Property Ownership PROFESSOR EBEN NORTON HORSFORD (1818-1893) Married into the Sylvester family twice, he made a fortune by developing and selling Rumford Baking Powder, was a prominent member of the Harvard Chemistry faculty and a supporter of both Wellesley and M.I.T. (Pricilla Dunhill, An Island Sheltered, 2002) WHERE DID HAY BEACH COME FROM? Researched and contributed by Bernard Jacob I was asked to learn what I could about the birth of the 1952 Hay Beach development plan the first step to the Hay Beach community which has grown from that development plan in the past sixty years. For me that meant understanding the birth of Hay Beach out of the lands of Sylvester Manor and turning to the person by whom that development was made possible, the larger-than-life figure of Eben Norton Horsford (1818-1893) whose benign power reigned over Sylvester Manor during the last half of the nineteenth century. I must begin with an apology. What you will get today is an amateur historian s work in progress or, perhaps, only a teaser that will ultimately defeat my efforts to tell the full story of the birth of Hay Beach. And I must begin by thanking Phyllis Wallace and Kathy Gooding for opening the Society s archives to me and directing my first steps. 25
Yet I have not been able to find the full story. I have taken the Society s documentation of that era, and I have gone to several archives and to the files of the Suffolk County Surrogate, but I still lack some basic documents and information that would fill in all the blanks, in particular, I lack a copy of a 1949 Compromise Agreement (they called it that) among members of the Fiske family. That document, I know, led to the incorporation of the Hay Beach Point Corporation and provided for its acquiring the Horsford lands that make up Hay Beach. The document is missing from the Cornelia Horsford (1861-1944) probate file as I have it although the document was formally presented to the Court in that proceeding. But, perhaps, even more importantly I have had little chance to interview the many people on the Island whose memory-boxes hold more of the story I seek than I will find on paper records. Nevertheless, I hope to show you the probability that Hay Beach arises out of Eben Horsford s will and is the last large land sale by the people of Sylvester Manor. I hope I can support that claim of probability by the evidence I have been able to gather. If one is to understand the initial stages of our Hay Beach, one must also look at a sketch-map of Shelter Island as it was in the year 1870 (see map). Look at what it shows in the North East of the Island. The Manor today is said to be less than 250 acres and lies bounded on one side by Manhanset Road and stops far short of Cobbetts Lane. This map, however, shows the Manor as consisting of the entire area of the Manor s current acres and, far beyond, it goes on to the northern and eastern shores of the Island. In 1870 the entire area belonged, in the map s language, to E.N. Horsford. That northern part is Hay Beach, and part of the Manor in 1970. So we come to Eben Norton Horsford. He married, successively, two of the three daughters of Samuel Smith Gardiner and Mary L Hommedieu; each of his wives was a true descendant (through their mother) of Nathaniel Sylvester and his 16-year old bride, Grizzel Brinley. Horsford is in all ways a fascinating figure. He is well-described in Priscilla Dunhill s An Island Sheltered and in the work of the Shillingburgs, to whom the modern history of the Island owes so much, and I draw much of my sketch of him from them. Eben Horsford was, first and foremost, a scientist, a teacher and persistent researcher in practical chemistry, better things for better living. He was an excellent businessman, developing and marketing the results of his chemical researches, his many patents. He was an influence on the development of Harvard University into the billion dollar operation that we know it as today, for he was the University s first professor of chemistry and a part of Harvard s first, timid entry into the new world of university level education in the sciences. He was an early supporter of Radcliffe and a trustee of Wellesley. He was afloat in and part of Boston s late 19th century intellectual dominance of the American literary, scientific and religious scenes. Horsford, like many professors, met his first wife, Mary L Hommedieu Gardner, when she attended classes he was teaching. She gave birth to four daughters in her short life (she died at 32, as did her mother before her). Five years later, Horsford married Phoebe Dayton Gardiner, his first wife s sister, and in 1861 she gave birth to his last daughter, Cornelia Horsford. 26
