The History of Lynbrook Web Site

Lynbrook Historical Books

28 Hart Street - Lynbrook, NY 11563-1711

Lynhistory@AOL.com

Copyright Protected © 1986-2008 by Art Mattson

Art Mattson, Lynbrook Historian for almost twenty years, has published the book,

The History of Lynbrook

Click on the book's front-cover above

for a description of the book and how to order it.

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Mr. Mattson will soon publish his next book,

 Water & Ice

the forgotten shipwrecks

of the Bristol & the Mexico.

Mural in the Lynbrook Post Office - by Kevin O'Malley.

(Looking north up Atlantic Avenue from where LIRR trestle is today)

Frank Short "Shorty The Cop" (ca. 1930) and Lynbrook's Five Corners (ca. 1940), looking east down Merrick Road.

A “Brief History of Lynbrook” by Art Mattson

appears at the end of this web-page.

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Art's CORNER

(Letters from vistors to this site)

For historical Information about the Village of Lynbrook, New York, established in 1785, incorporated in 1911, and formerly known as Pearsalls, Pearsall's Corners and Bloomfield,

click on one of the following topics:

How Lynbrook Got Its Name

(From Rechquaakie to Near Rockaway to Parson's Corners to Bloomfield to Pearsall's Corners to Pearsall's to Pearsalls, and finally in 1894 to Lynbrook)

The Rockaway Indians ONE MILLENNIUM AGO

How the Rechquaakie of East Rockaway, Lynbrook and Lakeview Lived

Whittaker Chambers' Home in Lynbrook

A paper covering Whittaker Chambers' years in Lynbrook, his home for 42 of his 60 years. Discusses the influences Lynbrook had on his life.

The History and Ownership of 71 Union Avenue      

Lynbrook's most historic house, home to a Civil War hero and many of Lynbrook's leading families, recently demolished.

The Lynbrook Bottling Company

Read about Lynbrook's victim of the "Great Depression"

Lynbrook's Historical Markers - Texts and Locations

·         LYNBROOK - ESTABLISHED 1785

·         LYNBROOK'S FIVE CORNERS

·         THE SAND HOLE CHURCH

·         THE MARINERS BURYING GROUND

The Wreck of the Sailing Ship Bristol - November 21, 1836

Read two horrifying contemporaneous newspaper accounts of the wreck of the sailing ship Bristol on the sandbar off Long Beach.  The Rockville (Sand Hole) Cemetery in Lynbrook has an obelisk marking the common grave of 139 Irish, Scottish and English immigrants who drowned in the winter storms of 1836-37.  Many of the victims were women and children.

Links to Related Sites

Historical Society of East Rockaway and Lynbrook

Malverne Historical

13th Independent Battery - NY Light Artillery - David Driscoll's Civil War Unit

Records of the Rockville Cemetery (Old Sand Hole Cemetery) and records of Various Lynbrook families (Abrams, Davison, Pearsall, etc.)

Pearsalls Corner (L Harvey's Website)

Hutton Preservation Society -- in Hutton, Brentwood, Essex, ENGLAND

Robert Herrmann has written an autobiography, Code Blue - Officer Down, which presents his often dangerous, sometimes hilarious life as a Lynbrook Patrolman in the 1950, 60s and 70s.  E-mail Bob at retpo@frontiernet.net to get a copy of his off-beat book.  

Registering a Lynbrook Historical Structure or Place

E-Mailing me

lynhistory@aol.com

Available by E-Mail request:  An 1888 (scanned) map of Lynbrook, with locations shown for property owners: Abrams, Allen, Bedell ,Box, Brower, Burtis, Cornell, Cowper, Davidson, DeMott, Doxey , Dredger, Ehredorf, Furman, Graef, Hughes, Hutchinson, Jones, Kuen, Langdon, Lee, Leach, Mott, Pearsalls, Plinkington, Rider, Seeley, Shaw, Simonson, Smith,Van Deusen, Watts,Wood, Wricht (Wright).

A Brief History of Lynbrook

By Art Mattson

Copyright Protected © 2008

Permission to republish required.

Source:  The History of Lynbrook, (pub. 2005) by Arthur S. Mattson.

            For hundreds of years before English and Dutch settlers arrived, the Rockaway Indians, an Algonquin group, lived in the area we today know as Lynbrook.  They called the place Rechqua-Akie, “a sandy place.”  When the Europeans arrived in 1641, they re-named the place Near Rockaway, from a mispronunciation of the Indian name and because of it’s nearness to Hempstead, which was the main settlement.   By 1785, there were 40 houses in the area, and in 1790 a Methodist church was constructed at Ocean Avenue and Merrick Road.  The settlement became known as Parson’s Corners.  Small farms gradually spread westward toward the Five Corners – at the intersection of Hempstead Ave., Merrick Rd., Broadway and Atlantic Ave – and the area around the Five Corners became known as Bloomfield.

Around 1830-40, a young businessman from East Rockaway, Wright Pearsall, opened a general store and post office at the Five Corners.  His store prospered so much so that, by 1850 he and his family owned almost all the land around the Five Corners.  The name Pearsall’s Corners took hold.   In 1853, the Merrick Road was planked with hemlock boards and made into a toll road, providing a choice of ways to get from Lynbrook to New York City:  by stagecoach-and-ferry or by packet boat from East Rockaway.

