CHERRY GROVE REFORMED HISTORY

      

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EARLY HISTORY OF CHERRY GROVE 1877-1895

​Below is a republishing of a series of articles that appeared in the Fire Island Star beginning in early January 2023. There are some differences in layout and content that ought to be explained.

On this website there are several graphics that are referred to in the narrative. They do not appear on this website for reasons relating to the ease of posting them on Facebook as opposed to the difficulty of posting them easily on this website. While the graphics do not appear on the website the narrative content does explain their importance so their role in documenting history is not lost.

All of them can be recovered by searching for them on our companion Facebook page by using the search engine that does appear on the Fire Island Star Facebook page. It shouldn’t be any more of a matter then typing in a key word for example “Sammis map” to find them all.
The content on the website pretty much mirrors what appeared on the Facebook page, however here and there, some additional documentation has been added. And again from time to time some of the original content has been edited to reflect a more coherent presentation of ideas and facts.

That makes this version the most up to date narrative of the early history of Cherry Grove that we have published so far.
In this website edition we have broken up the dense text as much as possible to make reading easier.

That said any questions about the content, any need for assistance to find graphics, all other inquires and feedback of any kind can be sent by private message via the Fire Island Star Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FireIslandStar

John Bogack, Editor
1/29/23
 
REFORMED EARLY HISTORY OF CHERRY GROVE No. 1
 
Today’s graphic that’s going to appear often is a section of the Jonathan Sammis map of 1878 mapping early Cherry Grove. It’s going to be a key reference point for a lot ahead.
 
That said we begin this history series the result of five years of research into the early history of Cherry Grove. For as long as it takes, in small sections, we are going to cover roughly 200 hundred years of history from 1694 to 1895.
 
It’s not the accepted history of early Cherry Grove for many reasons. The first and most important reason is: it’s based on facts, not hearsay, legend, and fable.
 
There’s no land pirate Jeremiah Smith in it. He was dead long before Cherry Grove began. He did not own a house in Cherry Grove that the Perkinsons somehow found in a grove of cherry trees. He may have a house on Fire Island but all known reliable facts point to a life led in the vicinity of the Fire Island Inlet far to the west of present-day Cherry Grove.
 
Yes the Perkinsons, Elizabeth, and Archer, still figure into the foundation of Cherry Grove but much later than presently claimed, beginning not in 1868 but 1884. Before they arrived Cherry Grove begins its origin date in 1877 when the Avery sisters became Cherry Grove’s first settled owners and opened up a business long attributed to the Perkinsons but wrongly so.
 
If anything, this is a history of pioneering women, first land owners, the Avery sisters, and then Elizabeth Perkinson, and let’s add in Margaret Brush too who defied the times in many ways with some important men too that helped them along the way.
 
Section one is short but it sets the stage:
 
In 1877 Cherry Grove began to form initially as a tourist location in a western area of Fire Island off the Great South Bay. In that year the Ocean Grove Pavilion was first opened for business serving food and drinks to the public. See: 7-14-1877 edition of the Patchogue Advance Sayville section “The Ocean Grove pavilion is now open on the Beach, and boats run daily to it from this place”.
 
The building and land were owned by three sisters: Sarah Avery Stillman 1820-1881, Rosetta Avery Rogers 1830-1886, and Emeline Avery 1832-1914 and their mother Elizabeth (1789-1882).
 
The 1877 article does not report who the proprietor of the Ocean Grove pavilion was but there is an 1878 article that does. On 6/8/1878, in a local column in the Patchogue Advance covering Sayville news, this account was published: “The Ocean Grove Pavilion, on the beach opposite this village, is shortly to be opened. Isaac Bedell& company, managers”
 
Isaac C. Bedell (1836-1886) had a prior history as proprietor of the Bedell House, a tavern in Sayville New York.
 
Next up: how the Avery sisters got their land.
 
