Oyster Bay Hamlet

The Place a President Made Famous

By Bill Bleyer | Staff Writer

Theodore Roosevelt addresses a political rally in Oyster Bay about 1910. After becoming president in 1901, he housed his staff in the hamlet during summer stays. (Nassau County Museum Collection, Long Island Studies Institute)

It was Dutch explorer Adrian Block who named Oyster Bay in 1615 for its abundance of shellfish. The well-protected, productive bay provided food for the Matinecock Indians and then became a magnet for traders, fishermen, shipbuilders and sailors. But it was a president who made Oyster Bay famous.

Theodore Roosevelt, who built Sagamore Hill in Cove Neck in 1885, was part of the flock of influential city people who came to Oyster Bay in those years. As New York City police commissioner from 1895 to 1897, he commuted to Manhattan from the Oyster Bay train station. When he moved on to become governor, there was no phone at Sagamore Hill so Roosevelt's calls came into Snouder's drug store in Oyster Bay. Young Arthur Snouder carried messages by bicycle to Roosevelt's home. Roosevelt had a phone installed by the time Sagamore Hill served as the summer White House during his two-term presidency, which began in 1901. He housed his staff initially in the Oyster Bay Bank building on Audrey Avenue, and when he needed more space in 1903 he moved them into the Moore Building, which still stands on the corner of South and East Main Streets. Roosevelt attended Christ Church, and his pew is marked by a plaque.

Centuries before TR made Oyster Bay famous, English colonists Peter Wright, Samuel Mayo and the Rev. William Leverich came from Cape Cod and settled near Oyster Bay Harbor in 1653, purchasing land from the Indians that extended down into today's Hicksville.

During the colonial era, Oyster Bay had a reputation as a hotbed of smuggling. Ships would bring in regular trade goods but evade paying custom duties on them. ``It was so heavy that John Townsend, the customs collector, was threatened with bodily injury and petitioned the town fathers to quit his job,'' says local historian John Hammond. He noted that Oyster Bay was Captain Kidd's last port of call before sailing to Boston, where he was arrested, transported to London and hanged.

Loyalist sentiment prevailed during the American Revolution. British troops occupied the hamlet and fortified a hill overlooking it. The Redcoats' headquarters were Raynham Hall, home of Patriot Samuel Townsend, whose son Robert was a spy for Gen. George Washington. The house is now a museum owned by the town.

Shipbuilding predated the Revolution, and continued well past it. Perhaps the earliest shipyard was at the end of Ships Point Lane before the war. The last one was Jakobson Shipyard in the southwest corner of the harbor. It was founded in 1938 and during World War II employed 600 workers to build minesweepers, tugboats and even mini-submarines for the Navy. It became the largest tugboat construction facility east of the Mississippi before ceasing operations in 1993. The town has acquired the property to establish a maritime history center.

As in other North Shore communities, transportation in Oyster Bay became much easier with the launching of steamboat service to New York in 1840. The dock was located at Steamboat Landing Road in the southeast corner of the harbor until another dock to the west at the foot of Ships Point Lane supplanted it in 1880. The New York service ended about 1870. When the Oystermen's Dock was built near the business district in 1888, ferries ran from there to Stamford, Conn., until the 1930s.

The Long Island Rail Road began service to Oyster Bay on June 24, 1889, after extending the branch from Locust Valley. The Oyster Bay station is slated to become a railroad museum owned by the town. The LIRR briefly used Oyster Bay as a transfer point for its train-and-steamboat service to Boston. In the spring of 1892, LIRR cars packed with passengers were loaded from a 1,000-foot wharf onto a steamboat that ferried them to Norwalk, Conn., where they were pulled to Boston by the Housatonic Railroad.

Shellfishing on a commercial scale began in the late 1880s, when the town began issuing leases for sections of bay bottom. One of the original baymen to stake out a claim in 1876 was William Flower. His business was expanded by his sons and became Frank M. Flower and Sons Inc., an oyster and clam company that survives as Long Island's only shellfish cultivation and harvesting company.

Unlike surrounding waterfront communities, Oyster Bay never developed into a resort town. But in the late 1800s, several boarding houses and hotels were erected near the water, including the Trout Pond Inn. It had a basement trout pond, which was also used by the management to keep beer kegs cool. Theodore Roosevelt loved to tell the story of how one of the kegs leaked, getting the trout drunk.

TR wasn't the only Oyster Bay resident generating national headlines early in this century. Mary Mallon got lots of publicity after being dubbed Typhoid Mary by the press in 1906. Mallon, a cook, was identified as the first person to carry the disease without contracting it herself.

Where to Find More: John E. Hammond, trustee of the Oyster Bay Historical Society, Box 297, Oyster Bay, N.Y. 11771.