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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHistory of Southold's Migrant Communities by Andrew Heller 1 THE TOWN OF SOUTHOLD, NEW YORK: A HISTORY OF ITS MIGRANT COMMUNITIES Andrew Heller Gardiner Foundation Semiquincentennial Student Fellowship Program August 7, 2023 This paper would not have been possible without the assistance of Amy Folk, Southold Town Historian, whose invaluable knowledge and contributions have made this recount what it is. 2 The Town of Southold, a quaint and quiet place on Long Island's North Fork, may not seem to be the most extraordinary town. What is unique about Southold is its ability to maintain a mostly rural character in a time of ever-increasing urban sprawl from neighboring New York City, and amidst an era of globalization that has made the world more interconnected than ever. Another unique aspect is the town's status as the first English settlement on Long Island. Most agree upon Southold's settlement beginning in 1640 by the Reverend John Youngs and his band of followers, many of whom are the progenitors of names that have become prevalent across Southold in the centuries following as their descendants proliferated and often remained in the town. The settlers of the 17th century were primarily of English descent, and thus the population of the town would remain of such character until the 19th century. In his 1906 History of Mattituck, the Reverend Charles Craven (Many of Southold's early histories are somewhat ecclesiastical, since the clergy were the most educated and therefore best able to work in such a trade as history.) remarked, "In the early [eighteen] forties the houses in Mattituck were comparatively few and the place had seen little material change for a hundred and fifty years."' What would occur in the following decades from the 1840s until Craven authored his History of Mattituck, and well beyond Craven's life, was a gradual transformation of the town's ethnic and national makeup. However, this transformation is not and will likely never be so significant that it seriously changes Southold's demographics, evidenced by data from the 2020 Census, which reports that 86.9% of the town's population of almost 24,000 people identify as "White, not Hispanic or Latino.112 Yet it is nonetheless a substantial change from its origins as a town composed of almost entirely English settlers, and it should be noted that many of the groups ' Charles E. Craven, A History of Mattituck(self-published, 1906), 197. 2 U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2021 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table PST045222, generated by Andrew Heller using census.gov, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/southoldtownsuffolkcountynewyork,US/PST045222 (6 June 2023). 3 designated as "white" today were historically not treated as if they were such,3 including Catholics from Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Portugal. What this essay will attempt to recount is a general history of the several migrant and marginalized communities in the Town of Southold that arrived as early as the colonial period, and are continuing to arrive today. It is by no means a truly comprehensive account, but it sheds light on some of the most notable communities that have come to inhabit Southold. The African-American Community The history of the Black community in Southold, while beginning in the 17th century with the earliest enslaved people,4 does not have the same continuity that one may come to expect with Southold's historical communities. There is an apparent genealogical continuity that characterizes a staggering number of families in Southold, but this is not commonplace for all people in Southold, especially those of African descent. The overwhelming majority of the Black community that inhabits Southold today arrived from the South during the Great Migration, as their individual stories have come to exemplify, some of which were collected in a small book by Dorothy Mealy, a Southold native and local historian.5 There is a non-negligible possibility that none of the descendants of the enslaved families from the 17th and 18th centuries remains in Southold, though this possibility may never be verified. Perhaps the most notable of the Black families from before the Great Migration are the Reeves. Reuben Reeve, the oldest Reeve of whom there are records, was manumitted in 1794 according to town records.6 Little is known about Reuben's life, as a freedman and otherwise, 3 Brent Staples, "How Italians Became `White'," The New York Times, October 12, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/12/opinion/columbus-day-italian-american-racism.htm] 4 Amy Folk, "The Enslaved of Southold," unpublished, available in the Town of Southold's online public Laserfiche records Town Historian -­ History of Southold -­ Enslaved people of Southold, 1. 5 Dorothy Mealy, Meet The Seniors, unpublished, 1989, held in Southold Town Historian's office, Black History: Churches file. 6 J. Wickham Case, Southold Town Records: 1683-1856, vol. III, Liber D (Town of Southold, 1983 edition), 88. 4 but his descendants would go on to become highly successful individuals. Reuben sold a plot of land to his son, Elymas Reeve, known to many at that time as "Uncle Lymas," in 1825.' Elymas was a respected and devout man, spoken of in great terms by Charles Craven and, according to Craven, all of Elymas' contemporaries.