Highlights of Early Horse History in West Hempstead

The following article appeared, with slight modifications, in the Summer 2013 edition of the WHCSA News & Views newsletter.

The grand opening of the revamped New York Equestrian Center on Eagle Ave provides an opportunity to highlight some of the more illustrious moments in horse-riding history in West Hempstead.  That history dates back to time when the horse was still the preferred mode of travel to get around.  Some time around 1910, the first riding school in WH was started by famed equestrian circus star Josephine DeMott Robinson on her farm on Hempstead Avenue near Johnson’s Lane.   Robinson knew a little something about riding, as she was purportedly the first woman in the world to perform backwards somersaults on a moving horse.  Robinson continued this operation until 1917 when she sold her farm and moved to Hempstead Village.

In 1922, WWI veteran Paul C. Lienhard moved to WH and opened the Lake View Riding Academy at the corner of Oak(ford) St. and Woodfield Rd.  Lienhard was a captain in US Army cavalry division and after the War, he had been working as an instructor at the US Army’s cavalry school in Ft. Riley, KS before moving east.   In the 1920s, members of the military community had increasingly viewed the use of horses in the Army as outdated and questioned their usefulness in battle when tank divisions (“mechanized cavalry”, as it was called then) were the order of the day.  Ever the horseman, Lienhard sought to prove the usefulness and durability of the cavalry by embarking on a solo cross-country horseback ride, literally cross-country, from New York to Los Angeles.  

On a warmer than usual winter day on December 13, 1927, the 37-year old Lienhard mounted an Army mare named Black Bess and left the Malverne train station for a 3,700-mile ride to the West Coast.  Twenty five days into his trip, after averaging about 42 miles a day, he paused briefly in St. Louis to talk to a United Press reporter about his expedition and continued on his way.  After 102 days on the trail, while cantering through the Arizona desert outside Yuma, Black Bess was bitten by a huge rattlesnake.  The old mare wavered but within 20 minutes, she dropped dead, 180 miles short of Lienhard’s goal.

In 1931 Lienhard moved his riding school to Mill Road (Peninsula Blvd) in Hempstead to be closer to the bridle trails that were laid down in the new Hempstead Lake State Park.  His was but one of half a dozen riding academies and stables that sprouted up along Mill Rd. in those days.   Lienhard counted among his prize students Gen. Chen Cheng,  Chief-of-staff  to Chiang Kai Shek and his representative at the UN, and two-time Academy Award winning actress Luise Rainer. (Parenthetically, Luise is still alive today and at 103 years young, she is currently the oldest surviving Oscar-winning actor).

The current stables on Eagle Ave. dates back to 1926, according to County records, shortly after the deal was announced to develop Hempstead Lake as a state park. 

In that year John Wellbrock opened the Paramount Riding Academy.  In the 1930s, ownership was turned over to Charles Heinsohn who renamed it Lakeside Riding Academy, a name that survived until about six years ago, and ran it for the next number of decades.

Aerial photo of Lakeview Riding Stables on Eagle Ave, circa 1947.  The stable houses that flank the entrance at he upper left of the photo are all that remain of the original complex.  Eagle Ave. cuts horizontally along the photo and Park Ave. runs vertically at the right of the image.

Though by WWII, the use of horses in a military capacity was all but obsolete, the cavalry would have one more opportunity to prove their efficacy in the war effort, and Lakeside Stables played a central role at the time.   In June 1942, Americans were shocked to learn of a botched Nazi infiltration at Amagansett by four German saboteurs who had swam to shore from a U-boat, a plot that would later be known as Operation Pastorius.  The incident set the entire region on edge and highlighted the need for a civilian patrol along the hundreds of miles of Long Island coastline.  On August 3, in response to a call by the Coast Guard to set up regular patrols along LI’s shores, a group of 50 expert horsemen, many of whom were WWI cavalry veterans, met at the Lakeside Stables and set up a staging area there.  These patrols were an important component in defending the Homeland from any further enemy infiltrations.