 
1/11/2023
REFORMED EARLY CHERRY GROVE HISTORY No. 2
 
We continue our history series today with a beginning narrative about how the Avery sisters acquired their land on Fire Island. But first, we’ve got two graphics today to illustrate a sense of the land involved. In the first, there’s the Blunt map of 1840. It’s the only documentation so far found that there was a Racoon Woods on Fire Island. It’s that area that is associated with an early place name for present-day Cherry Grove. Of some interest are those dunes that look massive, and high, and more than one row of them too along the beach area.
 
In the second graphic, a picnic scene on the Great South Beach opposite Mastic drawn by Katherine Floyd Dana in 1857. It’s a nice portrait of a picnic at the beach but look at those dunes too pretty much what the dunes in the future Cherry Grove area would have looked like in the same year.
 
And all of this brings us back to the Avery land history. Their ownership rights are explained as follows.
 
These four women had inherited their Fire Island land from Joseph Avery (1789-1871) when he died in 1871. He was the father of the three Avery sisters and Elizabeth’s husband.

Joseph Avery’s Fire Island land claim dated back to 1789. His grandfather Humphrey Avery Jr. (1724-1790) was one of the original “20 Yeoman” of Brookhaven Town who purchased in common land in western Fire Island with nineteen other Brookhaven Town land owners. Yeoman is defined generally as “a man holding and cultivating a small landed estate; a freeholder”. In this case, it would be safe to think farmers perhaps with cattle needing grazing on Fire Island pastures.
 
There is reliable first-hand witness testimony unearthed from the record of the Valentin case in the early 1900s regarding land use in western Fire Island from Long Cove in the east to the Fire Island inlet in the west that cattle were routinely grazed. Other sources report that cattle were flat boated across the Great South Bay from points along the south shore of Brookhaven Town. Well-fed on wild grass some were returned to their owners by the same ships. Others, hundreds, were herded east and then fattened, shipped to places like Babylon for slaughter and sale of their meat.
 
The land purchased by Avery and the other 19 Yeoman in 1789 originally belonged to William Tangier Smith (1655-1705) who had acquired the land rights to all of Fire Island from Long Island native Americans (Unkechaug tribe) circa 1694.
 
While there remains some historical controversy as to whether he did obtain possession of Fire Island fair and square from its former Native American owners as a matter of historical note, in the end, his land claim was recognized by the English Crown as valid. He was by 1694 the first and only person to own all of Fire Island during his lifetime.
 
William Tanger Smith’s land holdings formed an approximately 60,000-acre tract of land in Brookhaven Town. It became known as the Manor of St. George.
 
Next up: the American Revolution breaks the hold of the Manor of St. George on Fire Island
 
1/13/2023
EARLY CHERRY GROVE HISTORY No. 3
 
Today, our last section on how the Avery sisters got their land in Cherry Grove, and the Sammis 1878 map returns for another view. This time with this comment. We call it the “smoking gun” of Cherry Grove’s early history for these reasons. Unlike the prior history upon which Cherry Grove’s history so far has relied the map is a fact. It clearly shows that the Avery sisters, not the Perkinsons were the original land owners. It clearly shows that the one and only building in Cherry Grove is associated with Isaac Bedell, not the Perkinsons.
 
It upends the fable of an 1868 start date alleging that the Perkinsons in that year were established lease or land owners running an eatery on the shore of the Great South Bay.
 
Where we last left off the Manor of St. George had come into existence and it included Fire Island in the hands of one family first William Tangier Smith and then his heirs. That remained pretty much the case until the American Revolution arrives and British control of Fire Island ends and the American Republic begins. With it too a new sense of revolutionary consciousness also arrives and large holdings by one family is not popular in Suffolk County anymore. It creates pressure on the owners of the Manor to divest their vast land holdings.
 
It’s shortly after the revolution that Smith’s heirs sell off part of the Fire Island land belonging to the Manor in 1789. The partition however was not as exact as that term ordinarily would imply. Instead of each of the 20 yeomen being granted twenty defined sections of land were granted “shares” one for each of them. Every one of them too had a communal right to graze animals, harvest agricultural plants such as “salt hay”, and hunt on all of the lands collectively.
 