$ Elymas died in 1887, having lived in Mattituck for nearly 50 years. Despite his lack of formal education, Elymas and especially his children and grandchildren were intellectually active individuals. Among his many sons, daughters, and grandchildren, there was John B. Reeve, who earned his Doctor of Divinity as well as becoming a Presbyterian pastor and professor at Howard University; Parthenia Reeve, an accomplished lecturer and women's rights activist; and Josephine Silone Yates, one of the first Black women to receive a full professorship in the US and the first to head a college science department.9 Elymas Reeve, from Charles Craven's A History of Mattituck, 208. The Reeves, though they are perhaps the most famous of the Black families in Southold, are but one part of a much greater history, s := a substantial portion of which occurred after their time. The Great Migration, a series of migrations by Black southerners from southern states to northern states in search of opportunity and to escape racial discrimination and violence, started around 1910. It was during this period that new Black families came to settle in Southold, such as Dorothy Mealy's family, who herself settled in Mattituck. Mealy's family came in waves, starting in 1915 with her father's cousins and later him and his wife's family and going ' Craven, A History of Mattituck, 206. ' Ibid, 206-207. 9 Ibid, 209. 5 until 1940, as she writes.10 Relious Bates and his family were another one of the new arrivals, as Mealy recorded. Recounting his experience in Southold, Bates mentioned how he moved from Powhatan, Virginia, along with many others interviewed by Mealy, to "make a decent wage."11 He worked various jobs over his life, from delivering milk to a job on the Long Island Railroad to being a farmhand at I.M. Young Co. for thirty years. One prevailing sentiment among many of Dorothy Mealy's interviewees was that circumstances, not just on a personal level but also for American society, had improved. Henry Brown, a Riverhead resident, said that"I don't think times are nearly as bad as they used to be but in some ways things haven't changed that much."12 Another stressed that"The difference today is that you can come and go anywhere you want."13 The Great Migration 1915- 1940 LEFT: Photograph of Dorothy Mealy from an article in the Suffolk Times. y RIGHT: Depiction of the Great Migration _ by Dorothy Mealy, in 1 Meet The Seniors. _ Some of the descendants of those who arrived during the Great Migration live in Southold to this day, and numerous Black men and women among them have become influential community members in that time. Josephine Watkins Johnson was one of these 10 Mealy, "The Great Migration," in Meet The Seniors, 2. 11 Mealy, "Relious Bates," in Meet The Seniors, 2. 12 Mealy, "Henry (Doc) Brown," in Meet The Seniors, 2. 13 Irving H. Toliver, "Beatrice Virginia Gray," in Meet The Seniors, 2. 6 community activists, becoming the first Black member of Greenport's Board of Education.14 Johnson, who started off as a domestic worker, later became the first Black licensed cosmetologist in Greenport, and was a foster parent and caretaker for over 70 children.15 For someone who had been in Southold's community for so long, it should also come as no surprise that she remembered a time when the community was more divided. One journalist wrote very succinctly regarding Johnson's past in a Suffolk Times article about Barack Obama's historic presidential election, mentioning that"she remember[ed] the days of the Ku Klux Klan in the village."16 These abrupt and generalized statements tend to characterize what little history of the Klan is recorded in Southold, but it is worth mentioning that Black people were treated quite amicably relative to many areas of the country. Southold was certainly no stranger to racism; Greenport was the heart of The Republican Watchman, a staunchly Democratic newspaper run by the notorious Henry A. Reeves, a man whose personal agenda and thoughts were constantly exemplified by the Watchman. Among other things, Reeves and the Watchman opposed the Union and the abolition of slavery throughout the Civil War, and Reeves wrote to exemplify his prevailing sentiment that"This is a `white man's' country and the people mean to keep it s0.1117 Regarding the Klan, however, on Long Island it did not tend to target Black people. Frank Cavaioli, an emeritus professor at SUNY Farmingdale, said for a 1982 Newsday article "that the klan's targets were not blacks but instead were the European immigrants who arrived with different religions and languages."18 Jo Watkins Johnson also made a corroborating statement 14 Julie Lane, "Growing up black in Southold," The Suffolk Times, Jan. 30, 2000. The publication year is uncertain; it may also be 2006 or 2008. 1s Ibid. 16 Erin Schultz, "The change of a lifetime," The Suffolk Times, November 13, 2008, 4. 17 Margaret O'Connor Bethauser, "Henry A. Reeves: The Career of a Conservative Democratic Editor, 1858-1916," The Journal of Long Island History 9, no. 2 (Spring 1973), 38. 18 Laura Durkin, "Illuminating Darker Side of LI's Past," Newsday, Nov. 7 1982, 4. 7 that the local Klan focused "on the Catholics" in Mark Torres' Long Island Migrant Labor Camps.19 Jo Watkins Johnson after casting � �-•r i k ,�jp.M her ballot in the 2008 election for Barack Obama L� From the Suffolk Times. a'"'~ y' Y A number of Black people who lived in or migrated to Southold and Suffolk County in general during the 20th century did so in search of work in its massive potato farming industry, where tens of thousands of acres of potatoes were planted each year.20 Additionally, there was the comparatively smaller but still significant duck farming industry. Harvesting potatoes and raising ducks meant a high demand for cheap manual laborers, sometimes well beyond what the US labor market could supply. One temporary solution in the potato farming industry devised in 1943 was to contract approximately 400 Jamaican farmhands on short-term work visas, who "were widely praised for their extraordinary work ethic and production.1121 Despite their more than satisfactory work, the Jamaican government was met with disdain from farmers in Suffolk County when it advocated for higher wages for its laborers, and the program was abandoned not long afterwards. A more permanent solution was found in the employment of, by 1960, "an estimated 4,500 migrant workers in Suffolk County. Of that total, an estimated 3,500 were mostly Black men and women from Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. The remaining workers were from 19 Mark A. Torres, Long Island Migrant Labor Camps:Dust for Blood, (Charleston: The History Press, 2021), 170. 21 Ibid, 21. 21 Ibid, 29. 