Shelter Island as it was in the year 1870 (Nelson, 1943) courtesy of Phyllis and Bernard Jacobs. Eben Horsford brought two novelties to Sylvester Manor. He and his family were tied to life in Cambridge, Massachusetts during the academic year, but they, equally faithfully, returned to the elegantly sylvan and historic Sylvester Manor every summer. They were among the first of what would be a flood of summer residents here. Eben died in Cambridge, with Massachusetts as his domicile, and only those portions of his will, which dealt with Shelter Island real estate, were probated in New York. The second novelty that Horsford brought to the Manor was wealth, something that the Sylvesters, Brinleys, Derings and Gardiners that preceded him did not have too much of. The income of Rumford Chemical Company, and its chief product, Rumford Baking Powder, flowed into his family all of his life; and ownership of its stock was still a large part of Cornelia Horsford s estate. 27
Eben Horsford is probably most widely remembered on the Island today for his largest land sale during his life. In 1870 he sold two hundred acres on the north of the extended Manor lands, along Dering Harbor, to a group from Boston. You can see that parcel of land on the 1870 map. On this land, as you may know, the purchasers soon erected the resort hotel, Manhanset House, with much of the remaining acreage hopefully to be sold in small lots for separate summer residences. After forty years in business, the hotel was destroyed by a second disastrous fire in 1910, and the hotel ruins were abandoned; finally, the individual occupants of the few summer residences that then existed formed a company to purchase the mortgaged 200 acres from a bank. In 1916 the Manhanset lands had become Dering Harbor village, called the Smallest Village in Stewart Herman s careful history. But what concerns us are not the sales Horsford made during his lifetime, but his purchases. Over the years he seems to have re-acquired much of the land reaching north and east of the boundaries of the Manor lands as they were during the life of his father-in-law, Samuel Smith Gardiner. His will does not precisely describe lands he owns in Shelter Island, but only describes it as all the real estate on Shelter Island of which I shall die seized or possessed. His disposition of these lands is, as we will see, a strange one, for he leaves the lands in trust to his daughters, Lillian and Cornelia, and his son-in-law, Andrew Fiske, as trustees. (The last is the grandfather of the Andrew Fiske who, with his wife, Alice Hench Fiske, is known, personally or at least by repute, to many Islanders, as the long-time occupants of the Manor). The trustees were instructed, to control, improve and manage the same in their discretion. Moreover, they were given the largest powers to sell all or any portions of the trust lands. It was only the net income from the lands, including sale proceeds, and not the lands themselves, that was to be divided and distributed (as the will goes on to say): equally among all my daughters who shall be living at the time of any such division and the then living issue by right of representation of any deceased daughter or daughters. Students in my old wills classes might grimace and see a problem with this provision, but no-one saw any such problem when the will was probated after Horsford s death in 1893. But consider how strange, leaving aside any theoretical legal problem with the language, the provision seems. It is different from what one could expect; it meant that sales and even development for sales was encouraged and there is even a provision that, after ten years from his death, his then living daughters by unanimous action, could force a sale of any and all the unsold lands. Is this consistent with the stability of ownership that had been a hallmark of Sylvester Manor, even at that time, for almost 250 years? Yes, for as I have pointed out above, the land was often thought of as a resource, to be sold to permit the support of the core, the Manor itself and its immediate surroundings. This is the way to see Horsford s intent to realize on the lands by development and sale. Perhaps he was looking to the future of Shelter Island as a summer island! Those then living on the Island already knew that such a future was possible by reason of the existence of Manhanset House and of Prospect House in the Heights, and the concern and success of those projects in selling building lots to prospective summer residents. 28
