The
Briarcliff
ManorScarborou
gh
Historical
Society
Date
(Year):
PreHistory
(B.C.E.):
Chronolo
gy of the
Village of
Briarcliff
Manor
Month
and Day
(If
Available)
:
(ca. 10,000
B.C.E-2013
C.E.):
By: Alexander Vastola
Subject:
ca. 10,000
B.C.E.
Native
Americans
The
Archaic
Period
(10,0008,000
B.C.E)
Briarcliff
Archeology
Description of Event:
The ice sheet retreats and the ground
warms in the area that would become the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, and the forest
changes gradually from tundra-spruce to
pine to oak-chestnut to maple-hickoryhemlock. The first people of the forest (the
Native Americans) whose ancestors are
believed to have travelled on foot from
Asia, hunted the caribou and the wooly
mastadon. (1, page 5)
Most of the tools found in an archeological
dig in Briarcliff Manor in the 1960s and
1970s date to this period, showing that at
this time in the Archaic Period, Native
Americans in the area that would become
the Village of Briacliff Manor used tools.
These tools were preserved from the
destrucitve accidity of the soil by the lime
content of the oyster shells found at the
site. Later sites, specifically the one on the
cultivated uplands, have been mostly
obliterated. (1, page 5)
pre-1498
Native
Americans
pre-1498
Native
Americans
The first peoples of the forests of the region
that would become the Village of Briarcliff
Manor joined by others of various skills,
developed a complex culture over the
centuries. When the first European
explorers sailed up the river, the
inhabitants were no longer wandering
hunter-gathers, surviving the cold in rock
shelters, but citizens of an established
social order rich in tradition and lore. They
believed in a colorful hierarchy of spirits,
from powerful Creator to the smallest
animals and plants. They were governed by
councils on which women and youths might
sometimes sit with the men. Their chiefs,
sachems and sagamores, were first among
equals, distinguished for wisdom as well as
leadership in war and the hunt. Local tribes-Wiechquaskeck, Sintsinck, Kitchawanck,
Wappinger and others--united against more
warlike tribes to the north in what came to
be called the Wappinger Confederacy. (1,
page 5 at the end of this section.)
The peoples of the Wappinger Confederacy
cultivated beans, squash, pumpkins,
sunflowers and corn, from which they made
bread. They stored quantities of provisions,
dried and smoked venison, fish and
shellfish, and vegetables, as well as grain
for the winter months. In winter they
gathered in houses built of hickory saplings
and sheets of chestnut bark. Some of the
lodges were communal "long houses," sixty
to one hundred feet long, partitioned with
hides and woven matting, in which as many
as sixteen families might live, each around
a small fire with a smoke hole in the roof
above it. During the cold months, they
fashioned tools and weapons, bowls and
spoons of stone and wood, baskets and clay
cooking pots. (1, pages 5-6)
pre-1498
Native
Americans
According to the written and oral
communication account by Nicholas A.
Shoumatoff, He Who Stands Firm, Tukswit
(Wolf Clan), Eastern Oklahoma Delaware
(Lenape) Tribe, Unami Division , the coming
of a travelling storyteller to the villages of
the Wappinger Confederacy, a
"Grandfather" or "Grandmother" carrying a
bag of "winter stories," was a great event.
All the children crowded around to listen.
The stories carried lessons about courage,
kindness, moral purity and reverence for all
the natural world. They went on for hours
and included many songs which the
listeners joined in singing. The storyteller
started each one by opening his bag,
saying, "I open this story..." and taking out
an object--a reed for the story of the wily
fellow who hid under the water and sang a
warning song through a reed to his unkind
mother-in-law--a tooth or a scrap of scaly
skin for the story of the water monster, in
which some boys climbed the long shadows
to the sky and asked the sun for some sundust to defeat the monster. (1, pages 6 and
229)
pre-1498
Native
Americans
Some of the peoples of the Wappinger
Confederacy lived in villages near the
present (ca. 1990) hamlet of Sparta and
Sing Sing Kill (Killbrook) in Ossining, a
named derived from their words asin
(stone) and asinesing (place of stones).
These words were, by early accounts, even
more descriptive then than now of the
country, especially along the river shores.
The tribe, or tribes, that sometimes lived
here came to be called the Sint Sincks or
Sing Sings-spelling varied, as spelling did in
those times. They spoke coastal Munsee, a
dialect of the Algonkian language, reported
by William Penn and others to be beautifully
musical. They believed their language was
understood by plants, animals and deities.
They called themselves "Lenape," the
People. These Lower River Indians were
peaceable, perhaps because they believed
the Creator intended his bounty for all his
people equally, a belief easy to hold in this
country, for here was God's plenty--the
forest alive with game, with "fruits in great
profusion," and nuts and berries." (1, page
6)
pre-1498
1400s:
1498
1500s:
1521
15211571?
