines are tastier than bread crumbs. Beat one egg in a soup dish with a fork (not a beater). Cut small slices as thin as you can from a strip of fat back with a very sharp knife with enough pieces to cover the bottom of the pan. The fat back will slice easier when frozen. Cut the rind off first. Try out these pieces in an iron frying pan, watching and turning carefully and constantly. Drain them on a paper towel. Dust the escallops with flour, pepper and salt and put them in egg. Then dip them out with a split spoon so they won’t be too wet, and roll them in the cracker crumbs. When the fat is smoking hot, put in the escallops and they will start to brown at once. Turn them over. Add butter if you think they are going to burn. As soon as they are brown on both sides, they’re done. A couple of minutes is all they need. Serve them at once. Rosalind Case Newell said that the job is so quick that you could cook the escallops while your guests are getting to the table. She went on to say: “My biggest frying pan holds eighty escallops and I figure on 20 to a person.”
Having mentioned New Suffolk, let’s take a glance of the area in written word. According to The New Suffolk Story by Marjorie Moore Butterworth, the Southold Town Fathers did formally lay out lots in the Cutchogue area in 1661 which they reserved for themselves and they were considerable tracts of land. Mrs. Butterworth clarifies that East and West creeks bounded 180 acres that were known as Dam Meadow and Peconic Bay and these became the boundaries of New Suffolk eventually.
Booth’s Neck was the common name for this land as Mrs. Butterworth pointed out. John Booth was the first owner of a majority of that land and that is how his name became attributed with it. For a brief time, John Booth also owned Robins Island. John Booth received Robins Island from Nathaniel Sylvester who had received it as a deed from the Indians. The west side of what is now New Suffolk Road was inherited by John Booth’s son Charles. John Booth’s older son Thomas inherited the east side.
Mrs. Butterworth shares that the Fence Viewer, an elected office, was of extreme importance in the 1700s since livestock was the number one enterprise in the area. A good part of the land was fenced in. Thirty different people owned Great Meadow, a part that lies mostly in Cutchogue with a small tract in New Suffolk. Each person had the use of two acres. Cattle were supplied with winter fodder that was made from salt hay that was grown there. “Meadowland at that time was considered more valuable than upland. A parcel of meadowland west of Dam Meadow was set aside for the minister of the Presbyterian Church to provide fodder for his animals.” The parcel was referred to as Parsons Corner and was used until 1940.
There was a Purpose! It’s About Time!
New Suffolk garnished the reputation for being a busy port and shipyard from early times. Porpoises appeared in Peconic Bay around 1780. The porpoise oil was used for the lubrication of clocks and watches. In 1781, the Porpoise Company was formed. Cutchogue and New Suffolk business thrived. But the porpoises disappeared just as quickly as they appeared.
Shipping continued and in 1838 Ira Tuthill had acquired by deed from New York State Governor William March underwater lands and was able to build New Suffolk’s largest and busiest dock. You see, the men of New Suffolk took naturally to the sea since New Suffolk was surrounded on three sides by Peconic Bay.
As noted in the Peconic Bay Shopper article that I titled Below Sea Level but Ultimately Shining, in 1899, New Suffolk residents saw something unusual: what looked like two masts moving through the water at about five knots. There was no boat, no engines and no smoke. The masts belonged to the country’s first submarine launched from an unlikely spot — the hamlet of New Suffolk — where the J. P. Holland Torpedo Company became its principal industry until 1905.
New Suffolk resident Floyd Houston built models of the USS Holland to scale. In 1957, he presented the Mariners Museum at Newport News, Virginia with one of the models. There is a wooden model made by the Holland Company located in the Carriage House on the Village Green in Cutchogue. To pay tribute to the remarkable history of the USS Holland, the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Historical Society erected a roadside marker located at the end of Main Street; a plaque was placed on the waterfront property on Peconic Bay down from the New Suffolk post office at the submarine base landmark to honor the 100th birthday celebration of the USS Holland in April 2000; and beginning with the intersection on Route 25 and New Suffolk Road in Cutchogue and ending with its intersection at New Suffolk Avenue and Route 25 in Mattituck are two identical signs revealing that the road has been designated as the United States Submarine Veterans Memorial Highway.
This was Oughta Site! Alley-Oop!
An 1883 copyrighted brochure was re-printed in 1978 as recommended by Rosalind Case Newell. The name of that brochure which was printed in limited edition was titled Peconic Park. In 1883 Nassau Point had the name Peconic Park. The name was given by a real estate development company. The developers did not accept the name “Little Hog Neck” and renamed the area Peconic Park to pay tribute to a mansion that was located there that was converted into a clubhouse-hotel and a bowling alley annex. The bowling alley annex accommodated bowlers and later also served as a guest house. A tennis court was on the property. The kitchen that was available on the grounds garnished some worthy reputation. In the spring of 1928, fire destroyed the mansion. The bowling alley was torn down soon after.
Friendly and Historically Speaking! Far from a Well-Kept Secret!