There is another fact that makes these provisions understandable. What Eben Horsford owned on Shelter Island was not the Manor itself or the lands immediately surrounding it; this was the Manor as it existed before Horsford appeared on the scene. Instead, the Manor and its core holdings were owned by his widow and her two sisters and, by the time his widow died, by his widow alone. He had added his acquisitions to that core. It is to both, however, over which the map of the Island as it was in 1870 puts the words, E.N. Horsford ; he was indeed, by force of his personality even if not otherwise, very much the eleventh Lord of the Manor. When, after his death, his widow, Phoebe Dayton Gardiner Horsford left the Manor and its core property to her daughter, Cornelia, on the other hand, it was the use of the property that came to her for life and with a special power of appointment to will it to any lineal... descendants of... Eben N. Horsford. Unlike the provisions that Eben Horsford made for his lands, Phoebe s concern was to leave the Manor and its core lands whole and un-touched and in the hands of the issue of her late husband for the foreseeable future; and Cornelia expressed the same intent in her will. The then living daughters of Eben Horsford did not demand, at any time after ten years from Eben s death, the immediate sale of Eben s Shelter Island lands, these other and outlying lands of the Manor (as Cornelia Horsford came to call them); and it seems there were no significant sales for sixty years after Horsford s death. Much of the Horsford land was, over the years from Horsford s death until that of his daughter Cornelia in 1944, a wild and scraggly woodlot, a get-away to some and ignored by others. Hay Beach had not yet come to be. And that brings us to Cornelia s death in 1944 and the death, so unexpectedly soon after hers (1945), of her appointee of the Manor for his life, Augustus Fiske. These deaths led to a set of legal disputes that brought not only Cornelia and Augustus wills under renewed study and analysis, but also those of Eben Horsford and his widow, Phoebe Horsford. Cornelia Horsford by Healy c. 1880, SIHS Lillian Horsford Farlow courtesy harvard.edu 29
Out of that confusion, Augustus widow Ruth Dudley Sterry Fiske she was his second wife and children devised a solution acceptable to them in the Compromise Agreement of March 24, 1949, which I have already mentioned. The non-fiske lineal descendants of Eben Horsford Primes and Phelps accepted the provisions of the Compromise Agreement because those provisions did not affect them adversely; and even the special guardian appointed for minors and yet unborn children insisted on approval of the Compromise. Why? It preserved as to the outlying lands, in a new and realistic form, the basic intents of Eben Horsford for the disposition of those lands. They were to be developed and sold when that made sense; and their development and sale would end up being in the best interests of the ultimate beneficiaries that Eben Horsford had named in the disposition of his Sylvester Manor lands: the living issue of his daughters. Now, we are about to conclude our story. To do so, we will leave the wills and the trusts we have been considering and leave, too, the terms of the Compromise Agreement as it affected those lands. The terms of the Compromise Agreement, as I have said, can only be vaguely seen, in the absence of my having a copy of the elusive document. What I have used in trying to obtain a sense of the general terms of that agreement are remarks found in other documents filed in Cornelia s probate proceedings that mention, in passing, the provisions of the Compromise Agreement about the outlying lands. For instance, Cornelia s executor, Gardiner Horsford Fiske says in his petition of final accounting and seeking discharge, that the Compromise Agreement reflected uncertainty about Cornelia s beneficial interests in the outlying lands, which lands are those that Eben Fiske had brought into Sylvester Manor ownership. As a result, he said, he had transferred all her interest (both as beneficiary and trustee) to a corporation to be formed under the Compromise Agreement, that is, he transferred it to Hay Beach Point Corporation, naming that corporation. We know that Hay Beach Point Corporation was, technically, the owner and developer of Hay Beach for many years. Until we have the Compromise Agreement and, perhaps, other information to fill in all the blanks that I have left along the way, we can only say that it is probable that Eben Horsford added significant additional lands to the Manor as he found it, that he intended that those lands be held and, when deemed best, developed and sold. The proceeds of those lands were, in any case, meant to benefit his five daughters and their descendants. His