May 11, 2008
History Mysteries
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Horsepower Ruled the Road
Some big event bought out this parade of horse-drawn vehicles and well-dressed pedestrians filing past the Western Union Telegraph office. Photographer Benjamin T. West caught the late 19th-Century scene. West had his headquarters in Bay Shore but was in demand everywhere on the Island. His glass-plate negative, damaged at upper left, wound up in the archives of the Long Island Maritime Museum in Sayville.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Who Were These People on the Porch?
SERENE IN their Sunday best, the group above gathered on the porch of a frame building and faced the camera squarely. The well-behaved children sat on the grass and focused on photographer Benjamin West of Bay Shore. A nun waited patiently in the wagon.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Recalling Pastimes Of the Early 1900s
ONCE THE CAROUSEL went 'round and 'round to merry music and the laughter of children. It was a popular attraction in entrepreneur Ben Mitchell's Valley Grove picnic park on Eatons Neck in 1906, when this photo was taken.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Feting the Fourth
Everybody lined up for a photo when the Nantz family of Bushwick, Brooklyn, and other relatives enjoyed a Fourth of July country picnic near the Nassau-Queens border in 1903 or 1904. Retired plumber Chester Nantz, 70, of Malverne, who provided this photo, said his grandfather, Theodore Nantz, stands at the far left. Chester Nantz' father, also named Chester Nantz, is the boy in front. The man in the back row with the unusual hat is relative William Keeler. Any explanation for the hat, said Nantz, is lost to time.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Goin' Fishing For Identities of Mystery Men
TELL US ABOUT the ones that got away. As the fishing season kicks into high gear, Time Machine digs into the files for several generations of fishing photos on Long Island. None of the fishermen pictured has been identified.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Rolling Waves, Dice in Freeport
A NOV. 21 History Mysteries picture asking readers "Where was Casino Beach?" brought in a wide response. Some people recalled places known as Casino Beach in Island Park and in Astoria, but many readers recognized the photo as being of the Casino Beach complex in Freeport.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Jumping Back Into An Airfields History
WHEN "TIME MACHINE" published a "mystery" photo of a group of men posing in front of an airplane at Roosevelt Field, Arlene Lalonde of East Patchogue recognized it immediately. A similar photograph has been in her family's possession since 1930.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Mystery Fliers, Lost Cottages
THIS WEEK, Time Machine presents two photo "mysteries" that we hope readers can help solve.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Where Was Casino Beach?
DOUGLAS TAYLOR of Kings Park found this family photo in a trunk. Taken around 1940, the photo shows his father, Arthur Taylor Sr., seated inside the car, and his mother, Mildred, with his older brothers. Taylor says the family often took auto trips around Long Island, but he's never heard of Casino Beach, the name printed on the building at the rear. Does anyone know where Casino Beach was?
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Living the Good Life by the Sea
ATHOUGH the beachfront community known as High Hill Beach was erased from the map six decades ago when it was absorbed by Jones Beach State Park, it still lives on in the memories of readers, many of whom wrote to us after a picture of the old Sportsmens Hotel was published on Sept. 19.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Checking Into An Old Hotel
SEVERAL readers were quick to identify the water tower pictured in these pages a few weeks ago as the old Village of Mineola water tower, which was built between 1909 and 1910.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
A Tall Order, Road Scholars
Once again, we present two unidentified photographs from Long Island's past and seek readers' help in identifying them.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Fighting Fire on the Island
Firefighters have been part of the Long Island scene since the first volunteer fire department was organized in Sag Harbor in the early 1800s.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Boat Story Doesn't Hold Water
FROM THE photo files of the Nassau County Museum, Long Island Studies Institute, come these pictures of a boat under construction, taken by a photographer named Raynor. The captions refer to the boat as the Arlene, and the builder as the photographer's grandfather, Alfred B. Smith.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Taking a Break on the Docks
THIS PHOTO of a quiet day on the fishing docks is from an unidentified negative by Long Island photographer John Drennan in the Nassau County Museum Collection of the Long Island Studies Institute at Hofstra University.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Setting the Scene in Brookhaven
This unidentified photograph was filed in the Brookhaven folder at the Suffolk County Historical Society in Riverhead, but no other information about it is available.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Call It Information Station
RAILROAD BUFFS, this one's for you. From the archives of the Nassau County Museum Collection of the Long Island Studies Institute comes this photo of an unidentified Long Island Rail Road station interior, taken around 1900.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Life at a Store on a Quiet Road
THIS PHOTOGRAPH, from the files of the Nassau County Museum, Long Island Studies Institute, shows a general store, with four people observing the photographer. (Only see three? Check the window behind and over the awning.) The location of the photo is not given.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Is This a Special Delivery?
