The Rasweiler Farm in Dogwood

The 1949 photo above is of a West Hempstead farmer named George Rasweiler who, along with his brothers, ran a large farm in the Dogwood section of WH & Malverne. They inherited the farm from their father John Jacob Rasweiler who immigrated from Germany. The photo most likely looks north, with Dogwood Ave along the right side of the image and it was part of a feature article in the New York Times about how some Long Island farmers were unaffected by a severe drought that plagued farmers in 1949. These farmers, the Rasweilers included, learned how to tap into Long Island's seemingly boundless water table by installing hydraulic well-water pumps on their property which fed into their spray pipes.

The Rasweiler family literally planted roots straddling three local communities - West Hempstead, Malverne and Franklin Square. When Robert Moses laid out the meandering route for the Southern State Parkway through south shore farmland in 1927, most farmers accepted the state's offer for compensation; but not the Rasweilers. In The Power Broker, Robert A. Caro's seminal book on the life of Robert Moses and the alleged strong-arm tactics he used to accomplish his massive civil works projects, the author relates a fascinating account of the confrontation he had with the Rasweilers. As retold by one of John Jacob's sons, Phillip, the family had just spent enormous effort clearing a part of their property to make it suitable for farming, when along came Moses and his men with his proposal for a highway through that property and threatening a defiant John Jacob with eminent domain. A subsequent visit by state surveyors ended up with John Jacob chasing them off his farm with a shotgun. The Southern State was eventually built, effectively splitting the Rasweiler farm in two.

The Rasweilers farmed in WH for another 23 years before selling their land, along with four other local farm owners, to developer Emil Morton in 1950. Morton then went on to build a massive 700-home, post-war development along Dogwood Ave., which also included the shopping center below that still serves as the major business cluster for the Dogwood section of WH and Morton neighborhood of Franklin Square (Best Yet is now the anchor supermarket where Food Fair is shown in the picture) .

The Rasweiler farm was developed as Dogwood Park and the photo below, taken at the corner of Willow Ave., approximates the scene depicted at the top of this blog post.
The Rasweiler legacy in WH & Franklin Square includes the name of Rasweiler Blvd. and their old hundred year-old farm house, which still stands at the corner of their namesake street and Dogwood Ave, shown below.
A couple months ago, Warren Rasweiler, a life-long resident of Malverne and a member of the Malverne Volunteer Fire Dept. for an astonishing 71 years, passed away at age 89. He was, I believe, a grandson of John Jacob Rasweiler. May his memory be for a blessing.

The "Bedell House" in Old Bethpage

The following article first appeared in the Summer 2011 edition of the WH Community Support Association newsletter. A view of the "Bedell House" c. 1918 when it still sat along Hempstead Turnpike. Photo first appeared in Garden and Home Builder magazine in 1926.
Those who are attuned to local history are familiar with the fact that West Hempstead’s oldest and most valued relic can be found at Old Bethpage Village Restoration. The Bedell House was a modest wood frame house built in the 18th Century in colonial style, and was originally located on the north side of Hempstead Turnpike just west of Mayfair Ave. By 1918, it had fallen into disrepair and was rescued by new owners, Carl L. and Lena Otto, who moved the house north toward the Garden City border. Carl L. Otto (pictured at left), a master architect who designed many prominent buildings and bridges in the Northeast, put his knowledge and expertise to work by having the house transported north toward the Garden City border and restored to its former glory. (Long time residents referred to the property surrounding house as Otto’s Woods).

The Roosevelt Savings Bank building on Gates Ave in Brooklyn (below left) and the Washington Street Bridge in Providence, RI (below, right, photo courtesy of Lisa J. Miller) are two examples of Otto's works.














In 1982, Carl's widow Lena, who was 100 years-old by then, donated the home to the Nassau County Parks Dept. who then transported the structure to Old Bethpage where, for the past 30 years, it has awaited a restoration that never happened.

But who owned the house before the Otto’s and how far back does it date to? When it was acquired by Old Bethpage, not much was known about its past and so an effort was made to puzzle together some historical information about the house. It was discovered that homestead dated to the last decade of the 18th century and was traced back to a man named Hiram K. Bedell who expanded the structure in 1835. The Bedell family was prominent throughout Long Island and Hiram’s father, Abraham, was postmaster for Hempstead Village. Beyond this, not much information was available about this home, so I decided to do see if could uncover any other clues about its history. What I discovered startled me.

A little while ago, I came into contact with a descendant of Hiram Bedell who was born and raised in West Hempstead. His grandfather, Alfred McCoun, was born in the Bedell House. (For those who wish to keep score, Hiram and Hannah Bedell had a son, Henry, who had a daughter Mary. Mary Bedell married Willett McCoun who had Alfred. Hiram Bedell died in 1870. His wife, Hannah, died at the age of 98 in 1894 and left 165 living descendants at the time of her death). He was kind enough to share with me a photo of the home of his grandfather from the 19th Century. I instantly noticed some obvious structural differences between the home in the photo and the one at Old Bethpage. This led me to discover that the house, in fact, is not the Bedell House at all, but another home that sat a couple blocks further west on the Turnpike. More importantly, the house may well be much older that previously thought, perhaps built as far back as the early 1700s! In 1926, Carl L. Otto penned an article in the Garden & Home Builder journal, detailing his transportation and renovation of the home. At the time of his purchase, Otto carefully studied some features of the home, particularly the handwrought strap-hinges, h-hinges and hand-made nails used in its construction and, in his expert opinion, concluded that it was at least 175 years-old. If true, that would date the Bedell House to around 1743, almost 50 years older than previously estimated, and would rival the Schenk farmhouse from Manhassett as the oldest house at Old Bethpage. (Some sources at the county have 1730 as the date it was built while another source claims 1765).

But who owned the house before Otto, if it wasn’t the Bedells? A notice in the April 4, 1918 edition of the Hempstead Sentinel at the time the home was originally moved gives us a clue. It was the family of John T. Hanna, a Brooklynite who worked on Wall Street as a stock broker. Hanna purchased the home in the 1870s as a summer retreat in the country for his wife and five children. At the time of his purchase, the property ran all the way back to the Garden City border and included both sides of what today is Mayfair Ave. In 1913, John Hanna died and soon thereafter the house fell into disuse before the Ottos rescued it in 1918. Who the owners of the house were before the Hanna’s still remains to be discovered. Owing to the fact that the house has been uprooted twice, and in the second move, the three chimneys supporting the structure were removed, the building is now beyond repair. It's actually amazing that the house has survived until now. The sturdy pine timbers used by the original owners (the Hannas used to refer to their retreat as "Pine Tree Cottage") have proved remarkably resilient. It has been deemed too deteriorated to warrant restoration and the decision was made to tear it down and build a replica. While the County is still busy securing funding for this project, head down to Old Bethpage and get one last look at a home that has been part of our local landscape for over 350 years.

Above is a view of the home c. 1926, after the Otto's moved it to the WH-Garden City border and restored it.

The "Bedell House" as it appears today at Old Bethpage.