Like a candle that flickers bright before it burns out, the beginning of 1943 brought conventional transportation-by-horse into major prominence one last time, after fuel-rationing during WWII was the cause of a pleasure driving ban in the East Coast region.  Long Islanders had to get creative to get around.  So, following the lead of the Hempstead High football team, many local schools hired out horses and wagons to transport their sports teams to their games.  Theaters, restaurants and bowling alleys built hitches out in their parking lots for their horseback-riding customers.  It would be the last time that horses would be used for conventional transportation to that extent in our area, before finally giving way to motorized vehicles, and the numerous stables on LI at the time played a major role in providing horse-transportation during the WWII fuel shortage.

In 1954, Peninsula Blvd. was laid out between Hempstead and Rockville Centre and thereafter, one by one, the old stables and riding academies on the eastern side of Hempstead Lake closed down, while Lakeside on the western side remains as the only riding stables left from that bygone era.

In later years, Suzanne Benedict and Brian McTigue partnered to run the Stables, until they sold it in 2006 to the current owners, Alex Jacobson and Benjamin Haghani.  The initial plan was to redevelop the 1.2 acre site into condominiums, but after recognizing the value of the stables to the community, Jacobson and Haghani opted instead to rebuild the riding academy into a world-class facility, as the newly minted NY Equestrian Center.

The WHCSA and the West Hempstead Now and Then blog wish Mr. Jacobson best of luck and continued success in preserving one of West Hempstead and Lakeview’s prized local treasures.

Marian M. Delaney (Eagle Avenue) School

The picture above comes from the front page of the Hempstead Sentinel from February 28, 1929 and is a front view of a newly built school on Eagle Avenue.  The building was District 27's second school to be built, following the Chestnut Street School in 1912.  During its first decade, the WH school district experienced a steady increase in its student population and by 1924, a four-room addition was built at Chestnut to accommodate the influx of students.  But very shortly, even that proved inadequate. A series of meetings was then organized with the purpose of selecting two additional sites for schools, one in the southern section of the district, and another in the northern section.   A 3-4 acre parcel was chosen on Oak(ford) St. with a purchase price of $15,000 and its acquisition would be decided by a voter referendum on March 1, 1926.  In one of the most closely contested votes in District 27 history, residents rejected the proposal 113 to 110.  Owing to the closeness of the vote, the school board decided to resubmit the proposal again the following month.  Again, voters rejected it, this time by a count of 92 to 73.

The following year, on March 31, a vote was passed to acquire a $25K parcel on Eagle Avenue near the corner of Woodfield Rd.  After a heated meeting, on April 26th, 1927, two bond proposals were floated, one for a $400K 16-room school house and the other for a $260K eight-room school to be built at that site.  Both were soundly rejected.  Finally on August 16, a $200,000 bond issue was approved and work commenced on the new school in the fall.  A local firm from Hempstead, Kirwin Estabrook Construction Corp. was awarded the contract for the work.  The firm specialized in school construction and had just recently completed the Fulton Ave School and Garden City School, among others.  Ground was broken on Nov. 14. In a rare example of public works efficiency, construction of the eight-room building came in under budget at $185,000 and on Monday, November 5, 1928, nearly a year after work had started, students moved into their new school.  The date for a formal dedication ceremony was chosen to coincide with Washington's Birthday and on February 21, 1929, the new building was dedicated amid much fanfare.

Among the faculty that first year was a sixth-grade teacher named Marian Delaney, who soon worked her way up to assistant principal and eventually principal of the school.  In 1963, she retired and the following year, in appreciation of her 35 years at the school, the district decided to rededicate the Eagle Avenue School by renaming it the Marian M. Delaney school.  Below is a photo of district officials conferring the naming of the school after Ms. Delaney (right), who is visibly moved by the gesture.