8 Puerto Rico."22 These Black migrant laborers often lived in deplorable conditions in migrant labor camps. As the Newsday reporter Harvey Aronson wrote in 1964, "Long Island poverty is at its rural worst in the potato-belt country of Suffolk East End, where the migrant labor system has left southern Negroes piled up in year-round shanty towns.1123 Many labor camps sprang up during the mid-20th century across Southold, some of the largest and most notorious among them being in Cutchogue. Though these camps shuttered later in the century due to the decline of the Long Island potato industry, it remains a darker part of Long Island's past. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller shaking hands with laborers at the I.M. t. Young & Co. labor camp in Cutchogue during his 1962 re- election campaign. Dated July 18, 1962. From the Town of Southold = collections. Success was definitely not impossible to come by for many Black Americans in Southold, both historically and in the modern day. The first official Southold Town Historian, 22 [bid, 30. 23 "Long Island's Pockets of Poverty," Newsday, March 28, 1964. 9 Wayland Jefferson, was a biracial man. In more recent times, Daysman Morris, a Southold native, was drafted into the navy during WWII and did manual labor like his father, who also arrived from Powhatan, Virginia, for part of his life. Morris went on to operate a successful cesspool company in the town for almost 40 years before retiring to his ranch home in 1990, less than a mile from the location of the shack he and his family lived in during his early years.24 Morris, despite his success, was disgruntled with his treatment by the American Legion in Southold hamlet, which refused to let any Black men join the post, according to an interview by the Southold Historical Museum.25 Though he was able to join the Greenport American Legion post, Morris' treatment upon his return from the war would remain an indelible memory for him. Daysman Morris in his garden from a 1997 Suffolk Times article. In many ways this community was able to prosper thanks to the binding �. force of a shared religion. This was in no way unique to the Black ° community of Southold; indeed, it was true for so many communities Suffolk Times photo by Judy Ahrens, across Southold and the US throughout the last few centuries. To this day churches like the Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church in Greenport remain bastions of the community, even more so almost eighty years ago when Clinton Memorial's congregants rejoiced as they burned the mortgage they had labored to pay off.26 24 Ronnie Wacker, "In Profile: Daysman Morris," The Suffolk Times, July 31, 1997, 8A. 25 Interview with Daysman Morris by Steve Warrick, unpublished, August 28, 2002, held in the Southold Historical Society collections. 26 "Let's Look Back: Dec. 24, 1943, Church Burns Mortgage," The Suffolk Times, December 23, 1993, 9A. 10 The Irish-American Community Irish immigration to the U.S. in the 19th century is perhaps the most easily explained of any mass migration in recent history. In 1845 a potato blight struck Ireland, decimating its potato crop and leaving many individuals, who were unable to afford other foods, to starve.27 According to the Library of Congress, during the 1840s when the potato famine was at its height, approximately half of all immigrants coming to the US were Irish.28 Of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants that poured into the US during this time, some 200,000 people who either immigrated from Ireland or had Irish ancestry had settled in New York City by the 1850s.29 Substantially fewer Irish people made it to Southold in this period. An 1845 New York Census abstract shows that among the 4,191 people in Southold at the time, just 51 were classified as "aliens not naturalized in the county."30 At a time when almost half of the immigrants to the US were Irish, it is likely, though not certain, that many of these 51 individuals were Irish immigrants. Some of the earlier notable individuals to immigrate to the U.S. from Ireland included John P. Holland, who built one of the first viable submarines. He arrived in the U.S. in 1873, and though he did not live in Southold for more than a small part of his life, some of his most successful submarine tests were conducted in New Suffolk.31 On the opposite end of the fame spectrum there were more notorious individuals like Nicholas Behan, an Irish immigrant who ended up in the limelight after murdering two members of the Wickham family in Cutchogue in 1854 as is recounted in Murder on Long Island.32 The average life of an Irish American immigrant was not as much of a spectacle as were those of John P. Holland or especially Nicholas Behan, who was repeatedly profiled and described in newspapers during his murder 27 "Irish-Catholic Immigration to America," Library of Congress, accessed August 7, 2023, https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/irish/irish-catholic-immigration-to-america/. 21 Ibid. 29 Geoffrey K. Fleming and Amy Folk, Murder on Long Island(Charleston: The History Press, 2013), 22. 30 Abstract, 1845 U.S. Census, Suffolk County, New York. 31 Richard Knowles Morris, John P. Holland(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998), 100. 32 Fleming and Folk, Murder on Long Island, 5-6. 11 trial.33 Many immigrants, Irish or otherwise, went through labor placement programs such as the Emigrant Labor Exchange that helped immigrants, including Nicholas Behan, to find work, usually in country towns across the US.34 Exemplifying the financial state of some Irish immigrants in the 19th century was a "renewal of chattel mortgage" document from Southold town, in which two Irish Americans, Thomas F. Burns and John J. Burns, gave one John Heller two billiard and pool tables and all effects appertaining to those tables as collateral for a personal loan of$835. Those of greater means, such as John Thompson, who lived in Southold, were able to send money back to Ireland in the form of ship fares, which John did for his brother James, as shown by some bank receipts issued by Roche, Brothers & Co.35 John P. Holland in the hatch of a submarine. From the Library of Congress n tl 33 Ibid, 19. 34 Ibid, 22. 