Munson L.I., a Forgotten Hamlet

The photo of the magnificent estate at left comes from the May 5th, 1917 edition of the NY Sun announcing the sale of the home to Mr. & Mrs Wilford L. Wright, president of the Savage Arms Company. The seller was Harry Munson, who had lived in the home for over 20 years. The 20 acre property was located on the north side of Hempstead Turnpike between Nassau Blvd and Cherry Valley Ave, where the Compare Foods Shopping Center is now located, and extended all the way back to the Garden City border.

Harry Munson (pictured at left) was a decorated Civil War veteran who made a fortune in advertising in New York City. Some estimated that he had a 50% market share in Manhattan's billboard posting business. In 1896, he retired and purchased the home above in a tiny village then called Washington Square, centered around the corner of the Hempstead-Jamaica Plank road (Hempstead Tpke) and John St (Nassau Blvd). Upon moving out to Long Island, Washington Square then became known as Munson in honor of the area's newest resident. Despite the fact that Harry Munson was a successful businessman and decorated Civil War hero, it is surprising to consider that local residents were so eager to change the name to honor a newcomer. After all, with his purchase, Munson initially intended occupy his country seat only on a part time basis as a Summer retreat. Perhaps we can offer the following theory:

In 1892, Washington Square in Manhattan gained national recognition when a memorial arch was erected to celebrate the centennial of President George Washington's inauguration. The existing, permanent memorial arch was completed in 1895. This created too much confusion for tiny Washington Square, Long Island, and shortly thereafter locals began looking for a suitable replacement name for their village. When Munson came on to the scene and purchased the area's most prominent home and property, he was a natural candidate to be given the honor of the village's namesake.

In 1947, Wilford L. Wright died. Five years later the home was sold to the Ethical Cultural Society (later called the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island), who then used the building as their headquarters until they built a new headquarters on Old Country Road in Garden City. The photo at left comes from the EHSLI website and shows the building as it looked in the 1950s. As a testament to the size of the home the Ethical Cultural Society converted the rooms of the house into a Platform room with a capacity of 100 people, a study, lounge, kitchen, office, caretaker's room and six Sunday School classrooms.

A survey of local newspapers such as the Hempstead Inquirer and the Hempstead Sentinel from the early 1900s shows that local news from Munson was covered much more extensively than other neighboring locales such as West Hempstead, Lakeview and Franklin Square. Munson had it's own hotel, a general store, a blacksmith, various other businesses and even its own baseball team. Over time though, Munson slowly lost its identity because it got crowded out by the expansion of West Hempstead from the east and Franklin Square from the west. Only an echo of Munson exists in the name of the Franklin Square & 'Munson' Fire Dept., and Munson Ave., south of Hempstead Turnpike, just east of Nassau Blvd. Below is a photo of the location of the Munson/ Wright home as it looks today.

Name Origins - Washington Square and Franklin Square

A big mystery looms as to how Franklin Square got its name. Was there a person named Franklin to whom the hamlet paid tribute? Did locals want to establish some connection with the Franklin Square in New York City? Was there perhaps some Benjamin Franklin angle that gave the location its name? No one seems to know for sure. The name origin of Franklin Square's sister hamlet, Washington Square, is less difficult to surmise. Right up the street along what is now Nassau Blvd. was a horse track called the Washington Race Course, roughly where Adelphi University is now located. The nearest settlement to the race course merely borrowed the name of the famed track. But what about Franklin Square?

How about the following theory? -

We know that the streets of Hempstead Village were named in the year 1834. Among the lanes that run north-south through the village, the most central and prominent of them was aptly named Main St. The names chosen by the village elders for the two streets that flank Main St. on either side are Franklin St. to the west and Washington St. to the east.