Over the following decades, shares were traded in whole or in part to others. Some of these transactions were formally recorded and others were not. As time progressed it was thought that the original twenty owners had increased to more than a hundred. Over time, understandably a degree of confusion arose over who owned what land exactly creating uncertainty regarding the control and sale of the property.
 
In the same year that Joseph Avery died and his three daughters and wife inherited now three shares of Fire Island land, a court case challenging the Fire Island holdings of another owner of land further to the west brought their ownership rights as well as all others into court for legal examination. The case that brought about this process was the 1871 case of Green versus Sammis brought in Suffolk County Supreme Court and resolved in 1878.
 
That case resulted in a clear-cut assignment of property rights arising out of the 1789 partition. The court’s judgment formed the basis of what has been called the “Great Partition of Fire Island”. As part of that settlement, a map was published by the court identifying the boundaries of all the land claims recognized by the court. Seventy-eight land claims were recognized by the court in the form of lots.
 
The 1878 map, a survey made by Jonathan Sammis (not related to defendant Sammis), included a notation recognizing a building in Lot 26, the only building in existence within the boundaries of Lot 26 so identified, as associated with Isaac Bedell. The boundaries of Lot 26 correspond to the present boundaries of Cherry Grove. The court awarded this lot to the Avery sisters making them the future Cherry Grove’s first land owners with a good title. It should also be noted that during the court case all who owned or leased any lands in the area of Fire Island being assessed for ownership rights by the court were given a chance to make such claims known to the court. This author has personally examined the complete court file several times and found no declarations from anyone other than the Avery family of any land claim of any sort relating to Lot 26 further proving that the Perkinsons had none, neither tenancy by deed, or ownership claim dating back to their alleged 1868 date of arrival in Cherry Grove.
 
The map documents what was reported in the 1877 and 1878 newspaper articles and more. Ocean Grove began as an area carved out of the then-named Racoon Woods section of Fire Island. The land is owned by the Avery family. The Bedell-associated building was on their land.
 
If it can be said that the early history of Cherry Grove has a smoking gun to explain it, it’s the Jonathan Sammis map of 1878 that is that gun.
 
Next up: 1880 and Cherry Grove begins to emerge
 
 
1-15-2023
 
IMAGINING THE PAST WITH SOME GOOD HELP
By John Bogack, Editor
 
History is sometimes found because it’s searched for and sometimes it comes along by chance. Just recently this editor discovered a small trove of paintings documenting visits to the Fire Island beach in the 1840s and 1850s. While they are scenes of the beach opposite Mastic they are illustrative of what people would have found off Cherry Grove and FI Pines in the same period of time.
In our recent series of posts about early Cherry Grove we’ve established tourism had a site to visit the Ocean Grove Pavilion served by regular ferry service by 1877. But in the decades prior to that period of time, there can’t be any doubt that people got in their boats and sailed to the Fire Island beach and from these paintings, we can imagine similar scenes on the ocean side of the still-to-come Cherry Grove.
 
What they share is documentation of visits to see and swim in the ocean, images of majestic dunes, and picnicking day and night. There’s also another common feature to see in them…the wrecks that once dotted the ocean shore now gone.
 
They are the work of Katherine Floyd Dana (1835-1886) multitalented artist, and author who painted nature scenes of Mastic and the Great South beach today’s Fire Island beach.
Click on the various pictures for more information about each of them.
Content source: http://spoonercentral.com/knapp.html
 
1/17/2023
EARLY CHERRY GROVE HISTORY No. 4
 
It’s onwards with our early Cherry Grove history series and we are now at 1880.
 
In 1880 several important changes occurred. The place name of Racoon Woods may have gotten a short-term name change to Ocean Grove now changes to Cherry Grove. This begins when the new place name begins to appear in the Patchogue Advance when describing visits to the area where the former Ocean Grove Pavilion has now been rebranded as the Cherry Grove House.
 