On November 6, 1949, an east wing addition to the building was dedicated, but by the 1970s, a declining enrollment forced the district to consolidate the student body of the southern section with the Cornwell Ave School. Parents petitioned the State Supreme Court unsuccessfully to keep the school open and by the 1981-82 school year, the district vacated Eagle Ave.  For a time thereafter, the building was rented out by Adelphi University to run adult education programs.  After that, Nassau County has since utilized the school for its BOCES program, but it was announced this past year that the County would not extend its lease beyond 2013, leaving the building's future in doubt.

Below is a "now" shot of the Eagle Ave "Marian M. Delaney" School.

Hempstead Lake Park Homes II

As a follow up to the previous post, the view above is another photo of the Hempstead Lake Park Homes development and highlights one of its most beautiful and attractive features - its private lake, located just off Colonial Drive near the Woodfield Road entrance. Developer Reuben Hillman took advantage of the fact that Schodack Brook, a rivulet fed by a natural spring, ran through his property. As a result, he carved out of it a man-made lake with a 50 foot beach for private recreation of the homeowners. The wooden bridge above was built by Hillman and a newspaper reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle was so struck by the beauty of the scene that he called it "a slice of old Connecticut transplanted to Long Island" and "suggestive of Shakespeare's Garden of Arden".

Schodack Brook, like its sister rivulets Pine Brook to the west and Horse Brook to the east, was once a continuously flowing stream that originated somewhere in the Hempstead Plains - a sandy barren at the center of the Island. It then meandered its way through West Hempstead before forming a series of small ponds in Lakeview. In the 1960s, the installation of sewers across Nassau County caused a dramatic drop in groundwater levels and thereafter our local streams no longer flowed continuously without the help of rainwater runoff, and many of the lovely ponds that once graced our landscape are now mere shells of what they once were. In some cases, such as with Pine's Pond in Malverne and Johnson's Pond in West Hempstead, the body of water was deliberately drained to make way for development. In other cases, such as with the ponds formed along Schodack Brook, the ponds are dying a slow death by asphyxiation. Below is a "now" view of Hempstead Lake Park Homes' private pond as it looks today.

Hempstead Lake Park Homes I

The view above, looking west toward Woodfield Road from Hillman St. along Colonial Drive in Lakeview and shows a section of the brand new Hempstead Lake Park Homes development as it appeared in 1931. On May 5th of that year, the development was incorporated by Reuben Hillman with a capitalization of $20,000 and with rapid speed, a number of houses were already built by September 6th when 2,000 people came out to inspect the homes. The name of the principle street of this neighborhood was chosen for the colonial designs of its homes, and another, Hillman St., was named, well - you guessed it, after its developer.

The premier attraction of this new neighborhood, as indicated by its chosen name, was its proximity to Hempstead Lake State Park, to which it had easy access via a back entrance at the end of Colonial Dr. The deal for the park's development occurred in Nov. 1925 and two years later, on Nov. 6 1927, the first section of the Southern State Parkway, from the Queens border to Hempstead Lake, was formally dedicated by Gov. Al Smith. In the following couple years, Hempstead Lake State Park began to take shape with a number of prized amenities such as playgrounds, clay tennis courts, ballfields and bridle trails. Local landowners immediately saw the value of their properties rise and these and similar types of housing developments began sprouting up throughout the area.

Below is the "now" shot to the picture above, showing the block virtually unchanged. The only difference is something you need to pay close attention to; in the "then" shot, you will notice at the end of Colonial Drive an island of trees that used to adorn the entrance to the colony at Woodfield Rd, which is no longer there.

Robert Van Cott - Namesake of Lakeview's VFW Post 1139

WWI is sometimes referred to as "the Great War" and the "war to end all wars", in part because the modern advances in weaponry caused devastation that was never seen before in military history. The advent of modern chemical warfare brought the horrors of war to a new level, and caused world powers to eventually recognize the need to ban the use of poison gas via the Geneva Protocol of 1925.

