DAYTON - SZUSTER FARM
The Szuster farm is on the west side
of the Middle Island Yaphank Road just south of Bartlett
Road. The farm was built before 1858 and it was first
owned by a family named Brown. By 1870 the farm was
bought by Charles Dayton who was a carpenter. He lived in
the house with his wife Fanny and their three daughters;
Ann, Amelia and Fanny. This is an attempt to capture some of my family history. My grandfather, Kazmier Szuster, was born in the early 1890's in Kazmier Biskupi, a little town in western Poland. It was in the political division of Poznanski. This being equivalent to our states. The reason his last name has a "Z" vice a "CH" is because depending on which country controlled the area at the time. This area shifted back and forth between Germany and Poland for over 1000 years. Grandpa came to the United States in 1910. Telophilia Haleski was born in 1893
in Eastern Poland. In 1911 her Uncle Joseph Haleski paid
for her passage to come to the United States. Upon
arriving in the U. S. she went out to Cutchogue on Long
Island, NY to where her uncle lived. She found work as a
governess for the Olemestead family in Mattituck, NY.
While out one Sunday she met Kazmier Szuster who
literally bumped into her while riding a bike. The
romance blossomed and they were married in 1912. Grandma could monogram clothing and had a very good vocabulary and could carry on a conversation even in her old age. About 1914 they moved from Mattituck,
NY to Middle Island, NY. This move was done in a horse
drawn covered wagon with a cow tied to the back.
Mattituck being about 30 miles from Middle Island took
them a good day. They rented a house in the Middle Island
area. Grandpa hired out as a laborer. They worked hard
and saved their money. The house is suspected to have been built in the early 1800's. The front of the house has an enclosed porch that had been added to the main structure. The center/main part of the house is a two story square shaped structure. There is a chimney in the center of the house. Connected into it is an oil burner in the basement and a wood burning stove on the first floor. There is a second chimney on the south side of the house. At the back of the house is a kitchen, pantry, and bathroom that had been added to the main part. The kitchen has a wood burning stove for cooking and there is also a gas stove. A unique part to the kitchen is a small room above the kitchen that is entered through a trap door. My uncles remember hiding from my Grandfather in this room when they were younger. My grandparents had 10 children. Anthony, Mary, Mike, Paul, Joe, John, Fanny, Helen, Frances (my Mom), and Vera. Uncle Tony left home at a young age and died fairly young (late 50's/early 60's). The girls all married and moved away from home but stayed on Long Island. The remaining boys stayed bachelors and worked the farm with my grandparents. Leroy Albin, a friend of my Uncle John, was an only child. He lived in Middle Island and would come up to the farm and help out or just enjoy the company. He and my Uncle John took several trips over the years. The farm continued to grow both via buildings and property expansion. Grandpa developed the property into a vegetable farm. He diversified crops and grew many different types. He was a sharp, frugal businessman. He cleared land he owned of trees to expand his fields. Everyone worked on the farm. However, Sunday was a day for going to church and only doing essential chores. There was no major work done on Sundays. There are many stories that I have heard or things I remember that I will try to document below. When my Uncle John was very young he was bringing the cows in from the pasture. Somehow the drag chain on the cow got wrapped around my Uncles leg and he was dragged for a distance by the cow. His leg was badly broken. Grandma took him to the hospital in Port Jefferson where in order to fix his leg the doctors had to use a silver plate. This worked because Unc is now 81 and still going. In the late 1920's there was a stockbroker who rented a house down below the family's. He would come out on weekends and for vacation. After the stock market crash he came out one time for a visit. The family did not see him and eventually went down to check on him. They found him in his car in the garage. He had committed suicide because of his losses I the market. This was followed in the late 60's by a suicide of Mr. Gamp. He use to come up to the farm to get water on his bike. When my Uncle's did not see him for a while they went to check on him. He had hung himself. In the late 20's early 30's grandpa bought a surplus WWI army tank. This was used to help clear land. This combined with dynamite was grandpa's primary weapon against tree stumps. Speaking of dynamite I remember a story about the building of a road from Middle Island to Port Jefferson. I believe it was whiskey road. It was called such because the foreman would move ahead of the work crew a set distance and place a jug of whiskey on the ground. If the crew built the road up to the jug of whiskey they got to drink it. I believe while they were building this road the first case of dynamite came into the county. Unfortunately it was so new that the workmen tried to open the box with a pry bar and a hammer. Several workmen were killed when the dynamite detonated. When I was growing up in the 60's my uncles had stopped using dynamite to clear land but they had bought an International Bulldozer which my uncle mike operated. During the 30's grandpa gave permission to people to dump cars that didn't work on one part of the property. This gave the uncles lots of mechanical parts to do things with. Uncle John was very inventive and he put these parts to good use. Another story during this time frame is about gangsters. One day a Black sedan raced up the road and pulled into the yard. Men with guns hoped out and opened one of the barns. They drove the car in and closed the doors. They told my Grandmother no one would get hurt as long as she told the police she had seen the black sedan whiz by. Sure enough the Police showed up quite fast. Grandma told