The Cherry Grove House is not just a local destination anymore either. It has caught the eye of Brooklyn visitors as documented by Mr. Adams in the Brooklyn Eagle in his account of a visit in 1880. Adam's account is richly detailed and worth a full read: “Sayville A Business Man’s Vacation Picture. What Pleasures Can Be Extracted from a Long Island Resort” 8-29-1880.

Our photo today is a portion of that article from the Brooklyn Eagle.
 
In 1881 Cherry Grove house was now under the management of James Carr who is also identified as a lessee of the property. See: 6-11-81 account Patchogue Advance: “James Carr of the Southside’s Sportsman’s club has leased the Cherry Grove House on the beach for the season, and will soon be prepared to receive and accommodate all who may pay the premises a visit”
 
No records have yet been found documenting whether James Carr actually took up his new duties although there is an 1880 newspaper account in the Patchogue Advance documenting that Isaac Bedell by this time was transitioning from his role as proprietor of the Cherry Grove House for new work opportunities elsewhere on Fire Island.
 
Whether in the years 1882, and 1883 the business was still open or who was managing it remains presently unknown as so far no documentation yet one way or the other has been found about this period of time.
 
Before we leave this period some speculative thinking about an answer to the question: who named Cherry Grove? Our thinking is that somewhere along the line one of five persons originated that place name. That pool of persons would have been one of the three Avery sisters, their mother Elizabeth. This family did own the land and owners by custom do possess naming rights for their property. Since by law the three sisters each had equal shares in their property rights it would seem that whomever may have in fact individually arrived at a new place name in the end the decision to rename would have been a collective one.
 
Or this is an alternative speculation. The words Cherry Grove actually first appear in print associated with the former Ocean Grove Pavilion managed by Isaac Bedell. He could have, for whatever reasons now unknown, renamed the business at least by 1880. One such reason common sense suggests is that a place name of Raccoon Woods would have been far less attractive as a tourist draw than an area called Cherry Grove conjuring up a pleasant environment far more friendly that a wood filled with raccoon dens. The building owners then approving and adopting the name change, again leading back to the Avery family as key deciders in the renaming of the former Raccoon Woods placename to its current placename of Cherry Grove.
 
The Cherry Grove placename later popularized by the editor of the Patchogue Advance in 1880. As it turns out from then to the present.
 
Next up: IT’S1884 AND THE PERKINSONS ARRIVE
 
1-19-2023
 
EARLY CHERRY GROVE HISTORY NO. 5
1884 THE PERKINSONS ARRIVE
 
In the currently accepted history of Cherry Grove Archer and Elizabeth Perkinson arrived in 1868 and opened up an eatery on the bay. The problem with that view however is this: there’s no credible proof that ever happened. What does exist instead is beginning in 1884 there are several newspaper accounts that document that Archer Perkinson (1827-1900) was now the proprietor of the Cherry Grove House. One of these appeared on 5-10-1884 and it is reproduced today.
 
In the Patchogue section of the Patchogue Advance, a small but momentous historical news account appears. The full text of the notice is as follows: “Archer Perkinson has purchased Cherry Grove and intends running itself this season”.
 
This  newspaper claim that Archer had purchased Cherry Grove however is not backed up by any deed records of any kind substantiating such a claim. He was most likely a tenant as proprietors before him had been.
 
Archer had been a long-time Great South Bay oysterman. Documentation exists that his career as an oysterman was in full force at least as early as 1868. But in the early 1880s, he changed his occupation. In 1882 and 1883 he was the proprietor of a pavilion and then a hotel in nearby Water Island located on Fire Island east of present-day Cherry Grove. There are numerous newspaper accounts in the Patchogue Advance documenting his role in Water Island during these years.
 
His wife Elizabeth (1829-1916) had been a local area housekeeper (census data) and Patchogue area landowner (as documented by deed records).She would eventually give up her housekeeping duties and join her husband's hospitality activities on Fire Island. She would also continue her real estate activities once joining her husband on Fire Island. Both were residents of Patchogue New York.
 