The picture at left is a photo of Robert Van Cott Jr., namesake of Lakeview's VFW post. Born in July 1898 to Robert Sr. and Ella (Julia) Van Cott, [Update - Thanks to correspondences with relatives, I learned that Ella and Julia were two different people. Ella, Robert's first wife, died in 1915 and Julia was Robert's second wife] not much is known about young Robert's childhood, other than the fact that he was a typical mischievous kid from Lakeview, Long Island. On New Years Day, 1916, 17 year old Robert and a buddy were caught stealing candy from a confectionery truck in Rockville Centre and Robert's father, Robert Sr. posted the $200 bail (almost $4,000 in today's dollars). Robert Sr. worked as a "lather" (some kind of woodworker), not a particularly lucrative profession, so it's safe to assume that $200 wouldn't have been easy for him to pay.

Robert Sr and Ella Van Cott, it seems, did not have an easy life. In all they had six children. Their second son, Divillo [Update - Elwood (Toby)], was born with some kind of developmental disablility and when they refused to see a recommended medical specialist in Rockville Centre, the state threatened to take custody of Divillo [Toby]. Their third son, Remsen, was later thrown in prison for larceny, only to escape from county jail in Mineola (causing the jailer responsible for his watch to be dismissed).

In mid 1917, Robert joined the Army after the US was drawn into war with Germany. He was detached to the 106th Machine Gun Battalion of the 27th armored Division. By April 1918, he was sent overseas to fight in France. On August 8th, the decisive Hundred Days Offensive commenced which eventually led to the Allies breaking through the vaunted Hindenberg Line.

In late September his unit was brought into a forward area near the enemy line near Bellicourt and on September 27th, he was killed in combat. Robert Van Cott Jr. died a hero in defense of his country, and was buried at the American Military Cemetery in Somme, France.

In the mid 1930s, when Lakeview organized its own American Legion VFW post, the natural choice was to name the post after the only veteran from Lakeview to be killed in action, Robert Van Cott. Robert's parents were still around to witness the tribute to their son - Robert Sr. died in March 1938. The photo at left shows the memorial stone that stands in front the the Van Cott VFW Post 1139, with the names of all Lakeview servicemen who died in service of their country, including Robert Van Cott, at the top of the list.

So, where in Lakeville did the Van Cotts live, and is the home still there? Strangely neither insurance maps of 1906 or 1914 list any property in Lakeview labeled Van Cott. However the following clue from the listing of mortgage assignments in the Brooklyn Eagle from May 28, 1910 might give us an idea:



Smith. I W, to R Van Cott, adj land Rhodes. Woodfield ....................$800

As is shown in the 1914 Belcher Hyde map to the left, the Smith property adjacent to Rhodes was on Woodfield Rd. across from the Lakeview fire house, just south of the intersection with Rhodes Ave.











The Nassau County property records show that the house at that location was built in 1868 and still stands, as is shown in the photo below, taken in 2000.

Are there any contemporaries of Robert Van Cott still alive today? As memories of WWI have faded into history, there remains only one documented American WWI veteran alive, 108 year-old Frank Buckles. Van Cott would have been 110 if he were still alive.

[Update - the above information about the location of the Van Cott's residence needs to be corrected. According to relatives, the Van Cotts lived in Lakeview on Erie Rd.]

A Lakeview Gem - One More on EJ Jennings

As stated in my blog description above, one of the purposes of this website is to provide "then and now" visual perspectives of West Hempstead subjects. Old photos of West Hempstead are not easy to come by, but the ones that do exist and are accessible give us a glimpse of our rural beginnings and how different WH used to look like in the old days.

Thus far, all the subjects we have studied reveal "now" shots that show completely different landscapes from what once existed in the "then" shot. What was once a beautiful Victorian home is now a gas station. What used to be a hospital campus is now a housing development, etc. The unfortunate result is that either the subject in an old photo no longer exists today, or that the few old structures that are still around in WH don't have old photos readily available with which to compare the "now" shot. On rare occasions, the same subject exists in both the "then" and "now" photos, showing how the subject evolved over time.

In the piece below, we have found one such subject.

The following photo below comes from a 1904 Brooklyn Eagle article about the up and coming community of Lakeview. Entitled "A Typical Lakeview Home", this photo accompanying the article depicts a modest home built on an embankment, with a man and a woman posing on the front porch.