            When the Southern Railroad extended its line through Pearsall’s Corners in 1867, it brought big changes.  For starters, the railroad shortened the name of the hamlet to Pearsalls.   Other changes were more profound.  Previously, the village had an economy based primarily on shipping non-perishable goods such as milled wheat and corn to New York City and to more distant ports.  But now the railroad enabled Lynbrook to pack and ship fresh farm produce and seafood direct to downtown Brooklyn and then on to New York City in just a few hours – for cash.  For example, in the month of February, 1882 alone, 356,350 pounds of oysters were shipped from the Pearsalls railroad station. This new flow of commerce was not just one-way. Dry-goods-stores, restaurants and inns were opened in Pearsalls.  By 1890, the hamlet had grown to over 2,000 residents, many of them daily commuters to jobs in downtown Brooklyn.

            On April 4, 1894 a group of newcomers to Pearsalls pushed through a name change – to Lynbrook, which is “Brooklyn” with syllables transposed. The name was changed over the strenuous objections of many old-time residents.  They continued to call the hamlet “Pearsalls” for another 25 years.  Along with the new name, the newcomers brought about many improvements such as gas mains, electricity, and telephone lines.

            The year 1911 formally marked the end of Lynbrook as a country hamlet.  That is the year the Village of Lynbrook was incorporated.  Within the next twenty years, bonds were issued to pave dirt roads with concrete, build a Municipal Building, and construct an all-brick High School and a neo-classical-style Library.  By 1925, all the remaining farms had been subdivided into business and housing lots.  That year Lynbrook was named the fastest growing village in Nassau County. 

            In recent years, a new library, village hall, recreation center and community pool have been constructed.  The downtown business center has been revived with the help of a federal grant. For the past 20 years, with little land available for development, Lynbrook’s population has hovered around 19,500 to 20,000.

Lynbrook’s Most Famous People

Henri Charpentier ran Henri’s French Restaurant, on Scranton Avenue. Opened in 1906, the restaurant became world famous.  It was patronized by presidents and generals, and gastronomes from as far away as Europe.  The invention of the crepe suzette is credited to Henri Charpentier.

Lynbrook was home to Whittaker Chambers, the communist spy, writer, and witness for the prosecution in US vs. Alger Hiss.  Chambers grew up in a house on Earle Avenue, beginning in 1904 when he was three. He lived in the house off and on throughout his life.  Chambers wrote an emotional chapter about his life in Lynbrook in his influential book, WITNESS.

Wright Pearsall -- Wright Pearsall was the founder of Lynbrook.  His general store, post office and stagecoach stop was the most important business in town in the mid 1800s.  The name “Pearsall’s Corners” took hold, lasting for 50 years until the name Lynbrook was adopted in 1894.

Important Events in Lynbrook’s History 

A Revolutionary War Battle was fought at Lynbrook’s eastern border.  On June 22, 1776, George Washington’s militiamen marched east along the Merikoke Indian trail (Merrick Road), to Near Rockaway.  They came to the home of a British Loyalists, Isaac Denton, near the intersection of Merrick Road and Ocean Avenue. But he, along with many of the Loyalists that they were looking for, fled into a nearby swamp at today's Tanglewood Preserve. Nineteenth-Century historian Henry Onderdonk Jr., in his book, Revolutionary Incidents of Queens County, tells the story:

The party of Washington’s soldiers went to Hempstead swamp (at the head of Michael DeMott's mill pond) to take up some Tories who were hiding there. The Tories made some resistance, and fired on the soldiers in the woods. The soldiers returned the fire, and wounded George, son of William Smith. The Tories then called for quarter. The soldiers took six prisoners and put them in Jamaica jail. [http://www.lihistory.com/4/hs402a.htm]

The Rockville Cemetery on Lynbrook’s eastern border has a memorial to the tragic loss of over 200 Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English immigrants who drowned in the winter storms of 1836-7 in wrecks off Long Island’s South Shore.  139 of the unfortunate passengers of the ships Bristol and Mexico are buried there in a mass grave.  This was one of the worst sea disasters in American history.  The story is the subject of Art Mattson’s soon-to-be-published book, Water & Ice.

Lynbrook Village Facts

Lynbrook’s Official Mottos: “The Village That Leads the Way” and “Een Draght Mackt Maght”  The latter is Dutch for: “In Unity there is Strength,” which is also Brooklyn’s motto.  Remember:  “Lyn-brook” is “Brook-lyn” with syllables transposed.

Lynbrook’s Official Song:  “Lynbrook, USA” - Words and music by Paul E. Holm.

Lynbrook’s Seal: designed by Jay Stroly in 1986.

Lynbrook’s Village Hall:  dedicated in 1970

Lynbrook’s Highest Elevation above Sea Level:  31 feet (at Hawthorne St)

Lynbrook’s Total Area: 2.0 square miles

Lynbrook’s Population: 19,669 - as of Jan 1, 2000

Source is LIPA [http://www.lipower.org/community/index.html#Pop.%20Survey]

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