In 1885 Elizabeth Perkinson’s deed records document that she continued to act on her skill set as a real estate speculator when she obtained a lease for the one and only house in Cherry Grove from the Avery family the only probable location for the Cherry Grove House. Because the lease was part of a deed this lease arrangement is well specified and documented.
 
The lease also had an option to buy a substantial portion of the Lot 26 land held by the Avery family and the building as well. At this point in time Elizabeth Perkinson is poised to be the owner of a vast amount of land in Cherry Grove, and the owner of the only building within the proposed boundaries of the land purchase option. However, a detour is on the horizon.
 
Next up: Hidden figures of Cherry Grove history, George and Margaret Brush arrive.
 
 
1-20-2023
 
EARLY CHERRY GROVE HISTORY No. 6
 
Two Steps Backwards and One Step Forward
 
When it appears that Elizabeth Perkinson is poised to own most of Cherry Grove, and the only building within it, instead she steps back from the heights. In 1886 she sells off her rental and purchase rights and options to George Brush and his wife Margaret. The reason for doing so remains unknown at this time. But the amount paid for that option taken by the Brush family was equal to the rent due the Avery sisters for the years that the Cherry Grove house had been already rented by the Perkinson family a somewhat neat deal in and by itself (i.e. three years of rent free operation).
 
In 1886 Elizabeth Perkinson sold these options to George Brush (1836-1894) and his wife Margaret (1842-1916) SEE (deed Liber 209:107). George Brush was an owner of extensive land properties on the south shore of Long Island in particular Sayville New York. You can see more about his biography from the photo included today (courtesy of Mike Smith).
 
There is less known about Margaret but like her husband, she played a pivotal part in the early history of Cherry Grove land speculation. Both will benefit Elizabeth Perkinson’s later real estate ambitions as soon to be detailed. Margaret is also somewhat bound up in the history of the Carrington House once the easterly edge of Cherry Grove now firmly situated within the boundaries of FI Pines. George Brush will die in 1894, and Margaret will inherit his fire island property. It’s her possession of land in Cherry Grove that will eventually come into the possession of various owners that build a house in the Lone Hill area ultimately that will become the present-day Carrington House property now on the national historical register.
 
In 1886 the Perkinson family continued to operate a drink and food establishment in Cherry Grove as tenants. Presumably, there are now tenants of George Brush. The business was now renamed the Atlantic hotel and was managed by Frank Perkinson (1868-1925), son of Archer and Elizabeth Perkinson. A newspaper account documents the renamed business and its new proprietor. In the Sayville News, the predecessor of the Suffolk County News, on 5-18-1886 this article appears: “The Atlantic Hotel at Cherry Grove, is now open. It is now controlled by Frank Perkinson, who will do his best to entertain all visitors''.
 
While the term hotel was used in advertisements and other notices about the business it should be noted that this may have been a rather generous description of the business as those same public notices do not advertise rooms for rent.
 
In 1887 George Brush bought a substantial portion of Cherry Grove land from the Avery family. This appears to be much of the same land first offered to Elizabeth Perkinson in 1886. However, the deed does not detail the sale of a building. This is documented by deed records (Liber 303:509).
 
In 1887 the Atlantic Hotel remained open under the management of Frank Perkinson. This is documented by a newspaper account again in the Sayville News. The account about Frank Perkinson appears in the form of an advertisement for the Atlantic Hotel published on 8-27-1887 with this content:
 
“Atlantic Hotel, Cherry Grove, Great South Beach, Frank Perkinson prop. Can be seen from Sayville, and is within 30 minutes sail of the same. Bathing suits, and bathing houses in first class order. Clam fritters, and all kinds of Shell Fish, constantly on hand. Refreshments of all kinds furnished. Satisfaction guaranteed. Steamer Iona will make two trips daily, leaving Patchogue 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., stopping at Sayville. Round trip 25 cents.”
 
Let's just think about that for a second: 25-cent ferry ride. How times have changed!
 
In 1888 newspaper accounts document that the business had been renamed. It was now the Cherry Grove hotel managed by Archer Perkinson.
 