Delightfully, the house still stands today at 715 Woodfield Rd, albeit with some considerable modifications (see below). The exterior has been converted from clapboard to stucco, the porch has been enclosed, and the rear has been extended, leaving little resemblance to the original structure.

Who owned the house? None other than our own E J Jennings. Unfortunately the property record card is missing for this home at the Nassau County Dept of Assessment website. So how am I so sure that this was the Jennings home? A few reasons:

1) Much of the Brooklyn Eagle article dwelled on Jennings, so it's fair to assume that the reporter used his home for the photo.

2) Both photos show the home was built on a deep embankment. On the bottom right of the "then" shot is what appears to be a pond, consistent with the location of the home in the contemporary shot.

3) The shapes of the homes in both photos are identical (except for the modifications done over the years shown in the "now" shot) including a unique five window arrangement affronting the house on the second floor. Before the era of big housing developments on Long Island, it was rare to have two homes built exactly alike.

4) Most convincing of all are the two images below comparing the 1914 Belcher Hype map with the Google sattelite image. Jennings' property was eventually sold and developed as Lake View Park, sometimes also referred to as Birdhaven because of the names of the streets of that section. But as the 1914 map indicates, he still lived on a small piece of that property in a house on Woodfield Rd right on the pond, until he died in 1925. I have labeled the image on the right to show where that home is located today.

Thomas Donlon and Schodack Trout Pond

In the 1880s, a group of businessmen from Brooklyn who shared an enthusiasm for fishing formed an organization they called the Unit Fishing Club wherein they would arrange expeditions to take part in their favorite pastime. Their preferred destination was Mombasha Lake in Orange County, upstate NY - an ideal location with a reputation of being an angler's heaven. There was only one problem - it was a major schlep. At the time, there were no crossings over the lower Hudson River, which meant the trip required taking a ferry and the better part of a whole day just to get there.

Some members began looking eastward for a good freshwater fishing spot on Long Island. They found an opportunity in an area called Lakeview, which, although did not yet have train service until 1892, was a not too distant walk from the Hempstead or Pearsall's Corner train stations. Aside from the large lakes of the Brooklyn Water Works, a smaller lake bordered Woodfield Rd., just south of Eagle Ave. Sometime between 1887 and the early 1890s, a club member named Thomas Donlon purchased the fishing hole and 30 acres surrounding this lake from Hendrick B. Ryder, a deacon of the Rockville Centre Baptist Church and superintendent of its Sunday school, and one time Hempstead Town highway commissioner. The 1914 Belcher-Hyde map below displays the lake and land owned by Donlon. (The road labeled Brooklyn Ave. is Woodfield Rd.)

Donlon was a contractor who built many structures in Brooklyn. One of his works remains as among the oldest standing firehouses in Brooklyn (and probably the oldest still in operation), having been built in 1883, located on 11th Ave in Park Slope as the headquarters of Ladder Co. 122. (Photo below taken from the http://www.nyc-architecture.com website).

The pond that Donlon purchased was part of a stream called Schodack Brook that once extended much further north and ran its course through Lakeview into Smith's Pond, at one time a tributary of the Brooklyn water system. Though the small size of Donlon's pond did not seem like it was much to get excited about, a story reported in the Brooklyn Eagle in 1910 illustrates the prodigious quality of marine life that was sustained by the pond at that time. On July 4th that year, Donlon threw an Independence Day party for many friends, where he held a contest for who could catch the biggest fish. One of the guests was almost pulled into the water by the force of the creature pulling on the other side of the line. When a couple spectators helped the man reel in his prize, they were amazed to find it was a twenty pound turtle that gave the man such trouble.