the police she had seen a car go by. The police took off after the supposed trail of the gangster car. As soon as the police left the gangsters opened the barn drove out and told grandma to forget she ever saw them. Uncle Mike was an outstanding mechanic. He only made it to 8th grade after that he worked on the farm full time. Uncle Mike could just about take apart any Ford product and put it back together with out a manual. I use to be astounded when I was growing up because every winter Uncle Mike would completely tear down and rebuild several of the tractors and trucks. He made it appear easy and effortless. Uncle Mike also got to drive truck to New York. In the 30's and 40's he would truck produce from the farm into the markets of New York. In later years produce was handled in Port Jefferson or in most case the Auction in Riverhead. After the World War I tank Uncle Mike eventually bought an International Harvester Bulldozer and fixed it up. It was used in clearing land and maintaining roads. Part of the farm had half a mile of the Carmen's River running through it. As a kid, the river always intrigued me. It was one of my favorite places. There were two dams with pass through pipes that allowed vehicles to cross to a 40-acre parcel on the West Side of the river we called "low ground". Here each year my uncles raised corn. Some years there was a large problem with corn thieves. These were people who would go into the fields at night and pull 50-100 bags of corn. This cut into my uncle's profit margin and caused them late nights watching the fields. The river provided water in the summers for the crops in the fields. Uncles had 3 pumping stations on the farm. One was in the east section with a 150-foot deep well. Another was in a pond close to the intersection of Longwood and Middle Island road. The third was down in the river. I can remember before all the ecological regulations my uncles hired Mr. Hololob of Yaphank, who had a crane, to come help open up the springs in the river and the pond. Mr. Hololob's crane hauled up the river and pond bottom. This was moved by Uncle Mike's bulldozer or hauled away by the 1946 dump truck my uncles had. My Uncles put fences around both the pond and the section of river they dug out to keep folks out. With the snapping turtles and snakes I don't know why anyone would have gone into these places. The pump they used on the river was an Army surplus pump from World War II. This had the capability of being either battery or crank started. I remember one time the pump just wouldn't seem to start. The battery had problems. They got Uncle Joe to crank on the pump engine and he got it to start. Uncle Joe was the strongest of the Uncles. One of my memories of the river was that we found a rowboat sans oars. For some reason grandpa had a set of oars in one of the barns. We took the oars down to the rowboat and rowed it around part of the river. Grandpa kept saying "I'm the boss you the horse". Another tale I've heard of my Grandfather and the river was that one day, in the late 50's early 60's, he heard shooting from the river. It was some one shooting his ducks he told my grandmother. He took his shotgun and headed down to the river. My uncles got home from the field and my grandmother told them what grandpa had said and the fact he had gone down to the river. Two of my uncles grabbed guns and started heading down toward the river. Up comes grandpa marching two guys a head of him and his shotgun. In my late teens and early 20's I spent many an enjoyable day duck hunting down at the river. In fact when I was working at the golf course I use to carry a shotgun in my trunk during hunting season. I would hunt from sunrise till work, at lunch, and after work till dusk. The best time was when it was storming real heavy. One story I remember is that back in the 30's one of the neighbors (which were few and far between) had a large bull that broke loose. This bull raged around the Yaphank area. This bull roamed around the area for almost a year causing extensive damage to property. People shot at the bull but failed to kill it. Two of my uncles (I believe Mike and Paul) went out one Sunday hunting for this bull. They caught up with it in flower city park (a failed development that never got built because the folks in charge took the money and ran) it took them a whole bunch of shots to kill it. They found that the bull had been shot so many times that it literally had lead stuck on the outside of the hide.
Somewhere in the 20's grandpa acquired a portable sawmill. It was set up at the back of the farm area. Initially, this was steam powered. However, at some point in time it was converted to run by a gasoline motor. When I was growing up a V-8 truck engine operated it. The sawmill was used to mill the timbers from the land that was cleared. The planking from this was used to build barns and other things around the yard. There were quite a few outbuildings made from planking. Also, truck bodies were made from the wood that was cut. The wood for our garage at my house was all cut in the mill. Everything from pine to walnut was cut in the mill. The mill was only operated in the winter months from about November till February (end of harvest to spring planting). I got to shovel the sawpit when I was young. Now Uncle John has designed a conveyer system, which gets the sawdust out of the cutting pit. He also has more time to cut as they no longer farm and are in semi-retirement. The refuse slabs from the milling were in the winter months cut up and used in the two wood piles that were used to stoke the wood burning stoves. These cuttings were used to supplement the firewood that was cut every year. We used a circular saw hooked up to a tractor power take off to cut the slabs up. One pile was an in use pile, the other was the new and seasoning pile. Each pile was circular about 30 ft in diameter and about 20 ft tall. I can remember Uncle Joe pushing a wheelbarrow of wood from the woodpile to the house. I also remember me cutting up wood for kindling for the house. But, it seems like the fire in the cook stove never went out.