In 1889 and 1890 Archer Perkinson continued to manage the Cherry Grove hotel.
 
Next up: 1891 and Elizabeth Perkinson takes charge
 
1/21/2023
EARLY CHERRY GROVE HISTORY No. 7 PART ONE
 
We are two-thirds done with this history series. This post is the first part of section 7 that we have broken up into two parts because the three maps now posted will be needed for readers to do some compare and contrast visual investigation of their own. And they need to be separated out to better understand.
 
Included in Section 7 are two new historical discoveries worth a bit of their own mention because they are important. In part 1 there is a map that this editor believes is the first credible proof that, as has been claimed but never really established before, Archer Perkinson did build the first house in Cherry Grove.
 
And for the first time, a lost newspaper account, at least since its original appearance decades ago, of a second account from a Perkinson grandchild about the early history of Cherry Grove and it’s mind-boggling if true. Up till now, historians have only had a small account from Myra Jones Weeks (1886-1962), daughter of Hester Ann Perkinson Jones (1855-1936) who was the daughter of Archer and Elizabeth Perkinson to refer to about the early days of Cherry Grove.
 
Now, for what’s it worth, there’s a second one, a small one as well, to consider from Marion Archibald Perkinson, son of Stewart Perkinson (1861-1941), who was the son of Archer and Elizabeth Perkinson. Out of the mist of the past, there are some new sights to be seen from a second Perkinson grandchild.
 
The maps are these: the 1878 Sammis map that locates the Isaac Bedell building, a section of the 1915 Hyde map that locates that same building in 1915, and an 1893 Emmet Smith map that located oyster beds in the Great South Bay in Brookhaven Town but used some land references on Fire Island when doing so. (Click photos for more information).
 
Ahead: it’s 1891 and Elizabeth and Archer Perkinson get down to business.
 
1/22/2023
 
EARLY CHERRY GROVE HISTORY No. 7 PART TWO
 
1891 is a pivotal year in the early history of Cherry Grove. It was in 1891 that Elizabeth Perkinson purchased for the first-time land in Cherry Grove self-identifying herself in a deed transaction as a “hotel keeper” see deed (Liber 346 page 346). That hotel will be for the next several years a return to an earlier branding of the Cherry Grove hotel: the Atlantic hotel.
 
The Bedell building is left behind
 
However, there is mapping information documenting that this land purchase did not include the land and building where the first Cherry Grove house (a/k/a Cherry Grove hotel), Atlantic Hotel (first appearance), and Ocean Grove pavilion originally stood. Now it’s time to go back to Part One and looks at the map relevant to this subject. Start with the Belcher Hyde map of Long Island 1915 that documents the Isaac Bedell house is still in existence completely separate from the location of the Cherry Grove hotel and land owned by Stewart and Sarah Perkinson. It is located on this map completely consistent with the prior location provided in the 1878 Jonathan Sammis map of Lot 26 (Cherry Grove).
 
The Atlantic House Puzzle
 
The exact origins of the Atlantic Hotel building of 1891 (the second appearance of this named business) is a story that is not completely explained as there are conflicting accounts explaining the beginnings of the 1891 building. Until more facts are discovered this appears to be a newly found mystery of sorts.
 
And this is why. There is substantial but not conclusive evidence that the Perkinson family purchased an already free-standing building in nearby Water Island, and floated it to Cherry Grove to replace the building that they had been renting before Elizabeth Perkinson’s 1891 land purchase.
 
In early 1891 there was an Atlantic House named building standing on Fire Island. It was not in Cherry Grove but in nearby Water Island which had been standing for several years already. In 1891 it was up for sale and so advertised by its owner D.J. Thurber of Water Island.
 
A voice from the past now heard
 
Until now this account of the early history of Cherry Grove has never been published since it originally appeared in the pages of the Suffolk County News on 6-5-1936. It's a brief interview of Marion Perkinson (1888-1951), son of Stewart Perkinson who is the son of Archer and Elizabeth Perkinson, their grandchild. It reveals a previously unknown history of how Cherry Grove began and it is tied to the Atlantic House.
 