Native
Americans
At this time, long before the arrival of the
white settlers to the areas that would later
become the Village of Briarcliff Manor, the
rolling countryside along the Hudson River
that is today Westchester, was inhabited by
the Mohegan Indians, who were part of the
Algonquin nation. A tribe known as the Sint
Sincks occupied the land along the river
north of the present day Tarrytown and
south of Croton. Little is known of the Sint
Sincks other than that they derived a
secure living from the river which they
called the Muhheakunnuk (more
scientifically, it is an estuary , a place where
salt tides meet fresh water) or “the river
that flows both ways” because of the tide
from the ocean just thirty miles to the
south. In addition, another tribe, known as
the Tankitekas, lived a few miles inland as
far west as the Pocantico River, or a “run
between two hills.” Early European settlers
named the Pocantico the Mill River, but the
new name did not take. (1, page 6) (15,
page 8) (17, page 3)
Hudson
River
History
The European explorer, John Cabot, was
one of the first European explorers to see
the Hudson River as he passed it as one of
several European explorers sailing along the
coast to search for a northwest passage to
the riches of India. (1, page 6)
Hudson
River
History
Hudson
River
History
During this year, the Dutch West India
Company was established and trading posts
were set up from New Amsterdam (New
York City) to Fort Orange (Albany). One of
the earliest historians of the New World,
Adrian Van der Donck, put at eighty
thousand the number of beaver taken
annually for their pelts. Otter, mink, bear,
elk and deer also were taken. (1, page 7)
During this period of the fifty-odd years of
Dutch rule, the region which would later
become the Village of Briarcliff Manor was
largely unsettled and would remain so until
after the American Revolution. (1, page 7)
1524
1600s:
Hudson
River
History
1600
Native
Americans
1600-1605
Native
Americans
Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine,
provides the first recorded entrance to the
Hudson River, writing to his patron, King
Francis I of France, that his ship "being
anchored off the coast in good shelter [in
present-day New York Harbor]," he and
some of his crew entered the river in "the
small boat....The people, clothed with the
feathers of birds of various colors, came
toward us joyfully, uttering great
exclamations of admiration, showing us
where we could land with the boat more
safely....They exceeded us in size, and they
were of a very fair complexion: some of
them incline more to a white, others to a
tawny color, their faces are sharp, their hair
long and black....Their expression [is] mild
and pleasant....Their women are of the
same form and beauty, very graceful, of
fine countenances and pleasing appearance
in manners and modesty." However, a gale
blew up and Verrazano and his sailors were
forced to return to their ship. (1, page 6)
(17, page 2)
At this time, the entire Wappinger
Confederacy was estimated as less than five
thousand in terms of population. (1, page
8)
Within this five-year period, some sixteen
hundred Indians were killed out of a group
estimated at less than five thousand in
1600. Congtagious diseases brought from
Europe (smallpox, cholera, maleria,
measles, bubonic plague, alcoholism)
against which the Indians had no immunity,
wiped out whole villages. Settlers and
Indians were soon at war and "the fields of
the Dutch", as one settler wrote, "were laid
waste. Our dwellings and other buildings
are burnt, not a handful can be planted or
sown this fall on all the abandoned places.
All this through a foolish hankering after
war, for it is known to all right-thinking men
here that these Indians have lived as lambs
among us until a few years ago, injuring no
one and affording every assistance to our
nation." (1, page 8)
1609
Hudson
River
History
Hudson
Septemb River
1609 er
History
1629
Hudson
River
History
According to the Journal of Robert Juet, "of
Limehouse," officer of Hendrik Hudson's
Half Moon , (edited by J. Franklin Jameson,
in Narratives of New Netherland . 16091664. New York, 1909.) Juet wrote that the
river teemed with fish-"Salmons, and
Mullets, and Rayes very great." (Juet
probably mistook striped bass for salmon,
which never swam in the Hudson River).
There were also striped bass, shad, eel and
sturgeon. (1, pages 6 and 229) (17, page
3)
Hendrik Hudson, an English captain in
employment of the Dutch East India
Company, goes on the first recorded
voyage up the Hudson River (the "Great
River of the Mountains") between the
Palisades in his high-pooped Dutch yacht,
the Half Moon, and claimed his discovery .
Robert Juet, a member of Hudson's crew,
wrote in his journal that "This is
a...pleasant land to see...as pleasant with
grass and flowers and goodly trees as ever
we had seen," and described the several
meetings of Hudson and his men with the
people of the forest. These were at first
very amiable, for the Indians were
generous and kindly hosts, "a very good
people," Hudson later called them.
However, before the Half Moon set sail
again over the ocean one Englishman and
at least ten Indians had been killed. (1,
pages 6-7) (15, page 8) (17, page 3)
During this year, in an effort to promote
settlement, the Dutch West India Company
granted members of the company the right
to purchase from the Indians a tract of land
above Manhattan extending sixteen miles
on one side of the river or eight miles on
both sides and "so far into the country as
the situation of the Occupyers will permit,"
provided they plant on the tract a colony of
fifty persons. Within their domains these
landlords, called patroons, had near-feudal
powers. (1, pages 7-8)
1634
1640
1646
1647
1664
1664
It is possible that both Vredryck Flypsen
(Frederick Philipse) and Stephanus Van
Cortlandt were both driven to emigrate to
the New World in the aftermath of a tidal
wave which struck and damaged the
Philipse
northern coast of Europe during this year.
Family
(1, page 8)
The Hudson River region is largely trapped
out of animals hunted for the fur trade by
Hudson
this date. The hunters, who were mostly
River
Indian, were forced far afield, and many
History
never returned. (1, page 7)
Even with inducements, only one
patroonship was established in the present
county, that granted in 1646 to Adrian Van
der Donck (known as Jonckheer , or young
sir), in acknowledgment of his services as
peacemaker between the Indians and
Company Director Willem Kieft. This tract
extended from Spuyten Duyvil sixteen miles
north along the Hudson and east to the
Hudson
Bronx River. Donck's Colony, where that
River
gentleman settled, was called Yonkers
History
(Jonckheer's ) after him. (1, page 8)
Vredryck Flypsen (Frederick Philipse)
emigrates from Friesland, in the
Netherlands, to the New World, probably
Philipse
with Peter Stuyvesant, during this year. (1,
Family
page 8)
Exhuasted by the Indian wars and under
pressure from expanding English
settlements in Connecticut and Long Island,
during this year, the Dutch surrendered
easily to an Enlgish squadron of four ships
under the command of Richard Nicolls.