There were two wood stoves in the house (one for cooking and one for heating). In the main barn there was also a wood stove. This was used in the winter. Next to it was an anvil. At times this was used for black smithing. I forged a knife blade once. The main barn had three doors in it to drive vehicles in. This was the barn that Uncle Mike rebuilt equipment in during the winter. There was an old drill press and a lot of tools in this barn along with a vise and workbench. Also, this barn was used to cut seed potatoes for planting. The cutting started to take place after the New Year and lasted into March each year. Another barn was called the Collier Mansion. This was a small barn that contained a metal lathe and lots of nuts and bolts, etc. It was named after two brothers (the collier brothers) who had a collection business and tended to seem to have anything one would want. Of course there were chickens, cows and pigs. The chickens provided eggs and of course the makings for fried chicken. The cows provided milk and were used for beef. During the summer they were put out in the pastures. In the winters they stayed in the barn and had to be fed hay. In the summers we cut hay and wheat. The straw from the wheat was baled and used as bedding in the barn for the cows. We would bring in truckloads of hay or straw and unload it into barns. My Uncles had a McCormick reaper that was circa 1940. It was towed behind a tractor. It cut the Wheat and separated the grain from the stalk. Uncle Paul usually drove the tractor and Uncle Joe rode the reaper. Then Uncle John usually came along with the bailer. After a bit came Uncle Mike with the truck. My brothers or I got to drive. Of course the truck was geared down real low (about 1 mile per hour). One barn was the cow barn the other was a barn about a quarter mile away. It was between the intersection of Bartlett and Middle island road and the intersection of Longwood and Middle island road. This barn was built in 1873 and was made with wood pegs. The sad part is that the barn burned down in the late 80's. Arson was suspected.
I can remember my grandmother had a milk separator that separated the cream from the milk so that butter could be made. It was a hand cranked device and I can remember turning it for my grandmother. Also, I remember grandma had a butter churn that the cream from the separator was put in and then made into butter. This too was a hand-cranked machine. After the butter was made then, if you had been good, grandma would give you some buttermilk. The hogs my uncles had were back toward the sawmill. They got scraps off the dinner table. I can remember slopping them after meals. Winter was the time the hogs were slaughtered. However, after I was 10 or 12 the uncles did not keep pigs anymore. The animals were a small part of the farm. There were 300 acres. 200 acres were on the eastside of Middle Island road. There were 100 acres on the West Side of Middle Island road. Most of the property was in crops. There were a couple acres of strawberries, about 20 acres of tomatoes, 10 acres of peppers, 5 acres of eggplants, 40-50 acres of corn. Most of the property was in Potatoes. You could see them bloom and smell the chemicals that my Uncles sprayed for bugs in the early summer. From the end of August on we dug potatoes. Uncle Paul drove the tractor and combine. Uncle Joe drove the truck. The rest of us rode the combine and pulled out weeds, vines, rocks, mud lumps, bad potatoes and anything else that wasn't a healthy potato. Once the truck was full Uncle Mike drove it to the packinghouse. In the 60's there was one by the train track in Yaphank. However, it closed. Then there was the I.M. Young packinghouse in Port Jefferson. It burned down in the 70's. Which left Riverhead as the only packinghouse around. If prices were bad we would put potatoes in barns hoping the market improved. There was a barn, partially in the ground, down by the pond by my house, which was pretty much used for potato storage. To put the potatoes in the barns we used the chain unloader system built in the body and a conveyor belt device to move the potatoes into the barns. We used the DoodleBug to get the potatoes out of the barn and to market. The DoodleBug was a machine Uncle John designed and built. It was a truck chassis with large tractor tires in front, front wheel drive, rear wheel steering, a ford V-8 engine in the rear for propulsion. It also had a hydraulic front loader, which made it extremely useful. It was used for potatoes, logs, moving dirt and etc. Sometimes the last potatoes did not leave the barns till March. Other time's prices were good and there were no potatoes in the barns. The second biggest crop was cabbage. This normally was planted in the late July and early August time frame. We pulled cabbage plants from a seedbed and then transplanted them into the fields. Uncle Paul drove the tractor and Uncles Mike and Joe rode the planter. Uncle John and us kids pulled cabbage plants. We would cut cabbage definitely for the market on the weekend. Eventually, I even got to cut cabbage. Uncle Mike would take the loads, mostly on weekends, to auction in Riverhead. Another crop that eventually sort of died off was cauliflower. This was a labor-intensive crop because the head of the cauliflower plant had to have the leaves tied around the head. This made the head white. When it