35 "Example of`America Money,' receipts to John Thompson for fare sent to Ireland for passage for his brother James in 1852," held in Southold Town Historian's files, Irish in Southold folder. 12 Many Irish Americans in Southold became significant members in the community, whether that was for life achievements or community activism and leadership. Nicholas McQuillan, who was born in Drogheda in 1798, immigrated to the US in 1864.36 He spent his initial years in the US in New York City before moving out to Long Island to retire where he had family. For much of his life he was a weaver, though in his old age he was no longer able to pursue his craft, and he moved once again to Greenport where he spent his final years, dying at the age of 103 in 1901, according to another article.37 Depiction of Nicholas McQuillan + 1i from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. One community leader in Southold was Patrick F. Gorman, one of the later Irish Americans to arrive in Southold relative to those from the 19th century. Gorman was born in Ireland in 1910, and moved to New York in December 1928, where he worked at the Jewish Hospital in Manhattan.38 Not long afterwards, in the Spring of 1929, he moved to Cutchogue. There he became Chairman of the Democratic party and worked as Cutchogue postmaster, as well as running a real estate business from his home and multiple other jobs over the course of his life. 36 "One Hundred Years Old: Nicholas McQuillan of Southold Town Celebrates His Passage of the Century Mark," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 2, 1898, https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/Iccn/sn83031151/1898-01-02/ed-1/seq-21/. 37 Paul Hunter, "The Man Who Lived in Three Centuries," The Peconic Bay Shopper, Nov. 1, 1995. 38 Katie Thomas, "Obituary of Patrick F. Gorman, Community Leader," Newsday, Jan. 28, 1999. 13 Other stories for Irish Americans often come from more recent history. The Long Island Produce and Fertilizer Company had a plant in Southold that was constructed in 1926 as Long Island's potato industry grew.39 At one point, all the potato farmers carted their potatoes out to the plant so they could be packed and sold. J. Leo Thompson, an Irish American, was the contractor who built the plant, and the site was originally a homestead for the Carey family, also of Irish descent. In Greenport, there was a time from about 1982-1984 when the village had its own St. Patrick's Day parade. One neighborhood in Greenport, which some nicknamed "West Dublin," became home to a number of Irish Americans. Among those in Greenport included Brian Kavanagh, who organized the St. Patrick's Day parade during those years. Not everything to be said of the Irish community's experience in Southold is positive, however. The Stephensons, a family which resided on the North Fork during the summer of 1851, wrote in some of their correspondence regarding a lecture that praised the achievements of Irish Americans in US history: There was never a greater blight befell any country than Irish immigration. They are the locusts of Egypt [and] they arrive by the thousands. Our poor houses are overflowing (although they enlarge them every year) and our taxes are enormous. These are the patriots our country abounds with, whose ignorance, barbarism and dirt has passed into a proverb. As great, noble, and intelligent as [the lecturer] has endeavored to portray the Irish character, I feel thankful that not a drop of blood of the Celtic race flows through my veins.4o This kind of sentiment towards the Irish was not uncommon. As has been mentioned, the KKK on Long Island generally targeted Catholics, the largest contingent of which happened to be Irish. In a letter to Antonia Booth, a former Southold Town Historian, Helen Silvestri explained the life of her grandfather, an Irish Catholic by the name of Philip Monahan. She wrote to Antonia Booth that her grandfather couldn't buy property in Southold because he was an Irish 39 Jeff Miller, "Farmers' Grand Central Station Razed," The Suffolk Times, Oct. 6, 1988, 3. 40 Letter to William Wilson Stephenson from his mother, Mrs. Mark Stephenson, August 6, 1851, held in the Southold Historical Society collections. 14 Catholic, instead having to do so through a proxy.41 Though Klan activity was generally done in secrecy and especially when it involved illegal activities, there was a KKK newspaper on Long Island called Klan Kraft, edited by a minister from East Moriches named Howard E. Mather, which publicized some of the Klan's misdeeds.42 Mather also acquired The Greenport Watchman, which was the successor to The Republican Watchman.43 In Southold, as was reported by Klan Kraft, "During the night of July 3rd the entire township of Southold and the village of Greenport were covered with `God Give Us Men' posters of the Ku Klux Klan.1144 In some correspondence between Edward Booth and Antonia Booth, Antonia wrote that ""I talked with your father often about the Irish coming to Southold and his take on the way they were received. He said they were most often referred to as `the dirty Irish', as later were `the dirty Poles', and felt that the O'Neil house in Southold where Mass was said, was deliberately burned down as was the rectory of St. Patrick's.1145 Unfortunately, this secrecy regarding their activities and membership extended through recent memory. A letter from Helen Conway, a Southold native, to Antonia Booth included a brief statement regarding KKK membership in the town—"I remember some local names which I won't mention!"46 Though the Klan's influence and membership would, in the 1930s, slowly decline and eventually die off from its 25,000-strong membership from its height in the 1920s,47 it remains a stain on Long Island's history, even if some would rather not talk about it. 41 Letter from Helen Silvestri to Antonia Booth, Jan. 19, 1999, held in Southold Town Historian's files, Irish in Southold folder. 42 "Greenport Watchman Sold to Klan Minister Editor," The County Review, Oct. 3, 1924, 6, https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/Iccn/sn84035791/1924-10-03/ed-1/seq-6/. 