A committee of Cutchogue citizens met informally at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Corwin Grathwohl on Tuesday, November 17, 1959 to organize the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Historical Council. Mrs. Robert P. Sibley, Mrs. Arthur S. Moore as well as Fred Kaelin, Paulding Stoutenburgh, and James and Corwin Grathwohl were among those present. It was noted that Mrs. Ernest Morrell and Edward Fox were unable to attend.
Madolin Fleet Barteau shared in her March 31, 1955 Long Island Traveler column titled Interesting Facts About Cutchogue Cemetery that the Cutchogue Cemetery was incorporated in 1856 and that there are 1,064 lots. Mrs. Barteau reminds us that there are plot owners in the Cutchogue Cemetery like folks that are from the sister villages. Some of the surnames include: Tuthill, Jones, Vail, Dart, Putnam and Larsen.
One of the oldest historic homes in Cutchogue is known as “The Old House.” Prosperous settler John Budd built his house in Southold in 1649 and the house stood on Tuckers Lane in Southold. He built another house in Southold in the Antigua style he loved and that house was located on the western end of the Main Road in Southold. One of his three daughters named Anna married Barnabas Horton’s son Benjamin and John Budd gave the couple his former Tucker’s Lane house to the couple as a wedding gift. Benjamin Horton’s brother Joshua was a carpenter and arrangements were made with him to move their Tuckers Lane home to Cutchogue in 1660. The building was restored and furnished in 1940 during the Southold Town Tercentenary. In 1962 it was dedicated as a National Historic Landmark.
“The Old Burying Ground” (Cutchogue Cemetery) that is on the Main Road and “The Old House” located on the Cutchogue Village Green are presently maintained by the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Historical Council. Other buildings on the Cutchogue Village Green include: the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Free Library (which formerly was the Independent Congregational Church. The Independent Congregational Church was erected in 1862. The building has been used as a library since 1914); “The School House;” “The Barn;” “The Wickham Farm House;” “The Village Garage;” and the previously mentioned “Carriage House.”
The July 2, 1985 Peconic Bay Shopper shared insight on Fort Corchaug. Cutchogue native, archaeologist and Amerindian authority who is on the faculty of the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, Dr. Ralph Solecki, said: “Among the original Indian settlements, the only fort in any state of preservation along the eastern seaboard is Fort Corchaug.” We get reminded that the beaches of Corchaug offered the Indians periwinkle, a shell which the natives handcrafted for their “wampum.” Fort Corchaug was placed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1974 by the Historical Council. Further information can be found by taking a read through Pagans Puritans Patriots of Yesterday’s Southold by Warren Hall.
On the corner of Main Road and New Suffolk Road in Cutchogue was the Case house where there used to be a hotel attached to the building that was located there called the Betts Hotel. The hotel was owned by George M. Betts. According to the Cutchogue SPLIA (Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities) volume, Harrison Case’s father moved the Harrison Case House and part of what was known as the Betts Hotel (circa 1878) in 1908 to the east side of New Suffolk Road. In the early 1920s, one-story stores with a flat Art-Deco type roof had been constructed and added on to the portion of the Case house that remained on the corner of Main Road and New Suffolk Road. The Cutchogue Post Office was one of the stores here in 1929.
A barber shop, an A&P, and a butcher shop all stood side-by-side on the end of that building in the early 1920s. Adolph Rysko worked as a young clerk in the A&P and over the years he bought out the three stores. His butcher shop and market was then nestled on the corner of Main Road and New Suffolk Road. He was the proprietor for 39 years with his wife Helen. Mr. Rysko then sold to Joseph Nolan and the business was called Ireland’s Cutchogue Village Market & Caterers. Now the corner location has been taken over by the Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty.
“Honeymoon House” was located on the south side of the intersection of Route 25 (Main Road) and New Suffolk Road in Cutchogue. It was referred to as the “Honeymoon House” since many honeymoon couples occupied the cottage. “Honeymoon House” ended up becoming the rental location of the first location for the Old Town Arts & Crafts Guild. In 1951, the building located east of the North Fork Bank and Trust Company of Cutchogue that was located on the opposite side of Route 25 was available and became the permanent home of the Old Town Arts & Crafts Guild. You can refer to the book A Shared Aesthetic – Artists of Long Island’s North Fork by Geoffrey K. Fleming and Sara Evans for detailed coverage of the history of the Old Town Arts & Crafts Guild.
Nothing Could Be Finer
As Dallas Gatewood noted in his August 26, 1984 Newsday article, there lies a quaint artifact in the memories of the East End in a way like “The Old House” does and it rests on the middle of the Main Road in Cutchogue. A couple of former waitresses named Jennie Kapustka and Diane Slavonik were the original owners of this quite memorable place and it is the North Fork Diner. Among some of the earlier customers included Albert Einstein and Guy Lombardo. Cutchogue farmer Albin Pietrewicz remarked in the 1984 article that he had been having coffee and “emergency breakfasts and lunches” there for 45 years. “It would be real inconvenient for me if the diner wasn’t there.” The art deco island is “probably the last of the country atmosphere diners.”