Pretty Enough For a Postcard

Photograph of Water Mill ()

Photographer Henry Otto Korten preserved hundreds of Long Island scenes a century ago.

Among his photos is the one at right, which is an unidentified scene in the Nassau County Museum Collection of the Long Island Studies Institute.

A son of German immigrants, Korten began taking dry-plate, glass-negative photos as a hobby in the 1890's Around 1900 he moved to Sea Cliff and began taking pictures for postcards, at first for a company, then for his own. His cards were sold all over Long Island. In 1912, three years before his death at age 48, he experimented with Autochromes, an early method of color photography. He produced one-of-a-kind positive images on glass plates that could not be printed. Many were sold to wealthy Long Islanders. The Sea Cliff Village Museum has an exhibit of Korten's work.

History Answers

Readers have identified the scene above as a photograph of Water Mill. According to Thomas Halsey, who lives in the town, the photo probably was shot from a water tower at Cobb and Little Cobb Roads. ``The photo looks east from the west side of Mill Creek, a branch of Mecox Bay,'' Halsey wrote. ``The houses shown in the foreground were built in the late 1800s for the Best and Ball families of New York, who were principals in the Best & Co. department store. My great grandfather built sailboats for the wealthy second homeowners of this early development boom ... A very careful look at the center of your printed photo shows a white cat boat, of the type built by my ancestor, anchored in the creek. Quite probably it was one of his.''