The newspaper reporter attributes to Marion the following: “He says his father first had a hotel at Water Island and later moved it to Cherry Grove where it still stands as part of the present hotel. See the 1936 article at this link: https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/.../1936-06-05/ed-1/seq-
9/#date1=06%2F01%2F1936&index=2&date2=06%2F31%2F1936&words=Cherry+Grove&to_year2=1936&searchType=advanced&sequence=0&from_year2=1936&proxdistance=5&page=1&county=Suffolk&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=cherry+grove&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&SearchType2=prox5
 
Did this happen? The answer is: maybe.
 
Untangling the puzzle
 
There certainly are connections between the Perkinson family and Water Island and the vicinity.
 
In 1880 a young 22-year-old Stewart Perkinson, as per a newspaper account, was running a small boat between Patchogue and Water Island presumably to the Water Island Pavilion open in Water Island. In 1882 his father Archer was the proprietor of the Water Island Pavilion and in 1883 the proprietor of the Water Island hotel. Stewart was the proprietor of a pavilion in nearby Watch Hill in the same year. He was replaced in 1884 by John Ferguson ending his connection to Watch Hill. After that, there are no newspaper accounts about him until 1895 when he surfaces as the proprietor of the Cherry Grove hotel now its owner. It’s unlikely he retired in the intervening 12 years. So where was he? Events in Water Island suggest an answer.
 
Daniel Thurber's helping hands?
 
In 1891 Daniel Thurber owned several buildings in Water Island including the Atlantic House which he had opened in Water Island in 1889. By interesting coincidence, Daniel Thurber’s son Jacob was married to Emily Perkinson daughter of Archer and Elizabeth Perkinson circa 1874. That marriage established a link between the Perkinson and Thurber families.
 
And what do families do? They help each other out. It’s entirely speculative but not much of a leap to think that Daniel Thurber employed the now-unemployed Stewart Perkinson in 1884 and then facilitated a sale to the Perkinson family of the Atlantic House in 1891.  Daniel Thurber needed to sell a building and the Perkinsons needed one. It’s a mutually convenient deal. Now needed in Cherry Grove Stewart leaves Water island.
 
It’s a plausible theory that makes Marion’s account both understandable and credible. There is some more information to look at that add to the credibility of Marion’s claim about his father and the Atlantic House.
 
Tracking the Atlantic House building
 
Was the Atlantic House actually sold off to Cherry Grove? Some deductive reasoning will have to occur for that to be explained and it takes this form. Early in 1891, Daniel Thurber advertised the sale of the Atlantic house building. There are no newspaper accounts describing its fate but in early 1895 Archer Perkinson advertised the sale of the Atlantic house now located in Cherry Grove. So, there are newspaper accounts documenting it was located in Water Island in 1891, and then next found in Cherry Grove in 1895.
 
This strongly suggests that the Atlantic House was the property of the Perkinson and had in fact been moved to Cherry Grove from Water Island in 1891.
 
Was a building actually floated to Cherry Grove? And just how was it moved?
 
The answer lies in Daniel Thurber’s history. In the late spring of 1888, his pavilion in Water Island burned down suspiciously. He sprang into action and bought a pre-existing pavilion building in Patchogue and floated it to Water Island. In other words, if there was one person who had the experience of floating a building on the water it was Daniel Thurber.
 
Why the Atlantic house stayed put
 
Archer’s attempt to sell off the Atlantic house building in Cherry Grove would appear to have ended when in 1895 Stewart Perkinson buys out his mother’s land in Cherry Grove presumably including all buildings standing within her property which would include the Atlantic House building. Now firmly in Stewart’s possession, it would not have been moved again accounting for why it was still part of the Cherry Grove Hotel many years later as per Marion’s account.
 
This information is circumstantial but if an accurate reconstruction of events then it is entirely consistent with Marion’s 1936 claim.
 
