Oral History: WWII Vets

Oyster Bay Historical Society (OBHS) Director, Tom Kuehhas, has spent months interviewing and documenting the memorable experiences of the WWII vets that call Oyster Bay their "Home Town."

The new OBHS exhibit, Oyster Bay Goes to War, will open with a reception on Sunday, June 28, 2009 from 2:00-4:00 pm and include photos, documents and, of course, the interviews. The interviews will also be included in a Roundtable Discussion the same day, at the Oyster Bay Community Center.

This is a wonderful opportunity to show your support for those who have served our country, past and present, and to soak up some oral history that can't be found anywhere else.

For more information, and to reserve your place at the table, visit the OBHS Calendar.

A Magnificent Catastrophe by Edward J. Larson

As the map of blue and red states filled in on election night while Obama and McCain vied for the Presidency, it was hard to believe how little the political battleground had changed since the election of 1800 when the Northeast went for Adams, the South was Jefferson's, and the middle states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware were considered key to the outcome.

Pulitzer Prize winning historian Edward J. Larson gives a vivid and intimate account of A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign. Drawing extensively on the resources that have surfaced in recent years, Larson draws a roses and warts sketch of the major characters -- Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Burr, Pinckneys, Madison, Monroe -- and of the events leading up to the first political election in America.

Larson's emininently readable history offers no new insights, no new facts, but it's evenhanded and balanced telling should make this the "standard" by which other accounts will be judged. Certainly it's the primer of partisan politics!

Bayville Thicket Grows Raynham Picket

In a benevolent twist on Robert Frost's immortal line, Raynham Hall Museum in Oyster Bay is finding that "Good neighbors make good fences."

In a recent rendezvous for restoration, Raynham Hall Trustee and local architectural historian John Collins met with Bayville Mayor Victoria Siegel at the Bayville Preserve to select locust saplings, which will be harvested to reconstruct the Museum's picket fence and entrance gate.

Designed by Mr. Collins, the replica fence will be handcrafted following 18th century examples. Read more here...

First American Valentine

You know Oyster Bay is famous for oysters and Theodore Roosevelt. But do you know that Raynham Hall, the family seat of the Townsends, Oyster Bay's "first family", is also the home of the first Valentine?

It seems Sarah "Sally" Townsend, sister of the Revolutionary War spy, Robert Townsend -- Culper Jr. of the Culper Spy Ring -- was a mighty popular young lady. One officer, who signed himself James McGill, showed his appreciation by etching "The adorable Miss Sally Townsend" into a handy window pane! Another, Lt. Col. John Graves Simcoe of the Queens Rangers, while quartered at the Townsend family home, sent Sally the first documented American Valentine on February 14, 1779.

You can read the Valentine on the Raynham Hall Museum website. Or better yet, see it and the etched glass tributes for yourself by visiting the Museum in person.

Oyster Bay LIRR Station Now a Museum

The unveiling in October 2005 of the TR Statue in Oyster Bay overshadowed another historic event on the same day -- the dedication of the 1889 Oyster Bay railroad station as a National Historic Place. The station, which Teddy Roosevelt frequented, is being restored as the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum. Interior partitions from the 1960s have been removed, bricks and trim restored, and a new roof installed. Joining forces to shape the Oyster Bay Rail Road Museum are the Town of Oyster Bay, the Long Island Railroad (LIRR), the Oyster Bay Historical Society (OBHS), the Friends of Locomotive #35, and the Station Restoration Committee.

OBHS Director, Thomas A. Kuehhas said:

This historic station house which saw Theodore Roosevelt off and welcomed him back countless times will now be leased to the Town of Oyster Bay with Locomotive #35 here in the yard.... Rolling stock such as cabooses and passenger cars will also be on display; and informational exhibits will be housed in this old train station, which should make Oyster Bay an even more popular destination for train and history buffs in the near future.

The LIRR turned the historic station over to the museum last February, but it still needs funding. A good starting point to learning more about the station, its turntable (only one of two left on Long Island), and steam locomotive #35, is Trains are Fun's page of photos, links and information. Dave Morrison, chair of the Station Restoration Committe, offers several albums of historic and restoration photos.