Glen Head

Did the Hessians Make a Yule Tree?

Beginnings: Glen Head was once part of the large Cedar Swamp area east of Hempstead Harbor - but not the part 17th-Century Dutch and English pioneers cared about. They bypassed its 200-foot, hilly terrain for the more easily farmed land a few miles east, around the Brookvilles. What is now Glen Head waited about 100 years before farmhouses appeared in any number.

The Revolution: British troops and their Hessian (German) supporters harried families, looting their food and animals and forcing men into such work as hauling ammunition. Throughout the seven-year war, Hessians maintained a camp in what is now Glen Head, adjacent to the Old Brookville line. Some histories suggest that the Hessians may have ``built'' one of America's first Christmas trees in Glen Head in 1776 by cutting off branches of pines and fashioning them into symmetrical holiday ornaments about 3 feet high. (Small yule trees were not a part of English or Dutch traditions at the time, but were part of Hessian culture in Europe; the only major Hessian encampments in the colonies were in Glen Head and Newark, N.J.)

Turning Point: About 1850, the Duryea starch factory, said to be one of the country's largest industrial plants, opened in Glen Cove nearby. It attracted hundreds of workers, many of whom settled in Glen Head. The hamlet also had an early brick factory, boat-building and other blue-collar crafts. Early in the century, Glen Head, a 1.6-square-mile unincorporated part of the town, attracted many Norwegian and Polish immigrants, but since World War II the influx has been largely Italian.

Memories: Old-timers still chuckle at the memory of the long-gone four-room school on Cedar Swamp Road called Frog College, because there were so many frogs on the school grounds, which served Glen Head in the 1920s. The first aerial delivery of newspapers in the nation took place between Glen Head and New Rochelle Oct. 12, 1912 - a nine-mile over-water hop at 50 mph, nine years after the world's first airplane flight. Identical rail depots with gingerbread trim were built in 1888 in Glen Head and Sea Cliff, but Glen Head's was torn down in 1961.