On a frigid night in January 1840, the luxury steamboat Lexington burned and sank in the middle of the Long Island Sound with over 140 people on board. What followed were harrowing tales of survival, tragic deaths, and a media sensation that dominated the headlines for months.

Historian and journalist Bill Bleyer compiled all of the details in his book The Sinking of the Steamboat Lexington on Long Island Sound, out May 1st from the History Press. Today we unpack the whole history with Bill, from the ship's creation by Cornelius Vanderbilt to its glory days on the Sound, to the various attempts through the years at raising it from the deep. It is an epic story of technological progress, maritime dangers, and Long Island's transportation history.

Further Research

• Bill Bleyer History Lectures (Facebook)
• The Sinking of the Steamboat Lexington on Long Island Sound (History Press)
• Suffolk County Historical Society Events
• Lexington - National Underwater and Marine Agency
• Cornelius Vanderbilt's Railroad and Steamship Empire
• Nathaniel Currier

Jet fighters once roamed the skies above Long Island. Grumman, the aviation powerhouse behind such planes as the Hellcat and the Avenger, turned its attention to jets by the end of World War II. And to test those jets, they turned to men like Bruce Tuttle.

Tuttle dreamed of flying from an early age. From his family's farm on the north shore he witnessed Charles Lindbergh passing overhead on the first transatlantic flight. Tuttle became a pilot and a Marine, flying in the Pacific during World War II. After the war he went to work for Grumman, along with many of his fellow veterans, to fly jets.

Today on the podcast we learn more about Tuttle and a very specific test flight he took in an F9F Panther over Long Island Sound on December 10, 1951. It was the day that every test pilot dreads.

With us are Amy Tuttle, Bruce's daughter; Chris Ryon, Port Jefferson Historian, Bob Laravie, and John Hiz, Belle Terre historian. We discuss life as a test pilot, the importance of Grumman in Long Island history, and what to do when your jet flames out at 33,000 feet.

Further Research

• Bruce Tuttle (from TBR News Media)
• Port Jefferson Village History
• Leroy Grumman (Cradle of Aviation Museum)
• Birth of the American Jet Age

Today we welcome back former Newsday reporter Bill Bleyer. Bill is an author and historian with a number of Long Island-related history books to his credit and today we dive into his work on the Culper Spy Ring.

Published in 2021, George Washington's Long Island Spy Ring: A History and Tour Guide is an analysis of the Culper Spy Ring. In it, Bleyer synthesizes what is known and has been written about the Ring. He incorporates and evaluates primary sources such as the 194 extant letters regarding the spy ring as well as the works of Morton Pennypacker, Alexander Rose, Brian Kilmeade and others to tease out fact from fiction from downright fabrication. The book also includes a comprehensive guide to sites on Long Island related to the Culper Spy Ring story.

Further Research

• Bill Bleyer History Lectures (Facebook)
  • George Washington's Long Island Spy Ring: A History and Tour Guide

• Raynham Hall Museum

• Three Village Historical Society

• George Washington Letters (SBU Special Collections & Archives)

• Drowned Meadow Cottage Museum (Instagram)

• Tri-Spy Tours

• Audio Footnotes
  • Past Culper Spy and Revolutionary War episodes
  • 2017 Bill Bleyer interview

A tree-lined street running gently down to a flat blue bay, flanked by over two hundred years worth of American architecture. Bellport in all its glory, from its founding by the Bell brothers through its growth as a waterfront resort destination and the ensuing years as a sleepy, forgotten village. But there came a time when the old place needed saving - when all the Greek Revivals and Victorians could have been razed or replaced with McMansions.

Victor Principe's new book, Unhampton Preservation and the Happiness of Place in Bellport Village and Environs, documents the history of preservation in the area. On this episode, he discusses the importance of preserving a sense of place in an area, protecting streetscapes and historic districts as well as conserving the natural landscape. We also talk about the careful balance of forces needed to make historic preservation work, from dedicated individuals to willing political leaders to a commitment over time to following the plans and specific codes hammered out at the local level.

Further Research

• Unhampton Preservation and the Happiness of Place in Bellport Village and Environs (order here)
• Bellport Village and Brookhaven Hamlet (Find in a library via WorldCat)
• Bellport Revisited (Find in a library via WorldCat)
• Bellport Brookhaven Historical Society
• William Glackens (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

Bayport and its immediate vicinity in Islip on the south shore of Long Island have some deep ties to history. There's the Bayport Aerodrome with its vintage airplanes, the Meadowcroft estate of John Ellis Roosevelt, and the roadside sphinx of the Anchorage Inn from the early 1900s. But what would all this mean to a teenager in the early 1980s? Today we find out with Bayport native Rob Walch who grew up in the area during the age of video games and the Islanders dynasty.

It's local history through one man's life, from a part-time job at Satelite Pizza to a position on the high school rifle team to clandestine forays into the Girl Scout camp next door.

Further Research

• Bayport Aerodrome Society
• Camp Edey
• Meadowcroft
• Satelite Pizza
• A Brief History of the Hardy Boys
• Audio Footnotes:
  • The Sphinx: Episode 9
  • Bayport Aerodrome: Episode 94
  • La Salle Military Academy: Episode 41

If you lived in Brentwood in the late 1960s and 70s, you may have encountered a charming, transplanted Englishman named Raymond Buckland. You many not have realized it at the time, but Buckland was in the process of establishing Wicca as a religion in America. A private practitioner at first, introduced to Wicca by Gerald Gardner, Buckland was soon thrust into the public eye by the press. He then helped popularize Gardnerian Wicca through television appearances, newspaper interviews, and his own numerous writings on the subject. He went on to found his own museum and his own tradition of Seax Wicca.