daughters and their descendants also stand in the line of the descendants of Nathaniel and Grizzel Sylvester. In concluding, we turn, as I have said, from the questions of the Horsford wills and trusts. Here again, our information is far from complete, but we have four precious documents from the archives of the Shelter Island Historical Society. The earliest is the minutes of the first meeting of the directors of the Hay Beach Point Corporation on June 20, 1950. This is the Corporation to which, as we have heard, the executor of Cornelia Horsford s will transferred her interest in the outlying lands and, as I believe, also did the other trustee holding the land and all the other then living lineal descendants of Eben Horsford also. The Eben Horsford trust beneficiaries, I speculate, transferred their beneficial interests in the original trust in exchange for corporate stock or securities of the Corporation. The directors of the corporation, in any case, were, all of them, such lineal descendants, except for Frederick Prime, who was the husband of a lineal descendant. Frederick Prime having a long and close experience of the Island was made president of the corporation, but was soon succeeded by his son, Sylvester Prime. Sylvester was (through his mother, Mary Gardiner Horsford) such a lineal descendant. 30
The second Historical Society document is a 12 page appraisal of the 453 acres of the lands that once belonged to Eben Horsford and an analysis of a proposed development plan, a plan that most of us would now know as the section-by-section multi-section subdivision of Hay Beach into acre lots. The appraisal is dated in 1951. Although unaddressed it seems very likely that this appraisal supports the beginning of the Hay Beach subdivisions by the Hay Beach Point Corporation. The third Historical Society document is a one-page 1952 letter to the corporate directors from Sylvester Prime as President of Hay Beach Point Corporation which, among other things, admits that sales move very slowly indeed. The last Historical Society document is a one-page agreement with a real estate brokerage firm. It is dated May 29, 1962, more than a dozen years after the Compromise Agreement and the Appraisal laid down the structure for the development of Hay Beach as we know it today. In it, through its president, Sylvester Prime, the Hay Beach Poin Corporation authorized the broker to offer for sale, at an asking price of $625,000, all cash, of: all its land on Hay Beach Point (including the Golf Club Property)..., subject to the Golf Club lease, to zoning resolutions, and to prior sale in whole or in part. That transaction was effected, but not, as I understand it, until four more years had passed. After that the Hay Beach project was in the hands of a group of investors led by experienced real estate men, Henry Kessler and Mel Weill. The development of Hay Beach continued to move, at a slowly, but steadily increasing rate, after the Kessler-Weill group took over. All in all, the results under the Compromise Agreement did not do so badly for Eben Horsford s descendants; whatever their ultimate sales price of the unsold lots, it was likely to have been at least a dozen times the $80,000 that the whole, ragged property before development and marketing was said to be worth in the 1951 appraisal. And as for the householders who bought into Hay Beach as it developed there has been on the whole, I think, years and decades of enjoyment of time on the Island by them, their children and grand-children. Not a bad result, over-all, for land turned into a community by the planned divestment of part of the over-all land of the Manor first made possible in the will of Eben Horsford. Bernard Jacob Map from 1929 shows Lillian Horsford Farlow in possession of the northern area, while Cornelia maintained possession of the southern section. 31
The Horsford Report Whether intentional or not, the report Bernard mentioned the Report on E.N. Horsford Estate Shelter Island prepared by Joseph P. Day, Inc. in 1951 seems to be a roadmap for the type of community envisioned. The following statements can be attributed to the report: Goal:... developing plans for the highest and best use of this property and thereby a means of deriving the greatest market value... Clientele:... there has been a considerable change in the market for vacation housing as compared with years before world War II. The 40 hour, 5 day week has made it possible for the city dwellers to go away weekends and have occasional vacations during the year... which is now customary with all classes of employees... it has been found that a typical family budget should provide about 10% of