Looking Back Before Hampton Bays Was Hampton Bays: Good Ground On Main Street

Hampton Bays wasn’t always called Hampton Bays. For centuries, it went by the moniker Good Ground. Then, in 1922, town officials and community members, looking to cash in on the Hamptons cache, officially christened the hamlet Hampton Bays.

The change, writes Hampton Bays Historical Society President Brenda Sinclair Berntson in her weekly “Throwback Thursday” column, didn’t achieve the goal of transforming the hamlet into a chic mecca for the rich and famous.

“We are not the cool kids,” she said, “and many are just as pleased it did not.”

With a recent focus on the downtown area, and with centennial christening celebrations on the near horizon, this week The Express News Group delves into the history of a section of the hamlet that’s been the topic of conversation and consternation: the north side of Main Street.

The historic profile of Hampton Bays authored for the Town of Southampton Heritage Report by Barbara Moeller, a former president of the Hampton Bays Historical Society, and Berntson, its current president, provide great resources for a look back in time at the Town of Southampton’s most populous hamlet.

Main Street, officially named Montauk Highway, was most likely a Native American trail — they were often the precursors to today’s thoroughfares. Like the hamlet it bisects, the highway sported a variety of appellations over the years. Quogue Road/Kings Highway was laid out in Hampton Bays in the 1700s, though old-timers referred to the primary road as “upstreet,” Moeller wrote.

Hampton Bays was still known as Good Ground when the cornerstone of St. Rosalie’s Church — then a small, wooden frame building — was laid in 1901 at 31 East Montauk Highway. The original church had a steeple that was toppled by the 1938 hurricane and was never replaced. The current building was completed during the 1990s, and the original church became home to the Knights of Columbus.

“So many members of the hamlet were baptized there, married there or were buried from this church that it is a symbol in the community,” Moeller wrote.

Before the church was built, the land was the site of the Cedar Hill Poultry Farm, owned by Albert and Hannah Gessner. Poultry farming was a popular industry in Good Ground at the turn of the 20th century.

Moving to downtown proper, on the north side of Montauk Highway was the Skidmore property. Two houses, once located just west of the Canoe Place Inn, belonged to George Skidmore and his son, John Skidmore, who operated a blacksmith shop.

The Skidmore house and shop were moved closer to the center of Good Ground. In her column for the society, Berntson notes, “Our ancestors moved buildings around like they were playing Monopoly.”

The shop was located at the rear of the lot, where George’s son, Timothy, worked. It burned down in 1909 but was rebuilt, and Jarvis, son of Timothy, moved the shop closer to the street to service automobiles. The service station was called Blue Front Garage; the name was later changed to Skidmore’s Cash Garage.

Councilman Rick Martel said that when he renovated Skidmore’s Sports and Styles, the sporting goods store he now owns, during the 1980s, he found old receipts — and horseshoes. The door to the original blacksmith shop is hanging in his office, “a little tribute,” he said, to a bygone era.

At 1 East Main Street, Moeller’s heritage report relates, there was a small shoe store belonging to Domenic Alberti. The miller, Timothy Griffing, who operated the grist mill across the street, on the corner of Montauk Highway and Ponquogue Avenue, lived in a small house there. He wasn’t the hamlet’s first miller, but, said Moeller, “It appears that he was the only one to live directly across the street from the mill.”

Crossing Squiretown Road, on the western corner now home to Doran’s Pub was Alvin Squires’s house that dates to the 1800s. Squires became Good Ground’s first official postmaster on July 28, 1829. The Squires’ Hotel became the Montauk Hotel around 1900, and in 1945 was renamed the Rod and Reel.

The site where Gators restaurant now stands was built in 1910 by Bert Ashton for his plumbing and heating business. Over the years, the site operated as a grocery and tailor shop, as well as a dwelling. Later, Ralston’s grocery store occupied the space, then Smith’s antiques business and, subsequently, Smith’s Plumbing. Featuring unusual architecture, the Ashton building hosted Thurman Meschutt’s pharmacy on the left side.

Moving to the site of the current Guava Restaurant, at 26 West Montauk Highway, there was a restaurant built in the 1930s and called Hampton Bays Restaurant but nicknamed “The Coffee Pot.”

The major mercantile center for Good Ground was Charles Frank’s general store, which closed in 1931. Moeller reports that Frank began his business selling goods from a pack he carried on his back. As time wore on, the business apparently flourished, and he graduated to a horse and wagon, and, later on, a Model T Ford for deliveries.

During the 1930s, the Hampton Bays Post Office was located in the building on the eastern side of number 48, after a fire destroyed a building across the street and the post office was damaged by water. Davis’s luncheonette was next door. There was a dentist’s office and apartments upstairs.

Good Ground Market, unique for its curved roof line and proud lettering heralding the community’s early appellation, was constructed in 1912, 10 years before the hamlet’s name change. It was built by Alwin Scholz and is still in the family.

Continuing west, the site at 84 West Montauk Highway, was the home of Dan and Mabel Hornett, one of the original farmhouses in Good Ground built in the early 1800s.

