Old Town Road

To reach these meadow shares a direct road led from Setauket to Fire Place and the Occumbomuck or Bellport and passed through Coram. The Road entered Fire Place Neck a little distance north of the railroad bridge, followed along the east side of the swamp and continued south past George Miller’s place and down either Bay Road or one near it, to a cross-road which ran about parallel with the shore along the the north or head of the meadows. It is without doubt the oldest cross-island road in the Town and was probably cut through about the year 1665 and I have no doubt but what it followed an Indian trail. It was extensively used and there are numerous references made to it in the town records, especially in Books B and C. Here are some of the terms by which it was designated: Road to South, Road to Coram, Road from Coram, South Path, Road to Fire Place, Fire Place Path, Town Path, Town Road, and more modernly, Old Town Road by which it is known today. It is still used from West Yaphank to Setauket, but the section between and its entrance into Fire Place is now so little used that it is partly grown up. Part of it the South Country Road, or Montauk Highway from Eugene Policastro’s place to the old Ketcham place now partly owned by Mr. and Mr. Nelson. From there is (sic) probably ran straight to the north end of Bay Road and so on to the south as described above. From the place where it entered the Neck, north of Policastro’s, another road branched off at about a right angle and ran east to South Haven and to Smith’ Point and to Mastic. This road later became part of the South Country Road as the Old South Country Road used to run — not the present cement road with its grand, modern, sweeping curve. From Henry Snow’s corner — possibly a little to the east, another road ran down along the east side of Fire Place Neck terminating at or near Long or Woohull’s Point. It ran a little more to the east than the present Stump Road and intersected the south crossroad, previously mentioned as running along the head of the meadows. Traces of the road, a little east of the Stump Road, could be seen only a few years ago and probably can still be found. Thus Fire Place Neck had a road along its eastern side skirting near the west sides of Little Neck Run and the south part of Connecticut River and another along the west side, a little distance east of Fire Place Creek, and both of these roads were connected by cross roads — one on the south along the upper edge of the meadow and the other along the northern part of neck following the original course of the old South Country Road. It was thus convenient to reach the meadow shares from either side of the neck. I cannot give you the dates that these roads were opened. Perhaps they never were opened: they just grew; but I believe that a careful study of the town records and some antiquarian research, might reveal them to be older than suspected.

Long Lots & Cross Lots

Let it now return to the meadow shares that I said were laid out soon after Tobaccus sold out. In our town records, in Book II, we find that on the 6th of Feb. 1676, an order was passed that John Tooker and Thomas Ward should lay out 15 acres of upland as near or adjoining each man’s meadow share as could be done. This was the first allotment or apportionment of upland to the owners of the whole tract and from it resulted the first white settlement in Fire Place and Occumbomuck or Bellport. In Fire Place Neck, these fifteen acre lots became known as the “Long Lots” and the “Cross Lots”. The Long Lots extended up from the meadow along the Bay to what is now Beaver Dam Road, while the Cross Lots ran east and west from the eastern part of Neck, reaching nearly to the Town Road or Fire Place Path east of Beaver Dam Swamp, thus leaving a strip of unappropriated land along east of the road. This strip lay common and undivided until March 1750, when the Town trustees ordered that it should be annexed to the west end of the Cross lots. Consequently, the lots were so extended that they now had a public road along their west ends as well as their east ends. The whole block of lots lay between the north cross road and the north ends of the Long Lots or where Beaver Dam Road was later to be laid out. At the same time, 1750, that the Cross Lots were extended westward; it was also ordered that six rods should be reserved along the east side of Beaver Dam Swamp for the highway and for waterings. Some of these watering places were in later years sold, but I understand one or two — possibly more — are still unsold and belong to the Town Trustees.

Beaverdam Road

Anyone owning property along the south side of Beaver Dam Road, can well imagine how inconvenient it would be, if he or she had to drive down to the head of the meadow along the Bay and then turn into a cross road and from it, enter his or her land.  It was just such a condition as this that the owners of the Long Lots found themselves in, after each of the meadow shares skirting the Bay had 15 acres of upland annexed.  They must have been very patient for it was not until 1735, that they petitioned for a change.  On the 26th of March, that year, they petitioned the road commissioners to move the south crossroad up to the north ends of their lots, complaining that they had  “by Experence found: ye unconveniency of ye high waye layd att ye south end of oure :15: aker lots in ye fier place neck”.  From this petition, it will be learned who were the owners in 1735.  They were Thomas Hulse, Daniel Rose, Eleazer Hawkins, Thomas Rose, Nathan Rose, William Helme, Richard Hulse, John Hulse, John Hulse, Jr., Nathaniel Bayles, John Wood and James Tuthill — twelve names, so we learn that there were twelve lots, each of 15 acres excluding meadow, in the Long Lots.  It was two years later, on the 10th of June 1737 before the road was reported as laid out, and this road, of course, is your Beaver Dam Road.  At the same time, the old south cross-road was closed and the land given to the twelve owners in exchange for the land taken off the north ends of their lots.  From the report, it is learned that the old south cross-road ran from Squassucks Point to the “Little Fly”.  As “Fly” is an English corruption of the old Dutch word Vlaie, meaning a low marsh piece of ground, or a meadow, evidence is added that the Little Fly is the meadow adjoining Fire Place Creek and that the old cross-road ran only to it.  In connection with Little Fly, I might properly add here that the meadow adjoining the Connecticut river was called the “Great Fly”, thus Fire Place Neck had its Little Fly and its Great Fly and both are spoken of in the town records several times.