Holtsville

The Taxman Sets Up a Regional Shop

A view of Holtsville showing development, with Sunrise Highway cutting diagonally. (Skyviews Photo, 1971)

Beginnings: A few farmhouses apparently existed in the huge tracts of woods and fields around the Brookhaven-Islip Town boundary in the late 1700s, but historians say that the first maps showing homes in Holtsville - known as Waverly in the early years - are dated 1838 to 1844. Historian Virginia Terry Meyer says one of her forebears, Daniel Terry, was known to be the first owner in what is now Holtsville, buying 1,000 acres from the town in 1749. The establishment of Waverly Station by the Long Island Rail Road in 1843 gave the place identity, connecting the trains to the stagecoach line then in use along the present north-south Waverly Avenue and making shipments of lumber and farm products easier.

Turning Points: A year after rail service began, a real estate man named Smith P. Gamage was selling lots south of the tracks. One of the first buyers was Robert Farmer, who set up a stage stop and store and was the first postmaster. Because there was another Waverly upstate, the name was changed to Holtsville in 1860, according to LIRR records. The change honored the then U.S. postmaster general, Joseph Holt. Historian Richard M. Bayles in 1874 reported 15 houses in Holtsville, a general store and a school. The first school was built in 1870 and existed until 1907.

Claim to Fame: In 1972, Holtsville became famous (or maybe infamous) to millions in the Northeast when an Internal Revenue Service center for processing federal income tax forms was opened on a 67-acre site on Waverly Avenue.

It Might Have Been: In 1974, the private Regional Plan Association proposed Holtsville as a ``downtown center'' of Suffolk, at a time when grandiose plans were afoot to make Long Island MacArthur Airport into a major air-rail-bus transit hub. When local opposition mounted, planners said it was ``just a concept.''

Where to Find More: ``Historical Sketches of Suffolk County,'' by Richard M. Bayles, 1874, Holtsville historical summary by Civic Council of Sachem and Ronkonkoma, 1963, and newspaper clippings, Sachem Public Library, Holbrook.