43 Ibid. 44 "Southold and Greenport Covered with Klan Posters," Klan Kraft, July 8, 1924. 45 Letter from Antonia Booth to Edward Booth, June 13, 2009, held in Southold Town Historian's files, KKK interviews folder. 46 Letter from Helen Conway to Antonia Booth, April 21, 1992, held in Southold Town Historian's files, 2nd KKK folder. 47 Durkin, "Illuminating Darker Side of LI's Past." 15 Italian-American Community Records from the Suffolk County clerk's office indicate there being Italians in the county as early as 1853, but most of the history of the Italians of Southold begins in the 20th century. Though every immigrant to the US has an individual story that should not be ignored for the sake of generalization, many stories have commonalities. Italy did not coalesce as a nation until 1861 under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi. The nascent government of the later 19th century was unable to provide aid to its poorest citizens, and the developing politics of the nation coupled with natural disasters, disease, and famine "left a legacy of violence, social chaos, and widespread poverty.1148 Thus, hundreds of thousands of Italians, often peasants, emigrated to the US and elsewhere in search of work, stability, and opportunity. Not all of them stayed, as some 30 to 50 percent of the Italian immigrants who arrived during the 1880s through 1920s returned home, aptly earning them the nickname ritornati, literally "returned ones.1149 Some of the earliest Italians to arrive in Southold served in the first World War.50 John Bucci, born August 10, 1893 in Trani, Italy arrived in the North Fork in 1915, where he worked as a barber on a military ship docked at Greenport. He later served as an infantryman in France during WWI.51 Bucci went on to become a founder of an American Legion post in Southold and opened his own barber shop, briefly closing only during WWII so he could support the war effort by working in a defense plant. Italian business owners were apparently not uncommon at this time, as others became cobblers, restaurateurs,53 or proprietors of the Schiavoni Bowling Alley,54 which was owned by multiple different Schiavonis over its existence.55 A 1909 Greenport map shows a 48 "The Great Arrival," Library of Congress, accessed August 3, 2023, https://www.loc.gov/classroom- materials/immigration/italian/the-great-arrival/. 49 Ibid. 50 "Ex-Soldier III," The Republican Watchman, Nov. 22, 1924. 51 "Obituary of John Bucci," The Suffolk Times, Jan. 2, 1992. 52 "Obituary of Anthony Schiavoni," The Suffolk Times, Nov. 3, 1983, 10. 53 "Obituary of Warren Bricchi," The Suffolk Times, Nov. 12, 1992, 11-12. 54 "Obituary of Alphonse J. Schiavoni," The Suffolk Times, Sep. 6, 2001, 12. 55 "Obituary of Dominick J. Schiavoni," The Suffolk Times, Sep. 3, 1998, 13 16 small plot of land owned by Michael Schiavoni in a zone occupied by what appear to be businesses, which may have been the location of Schiavoni's Bowling Alley. 81-001t A. BLOCK B, / Jrwnlrrrx 1.11—,q(Anelxvrtra.r0;. 1 llw,Il;K°rJirnler 7 wrri./! f I.'..nn,p�xl.]iMn.a,fbnelrv.U.rr rii. u II'.7C/rpy Y ;/;lr.,. y GnllN p /ixrn,Wdn/ X 7'/-O 1 Xwnrr F. rr UY 9 C,II"if.if.,;f.lxy 4 •5 df/,Ln.1ohlarvvwL 5 A/,,ri.r/x ir,.l.. (• B.Aenn-(FL a /NrruruJ�wr�lv'..•f. f. ./.ll. f M',L7a:rsd•:r leyurxs.L'a(uLm 7 J..L.r. q �7.CGere.L'e a 1.p•.,rar lt`rl..:en X J.%',t f0 W'.arpnFT.edYrr7L to .l,✓:/Jrrr/h,[ /O r'nnl /1 rn,max.P:Trrcvzz n s.r..Jr�..r 1f aww° /5 Fr.u�Au Tu.4"hill. 1.9 G.0 r;., I9 .S,P.9+i[yuu 14 PS , l5 5',7',Prsnlu,r, is P-,y BLOCK O ®LOCK E BI I',/J.dlnrrn F'x;r ri A•/.//,lY+i//ipr a t X N./L°°.re+r lO.vt JnF.r r,°.h..,�....� J J/.Il./!°urs.%sl., tlirr./'t vrrx..• ; F"irf r. X,rr.. r,•.> a IV P IIL mar I PL.:nL f wcr rnr.ui.M Jm•.vbun4 11 It EAI.II.III i V,)"IT1 ABOVE:An index of the businesses and plots of land in Greenport and their owners. BELOW." The map of Greenport, showing the apparent location of the bowling alley at the corner of E. Front St and Main Street, plot 5 on block A.56 Town of Southold Historian's office. rr e e Cpo r` p f r p �,��y�B. T.0 —V'rs. Q N �� 8o x•, ,DL a � � F+ y . �� . VW T^''as�� � � P� ® �' h, a o �. � �.�• T 3{-i• i4 6 C; ' Wor fir 19 0 '� ter e4 _.-�.�_-~ n e.1 � •�� `�•�. } .ram• ;z � > � C> " ��s � � 9: �' � �ti �GG•f Male�.ry� ��/ ,�/��• R5 n 2 V EN rserixa re rs 3z����� �]. GPIg4G4*S ,��� Q�:. \� li' _�Gy }tu"°rw/'"•'' �p �-i e N' Of ILI GREENP09T BASIN �^ M1 y . [WIr"I 66 E. Belcher Hyde, "Greenport," 200 ft to 1 in., Atlas of Suffolk County, Long Island NY, vol. 2 (New York, self-published, 1909), 28. 17 One family about whom there are substantial records is that of Pietro Cafarelli, especially the lineage going to his son-in-law, Angelo Piccozzi. Cafarelli arrived in the US from Popoli, Italy (He was not the only Italian to arrive from this small towns') not long before 1896, his wife Lucia Bucci coming soon after him in 1898.58 Angelo Piccozzi followed him, in search of work and to be closer to family. According to a letter to a former Southold Town Historian from Patricia J. Hoffman, one of Piccozzi's grandchildren, Angelo Piccozzi "arrived from Popoli in 1896 to work at the brickyard with his father-in-law. In fact, my father, Peter (Pietro) Piccozzi b. 1901, and many of his siblings were born in Sage owned housing on Arshamomaque Pond."59 The Sage Brickyard was named for DeWitt Clinton Sage, an Englishman who established the Long Island Brick Company and Sage Brickyard at the end of the 19th century.60 According to an article from The Suffolk Times, it was not uncommon for Sage to recruit Italian immigrants, as "DeWitt had an agent in New York City, who met immigrant ships bringing Italians to the New World. The agent recruited many of them for the Sage brickyards as they got off the boat, and arranged for their transport to Greenport.1161 In addition to Italians, Sage Brickyard employed some French Canadians, Polish, and Black southerners, having as many as 200 hands at its peak.62 As became the trend for migrant laborers, many of the brickyard workers lived in small cottages, often company-owned housing. 57 "Obituary of Diletta M. Dinizio," The Suffolk Times, May 21, 1992, 12. 