Hudson
New Amsterdam becomes the Province of
River
New York and Nicolls its first governor. (1,
History
page 8)
During this year, the name Vreddryck
Flypsen was changed to Frederick Philipse
when the British forces took New
Amsterdam, and Upper Mills at the
intersection of the Pocantico and Hudson
Rivers (now Sleepy Hollow) became
Philipsburgh headquarters for the Philipse estate. (1,
Manor
page 8) (15, page 8)
1664?
Hudson
River
History
1664?1698
Philipse
Family
1672
Philipse
Family
1674
Philipse
Family
1676-1690
Native
Americans
The terms of the English takeover were
liberal, and prominent Dutch citizens,
particularly Vredryck Flypsen (his name
anglicized to Frederick Philipse) and
Stephanus Van Cortlandt, Philipse's future
brother-in-law and neighborhood in
Westchester, retained their property and
took places in the new colonial government.
Philipse was a carpenter, not the grandson
of a refugee Bohemian nobleman, and his
skill in building during his first years in the
colony earned him the nickname of
Stuyvesant's "architect builder." He also
became a merchant, trading with the Five
Nations (Iroquoian Indian tribes), England,
the East and West Indies and Africa,
exchanging furs and timber for woven
goods and slaves for sugar and rum. He
also manufactured wampum. He married
Margaret Hardenbroek, widow of the
wealthy merchant Pieter R. DeVries, "a very
desirable business partner as well as wife."
When she died, he married Catherine Van
Cortlandt, widow of John Derval. (1, page
8)
Frederick Philipse serves as a member of
the governing council of the New York
colony during this period. (1, page 8)
During this year, Frederick Philipse added a
portion of Donck's Colony to his property in
Manhattan. (1, page 11)
Both of Frederick Philipse's marriages
increased his already considerable wealth,
and during this year, he was rated the
richest man in the Province. (1, page 8)
Sachem/cheif "Weskora" (probably
Wessecanow, "identified as Wiechquaskeck,
Wappinger or Kitchawank, depending on
where he happended to be living…") serves
as the principle agent between his people
(the Native Americans living in the New
York Colony area) and the English colonists
during this period. (1, page 11)
ca. 1680
Philipse
Family
ca. 1681
Philipse
Family
By around this time, Vreddryck Flypsen had
begun amassing his lands between Spuyten
Duyvil on the south and Croton on the
north; from the Hudson River on the west
to the Bronx River on the east. It was a
particularly placid and beautiful place,
known to the Dutch settlers as “Die
slapering haven,” a name Washington
Irving rendered as “Sleepy Hollow” years
later. (1, page 11) (15, page 8)
Around this year, Frederick Philipse began
of clear the land at the mouth of the
Pocantico River. When this land clearing
started, the government of Connecticut
complained to the officials of New York that
the land that Philipse was clearing and
developing was not included in his grant,
but was in Connecticut. Through a series of
political moves, which were apparently
quite persuasive, Mr. Philipse saw to it that
the boundary line was moved eastward to
the Byram River, which today divided Port
Chester, New York, from Greenwich,
Connecticut. According to A Village
Between Two Rivers, A History of Briarcliff
Manor , published in 1977, it is reasonable
to assume that if such political arm bending
had not taken place, present day Briarcliff
Manor would be divided between two states
instead of two townships. (15, page 8)
August
1685 4th
Philipse
Family
August
1685 12th
Philipse
Family
On this date, the exact price for the
eleventh and final parcel of land that Mr.
Frederick Philipse would purchase for his
landholdings, which was bounded by the
Kitchawan (Croton River) on the north, the
Shattemuc (Hudson River) on the west, the
Pocantico River on the east and Mr.
Philipse’s land on the south, was recorded
as follows: fifty feet of black wampum, one
hundred feet of whit wampum, eleven small
kettles, twelve large kettles, fifteen fathoms
of trade cloth, twelve guns, fifteen shirts,
twelve pairs of stockings, two ankers of
rum, twelve drawing knives, six cooper
adzes, twelve blankets, twelve blankets
twelve fathoms of stoud water, fifty pounds
of powder, thirty bars of lead, twenty axes,
fifteen hoes, forty knives, twenty stone
jugs, one iron chain, two rolls of tobacco,
and two pistols. Inflation had clearly hit, as
the price was considerably more than that
paid for Manhattan Island some years
earlier. (15, pages 8-9) (17, page 3)
The land of the future Scarborough,
Briarcliff, and Ossining area ("that tract or
parcel of land commonly called by the
Indians Sinck Sinck"), and the eleventh and
final parcel of land that Philipse would
purchase, is purchased by Vredryk Flypsen
(Frederick Philipse) at a land transaction
meeting on a hill east of the present
Scarborough railroad station and in the
presence of eight Indian cheifs, (one of
whom was named "Weskora"), from the
Sint Sinck (Mohegan) Indians. This
meeting ended in the exchange of the land
along the eastern edge of the Shatomuc
River, 'the stream which flows both ways,'
as the Indians called the Hudson River.
Thus did Vredryk Flypsen (Frederick
Philipse) buy the land that would eventually
become the Village of Briarcliff Manor,
paying for it in wampum, axes, blankets
and trade cloth, shirts and stockings, stone
jugs, firearms, iron kettles, hoes, knives,
and rum. This land became part of
Philipse's ca. 156,000-acre estate. (1, page
11) (2, pages 11-12) (15, page 8)
January
1689 2th
1693
16931775(?)
