Fire Island National Park: The William Floyd Estate
by Meg Carr
During our excursion this week, we had the chance to explore some national parklands. An annex to the Fire Island National Seashore, the William Floyd estate is a beautiful piece of land with a rich history…and some nice hiking trails! Though the estate was 4,400 acres during its prime, the 613 remaining acres were donated to the National Parks Service by the Floyd family in 1965. Shortly afterwards the family donated the 25room house on the property under the stipulation that it should not be altered. Since then, the house has been used as an educational museum.
With an ocean view, access to freshwater streams, marshlands, and its own forest, the estate is home to a great variety of wildlife. One of the most recent ecological triumphs at the site involves a pair of bald eagles selecting the estate as a nesting ground. Having found a convenient, prebuilt osprey nest, the birds rearranged it to suit their liking and successfully nested for the first time this year. This is only the fourth known bald eagle nesting pair on all of Long Island since their disappearance in the 1930s. The first nesting pair to return was discovered on Gardiner’s Island in 2006. Though these birds are no longer endangered, recent sightings provide hope that they may once again be a common sight in LI.
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| The William Floyd House (also known as the Old Mastic House) was built as a 6room home in 1724. Since then, it has undergone a number of additions. Photo by Haena Lee |
Walking through the William Floyd Estate
by Emily Recchia
Walking through the William Floyd Estate, you might feel like you’re in an antique shop. Over the span of 250 years, various pieces of furniture, art, books, tools, and architecture have been preserved within the house, providing visitors with a snapshot of American history. In 1976, on the Bicentennial of the United States, the Floyd family gifted all 613 acres of this time capsule to the National Park Service under the condition they maintain the house and keep everything as it was left. As we carefully shuffled through the 25 rooms on display, each presented a synergistic expression of three centuries of life in Mastic, New York. An active family cemetery on the property where descendants of William Floyd still retain burial rites suggests that the story of the Floyd estate is coming to a quiet ending. Despite this, the rich history of the Floyd family resonates throughout Long Island culture for centuries to come.
William Floyd was the oldest son of Nicoll Floyd and Tabitha Smith. Born in 1734, William was only 20 when he inherited the estate following his parents’ death in 1755. He was successful regardless, managing the plantation and becoming involved in local Brookhaven politics despite very little formal education. William Floyd was so successful and affluent that he was the only signer of The Declaration of Independence from Suffolk County and the youngest of the four New Yorkers that signed. In 1776 while it was unsafe for the Floyds to live in Mastic, William fled to Connecticut for safety with his family. Returning in 1783, he found his family estate to be stripped of all crop, livestock, and timber by the British. The Revolutionary War was certainly devastating to Long Islanders and Floyd was no exception. However, he was able to rebuild the plantation and the estate and family became prosperous once again.
Floyd remained politically influential and left the Old Mastic house to his only son, Nicoll when he was 70 years old. William Floyd continued the family name and inhabitants of the estate for a long time after he died in 1821 but he will always be fondly remembered for his role in American history and Suffolk County’s local history for signing the Declaration of Independence.
Fire Island Lighthouse in History
by Tara McPhillips
The first lighthouse was built in 1826 and stood about 90 feet tall and could be seen 10-14 miles off shore. It was an important beacon for trans-Atlantic ships heading toward New York City, since the Montauk lighthouse wasn’t visible from NYC. There are no pictures of the old lighthouse, only drawings and depictions of what it was supposed to have looked like. Octagonal with stripes of Connecticut Blue Stone going upwards. It had been built at the end of the inlet, but due to littoral drift, which is the winds pushing the sand westward down the coast, the inlet is now about 6 miles west of the lighthouse. All that remains of the old lighthouse is the very base, a circle of bricks, next to the lighthouse keeper’s building which had housed the keepers of the lighthouse at the time when keepers were needed on premise at all times. The picture is sketched into the window in the exact area where the old lighthouse was, and is a depiction of what it would have looked like, with 3 windows on each opposite side of the lighthouse.
The new lighthouse was built in 1857 and unlike its predecessor, was taller at 168 feet, but also had a new lens. The old lighthouse used an Argand Lamp style with panels of reflectors around a rotating lamp chandelier. Whale oil was used as the fuel. The new lighthouse had a Fresnel Lens though. This allowed a weak light to be concentrated by refracting and reflecting glass prisms, into a very strong light that could be seen for many many miles at sea. The lighthouse had a First Order Fresnel lens, which was the largest size, but had an approximate range of 22 miles. This picture shows the original Fresnel Lens from the second (current) lighthouse.
Fire Island Lighthouse Presently
By Haena Lee
The lighthouse standing on Fire Island is the “newer” version of the Fire Island Light Station Tower in the 1826. In 1858, they replaced the 1826 lighthouse. The lighthouse is 168 feet taller and more technologically advanced. However, after a flash tube optic was installed in a nearby water tower, the lighthouse was under threat of being demolished. From many donors, the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society (FILPS) was able to raise over $1.3 million to restore and preserve the lighthouse. It is now placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The lighthouse was relit in 1986 and is now privately owned by FLIPS and not by the United States Coast Guard. It is the only remaining lighthouse that is a private aid to navigation on seas. Fire Island lighthouse is lit by two 1000-watt bulbs and rotates counter-clockwise giving a flash every 7.5 second. The light is also visible almost 24 miles away! As our class was driving to the lighthouse, I counted the seconds and it really does flash every 7.5 seconds and can be seen very well far away!
The steps of the Fire Island Lighthouse were very long and tiring. There is 182 steps! That is about 50 more steps compared to Montauk Lighthouse! But it was definitely a trek to be made for the beauty to be seen on the top of the lighthouse!
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| ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKING! |