On today's episode, we talk with Peter Ward (Brentwood Public Library) and Ellen Edelstein (Brentwood Historical Society) about Buckland's time in Brentwood, his connections to the library, and his position in the area's long history of the colorful and spiritually-minded.

Further Research

• Buckland Museum of Witchcraft & Magick
• Brentwood Public Library: Local History
• Brentwood Historical Society
• Raymond Buckland on the Dick Cavett Show (1971)
• Video Gallery (Buckland Museum)
• Articles
  • Raymond Buckland obituary (The Wild Hunt)
  • An Interview with Raymond Buckland (Llewellyn 2003)
  • "At a Witchcraft Museum, Halloween is more than Trick or Treat." (NYT, 10/31/1971)
• Books by Raymond Buckland (Open Library)

Much has been written about September 21, 1938, the day that a massive hurricane hit Long Island. For Jonathan C. Bergman, the more interesting story began the day after. His extensive research focused on the cleanup and disaster relief efforts orchestrated by a shifting network of Red Cross officials, New Deal workers, Suffolk County agencies, churchgoers, and volunteers.

On today's episode, Bergman takes us through those efforts and the impact the hurricane had on South Shore communities like Southampton and the North Fork fishing industry at Montauk. We also discuss the scope of disaster relief in the United States, from the early days of the Republic up through the emergence of FEMA in the latter 20th century.

Further Research

• Bergman, Jonathan C. 2008. "The Shape of Disaster and the Universe of Relief: A Social History of Disaster Relief and the 'Hurricane of '38 " Suffolk County Long Island New York 1938-41." Dissertation. State University of New York at Buffalo.
  • email: [email protected]
• "The Hurricane of '38" (The American Experience)
• The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 (National Weather Service)
• "The '38 Hurricane" (American Heritage)
• Hurricanes and Society in the British Greater Caribbean, 1624-1783 by Matthew Mulcahy (find in a library via WorldCat)
• Audio Footnotes:
  • Episode 54: first person accounts of the Hurricane of 38

Two Black men were shot and killed by a police officer in Freeport on a cold winter morning in 1946. Another was wounded. All three were brothers, two were World War II veterans dressed in their military uniforms. The ensuing outcry and investigations would spread far beyond the south shore of Long Island and bring the story of racial tensions on Long Island to the national level.

Christopher Verga returns on this episode to discuss that night, the Ferguson brothers, and the conditions on Long Island that led up to the deadly confrontation. His latest book, The Ferguson Brothers Lynching on Long Island, details not only a particular family's tragedy but the deeper history of racism on Long Island including the prominence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.

Further Research

• The Ferguson Brothers Lynchings on Long Island
• Orson Welles Commentaries (July 28, 1946)
• Long Island Divided (Newsday)
• Freedom's Ladder: WNYC and New York's Anti-Discrimination Law (WNYC)
• Cover of Woody Guthrie's The Ferguson Brothers' Killing (Raymond Crooke)
• Audio Footnotes: Christopher Verga episodes
  • Cold War Long Island
  • A Personal History of PTSD
  • Agent Orange on Long Island
  • Joe Giannini and the Vietnam War
  • Jack Parente and the Vietnam War

Robert Moses is the man most New Yorkers love to hate. This is in no small part due to his own hubris and the impact he had on the people living in the path of his massive construction projects. Add to that Robert Caro's hard hitting 1974 biography The Power Broker and you've got a reputation that is hard to live down.

Kara Schlichting and Katie Uva, both teachers and urban historians, have been contending with Moses in their works and in their classrooms. On today's episode they discuss the challenges of teaching Moses and of broadening our understanding of the man and the times in which he operated. We also discuss the undeniable impact of The Power Broker and how historians work to bring context and understanding to this very important figure in New York history.

We also discuss the crucial early years of Robert Moses relating to Long Island and the creation of wildly popular parks and beaches. Did he work to exclude minorities from Jones Beach? Was there anyone to stop him running roughshod across Nassau and Suffolk Counties? The answers in the historical record may not be as simple as you expect.

Further Research

• Katie Uva
• Kara Schlichting
• "Teach NY: Three Case Studies for Reassessing New York's Power Broker." New York History 103.1 Summer 2022.
• "Robert Moses and His Racist Parkway, Explained"
• Books mentioned on this episode (via WorldCat)
• Audio Footnotes
  • Episode 26: The Barbash family leads the fight on Fire Island
  • Episode 25: Journalist Karl Grossman covering Robert Moses

Today we dive back into a discussion of the Culper Spy Ring, turning our attention to the area of Port Jefferson or, more appropriately, it's original incarnation of Drowned Meadow. The village of Port Jefferson is opening the Drowned Meadow Cottage Museum inside the 18th century home of Culper ring member Phillips Roe.

Mark Sternberg, the museum's Culper Spy Ring Historian, walks us through the focus of the museum, the background of Roe, and the deeper context of the Culper Spy ring in the Setauket area. For instance, Mark's recent article in New York State Archives magazine lays out documentary evidence on the activities of Selah Strong in regards to the Revolution and spying. You'll also hear about Mount Misery, Old Man's, petticoats, and the late, lamented AMC series Turn: Washington's Spies.

Further Research

• Drowned Meadow Cottage Museum on Instagram
• "Records Reveal an Overlooked Hero of the Culper Spy Ring" (NYS Archives magazine)
• Books mentioned on this episode (via WorldCat)
• Founders Online (National Archives)
• Spy Letters of the American Revolution (Clements Library)
• George Washington and the Culper Spy Ring (Stony Brook University Libraries)
• "Mary Silliman's War: A Convincing Social Portrait"
• Audio Footnotes
  • Past podcast episodes on the Culper Spy Ring