Why were these names chosen? Here's what I think. During the Revolutionary War and in its aftermath, Hempstead Village was known as a hotbed of British loyalism. Indeed, Tories were dominant in Hempstead and along the South Shore to the extent that this was purportedly the reason for the break off in 1784 of North Hempstead, whose residents generally supported the revolutionary cause, from South Hempstead. The initial years after the war were not kind to those who remained loyal to the British crown, many of whom were forced to leave the US to resettle in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia while others who remained had land confiscated.

By 1834, leaders of Hempstead Village, some of whom no doubt as children and young men were around to live through the hardships endured by Tory families in the post-Revolutionary War era, were eager to shed Hempstead's loyalist legacy and solidify its standing as a patriotic village. As a result, they chose the two most standout heroes of the Federalist cause after whom to name their streets, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

From the Beers, Comstock & Cline Long Island map of 1873 - one of the earliest references to the name "Franklin Square".

Back in the 1830s, to the west of Hempstead Village, along the Hempstead-Jamaica road, were two tiny settlements built around the two major cross streets, or "squares", that intersected the road. The first settlement was situated at what is now Nassau Blvd and was originally called Trimming Square, probably informally so on account of the sheep that locals would round up for shearing from the common grazing grounds that was the Hempstead Plains just to the north. At some point in the mid 1800s, the name Trimming square was lost and was replaced by Washington Square, and was named so until the turn of the 20th century when it became known as Munson. The second settlement, a little further west, grew up around the intersection with what is now Franklin Ave and New Hyde Park Rd. This settlement came to be known as Franklin Square. Hempstead Village did not incorporate until 1853, so prior to that the municipal government for the village proper and the greater Town of Hempstead were one and the same.

It's entirely reasonable that at the same time that Hempstead Village designated names for their streets, they likewise chose names for these two squares, and the names they chose paid tribute to the two most prominent national heroes of that time - George Washington and Ben Franklin.

Old School District 17 Schoolhouse

The old schoolhouse of school district 17 was the first school in our neighborhood and is perhaps best known for the brief stint that a young Walt Whitman spent there as schoolmaster in 1840. Located at the south corner of Nassau Blvd and Dogwood Ave, the school served a large area west of Hempstead Village including all of current West Hempstead and Franklin Square until SD27 split off from it in 1911 and a schoolhouse was built at Chestnut St. A wonderful essay which can be found here, by Adelphi University professor Thomas Heffernan, reconstructs Walt Whitman's time spent at the school.

Back then, the neighborhood was called Trimming Square. How did the place get its name? One plausible theory is that the entire Hempstead Plains, roughly the area where Garden City is now located, was once a treeless common area used by residents of Hempstead for grazing their sheep and cattle. A spot just south of the plains along the Hempstead-Jamaica road was designated where residents could round up their sheep to be sheared, a place which thereafter became known as "Trimming Square". At some point in the mid 1800s Washington Square became the preferred name for the location. After that, in 1895 a NYC businessman and Civil War vet named Harry Munson moved out to the neighborhood and thereafter the place became known as Munson. More about Harry Munson will come in a future post.

Back to the old schoolhouse. While the exact date it was built is unclear, the school dates back no earlier than 1813 and no later than 1831. No earlier than 1813 because when the NY state legislature created school districts in 1812, the school was not enumerated among the 13 districts of Hempstead. And no later than 1831 because of the testimonial of one Ezekiel Frost, born in 1816, of having attended the school in Trimming Square as a child.

The aforementioned essay contains the photo below of the old school as it appeared in the 20th century. The photo comes via Dr. Paul van Wie, president of the Franklin Square Historical Society. Originally a one room schoolhouse, an addition was built around the year 1894. The schoolhouse was eventually replaced in the 1930s by the John Street School a little further north, John St. being the former name of Nassau Blvd.

The 1914 E. Belcher Hyde map gives us a hint that the entrance to the school faced Nassau Blvd., so the then shot was taken looking west. The now shot below comes from Google Maps and shows what the scene looks like today. No evidence remains of what used to stand at the corner of Dogwood Ave.