Librarian sparks effort to rename Melville street honoring late Klansman
An unexpected find by a college librarian has set in motion efforts to rename Ruland Road in Melville, whose namesake was a prominent landowner and member of the Ku Klux Klan.
A Jan. 9, 1925, obituary from The Long-Islander reported that more than 200 Klan members from Babylon, Freeport, Hempstead, Hicksville, Huntington, Lindenhurst, Port Washington, Seaford and Valley Stream — each “in robes, but not masked” — attended the funeral of Judson Floyd Ruland and that three men holding the rank of Exalted Cyclops, including one from Hempstead and another from Farmingdale, served among the honor guard.
The account reported that State Police directed traffic outside the Farmingdale Methodist Episcopal Church and that a cross was burned graveside at Lower Melville Cemetery.
April Lynne Earle, a cataloger at Farmingdale State College with more than 30 years of genealogical research experience, said she was appalled to find the link during a routine property records search in June.
ROAD TO CHANGE
- Renaming a road is a complicated process. Town officials must seek feedback from businesses and residents on the road, and if there is no opposition officials must petition Suffolk County. A bill seeking a name change must then be voted on and passed by the Suffolk Legislature.
- Huntington Town Councilman Salvatore Ferro noted businesses using the Ruland name could be in for unexpected expenses if the road is renamed. Calls seeking comment from one such business, Ruland Road Deli, were not returned.
- April Lynee Earle said she found variations of Judson Ruland’s obituary in the Brooklyn Eagle and in papers in Baltimore, Montreal and elsewhere in North America.
“I certainly knew the Klan existed here on Long Island,” Earle said. “But I’ve never seen it described — celebrated is definitely the word — in an obituary as I did . . . The imagery was just so horrendous. A blazing cross? Really, in 1925? That was the year my grandfather was born. I couldn’t imagine the idea of 200 Klansmen marching past my campus . . . It just really upset me.”
The 1913 bill of sale for 50 acres of land that KKK leader Judson Ruland sold to the State of New York for $15,064.50. The land was used with other parcels to create Farmingdale State College. Credit: Farmingdale State College
Ruland sold 50 acres of land to New York in December 1913 for $15,604.50. That land, along with two parcels acquired from adjacent landowners, became the site of Farmingdale State.
Earle’s undertaking comes after a nationwide effort to remove statues and street names honoring racist historical figures, and recent efforts on Long Island to remove statues memorializing Robert Moses and William Floyd, as well as a vote that sanctioned the renaming of a Malverne street whose namesake was village founder and Klansman Paul Lindner.
Not a quick fix
Earle contacted Town of Huntington officials only to find that Ruland Road, which runs between Route 110 and Pinelawn Road and for four decades bordered the former Melville office of Newsday, belongs to Suffolk County.
Ruland Road is in Melville in Huntington Town, but it is owned by Suffolk County, whose legislators must approve any name change. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
Town Councilman Salvatore Ferro said the town this week sent letters to the 18 current business owners and residents on Ruland Road seeking feedback on a potential name change.
Barring opposition, Ferro said the town would then petition Suffolk County, seeking to rename the road.
In a statement, Suffolk Legis. Tom Donnelly (D-Deer Park) said, “We must always celebrate and embrace diversity, and there is no place for hate in our communities.”
Donnelly added that he will work with town and county leaders to rename the road.
“You think of this as an issue with the Confederates down South,” Ferro said. “This brings awareness to a horrible past, and we’re taking a step to hopefully right a wrong.”
For Earle, the issue hit close to home. She is a descendant of Edward Raynor, who first settled Freeport in 1659, calling it Raynor South. When Earle was 16 and a student at Baldwin High School, she discovered her 7th-great-grandfather, Deacon Uriah Bedell of Hempstead, left two slaves to his wife and daughter upon his death in 1815.
And weeks after Earle, 48, of Baldwin, contacted officials about the Ruland history she found a family tree on Ancestry.com connecting her to Judson Ruland.
The Klansman’s daughter, Jane Belle Ruland, was married to Merwin Isaac Baldwin, whose great-grandparents, Uriah Smith and Elizabeth Raynor Smith, are Earle’s 5th-great-grandparents.
“I think the segregation and racial divide on this Island is everywhere and is latent in our history,” Earle said. “I had no idea how close to it I was . . . I know this isn’t acceptable and it’s shameful that it was acceptable ever, and I can fix that. I can do my small part.”
John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”
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