Citing a 2001 letter to the editor in The Southampton Press by Gloria Leonard Hall and her sister, Barbara Leonard Micari, Moeller’s report states, “The house on Montauk Highway, locally referred to as the ‘Hornett House’ and, unfortunately now history, was the Aldrich homestead from the early 1800s — with Aldriches living in it until 1984 when Mabel Hornett went to a nursing home.”

At 94 West Montauk Highway, the Charles W. Jackson House, built during the early 1900s, stands. Its incarnations over the years include rooming house, doctor’s office and dress shop.

Hampton Music and Arts at 98 West Montauk Highway has a musical history dating back to 1925, when Henry S. Hornbeck, a one-time employee of the venerable Steinway & Sons in New York City, opened a shop dedicated to the sale, service and rental of pianos. The business was the main source for pianos on the North Fork and South Fork, according to the heritage report.

Walter King, a world-renowned designer of hats, kept a summer home at 108 West Montauk Highway. During the season, his family operated the Lyzon Hat Shop, a millinery mecca that was restored and is now a museum. It was a general store originally.

Next door was the home of Mary L. Fanning and Prosper King, built circa 1830, according to Moeller’s research. The property included the hat shop, plus additional structures. Like the hat shop, it’s been preserved as a museum.

Now the site of a variety of shops, 136 West Montauk Highway was home to such an array of fine boutiques during the 1920s as to earn the name “The 5th Avenue of Long Island.” Grande Maison de Blanc, a linen retailer, Ovington’s, a china and crystal store, and Finchley’s, a gentlemen’s haberdashery, were found there. The Rainbow Inn, a restaurant operated by Gertrude Stratford and Jane Shirley Byrne, was the next incarnation at the site.

The previous home of the Hampton Bays Chamber of Commerce, purchased by the Town of Southampton and just razed this year, is next on the list of historical resources located on the north side of Main Street. Dating to the 1830s, according to Moeller’s research, the property was owned, over time, by the Wells and King families.

At the edge of the property is an old mile marker that was used to delineate the mileage for postal routes. The markers were set at designated distances and resemble worn tombstones. This marker used to read, “1 M to Canoe Place, 33 M to Patchogue, 8 M to Southampton and 9 M to Riverhead,” according to town records. The lettering has almost worn away with time.

Reaching the end of the north side of Main Street/Montauk Highway/County Road 80 is the Methodist Church; its original meetinghouse was built in 1840, then torn down in 1863 to make way for a new church.

Just across Cemetery Road is Anderson Warner Hall, built by the church in 1971. In its previous life, it was home to Willis Weston Wells’s livery stable. The Wells’s home was built by William W. Jackson in 1900 with stables in the rear of the property.

In the early 1900s, Judge Edward Lazansky owned the house that’s now home to the Villa Paul restaurant. Beyond the addition of a rear porch and dining room, the house is much the same as when it was built.

According to Moeller, “After the Judge died, Mrs. Lazanky tried to sell the house, but could not due to the burying ground that was at the rear of the property. The tombstones were removed, allegedly by Mrs. Lazanky and the property was subsequently purchased by Paul Villa who established ‘Villa Paul’ Restaurant.”

Back to the christening centennial. The hamlet was named Good Ground in 1738, according to Berntson. Community members thought a name that reflected the Hamptons chic might help the hamlet grow. Prior to 1900, a name change was discussed.

Bay Head and Bay Hampton were both considered, Berntson wrote. The railroad station’s name was changed, but quickly switched back.

“The new moniker was kicked about for a few years, till finally a petition was circulated and the majority supported the change. There were, of course, holdouts, who felt that the old name was good enough for them and it would have been good enough for their descendants,” she wrote in her column for the historical society.

The Good Ground postmaster was reappointed as the Hampton Bays postmaster, with the railroad station changing shortly after. The names of individual communities like Springville, Ponquogue and Canoe Place were rolled into one name: Hampton Bays.

Town historian Julie Green said this week it seems that the official change came through the U.S. Postal Service at the request of the residents. The town records state a move by residents toward a new name as early as 1920 (Bay Hampton), but ultimately it was the post office.

Greene sent along an article from the County Review dated January 1922. It reports, “although the post office department officially OK’d the new name last week, Good Ground is still used in stamping the letters.” It predicted the name would be changed at the train depot “when the spring timetable goes into effect.”

An article in The Southampton Press’s 1922 edition states “Good Ground is no more.”

This month, the Hampton Bays Chamber of Commerce plans celebrations to mark 100 years of Hampton Bays. (See accompanying sidebar for a roundup of events) On September 9, from 3 to 5 p.m., the historical society will host the community for cookies and a tour at the Lyzon Hat Shop.

One last, tangential tidbit offered by Moeller in her heritage report: Early maps show an area about one-quarter mile in width between Peconic Bay to the north and Shinnecock Bay in the south. In this area, Native Americans portaged their canoes to get from one body of water to the other, hence, the name Canoe Place.