the annual income for this purpose...... it seems there is no self contained community on the eastern end of Long Island for people earning from $12,000 to $20,000 a year, which offers the amenities that tend to make for a permanent colony. People in this income bracket generally are more or less permanent. They like to return year after year to the same place and if they earn more money they tend to build larger houses, but they do not move away as readily as people whose income is less stable or those who are more wealthy and therefore have a wider choice... Vision: it must offer privacy and recreation to all of the Island and not just to those who own waterfront property... The fact that there is a good golf course on the subject premises It would be an added incentive for golf lovers to come to Shelter Island to buy land, build and make that place their permanent vacation spot The same thing is true for a beach club... (They proposed using sections F on the map corresponds to present Section 9) a beach for the owners of land in the interior... Costs: The consultant estimated the cost of developing Section A (Dinah Rock Road) at $25,500 earning a net profit after sales of $25,700. A hand written note attached to that page of the document summarized the actual cost as $3,278.50. A comment on the bottom of the note read: Total cost develop Sect A to date is just over 1/8 of Day s estimated cost! Projection: the property in its entirety, prior to any developments, be considered as having a present day market value of Eighty thousand dollars ($80,000). The report suggested selling waterfront lots in Section A for $3000, and all of Section B (7 acres) for an estimated sales price of $25,000. 32
Documents from the Report on E. N. Horsford Estate Shelter Island by David Scribner, M.A.I. of Joseph P. Day, Inc. May 3, 1951. 33
Hay Beach Point Corporation and Sylvester Prime As previously mentioned, the Hay Beach Point Corporation was formed to handle the development of the Horsford lands. Sylvester Prime was the president of the Hay Beach Point Corporation responsible for the initial development of the Hay Beach area as early as 1952. Maps of proposed Highways to be known as Dinah Rock Road, Hiberry Lane, and Carrousel Lane situated at Hay Beach Point Section A were approved by the Town Board in April of 1953 (see maps). Bob and Anne DeStefano remember Prime offering all of Hay Beach, except Dinah Rock for $500,000. That included the Gardiner s Bay Country Club land. In addition, he would include the land on the right side of the golf course (80 acres) for $1000. The directors of the Club considered it but did not want to go into the real estate business. Rumors have it that there were a few groups interested in the purchase. As it turns out, the property was sold to the corporation formed by Melvin Weill Samuel Weill, Henry M. Kessler, Jack Wilder, Philip H. Bernstein and David Krieger. The map to the left was approved by the Planning Board for Hay Beach Point Corporation in 1953 for the development of Section A or 1 as it is listed on future maps. The lower map was approved in 1954 for the development of inland lots along Dinah Rock Road. The writing on the map from 1955 indicates that 13 lots have been sold and two lots already have houses on them (see small squares.) One we know is the Aberli property on Carrousel [sic] Lane. The second we think belongs to Dr. Lief Jacobsen. As we continue East from Jacobsen we would have Mosley, Bartels, Ohrtman, Conlin, Wisner and Devitt. Robert Conlin built in 1954 but his home was not marked on this map. 34
Melvin Weill, Samuel Weill, Henry M. Kessler, Jack Wilder, Philip H. Bernstein and David Krieger Contributions by Bob DeStefano, Maria Loconsolo and Kathleen Gooding Henry Kessler first saw this beautiful piece of land in the mid 60 s with one of his partners, Mel Weill, and they both fell in love with it. They immediately thought this piece of paradise would be a great purchase. They went on to put together a group of friends and bought the property in 1966. Mel Weill had the largest share and Kessler the second with other friends getting the remaining shares. Brochure promoting Hay Beach during the 1970s and 80s. The area was developed in stages starting with what was Prime s Section 3. Section 2: Dinah Rock Road Section 3: Gardiner s Bay Drive (North) Section 4: Country Club Drive Section 5: Gardiner s Bay Drive (South) Section 6: Quaker Path Area Section 7: Crescent Way Section 8: Great Circle Drive Section 9: Ram Island Beach Section 10: Point Lane After almost 50 years, the group finally dissolved after selling its final piece, Gardiner s Bay Country Club, in 2013. 35