58 Lucia Bucci, 1850-1924, ancestry.com (1910 Census Records). 59 Letter from Patricia J. Hoffman to Antonia Booth, Jan. 2, 2010, held in Southold Town Historian's office, Italian Americans file. 60 Diane Plows, "Brick Building Was Old Time Industry Here," The Suffolk Times, Nov. 24, 1977. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 18 r '- x f I /rid, S .j.•< ='dam z;. ABOVE: DeWitt Clinton Sage in his office at the Sage Brickyard, c. 1900. From the Suffolk Times, Photo courtesy of Charlotte Sage BELOW.-An authentic Sage Brickyard brick. Date of manufacture unknown. Photograph by Andrew Heller. 19 Other notable individuals include Alphonse J. Schiavoni, son of one of the proprietors of Schiavoni's Bowling Alley, a lifelong Greenport resident and highly decorated VVVVII veteran who landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day, later receiving the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and later the Jubilee of Liberty medal in 1999.63 That same year he was honored with the designation as Grand Marshal of the 1999 Memorial Day Parade in Greenport. He had also worked in the shipyards before his 35-year career with Grumman Aerospace. One man by the name of John Agria was a Baptist and Presbyterian minister for 56 years, working in Greenport, Mattituck, Cutchogue, and Center Moriches.64 He previously served as a Baptist minister in East Marion before his longer career in the rest of Southold, and for some time at the Shinnecock Indian Reservation in Southampton. He preached in both Italian and English, arriving from Palermo, Sicily at the age of 16 in 1921. In addition to being veterans and sometimes ministers, a number of Italian Americans were volunteer firefighters.65,66 Yet, for all their service to the local community and the country, they were not without disparagement, at least in the early 20th century. Peter Piccozzi, the son of Angelo, gave an interview to his granddaughter Renee Hoffman for a school project that, despite its simplicity as an elementary schooler's homework, is quite informative in this matter, since a transcript of the original audio recording survives. Peter Piccozzi, recounting his father's experience, stated that "on the first job he got working out there [in Greenport] digging telephone pole holes: he worked two weeks. How much do you think he made? The guy ran away, and he got zero. All that kind of stuff- they treated him like they treat the migrant workers now," further reinforcing that "he was a foreigner.1161 63 "Obituary of Alphonse J. Schiavoni," The Suffolk Times, Sep. 6, 2001, 12. 64 Tony Schaeffer, "John Agria, 84, Ministered to Italian-Americans: [NASSAU AND SUFFOLK Edition]," Newsday, Mar 24, 1989, combined editions. 65 "Obituary of Anthony Schiavoni," The Suffolk Times, Nov. 3, 1983, 10. 66 "Obituary of Dominick J. Schiavoni," The Suffolk Times, Sep. 3, 1998, 13. 67 Interview with Peter J. Piccozzi in discussion of Angelo Piccozzi by Renee Hoffman, 1985, transcript written October 1996, unpublished, Southold Town Historian's Office Records, Italian Americans file. 20 The Polish-American Community The Polish population of Southold appears to have arrived in greater numbers at a similar time as the Italians. Poles have been emigrating out of the country since the early 19th century, but those . who settled in Southold came primarily during the second major wave R -s of emigrants out of Poland. These migrants were called the za Alphonse Schlavonl with his uniform for the 1999 Suffolk Times story. chlebem immigrants, meaning "for bread," in recognition of their desire to earn a decent wage in the US and send remittances home before eventually returning themselves.68 One older historical account summarized the causes of their emigration thusly: "The backward state of industrial development, the scarcity of available agricultural land, primitive methods of production, generally impoverished resources, coincident with a constantly growing population, created a situation of which the natural consequence was emigration."69 Our Lady of Ostrabrama, the Polish church in Cutchogue, was established in 1909 and originally provided services only in Polish, having formed a society to assist the Polish immigrants to the town a year earlier.70 Some early arrivals to the east end of Southold, particularly Orient, include John B. Droskoski and Peter Sledjeski. Droskoski, according to his great great grandson Eric P. Sepenoski, immigrated to the US from Poland at the turn of the 20th century." Droskoski originally worked for the English like many recent immigrants to the US, and eventually saved enough funds to acquire a parcel of land in Orient, where he would start a farm that, as of 2012, was still owned by his descendants.72 The family continued to be 68 "The Nation of Polonia," Library of Congress, accessed August 3, 2023, https://www.loc.gov/classroom- materials/immigration/polish-russian/the-nation-of-polonia/. 69 Sister Lucille, "The Causes of Polish Immigration to the United States," Polish American Studies 8, no. 3/4 (1951), 88, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20147265. 70 "History of Our Church," Our Lady of Ostrabrama, accessed 22 June 2023, http://www.olochurch.org/index.php/en/about/working-in-olp2. 