Referring back to the map above, there was a man named Thomas Rhodes who lived across the street from Donlon (Rhodes' home is labeled and can be seen at bottom center). When Donlon bought land in Lakeview, he hired Rhodes to work on his farm earning a modest $50/month for the 8 months a year during planting and harvesting season, and $35/month for the remaining 4 months. Notwithstanding his meager salary, Donlon had always promised Rhodes that he would be "well taken care of", without ever specifying the meaning of that pledge. In 1917, Rhodes found out what his old boss meant when Donlon passed away and willed to Rhodes 1/2 an acre of his property for every year he worked (totalling 15 acres), a tribute to his old farmhand's loyalty. The remaining 15 acres was left to his wife, which Rhodes later purchased from her from the proceeds made from working the farm.

The aerial photo below (from the Fairchild Aerial Survey) gives an amazing perspective of the old Donlon farm. Taken in 1949 soon after the Southern State Parkway was widened and rerouted at exit 18, the photo looks westward toward New York City. I have included some labels to help the visualization. The original route of the Parkway wound around Hempstead Lake along Eagle Ave through Hempstead Lake State Park (a fact which helps understand the origin of the word "parkway"). At the left center of the photo, one can make out the cutoff of the old Parkway. In 1947, a new interchange at exit 18 was created and the Southern State was routed through Hempstead Lake, upon landfill, effectively cutting the lake into two parts. The road running horizontally at the top is Woodfield Rd, and the road running vertically at the right is Eagle Ave. The open farm fields on both sides of the Parkway at the top left corner is what was left of the Donlon Farm after the Parkway bisected it.

This high resolution image below comes from the same photo and is a close-up of Schodack pond as it looked in 1949.


Not long after this photo was taken, the farm was sold and carved up for a housing development. Like E J Jennings, Donlon also had a local street named after him, which can be found to the west of Woodfield Rd., just south of Eagle Ave.

E J Jennings, Pioneer of the Chain Store Concept

Last year I published an article in the West Hempstead Civic newsletter about prominent Lakeview resident Ephraim J. Jennings (the entire article can be read here). This post is a follow up to that article, based on new information I recently came across from two sources.

The first is a piece from the Feb. 22, 1908 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle that discussed early pioneer bakers in Brooklyn. E J Jennings was prominently featured in that piece which also included the photo below of our subject:

The claim in my article that Jennings ran the second biggest bakery business in Brooklyn came from "The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N.Y. : from 1683 to 1884" by Henry Stiles Reed (published in 1884). The Brooklyn Eagle piece of 1908, in fact, claimed that the E J Jennings Bakery was the largest bread, cake and cracker bakery business in Brooklyn, and had been the exclusive supplier of such giant accounts as the White Star Ocean Line Co. and the Barnum Circus. The article goes on to list the locations of Jennings stores across Brooklyn and Manhattan - 17 in all in Bklyn and another 6 in Manhattan, a staggering total for that era.

That brings us to the second source - Jennings' obit from the Oct 29, 1925 Brooklyn Eagle. There it states that Jennings was the innovator of the chain store system, and judging from the number of stores listed, that claim seems pretty accurate.

The obit also stated that Jennings tried to reenlist in the Army during WWI, but he was rejected because of his age, not surprising since he would have been 68 years old in 1917. But it does speak to his unswerving patriotism. Had the army given him a commission, he would have become the only soldier to have served both during the Civil War and WWI, and would have beat out Johnny Clem, the "drummer Boy of Chickamauga", as the last Civil War veteran to leave the army. (Clem retired in August 1915).

E J Jennings and West Hempstead’s Original Civic Association

The following originally appeared in the Summer 2008 edition of the West Hempstead Civic Association News & Views newsletter -

The history of West Hempstead & Lakeview’s first civic association and the driving force behind its efforts tells a fascinating story that incidentally provides a local tie-in to the 90th anniversary of Veterans Day, the 100th anniversary of Eagle Avenue as a Town road, and casts light upon a legendary local figure, war veteran, and civic advocate extraordinaire, Ephraim J. Jennings.

