Fire Place Manse or Parsonage Lands

As was the early custom, a large tracts of land (called a manse, or parsonage lands) were set aside by the Town of Brookhaven for the benefit of the ministers of the Town church, in general as a farm to provide for their sustenance. Such a tract was provided in Fire Place for the Church at the South (the South Haven Presbyterian Church).  This tract included the section north of the northern boundary of the Corwin farm (the present LIRR right-of-way), between Old Town Road/South Country road on the west, the southern boundary of the Great Division of Lots (Montauk Highway), and east to Little Neck Run. (See map).

Patchogue Advance, 15 July 1927, p. 1

Fine Home at Brookhaven Burns
Only Chimneys Left at Bishop Place
Sparks from Defective Fireplace Flue Blamed for Loss of Beaver Dam Road Place Yesterday

Fire caused by a defective flue, totally destroyed the summer home of Mr. and Mrs. George Bishop of Brooklyn, on Beaver Dam Road, Brookhaven yesterday afternoon when sparks from a few papers being burned in the fireplace set ablaze the attic.  It ran swiftly, at first unnoticed, and gained a big headway before the firemen arrived.  The loss was about $8,00.  The Bishops' city address is 147 Madison Street.

Mrs Walter Tamlyn, daughter of the owners, who was occupying the place for the summer, had been packing all morning preparatory to leave for New York yesterday afternoon, when about 2:39 Mrs, Allen Baker and Mrs. Cora Murdock, who were passing by, saw smoke coming from the attic windows.  They told Mrs. Tamlyn, who rushed upstairs to the attic with Everett Swezey, a neighbor, and attempted to pour water on the flames.  Mrs. Tamlyn was overcome by smoke and Swezey carried her to the street.

Fire companies from Brookhaven, Mastic, Center Moriches, and Bellport responded and did heroic work carrying out furniture and getting the Tamlyn children, Walter and Nettie, from their bedrooms on the second floor of the house.

The blaze, swept along by a stiff breeze, set fire to a barn far across the road, on the Isaac Burnett place, but it was quickly extinguished.

The owners state that the furniture in the Bishop place was fully insured and the house partially.

During the course of the fire Edward Waldron of Brookhaven was stunned when part of the attic ceiling fell on him, and Roy Lipschick's [?] face was badly scorched.  The fire companies could do little against the roaring flames as they had only chemical equipment, though that proved effective in protecting neighboring property.  Only two tall brick chimneys stand as relics of the house.

[While the location of the house can not be exactly determined from this article alone, it was located on the southwest corner of Beaver Dam road and Burnett lane. Another house (Historic Site ID Br18B.1-S) now occupies the site.  The 1915 E. Belcher Hyde map places a Bishop house at this location.  A house at 6 Burnett Lane, just to the south of this site, (Historic Site ID Br18B.2-S) was still owned be a George Bishop, probably son George Maynard Bishop, in 1970 when ownership was transferred to the Fath family.  The Burnett barn mentioned in the article was on the southeast corner of Beaver Dam road and Burnett lane, but is no longer extant (see Historic Site ID Br18B.4-S). ]