71 "Emigration Summary from Eric Peter Sepenoski's interview," Oysterponds Historical Society, 6 July 2012, held in Oysterponds Historical Society's Polish American file. 72 Ibid. 21 financially successful enough to acquire another farm from Wayland C. Brown in East Marion in 1973, which was also still owned by the Sepenoski family in 2012. Piotsch Sledjeski, who was born in the village of Pniewo in Poland, adopted the name Peter upon arriving in the US in 1898 on Ellis Island at the age of 15, as two of his daughters, Bertha and Jessie, recalled in an interview with Oysterponds Historical Society.73 Peter Sledjeski moved out to Greenport where he had family (some of whom were business owners, such as a cousin who owned Porky's Restaurant in Greenport), but found work in Orient as a farmhand, where he would ultimately settle within the Town of Southold. Sledjeski worked for some years with John Brown, also adopting Brown as his last name for convenience, rather than any legal purposes, since "nobody could spell Sledjeski."74 Peter would later purchase land and start a farm after his marriage in 1909 to Amelia Zimnoski. Among the many Polish families in the Orient area were, according to Peter's daughters, the Koroleskis, Moisas, Droskoskis, Trekovskis, and Volinskis, some of whom were also farmers in the area. Appearing to corroborate the idea of the za chlebem immigrants, they mentioned multiple families that had supposedly stayed in Southold, and quite possibly the US, for only a short period of time. The Sledjeskis also frequented Our Lady of Ostrabrama church. Bertha felt that during her childhood she was like an outsider in her own community. Her sister Jessie did not have as negative an experience being born just five years later, but as Bertha recalled, "some people still looked down upon us. Nice to us, but still don't think you're such hot stuff.1175 The epithet of"dirty Polack" was frequently imposed upon Polish Americans, which the Sledjeskis heard innumerable times. Sophie Staron, nee Trekovski, who was also interviewed by Oysterponds, further corroborated these stories of racially charged epithets.76 Bertha and Jessie recalled that in general, when something was stolen or broken, the 73 "The Sledjeski Family in Orient," interview with Bertha Sledjeski O'Kula and Jessie Sledjeski Pemberton by Courtney Burns, Oysterponds Historical Society, unpublished, Feb. 6 1997. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 Interview with Sophie Staron and Joseph Soito by Ellen Mitchell, Oysterponds Historical Society, unpublished, March 2013. 22 Polish immigrants were blamed for it. Once, when a window was broken in the schoolhouse in Orient, the Sledjeskis ended up taking the blame, and Peter repaired it with no question.77 Another story of success came from Dr. Vincent Doroszka, who grew up in Southold but practiced in Riverhead as an MD making house calls for 50 years.71 Born in Cutchogue on July 31, 1902, he was a farm boy until eight years old, when he started attending school. He recalled that his father came to the US in 1870 from Poland, returning to his homeland only to find a wife. Doroszka's father married a younger woman, Bertha Janulewicz, who was stuck as a maid for the Polish upper classes.79 Though his father died before he was born, Doroszka would go on to college at Villanova and later Yale Medical School.80 Shinnecock Distributing Co. FIRST GRADE WINES AND LIQUORS RHEINCOLD AND TEUTONIC BEERS W OLINSKI & BALNIS, Propes Prompt Delivery to Families. Telephone 66--tL Advertisement in the Southold-Shelter Island Register: 1910-1911, p. 134, for Shinnecock Distributing Co., a business co-owned by a Polish American. 77 "The Sledjeski Family in Orient." 78 Maria Parson, Up-Lot Reveries:An Oral History of the North Fork, (Mattituck: Amereon House, 1984), 121-122. 79 Ibid, 123. 80 Ibid, 124. 23 f ABOVE: Our Lady of Ostrabrama Church ca. 1920, from the church's website. BELOW." The Southold High School Baseball team, including multiple Polish American players. PW by ..., +k,`:A r' i'•W�,y.; \4} y `�k T �;a.` `4� •e��'es�. '�f>"�l�n�; 'a''' 1. 4 s '?'ti itr SIYL M1 Y , The Southold 1119h School Baseball 1 cam—cbc.a 1929 Lack Row:Wesley Orlowski, Lyle Meudnh,led Hobson, Swn6ey Krukowski. Front Row: Emie Dickerson,Francis -Possum Thompw n,in o n.Elmer Rhuland.Henry Kress,Photo courtesy Lester Albertsormanon supplied by Walt Mengewed. 24 Portuguese-American Community Though there are fewer Portuguese Americans in Southold than there are Irish or Polish, there is still a significant history to their stories of migration. Most of the Portuguese who came to Southold were from the Azores Islands, often working in the whaling industry, as some of their stories demonstrate." 12 Manuel Claudio, likely the most renowned of the Portuguese immigrants to Southold, managed a successful hotel in Greenport before opening his famous bayside restaurant Claudio's, which was owned and operated by his family for many years.83 Earlier in his life he worked on a whaling ship in the Azores. I He visited Greenport multiple times during that period of his 7 life, and eventually chose to immigrate to the US and make 1_ Greenport his home.84 Portrait of Manuel Claudio from Pelletreau's History of Long Island, p. 30. Joseph Soito, an Orient native, said in an oral interview that his family left the Azores because there was no work available for the youth.85 Like Manuel Claudio, Soito's father tried to find work in the whaling industry but found it too dangerous, so he and his family immigrated to the US in 1915, where they primarily worked for the Miller family, proprietors of the Mount Pleasant House in Orient who were also, probably not coincidentally, from the Azores.86 Regarding their treatment in the US, Soito said in 81 Interview with Sophie Staron and Joseph Soito by Ellen Mitchell, Oysterponds Historical Society, unpublished, March 2013. 82 William S. Pelletreau, History of Long Island(New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1903), 31. 83 Cynthia Zaweski, "After 148 years, Claudio's in Greenport sold," The Suffolk Times, Dec. 31, 2018, https://suffolktimes.timesreview.com/2018/12/top-stories-2018-148-years-claudios-greenport-sold/ 84 Pelletreau, History of Long Island, 31. 85 Interview with Joseph Soito by Ellen Mitchell. 86 "Joseph Miller," 1920 U.S. Census, Suffolk County, New York, Southold, District 0147. 