Philipse's purchase of this land is confirmed
by Royal Patent, in the County of
Westchester, Colony of New York, under the
seal of Thomas Donegan, Governor of the
Province and inscribed as from "his Royal
Majesty of England, Scotland, France and
Ireland." Vreddryck Flypsen (Frederick
Philipse), through a series of purchases on
this date, had extended his holdings to all
land from Spuyten Duyvil north to the
Croton River and east from the Hudson to
the source of the Bronx River. Flypsen also
later purchased land from the Pocantico
stream to the Croton River, and from the
Hudson River to the Nepperhan Creek (now
Saw Mill River). Altogether, his lands
consisted of the area of the present Village
of Briarcliff Manor, and, at the manor's
height, it consisted of about 52,000 acres.
Philipse
(1, page 11) (2, page 11) (14, page 1) (15,
Family
page 9) (17, page 3)
The patent of the English monarchs William
and Mary make Frederick Philipse "Lord of
the Mannour of Philipsborough," lands
which were to become Scarborough, Sparta
and Briarcliff Manor. However, at this time,
no more than twenty families were living on
some fifty thousand acres, which included
land on the western shore of the Tappan
Zee and a larger part of what is now the
Bronx. Philipse Manor was both owned and
governed by Philipse and his heirs, in
succession, Adolph, Frederick II, and
Frederick III, known as Colonel Philpse.
Philip Philipse, the oldest son of the first
Frederick Philipse, first purchased the Sing
Sing tract, and later deeded it to his father,
Philipsburgh who survived him. (1, page 11) (17, page
Manor
3)
During this period, Philipse Manor enjoys
Philipsburgh nearly a hundred years of relative peace.
Manor
(1, page 12)
1698
The late
seventeent
h century
Hudson
River
History
Sparta
During this year, Frederick Philipse is
dismissed from his position as a member of
the governing council of the New York
colony, due to the English Lords of trade
finding out that he was reportedly
connected to Captain Kidd's illegal
commerce with pirates was clear enough to
warrant his dismissal. Philipse, who was by
this time more than seventy years old,
retired (originally, Captain Kidd's
enterprises were legitimate and Philipse was
not the only leading citizen who cooperated
with him). (1, page 8)
During this time, Sparta was first settled by
a French Huguenot named Carel Davids,
who settled near the foot of Liberty Street
in what is now the Village of Ossining.
Sparta was a busy river port and a stable
small-industrial and middle-class
community. (1, page 97) (15, page 9)
Works
Cited:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Mary Cheever, The Changing Landscape
The Briarcliff Semi-Centennial Book
Vicki A. Mack, Frank A. Vanderlip: The
Banker Who Changed America
Historical Profile: Sleepy Hollow Country
Club
Transcription of notes made by Char Harden
about the Harden Family, builder of "The
Wilderness " Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510:
Originally written October 29, 1992:
Transcription made 9-30-2013
Obituaries: The New York Times , "Frank
Vanderlip, Philanthropist and Investment
Banker, at 86." by Wolfgang Saxon, from
April 27th, 1993.
"Geneology of the Washburn Family," by
Ada C. Haight, published 1937, page 247.
Images of America: Briarcliff Lodge , by Rob
Yasinsac
"Rockwood Hall at Sleepy Hollow," page 1
The New York Times , "Speyer Home
Opened to Working Girls." from June 5th,
1910.
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Special to The New York Times , "Briarcliff
Manor: Many New Yorkers Are Prominent
Among the Early Arrivals." from June 9th,
1912.
Summary Sheet for the 1974 The Briarcliff
Manor-Scarborough Historical Society
Minutes, page 1.
Account of Sergeant Mike Bassett of The
Briarcliff Manor Police Department (June
18th, 2014).
Pattison, Rev. Robert B. A History of
Briarcliff Manor . Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.:
William Rayburn, 1939.
Presented By The Briarcliff ManorScarborough Historical Society, A Village
Between Two Rivers: Briarcliff Manor .
1977.
Account of Fred Becker.
Briarcliff Centennial Committee, The
Briarcliff Family Album: Celebrating a
Century . Cornwall, New York: Auric
Information Packaging, 2002.
Biography of Joan and Keith Austin from
The Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical
Society's 3rd Annual Harvest Dinner
Journal, 2014.
*(Two or more numbers together means
that the information was cited from more
than one source).
Date
(Year):
1700s:
the colonial
period
1723
1740
1744
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
Description of Event:
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , there was also a very oldtime
roadway, probably an enlarged
woods-road or lane, leading from the
present Dogwood Lane through
Roads and forests to Hardscrabble Road as the
Transportati old maps plainly indicate. Colonial
on
farmers used it. (2, page 18)
During this year, Carel Davids, the
French Huguenot who was the first
settler of Sparta in the late
seventeenth century, and whose
name was later Anglicized to Charles
Davis, was mentioned in the Road
Commissioner’s record of 1723 as
the owner of a field just north of
Sparta
Sparta Brook. (15, page 9)
By this date, most of the remaining
Indians in the future Scarborough,
Briarcliff, and Ossining area, with
Native
their preserved trapped out, had
Americans gone elsewhere. (1, page 12)
During this year, the Town records
refer to the “Charl Davids bregs,”
probably the Albany Post Road
bridge over Sparta Brook. (15, page
Sparta
9)
1749
Hudson
River
History
1763
Sparta
Burying
Grounds
1764
Sparta
Burying
Grounds
The Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm,
in his Travels in America , noted the
scarcity of settlement on the shores
of the Hudson but also wrote: "As we
proceeded we found the eastern
bank of the river very much
cultivated and a number of pretty
farms surrounded by orchards and
finely plowed fields presented
themselves to our view." Much of
the local produce was for export and
more was transported from far
inland to the river landings at Sparta
and Sing Sing. The river was dotted
with the white sails of market and
packet sloops, schooners, trappers'
flyboets , yachts of the manor lords,
English frigates and even some aweinspiring pirate craft. (1, page 12)
By this year, there were enough
residents in the vicinity of Sparta
Landing to request "regular
preaching" of the Dutchess County
Presbytery, and Colonel Philipse
donated three acres for the building
of a church at the Sparta Burying
Grounds on the corner of
Revolutionary Road and the Albany
Post Road. This was the third church
built in all of Philipseburgh Manor.