was harvested the knotted leaves were lopped off with a knife and then the white heads stacked in crates. I remember we use to have scarecrows out in the fields. There were three out in the back (cauliflower and cabbage fields) called mezach, dozach and inbendigo. The three wise men, in Polish, were what they were named after. From the middle of May till about the 4th of July strawberries were picked in the morning. Then corn was pulled or tomatoes or other vegetables picked. Then there was spraying, cultivating, weeding, and irrigation that also had to be done. Things always had to be done on the farm. From early in the morning till sunset and sometimes after that. Sunday was the only day where there was a break. We went to church. My Uncles and grandparents went to ST Isidores in Riverhead. They have done this every Sunday since my mom could remember. After church only essential chores were done. Like cows going into and out of pastures. No other work was done and people had free time for whatever. In the 20's and early 30's my aunts and Uncles would go down to a farm at the corner of Yaphank Middle Island road and Route 25 on Sunday's. It was about 2 miles away in one direction. Here they would play baseball. Between the Szuster kids and the other kids in the neighborhood they had enough for two teams. Uncle Paul was the pitcher and a pretty good one from what I hear. My parents were married in 1954. Grandpa Szuster sold them about an acre of property on the Northeast boundary of the farm. This piece of property was not useful for farming because it was hilly and it backed up to a sink hole/pond. My parents built their house on this property. One of the rooms was unfinished. In the process of finishing the room I would help By banging hundreds of nails into the floor. I was probably 2 or 3 at the time. It was about a half-mile between our house and grandma's. My Grandma and Grandpa Thuma would walk from our house to the farm. They would pull me along in a little red wagon. When we would go by the cows I would pull a blanket over my head so the cows wouldn't see me. Up at the farm, grandpa Szuster made it his project to get me to count in Polish. He would get me to count to 10. If I did it right I got a chocolate. Also, when I was young there were a number of Walnut trees around the farmhouse. In the fall all the walnuts would drop to the ground. Grandpa Szuster would give me a quarter for every bushel basket of walnuts I collected. After I collected them he would want me to husk them. Removing the husks turns your hands yellow. I spent a lot of time on the farm. When I was about 7 or 8 I went to help move irrigation pipe in the fields. I was fitted with hip boots and went to help. The temperature was in the 90's. I didn't make it across the field and had to be helped to the end. As I got older like all kids I wanted to drive. My uncles had an Old (1939) Chevy (which had the back portion of the body cut off) in the woods. The deal was if I fixed all the tires the Uncles would help me get it running and then I could use it around the farm. It took me a little while to get all the tires fixed and inflated. We then pulled it into the farmyard and with my Uncles help got it running. We build a platform on the chassis behind the front seats. This allowed it to carry items and also served as the area to mount the gas tank. I think that my Uncles had more fun than I did getting this old car to work. It took me a while to get the hang of driving this vehicle. In fact at one point I had trouble fitting the car between the chicken coop and a barn. I cracked some shingles, which are still broken to this day and provide evidence of this story. Also, as I got older I got to drive tractors by myself. I remember I was Given the task of operating a tractor with a machine to remove potato vines. The area I was working was by the old hay patch in the center of the farm. There was a stone boundary marker at the edge of the potato field and the hay patch. Uncle Mike told me not to hit the marker. You guessed it, in the process of operating everything I hit the marker. Sometimes no matter what you tell young ones it just doesn't sink in. I sure did not hit it on purpose. In 1964 the farm next door, to the south of my Uncles property was sold to Mr. Baier Lustgarten. This was the Bobinski farm prior to sale. My Uncle John tells a story how he was cultivating in the back area of the farm. He saw Mr. Bobinski over by the other side of the field standing by his tractor. Every time my uncle made a turn on the field the individual waved at him. Finally, after about an hour my uncle went over. He found the individual who had tried to uncouple a farm implement from the tractor pinned by the leg when it went wrong. Anyway, Mr. Lustgarten bought the farm to make a golf course. It became the Middle Island Country Club. Eventually, because of the golfers Mr. Lustgarten had to put up a fence to keep the golfers out of my Uncles fields. But, they still would cross the fence to retrieve golf balls. Sometimes they would throw golf clubs over the fence. Sometimes they would get hung up on the barbwire on top of the fence. Seemed like my uncles were forever running folks out of the fields. We all got to go pick golf balls and had a pretty good little business of selling golf balls back to golfers at a quarter a ball. Written by, Charles Thuma |