E. J. Jennings was born August 1849 in Brooklyn to parents who emigrated from England[1]. At a young age, he volunteered during Civil War in the NY State Militia’s 13th Regiment - the fabled ‘National Grays’ - as a drummer boy[2]. (The 13th made news in June 1861 when 12 year-old cadet Clarence D. McKenzie, the famed “Little Drummer Boy”, became one of the earliest and youngest casualties of the Civil War after a comrade’s gun accidentally discharged and killed him. Jennings quite likely served in the same drum corps as did McKenzie)[3]. After the war he settled down, got married in 1873, and had eight children (five of whom survived to adulthood)[4]. Starting as a young clerk in a bakery, Jennings staked out on his own and eventually built what one source estimated was to become the second largest bakery business in Brooklyn[5]. By 1884 he had eight stores, employed 30 wagons and 50 men, used 120 barrels of flour per week and grossed $190K per year in sales[6]. All the while, he served as a volunteer in the Brooklyn Fire Dept.[7], a distinction that would serve him well years later when he became a trustee for the fledgling Lakeview Hook & Ladder Co.[8]. When military duty called once again in 1898 during the Spanish American War, he reenlisted and received a commission as Lieutenant[9] and was sent to Camp Black in Hempstead for drilling[10].

Around the turn of the century (perhaps having been drawn to the area during his Camp Black days) Jennings purchased a property at the corner of Woodfield Rd and Eagle Avenue near the no-longer-existent Schodack Brook and trout pond[11], and began summering there, eventually moving there permanently. Jennings considered his bucolic neck of the woods the ‘Pride of Hempstead Prairie’[12], but soon found an array of civic issues that the Town lacked initiative to address on its own. As a result, he founded the West Hempstead, Hempstead Gardens and Lakeview Association and with what a newspaper reporter called his ‘cosmic urge and personal magnetism’[13], he set out to tackle a laundry list of issues that troubled area locals of the day. When Woodfield Rd was found in dangerous condition with deep embankments on either side of the road the result of years of neglect, he obtained releases from adjacent property owners to have the road widened and then petitioned the Town to resurface the highway[14]. When a new road was needed to connect Hempstead Ave with Eagle Ave, he successfully convinced the LIRR to deed land along the railroad tracks to build Railroad Avenue (later called Hempstead Gardens Drive). When in 1911 the NY & Long Island Traction Co. proposed a fare increase to 15¢ for the Hempstead-Queens trolley, he successfully took his complaint to the NY State Public Service Commission to have it lowered to 10¢[15]. And when electric streetlamps were being installed all over the county in the 1910’s, he appealed to the Lighting District to have a lamp installed on Eagle Ave[16].

But perhaps his greatest achievement of all was the reopening of Eagle Avenue at Hempstead Reservoir, a feat which he accomplished singlehandedly. Eagle Ave was a road that dated back to the 1850’s[17]. The thoroughfare took its name from a grist mill operated by William Oliver called ‘Oliver’s Eagle Flour Mill’. Soon after the City of Brooklyn purchased surrounding land and created the reservoir as part of their water supply system in 1873, its storage basin soon flooded the surrounding land and completely inundated Eagle Ave. In 1898, Brooklyn became part of New York City and soon thereafter Hempstead Reservoir was no longer used as a primary water source for Brooklyn. As the waters receded, Jennings got right to work, petitioning the Town of Hempstead to resurvey and rebuild the road so that travelers would no longer have to wind around the reservoir. The process was a long one which ultimately took over seven years of numerous appearances before skeptical members of the Town Board and the Highway Commission. When Jennings finally procured the modest sum of $5,000 from New York City to build the road, the Town Board balked, saying it could not be done for that little money. Jennings pledged that he could build it himself for $5,000 – and that’s just what he did, to the ultimate satisfaction of the Town. On December 14th, 1908, the Town formally received Eagle Avenue and gave Jennings his final payment[18].

Jennings also played a central role in another local suburban legend which claims him as the first person in Nassau County to herald news of the end of WWI. On November 9, 1918, German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated his rule and signed an armistice ending hostilities that would go into effect “on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”. In an era when many people did not yet have telephones, Jennings ushered in the good news by rushing to the old Lakeview fire house and sounding the fire alarm bell which initially caused tremendous confusion for all those within earshot of the commotion. Jennings had good reason to jubilate – both his sons had served in WWI[19]. The scene became such a local hit that it was reenacted two years later (albeit this time with the fair warning and eager participation of area residents), an early forerunner to the commemoration which would later become known as Veterans Day[20].