(1, pages 12-13)
The first burial in the churchyard of
the "Dutch Presbyterian" church on
the land of Philipsburgh Manor of fiveyear-old Sarah Ledew, takes place.
Her headstone reads: "Here Lyes the
Body of SARAH LEDEW Born in the
Year 1759 April 26 who Departed
this Life August 15, 1764, Aged 5
Years 7 mo. and 11 days daughter of
ABRAHAM & ANNA LEDEW." (1, page
13)
prior to
1767
1767 (or
before
1767)
1775 (or
before
1775)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , probably the oldest road in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor is the
Washburn Road, leading from the
Pocantico stream over the hill, past
the pre-Revolutionary Washburn
farmhouse to what was ca. 1952 the
Taconic Highway and to Chappaqua.
This road is certainly dated as prior
to 1767, since it bordered the
Roads and "Century Homestead," located on the
Transportati same route by this year or earlier.
on
(2, page 18)
The "Century Homestead" is built by
Reuben Whitson (owned ca. 1952 by
Preston Herbert Jr.). It is located on
the corner of Chappaqua and
Washburn Roads near the Taconic
Parkway and has been called the
Century
Reuben Whitson House. (1, page 13)
Homestead (2, page 13) (15, page 17)
In the Village of Briarcliff Manor,
particularly near the eastern border,
a few houses still stand that were
probably built in part before the
American Revolution. In most of
these the oldest portions are
disguised and overshadowed by
more recent construction. All
contain some hand-hewn, mortised
beams constructed in the Dutch Hframe fashion, but in the absence of
documentary evidence only the
spacing of the beams and indications
of the size of the oringinal rooms can
Historic
identitfy them as Philipsburgh tenant
Homes
farmhouses. (1, page 13)
1775 (or
before
1775)
1775 (or
before
1775)
Washburn
House
Old Dell
Farmhouse
1775 (or
before
1775)
Buckhout
House
(Luthany)
1775 (or
before
1775)
The
Buckhout
House
(Luthany)
1775 (or
before
1775)?
Titlar
(Comfort)
Farmhouse
Joseph Washburn buys his PreRevolution home ("The Washburn
house") at the corner of Washburn
Road and present Todd Lane (it is
now the home ca. 1952 of William C.
Eadie), from the Commission on
Forfeiture of the State of New York.
The house was damaged by fire and
reconstructed, but probably the
smallest of the six present bays was
pre-revolutionary. (1, page 13) (2,
page 16)
Part of the old Dell farmhouse on
Chappaqua Road appears to be prerevolutionary. (1, page 13)
The house sometimes known as the
Buckhout House was partially built,
as it is in part pre-revolutionary,
judging by the spacing of the beams
and the dimensions of the original
four rooms, part of the present cellar
and the living room above it. (1,
pages 13-14)
A portion of the house with a
nineteenth-century gable and porch
that faces F. B. Hall across
Pleasantville Road (which is known
to have been the home of the
Buckhout family for over a hundred
years) is partially built, because this
house is thought to be of prerevolutonary construction in part.
The Philipse tenants who farmed the
land and probably built this house
were members of the Brown family.
(1, page 14)
Behind the Titlar (later Comfort)
farmhouse on Long Hill Road East,
the barn-garage is of typical Dutch
H. frame construction and may date
from before the Revolution. (1, page
14)
1775 (or
before
1775)?
1775
1775
1775-1783
Part of the gray-shingled house at
the address on 104 Long Hill East
(formerly 2 Central Drive) was
probably built during prerevolutionary times, since even
though the house now contains
many nails, as well as two additions,
the oldest beams and the dimensions
of the cellar and the present dining
room seem to be identified as a preHistoric
revolutionary form of construction.
Homes
(1, page 14)
In the Militia for the Upper District of
Philipseburgh Manor, organized
under the provisional Congress in
1775, Abraham Ledew is listed as
captain along with five other officers
who must have lived within or near
to the present village limits:
Benjamin Brown, first lieutenant;
Jonas Arsor (Orser), second
Revolutiona lieutenant; and John Oakley, ensign.
ry War
(1, page 13)
During this year, Joseph Washburn,
who built the pre-revolutionaryconstructed Washburn House on
what is now the present (ca. 1990)
Washburn Road in Briarcliff and was
a resident of the area which would
later become the Village of Briarcliff
Washburn
Manor, marries Freelove Matthews.
Family
(1, page 15)
Westchester County, as a whole, for
the some seven-year period, was
"Neutral Ground," between the
enemy camps during the
Revolutionary War, and suffered
greatly from raids and pillage by
marauders claiming allegiance to
both sides. These marauders were
called Cowboys and Skinners,
because they stole and skinned
cattle and sold the hides and meat to
the armies. Livestock and provisions
of all kinds were stolen and farms
Revolutiona were burned and abandoned. (1,
ry War
page 15) (2, page 16)
1775-1783
1775(?)1783(?)
1775(?)1783(?)
During the Revolutionary War period,
Scarborough at the intersection of
the Albany Post Road and
Scarborough Road was called “The
Corner,” and there was a small
group of houses and stores facing
south and west, including a
blacksmith shop and a scale for
weighing hay. When the young
people of the neighborhood held a
dance they would dance on the hay
scale. There was also a prosperous
tavern with a horse shed behind it.