Or this happened
 
Alternatively, it’s entirely possible in 1891 that Elizabeth Perkinson and her husband built a new building in order to remain in business with the building later expanded. Whatever the origins of the building it was named the Atlantic Hotel harkening back to when in a different location they had operated a similarly named business (1886-87), Elizabeth Perkinson now serving as its proprietor in her own right from 1891 to 1894.
 
Elizabeth the emancipated
 
That was no small deed either. In the America of the 1800s women could not vote. In many states, although not New York, men continued to own their property and wages. Women often were consigned to a behind-the-scenes role even if their actual roles were greater than or equal to their husbands.
 
Next up: Archer the builder and the torch is passed
 
1/23/2023
 
EARLY CHERRY GROVE HISTORY No. 8
After yesterday’s tangled ball of yarn called the Atlantic house puzzle, this editor has decided the end has come to our series about the early history of Cherry Grove. So, today we go from the build-up of the Perkinson business operated by Archer and Elizabeth Perkinson that began in 1891 to their graceful exit in 1895.
 
In 1892, 1893, and 1894 Elizabeth Perkinson was the advertised proprietor of the Atlantic Hotel. That said, during these same years there are also numerous newspaper accounts identifying Archer as a hotel proprietor too suggesting that Archer and Elizabeth did share this duty as a practical matter.
 
During these years there are newspaper accounts that document he had his own particular style. He appeared as the public face of the business. He would greet visitors at the dock. He brought along his dog Sam who did tricks. He played musical instruments at dances held at the hotel one of which was the banjo (1892 version picture today). He planted the first garden in Cherry Grove too.
 
In 1893 Emmet Smith published a map of oyster beds in the Great South Bay in Brookhaven Town. Some land features of Fire Island were also mapped as reference points. One of them is the “Perkinson’s House Chimney” in Cherry Grove. It appears to be good evidence that Archer Perkinson did build the first house, the second actual building, in Cherry Grove around this time.
 
In 1894 Archer Perkinson was documented in newspaper accounts as renovating the now-named Atlantic Hotel. He is credited with extending the piazza and kitchen. He is also reported to have built a permanent dock for “small sailing craft” too. Whatever its size this does appear to have been the first permanent dock built in Cherry Grove.
 
With the decline of the Surf Hotel near the Fire Island Inlet far to the west, tourism to Point of Woods, Cherry Grove, and Water Island builds. Regular ferry service to all three locations also becomes more established and dependable. The Atlantic hotel appears to prosper as it remains open despite stiff competition from these nearby hotels and pavilions.
 
Elizabeth, as proprietor of the Atlantic Hotel, proves herself to be no pushover either. Faced with bargain ferry rates to Water Island draining customers from Cherry Grove, Elizabeth offers free ferry service to the hotel along with a clam chowder meal undercutting her competitors.
 
1895 EXIT
 
It was in 1895 that Elizabeth Perkinson sells her land and hotel to her son Stewart Perkinson (1861-1941) as deed documented (Liber 427 page 383).
 
Elizabeth and Archer Perkinson retire from active management of their Cherry Grove business having laid the foundation for a future Cherry Grove community of residents and additional businesses to come in the decades to follow. Stewart and his wife Sarah (1861-1935) now become the managers of the once again renamed business: the Cherry Grove hotel. They will be community pillars for decades to come.
 
Archer will die in 1900 and Elizabeth in 1916. In life, their personal odyssey was quite remarkable. He was an oysterman, and she was a housekeeper, in the end, both wound up managing successful hotels and possessing large land holdings. Their business and personal relationship lasted decades. Only death separated them. Together they forged the basis of the future Cherry Grove community, their lasting legacy.
 
They were not the first founders as has been alleged by many earlier historians. But unlike the earlier founders they came and stayed in Cherry Grove on a long term basis. They had the first home. The hotel business they took over, while it has changed hands many times since then, remains today in the form of the present day Cherry Grove hotel and Ice Palace. This is a time span of more than a hundred years. Their children and grandchildren would become the future leaders of Cherry Grove for decades to come.

​It can be said that there were the first among the founders for all the reasons and more as detailed above. 






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