When Bill Liebman moved into his 22-year-old Wantagh home in 1970, this photograph of milk haulers was found against a wall of the garage, behind other objects. The back of the photo carries some writing that appears to say, ``Milk Haulers Arthur L. Spring and Barney Reisse at [illegible word] Elgano. A photo by C.H. Rogers, `The up to date photographer.''' Liebman says that there are no other clues to the origin of the photograph and its route to the garage.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Dusting Off a Couple
Today we present two ``history mysteries'' unearthed from Newsday's photo files.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Lots of Rooms With Views
Today's mystery photo shows impressive buildings near a body of water. A road runs along the shoreline. This photo is in the files of the Nassau County Museum, Long Island Studies Institute at Hofstra University but is uncaptioned.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
A Palace On the Water
Today's mystery photograph, at top, appears to show an impressive waterfront estate or hotel from about 1900.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Cooling Off In The Old Days
Today's mystery photographs show some men outside a saloon and some women at the waterside, perhaps on Lake Ronkonkoma.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
A Placid Landscape
Today's mystery photograph is a country scene not unlike what one might find even today on a drive upstate or to a few less-traveled parts of Long Island's East End.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Women Headed For the Skies
Long Island's reputation as ``The Cradle of Aviation'' is bolstered by the accomplishments of many women. Among them are Harriet Quimby, who in 1910 in Garden City became the nation's first female licensed pilot. The list reaches lofty heights when one considers the Ninety-Nines, a women's aviation organization founded in 1929 at Curtiss Field in Valley Stream. Its first president was the legendary Amelia Earhart.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
A 2nd Woman Of 'Mystery'
Loretta Rudolph of Hewlett, above, believes she is the second woman in a ``History Mystery'' photograph. Rudolph said her grandchildren called her to say they recognized her in the 1939 photo.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Memories of Days in the Sky
Rita McArdle was a student pilot in 1939 when a photographer stopped by Roosevelt Field and asked her and another woman to pose by a Piper Cub trainer.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Peaceful Day On the Water
Postcard photographer Henry Otto Korten often captured water scenes when he was working on Long Island in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Pretty Enough For a Postcard
Photographer Henry Otto Korten preserved hundreds of Long Island scenes a century ago.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Quiet at Sea And on Land
Photographer Henry Otto Korten captured these scenes when he was taking postcard pictures of Long Island around the turn of the century. One shows a quiet harbor and the other a dirt road on a village street. Both images are part of a collection of uncaptioned Korten negatives at the Long Island Studies Institute at Hofstra University.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Shelter Island Ferry/Mineola Building
The two ``History Mystery'' photos on this page were solved quickly by Newsday readers. The ferry landing at right reminded many (including us) of scenes on the North Shore: Nine different locations were cited, none of them correct. Other detailed replies confirmed that it showed the Greenport-Shelter Island ferry and landing. The photo was taken from White Hill on Shelter Island, looking northeast, wrote Bernard Jacobsen, general manager of the North Ferry Co. and the Shelter Island Heights Property Owners Corp. The ferry, wrote Converse W. Sweetser of Huntington, is ``the Menantic, a side-wheel walking-beam steamer; she was retired about 1920 ... In the left foreground is the bathing beach, with a platform containing a high-dive and a slide; I used them both in my youth.'' Helen Wallingford of Shelter Island Heights wrote, ``The upper left-hand corner shows a bit of the LIRR dock. On the right shows a portion of the breakwater.'' The building shown below ``is one of the most important buildings in the history of Mineola,'' wrote Jack Hehman, president of the Mineola Historical Society. Built in 1787 and known as the ``old brig,'' it was the first Queens County courthouse and later a home for the mentally ill. The building was at Jericho Turnpike and Herricks Road until 1910, when it burned to the ground.
HISTORY MYSTERIES
Know This Mansion?
This photo, taken about 1912 and in the Nassau County Museum Collection, Long Island Studies Institute, shows a North Shore mansion.
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