Here weary travelers might stop for
a nip or a night. The tavern building
itself was originally the church
located somewhere in Sparta
Cemetery on three acres of land
Scarboroug donated by Colonel Philipse. (15,
h
page 11)
General Washington's army probably
camped at Scarborough Corners on
its way north along the river to
King's Ferry (Verplanck). Most of
the activity in Scarborough during
these early days centered at this
corner where Scarborough Road
crosses Route 9 and Revolutionary
Road angles northwest toward the
river past Sparta Cemetery.
Revolutionary Road, the original
Albany Post Road, was undoubtably
traveled by Washington and his
ragged army. An old rapier, or
dueling sword, and English coins of
the period, now in the archives of
the Ossining Historical Society, were
found at the site of The Scarborough
Revolutiona Presbyterian Church. (1, page 16)
ry War
(15, page 11)
During the Revolutionary War period,
General Samuel Blatchley Webb was
Revolutiona an aid to General George
ry War
Washington. (1, page 87)
1775(?)1783(?)
1775(?)1783(?)
1775(?)1783(?)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , there was (ca. 1952) an old
crumbing cellar wall, located in the
woods of the ancient Nodine farm
beyond Dogwood Lane, which has
been possibly dated to be
Revolutionary, even though diggings
have not unearthed any old buttons
or weapons. This curious relic is
located on the very oldtime road
through the woods to the Nodine
farmhouse on Hardscrabble Road,
according to old maps. An
interesting feature are sixteen large
and flat "table rocks" so placed over
the perennial brook in order that
Historic
wagons could pass safely over on
Homes
their way. (2, page 17)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , Revolutionary Road, of which
the sourthen fifth of its length is in
the Scarborough area of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, has a place in the
history of the American Revolution,
as Washington, Lafayette, Franklin,
and other notables traveled this
highway and Colonial soldiers drank
Roads and of the well at Jug Tavern, a little
Transportati over the Village line in what was
on
then Sing Sing. (2, page 18)
During this period, the tavern
building at “The Corner” in
Scarborough, which was originally
the church building for The “Dutch
Presbyterian” Church, which was
located somewhere in Sparta
Cemetery on three acres of land
"Dutch
donated by Colonel Philipse, was
Presbyterian damaged by the Hessians during the
" Church
Revolutionary War. (15, page 11)
1776
ca. 1779(?)
1779
October
1779 22nd
ca. 1780(?)
1780
After the Battle of White Plains in
1776, General George Washington
set up headquarters just north of
Peekskill, while the British
headquarters were in New York City.
Both armies at this time needed
provisions, and some farmers,
millers and teamsters were released
from active duty to get grain to the
Revolutiona Croton River mill and make flower
ry War
for Washington's army. (1, page 15)
J. Butler Wright's own fine house,
which is near the original site of
J. Butler
Ashridge (the Post Road near Saint
Wright
Mary's Church) was partially
House
constructed in 1779. (1, page 26)
All of Philipse's landholdings in North
America are confiscated by the
Commission on Forfeiture of the
State of New York, since Colonel
Frederick Philipse (a.k.a. Frederick
Philipse III) was loyal to the English
Crown and sided with the British
during the American Revolutionary
Philipse
War. (1, page 11 and 16) (2, page
Family
12)
By this date, the Manor of
Philipsburg ceased to exist, and a
Philipsburgh democratic farm class took over.
Manor
(15, page 9)
Probably around this year, during the
Revolutionary War, a British man-ofwar, the HMS Vulture, fired a round
Sparta
that pierced a gravestone in the
Burying
Sparta Cemetery. (1, page 15) (15,
Grounds
page 10)
During this year, the first Old-Dutchstyle portion of the "Beechwood"
Estate's Mansion, including the large
fireplace still exhibited in the lower
Beechwood kitchen, was constructed. (2, page
Estate
17)
September
1780 20th
September
1780 22nd
1780-1833
Croton's Point (called Teller's Point
during the American Revolutionary
War) is the point at which its end is
where the British sloop-of-war,
"Vulture" anchored to bring Major
John Andre to confer with the
American traitor, General Benedict
Arnold, concerning the surrender of
West Point to the British forces. On
September 20th, 1789, they
bargained at a spot under High Tor,
at the then-named Teller's Point.
However, while anchored off Teller's
Point, the Vulture was fired on by a
patriot cannon hastily borugh down
from Verplanck by Colonel
Livingston. The ship then retreated
down the river, but not before
Benedict Arnold had managed to
board her and make his escape to
join the British army. Andre, forced
to make his way overland, was
detained several miles to the
southwest of Hardscrabble Road (in
Tarrytown) by three local militiamen
who turned him over to
Washington's forces. He was courtmartialed, found guilty of spying,
Revolutiona and hanged. (1, page 15) (2, pages
ry War
62-63)
On Hardscrabble Road, there is a
plaque (ca. 1990) which marks the
spot where it is believe that Major
John Andre watered his horse.
Andre was riding south toward the
Bristish lines with the plans of West
Point concealed in his stocking. The
plans, which were crucial to the
outcome of the war, had been given
to Andre by the commander of West
Point, Benedict Arnold, who had also
arranged for Andre to sail back
Revolutiona through the lines on the British sloop
ry War
Vulture . (1, page 15)
Beechwood The "Beechwood" Estate owned by
Estate
several owners. (2, page 17)
17801784/1785?