25 his interview that a few families in Orient didn't want his father to have a house on the same street as them, because he was Catholic. These same people partook in the local KKK meetings every month on Youngs Rd, as Soito recalled. Guatemalan-American Community The most recent of the immigrants coming to Southold are primarily Latin America, most notably Guatemala. Arriving only in recent decades, Guatemalan immigrants like Carlos Montenegro would, if resources allowed, occasionally go back and forth between their homes in Guatemala and farms on Long Island's North Fork.87 Montenegro entered the US without authorization in March 1984, since he had heard from a friend that in the US there existed "places where a man could earn more in an hour than he could in a day in Guatemala."" Fortunately for Montenegro, this proved to be true, and the remittances he sent back home allowed his family to live comfortably in Guatemala. Though his whereabouts today are unknown, he made his intention clear in a 1991 Suffolk Times article: "he has no plans to stay," further emphasizing that"In Guatemala, he now has money and property, thanks to his job here, but it is something he could never hope to duplicate in this country."89 In more recent times, a trend one can see time and time again in the many migrant communities in Southold occurred once more with the Guatemalan immigrants: people came in waves from the same small town or village. Trancito Perez, the first person to arrive in Riverhead from the small Guatemalan town of San Raymundo in the 1960s or 70s, encouraged his relatives, family, and friends to come to Riverhead, where they could make a better life for themselves.90 Over the next 40 years, Perez did just that by working as a farmhand, eventually starting a family in the town. 87 Laura Muha and John McDonald, "Harvest of Loneliness," Newsday, Sep. 8, 1991. sa Ibid. 89 Ibid. 90 Will James, "From One Guatemalan's Journey, A Whole Community Rises In Long Island," NPR, May 2, 2016. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/05/02/476498686/from-one-guatemalans-journey- a-whole-community-rises-in-long-island 26 Danilo Garcia, one of Trancito Perez's relatives, stands outside his home in San Raymundo beside a tractor he purchased in Riverhead. Yle From NPR Code Switch, From One Guatemalan's "' ► Journey, A Whole Community Rises in Long Island. Just as the immigrants to Southold in the 19th century experienced hardship and alienation, or sometimes great hospitality as well as financial and social success; so too do the modern-day immigrants to Southold, often from Latin America, share in these same experiences almost two centuries later. For some, the "American Dream" was and still is the end goal, the crowning achievement of a life of hard work. For others, it was and still is unattainable, and the best life to find for oneself remained or remains the one in their home country, wherever it may be. Perhaps, then, what Henry "Doc" Brown recounted in Dorothy Mealy's interview from Meet The Seniors was true: "in some ways things haven't changed that much." Post Script by Amy Folk Summer Internships are short and Andrew ran out of time to finish his look into the immigrant communities of Southold. While there are many immigrant groups to have made Southold Town their home, Andrew's paper sought to examine some of the larger communities in the town. Below is a group that he didn't have time to research and write about. Greek-American Community The Greek American community in Southold began forming just after the Second World War. Greece, after the economic devastation of World War 2, became embroiled in the Greek 27 Civil War (1946-1949). A number of Greeks immigrated to the United States to escape the turmoil. In Southold Town, clusters of Greek families settled mostly in East Marion and in Mattituck. In East Marion, Sidney C. Schaer in a Newsday article, observed that after World War II, a few Greek families began to settle in the community, and soon East Marion's population began to increased dramatically during the summer months due to the influx of Greek-Americans from Astoria.91 Families such as the Spinthourakas, who ran the Blue Dolphin Motel in East Marion since the mid-1950 to the early 1980s and the Giannaris family, owners of the famous Hellenic Snack Bar, settled in and became part of the neighborhood. However, like many other immigrant groups, the newly arrived Greeks did not find themselves welcomed with open arms. George Giannaris, in his book Ferry Tales, relates that when his father opened the business, "...in the early seventies, there were no welcoming committees. Pumpkins were often heaved from cars at the little six-stool snack bar. Windows were broken. Atrocities hurled. Not a robust beginning." However, Giannaris notes, "...the power of a good meal is the key to world peace! The vehement farmers soon took us in. We became part of the family.°'92 When the Greek community in the East Marion area became more entrenched, in 1981, they reached out to the Greek Orthodox Metropolis Church of North and South America, a branch of the Julian church which sponsored the formation of Church of Saints Anargyroi and Taxiarhis Green Orthodox Church in nearby Greenport93. The new congregation acquired the former Presbyterian church, which had been eyed by developers for condominiums. In Mattituck, a separate Greek Orthodox community formed around the Church of the Transfiguration of Christ. Started in 1968, in a congregant's backyard, the original church 91 Sidney C Schaer, "East End Hamlet with a Greek Flavor," Newsday, August 21, 1978. 92 George Giannaris, Ferry Tales, (Charleston, South Carolina: Booksurge, 2008.) 10-11. 93 Tim Wacker, "Parish Excommunicated," Suffolk Times, February 26, 1998. 28 building was erected in 1969 on land donated by Theofan Kyvernitis. The church was opened and the first service was held in August 1970. In 1984, the church was lost to what was suspected as arson.94 Interior view of the fire at the Church of �x the Transfiguration of Christ in Mattituck. From a 1984 Suffolk Times article. " The community rallied and Cleo Tsounis, the first woman to be elected President of the Parish Council, led a successful fundraising campaign to rebuild. Today, nestled next to farmland off of Breakwater Road, the new church, nicknamed The Miracle in the Potato Fields, hosts a popular annual Greek festival and serves a mixed community of not only Greek, but also Russian, Albanian, Croatian and Serbian. The Town of Southold is still growing and new migrants from around the world continue to diversify our area, continuing the legacy of immigration started by the English settlers in the 1640s. 94 Eileen M Duffy, "Eat, Dance and be Merry Greek Style," The Traveler Watchman, July 31, 2003.