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Albertson

Developments Grew on Former Farmland

Scene on the Roslyn Road, near Albertson (Photo from "Long Island To-day" by Frederick Ruther, 1909)

Beginnings: Albertson sits just north of the great Hempstead Plains, and like the prairie itself, was first cultivated as farmland by early European settlers in the 1640s. John Seren, a member of the initial group of settlers to come from Connecticut in 1644, settled there first. His name, after a spelling change, is the source of the neighboring community of Searingtown. In the second group of settlers, this time from Virginia, was a man named Townsend Albertson. He ran a farm and a gristmill, leading it to be named Albertson Square. The community remained stubbornly rural for three centuries. Indeed, in 1850, when a road was cut through Isaac Underhill Willets' farm to Old Westbury, he protested that ``Long Island has more roads now than it will ever need.'' The road, I.U. Willets Road, was named in his honor and is still there. When the Long Island Rail Road built a branch to Glen Cove in 1864, it named the local station Albertson, and that designation stuck for the community.

Turning Points: Builder William J. Levitt bought acres of Albertson farmland in 1946 and covered them with mass-produced houses - one of several communities in which he perfected the method that he would use to build Levittown the following year. Other developers quickly bought the remaining farmland and in less than two decades none was left. By the mid-1960s, Albertson was as well developed as any of the older suburbs in Nassau County.

Claims to Fame: The oldest Methodist church on Long Island is in Albertson. It was built in 1788 by Jacob Searing, a descendant of John Seren. Albertson also is home to the National Center for Disability Services, a major school and source of employment for severely handicapped people.

Where to Find More: In the Albertson file at the Long Island Studies Institute at Hofstra University, Hempstead.