Philipsburgh
Manor
post-1783
Revolutiona
ry War
Houten
(Houden,
Housen)
Family
post-1783
Philipsburgh
Manor
Tenants
1783(?)1800
Sparta and
Scarboroug
h
1783
After the Revolutionary War,
Loyalists' landholdings, including
Philipsburgh Manor (part of Philipse's
estate lands) were confiscated and
put up for sale in pursuance of an act
of the New York Sate Legislature "for
the speedy sale of the confiscated
and forfeited Estates within this
State." Isaac Stoutenburgh and
Philip Van Cortlandt were appointed
commissioners of forfeiture for the
southern district of the state.
Farmer were now able to buy the
land that they had previously worked
on as tenants. These lands are later
sold mostly to Philipse's former
tenants who sided with the Colonists
in the years following the end of the
Revolutionary War. (1, page 16) (2,
page 12)
When the end of hostilities of the
Revoutionary War were declared in
1783, the countryside of the now
Scarborough, Briarcliff, and Ossining
area was in ruins. (1, page 15)
Tunis Van Houten (Houden, Housen),
a Revolutionary War pensioner, buys
some 90 acres on Scarborough
Ridge. (1, page 16)
Jonas Orser and the families of
Abraham Brown and Job Sherwood
buy land they had farmed as
Philipseburgh tenants. (1, page 16)
The war-ravaged farms of the Sparta
and Scarborough areas recovered
following the Revolutionary War and
entered the nineteenth century in
peace and prosperity. Settlers,
farmers, tradesmen and boatmen,
arrived in increasing numbers,
moved out from the city or west
from Bedford and Newcastle. (1,
page 17)
1783(?)-ca.
1820
1784-1785
1784-1785
ca. 1785
1785
Sparta competed successfully in the
lively river commerce until around
1820, when dock rentals were
lowered at Mount Pleasant Landing,
two miles north in Sing Sing, and the
Post Road, which had followed the
present Revolutionary Road, was
Sparta and straightened at an inconvenient
Scarboroug distance from the landing at White
h
Point in Sparta. (1, page 17)
During this period, the Commission
on Forfeiture (appointed to seize and
sell land held by the Tories during
the Revolutionary War) sold all of the
Sing Sing tract of land of the
Philipsburgh Manor Estate to colonist
who had sided against King George
III and England, and an old map that
was in the possession of H. B.
Philipsburgh Valentine shows the Philipse Estate
Manor
tenants living off the land that they
Tenants
bought at this time. (14, page 3)
During this period, there was many
square miles of forest lands in the
area that would become the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, more Native
Americans than white settlers, some
trails, but no roads, shelters, but no
Hudson
houses, religion, but no churches,
River
books, but no schools and hunger,
History
but no stores. (14, page 1)
Around this year, the hamlet of
Sparta, a village of three north-south
streets and two east-west streets,
Sparta
had sprung up. (15, page 9)
John Bishop and his son, Thomas,
buy land from the New York
Commission on Forfeiture in what is
now the Scarborough section along
the Hudson River, amounting to 265
acres (the Hudson River was the
western boundary of this land
purchase). They are the ancestors
of the present-day (ca. 1952) Bishop
family: the three brothers Jesse B.,
T. Everett, and Howard G. Bishop.
Bishop
(1, page 16) (2, page 12) (14, page
Family
3)
1785
1785
1785
1785
December
1785 6th
1785-1885
The third church built on the land of
Philipseburgh Manor is noted as
"Dutch
"Dutch Presbyterian" on the map of
Presbyterian Philipsburgh Manor made in 1785.
" Church
(1, pages 12-13)
On a 1785 map, the Ledew (also
Ledew
spelled Ladoux) family's 131 acres
(Ladoux)
southeast of Scarborough Road are
Family
noted. (1, page 13)
At this time, the forebears of
Augustine Smith, who was married
to Annie C. Smith, who later sold
much of their land to the Whitings
family in 1913 and 1926, had owned
629 acres on and around the ridge
where the Ashridge estate and
mansion was located after it was
moved to this ridge in 1862. (1,
Smith Farm pages 26 and 114)
During this year, Peter Davis, one of
the heirs of Charles Davis, the
original settler of Sparta, purchased
a 200-acre farm from the
Commission of Forfeiture. It is likely
that Peter and Martha Davis were
living at that time in the house now
called the “Jug Tavern” at the
intersection of Revolutionary Road
Jug Tavern and Rockledge Avenue. (15, page 9)
On this date, some of present day
Briarcliff Manor was conveyed to
Jonas Orser. This parcel of land was
Ichabod
later called “Ichabod Farms.” (15,
Farms
page 9)
For these next hundred years or so,
the hamlets of Sparta, Sing Sing,
Scarborough, and Whitson’s Corners
(where Pleasantville and South State
Roads now meet) grew slowly and
quietly. The land was fertile, the
Hudson was—in those days—a major
Hudson
avenue of commerce, and more and
River
more settlers came to the pleasant
History
land. (17, page 4)
post-1785
post-1785
1786
1788
1788
1788-1800
By this time, there was an increase
in the number of settlers and farms,
with less forest. A tin peddler and a
blacksmith came to the area. Also,
Hudson
the number of Native Americans
River
declined, while the number of white
History
settlers increased. (14, page 3)
Some time after this year, another
village began to emerge in Mount
Pleasant just north of Sparta. With a
growing population and a thirst for
independent local government the
residents of Sing Sing (from the
Indian Sint Sinck) applied to the New
York State legislature for
Village of
independent governmental status.
Sing Sing
(15, page 10)
During this year in the Scarborough
Orser
region, Abraham Orser buys 123
Family
acres of land. (1, page 16)
During this year, the county of
Westchester was divided into
townships. One of these townships
was Mount Pleasant, which originally
included all of what is now Ossining,
both towns and village, the villages
of North Tarrytown (Sleepy Hollow),
Pleasantville and Briarcliff Manor, as
well as the present day hamlets of
Valhalla, Thornwood, Hawthorne,
Town of
Pocantico Hills, Crotonville,
Mount
Scarborough and Sparta. (15, page
Pleasant
9)
During this year, the tavern building
that served as The “Dutch
Presbyterian” Church building, which
"Dutch
was damaged by the Hessians during
Presbyterian the Revolutionary War, is repaired.
