242 EAST 19TH ST.
NEW YORK CITY 3
TEL: ORCHARD 4-2802
Feb/22/52
Dear Helen:-
I never did a better bit of work since coming out to BH than when I gave you the Dime Club records. Out of its bare bones you have constructed a very interesting article. I enjoyed it so much. And I had a hard time getting it too! Ella told me your article was in the Feb 7th issue of Advance so I sent in a subscription particularly requesting them to BEGIN with the Feb. 7th number. Like most organizations nowadays they did as they darn pleased and began with the Feb 14th number. So I wrote again even more of a "special request" and finally got it yesterday. I think you've done an excellent piece of work. More power to you and please do some more. You can have anything I've got up at the house for a nucleus if its any value to you. I'm afraid tho I haven't got much. Some bits in my head maybe about the old times. And perhaps you'd be interested in a few of them your article revived.
The music: I'd guess it was mostly by home talent gathered in from BH or neighboring villages. Perhaps a fiddle, mouth organ or even a "Jews harp" at times. When I was home from school one winter I went to a dance given in some house opposite the Episcopal church. The music was made by a group of two or three men in one of the rooms, the dancers being in some of the larger rooms opening off. There must have been a greater interest in music as a means of amusement and getting together in the olden days. An old diary of my grandfather Barteau's sister tells so often of attending singing school.
I'm glad you put the picture of the Burnett house in. I've always thought that it was the most beautiful of the old houses in BH. Naturally, I mean, without improvements or renovations. The two wings give it just the right proportion and balance, like the Palladian houses of the 17 hundreds. I wish we knew who built it. Maybe the Burnetts themselves. I seem to remember that one or both of the "boys" was a carpenter, at least in his "odd" moments.
You seem to know most of the names mentioned in the list. One or two you may not as you do not mention them. Lillie Breckenridge was afterward Mrs. Forrest Reeve. Her sisters [Mary and Isabella] were the wives of George Smith and Addison Bumstead. Cecille Garland was a cousin of Elisabeth Hawkins and mine. Her mother was Sarah Barteau Cooke and she lived in the "old Barteau place" where Mr. Lyons, the PM, now lives. When she was 14, in short skirts and long pigtails, she climbed out of the window one night with her "satchel," ran away and married Charley Cooke of Yaphank and went off to sea with him. They lived in Galveston during the Civil War and she died in Mexico when she was not much more than 30.
The Platt family lived on the turn in the road going to Bport near where Helen Post Hubert now lives. The Carters lived on what we always called the Back Road to Bellport but which since has been elevated to the name Beaver Dam. In my day Beaver Dam was only from the South Country to the Neck Road. Some of the Seamans lived opposite where Lila Swezey now lived. I think there was either more than one family or lots of children in the one or else they were very active. School always seemed to be boiling over with Seamans! I think John Seaman's old home was with his uncle Ike Seaman in the family homestead opposite where Mrs. James Post lived. It has been moved back.
As I remember there was an Oliver Robinson who lived in the little house at the top of the hill near the new store and on the same side, which Sidney Hawkins later lived in. There was a Hallock who lived in one of the houses opposite the Episcopal church. I always have and still do get those houses mixed up. There was a Mrs. Buffun or some such name lived in one of them. Also a Nichol, I think, some relative to the Irelands. I wish I knew where John Turner lived or owned. I think he was one of my several times great grandfathers and the Town Records speaks of a school to be built between the land of the "late Scudder Ketcham and the land owned by John Turner." Of course Scudder Ketcham lived where we now do in the house Dem Nelsons lived in but where the elusive Turner lived I can't find for the life of me.
Well, Helen, I guess I've reminisced long enough for you. Thank you again for the pleasure your article gave me and do write some more like it. It's the only way the old times can live. HOW I miss George Miller who, it seemed to me, knew everything. Please give good wishes to Hilda and tell her I hope to see her this spring.
Sincerely,
Transcribed: 07 January 2009