Perhaps Jennings’ most ambitious goal was to have a park built around Hempstead Reservoir. Jennings urged the City of New York to fulfill a pledge originally made by the City of Brooklyn to build a beautiful park when the reservoir was constructed, but his pleas fell upon the deaf ears of NY City officials[21]. Sadly, Jennings died on October 28th, 1925, never having a chance to realize his dream. But as a bittersweet postscript to his assiduous life, on November 29th, just one month after Jennings’ death, the deal was announced between NYC and Robert Moses’ Long Island Parks Commission to acquire the land surrounding Hempstead Reservoir and create Hempstead Lake State Park[22].

This year, on the 100th anniversary of the reopening of Eagle Avenue, it seems fitting that the Town would undertake to repair a road that owes its existence to E. J. Jennings. Next time you drive along its newly paved surface you’ll come across a little side-street called Jennings Avenue, a lasting tribute to a local hero who paved our way to a better community.

[1] Federal census of 1900 Series: T623 Roll: 1062 Page: 35.
[2] “Funeral of Ephraim J. Jennings,” New York Times 1 Nov. 1925 E9. As to Jennings service in the 13th Regiment, see “The National Grays,” Brooklyn Eagle 24 Jun 1894 22.
[3] See Luther Goodyear Bingham, The Little Drummer Boy, Clarence D. McKenzie, the Child of the Thirteenth Regiment, N.Y.S.M. and the Child of the Mission Sunday School, 1861 (New York: Board of Publication of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, 1861).
[4] Federal census of 1900 Series: T623 Roll: 1062 Page: 35.
[5] Henry Reed Stiles, The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N.Y. : from 1683 to 1884 (New York: Munsell, 1884) 768.
[6] ibid.
[7] “Old Time Fire Fighters,” Brooklyn Eagle 8 Dec 1896 9.
[8] “Lynbrook,” South Side Messenger [Freeport] 13 Sept 1912 6.
[9] “Roster of Twenty-Second,” New York Times 5 May 1898 9.
[10] New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center. Unit History Project: 22nd Regiment Infantry, New York Volunteers, Spanish-American War http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/historic/reghist/spanAm/infantry/22ndInf/22ndInfMain.htm.
[11] Atlas of Nassau County, Long Island, NY (Brooklyn: E. Belcher & Hyde, 1906) 10.
[12] “Lakeview’s Mayor Very Much on Duty,” Nassau County Review [Freeport] 19 Nov 1920 13.
[13] ibid.
[14] “Town Board,” Nassau County Review 1 May 1903 2. “Deep gullies existed on the side of the road, especially near Eagle Avenue”.
[15] Annual Report of the Public Service Commission, Second District, New York State (Albany, NY 1912) 253.
[16] “Town Board,” South Side Messenger 5 Sept 1913 1.
[17] “Eagle Avenue, Norwood, Cannot Be Reopened Now,” Brooklyn Eagle 2 Dec 1902 6.
[18] “To Open Eagle Avenue,” Nassau County Review 18 Aug 1905 2.
“Town Board Proceedings,” Nassau County Review 21 Dec 1906 4.
“Town Board,” Nassau County Review 6 Apr 1907 4.
“Town Board,” Nassau County Review 3 Apr 1908 4.
“Town Board,” Nassau County Review 18 Dec 1908 6.
[19] World War One Honor Roll of St. George’s Parish 1917-1918 http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nynassa2/rectors.htm.
[20] “Repeats Armistice Joy,” Nassau County Review 12 Nov 1920 20.
[21] “Town Board,” Nassau County Review 7 Feb 1913 5.
“Town Board,” Nassau County Review 21 Feb 1913 4.
[22] “To Add 2,000 Acres To State’s Parks,” New York Times 30 Nov 1925 5