" Church
(15, page 11)
During this period, the tavern church
"Dutch
building of The “Dutch Presbyterian”
Presbyterian Church was used for worship
" Church
services. (15, page 11)
1790s
Sparta
ca. 1790
ca. 1790
1792
1792(?)1892
Letters written to England by John
Burgess portray life in the environs
of Sparta in the 1790s. Burgess, a
clergyman, had come to Sparta "as
the boys had not the small pox, and
I thought it too dangerous to stay in
the city." (1, page 17)
William Kemeys and Josiah Rhodes
bought land in Sparta around 1790.
They were among the first to acquire
lots in Sparta. They then established
a gristmill on Sparta Brook, near the
present Scarborough Railroad
Station. It consisted of three
wooden buildings "employed as A
manifactory for the flour of Mustard
and for crushing flax-seed," as
Rhodes described it in his will.
Rhodes and Kemeys both had
emigrated from Yorkshire, England.
Kemeys, whose name was fixed to
the cove where he owned land, came
from Scarborough. Perhaps these
two early residents were responsible
Sparta and for naming the western part of the
Scarboroug present village Scarborough. (1,
h
page 18) (15, pages 9-10)
By around this year, a part of the
Beechwood present Beechwood estate house
Estate
was built. (17, page 16)
The
During this year in the Scarborough
Garrison
region, Marvil Garrison buys 200
Family
acres of land. (1, page 16)
The house with a nineteenth-century
gable and porch that faces F. B. Hall
across Pleasantville Road is known to
have been the home of the Buckhout
family for over a hundred years. The
Philipse tenants who farmed the land
Buckhout
and probably built the house were
House
members of the Brown family. (1,
(Luthany)
page 14)
1794
Sparta
John Burgess, a past resident of
Sparta writes to a friend in 1794
that: "The land is wonderful fertile,
we have very fine horses which seem
to be a half breed, good cows and
oxen, but not large, hogs exactly
kike yours, cats and dogs the same,
but not very many of them, geese
and chickens like yours...a greta
many wild ducks part of the year.
No man is denied to carry his gunrich and poor alike. There are no
boundaries to our manors....All
belong to him that kills it, so we
don't meddle with a man's private
property, what the farmer brings up
tame. It is the custom of this
country that if a man goeth into
another man's house at mealtime, he
is always almost to be asked to sit
down to eat and drink with the
family. If it be a poor man it is just
the same. We have a great many
farmers what have 100 or 150 acres
of land of their own and use it. But I
don't know them by their clothes nor
their fat bellies from a poor man."
(1, page 17)
1794
Sparta
John Burgess continues writing about
the dress and mannerisms of the
farming families of Sparta, in that
"In the summer they wear trousers,
but very old ones. Any old stockings
and often without shoes. I have
seen them at plow without a shoe or
stocking. The women go the same,
never wear stays, very seldom a cap,
common[ly] wihtout shoe or stocking
when they are at work, but many of
them, when they go out dressed,
dress very gay. The women are
remarkable for riding. They will set
any horse up hill and down full
gallop. The men nor the women go
very far afoot. They ride good
horses, neat saddles. The famrers
have been used to make many
shifts: tan their own leather, and
make it up when they have done,
save all their wool, make all their
clothes, both for men, women and
children-the same as they did in
England in my Grandmother's
time....Many good farmers, I mean
farmers that use 200 acres of their
own land, live in a house not larger
nor better than what Sam Pachett's
house. All their business in a place
is dug in a bank, covered with a few
boards for a milk house, and you
1795
Path
Masters
An entry for 1795 in the minute book
of the Town of Mt. Pleasant names
the following "Path Masters": Robert
Ossor Path Master from Peter Davids
[in Sparta] …Job Sheerwood from 33
Mile Stone to Bridge This Side of the
Whitewood tree. Benjamin Brown
from Mud Bridge to Mill [Pocantico]
River. Jonas Ossor from the Popple
Brook to foot of the Long Hill." The
path masters were concerned with
wandering livestock, and there must
have been disagreements to be
settled becuase: "Hogs that
Sufiscently Ringed and yoked are
Permitted to Run in the
Street...[and]...no Ram to go at
Large from the first Day of august
until the first Day of November and if
they should hapen in to Any Person
Land he has a Right to Cut
[earmark] the Said Ram or Rams
and the owner [of the land] to have
four Shillings for his Trouble of
Cutting." (1, page 16)
Date
(Year):
1800s:
the early
1800s
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
Description of Event:
"Hoover
Cottage"
During this period, a house in the
Federal style is built on the land
adjacent to where the Ashridge
estate was moved to in 1862. (1,
pages 26 and 114-115)
the early
1800s
Whitson
Family
ca. 1800
Hudson
River
History
1800
18001839(?)
b. 1807-(d.
1875)
1810s:
"Dutch
Presbyterian
" Church
"Dutch
Presbyterian
" Church
Famous
Scarboroug
h Residents
By this time, it was quite certain that
the Whitson family, who had moved
a few miles south from New Castle,
began to exert heavy influence over
the area on both sides of the
Pocantico River in the Town of Mount
Pleasant. Collectively the family
controlled some 400 acres of rolling
farmland. (15, page 17)
The region that would become
Ossining, Sparta, Scarborough and
Briarcliff Manor entered the
nineteenth century as a quiet
backwater to the growing city (New
York City) to its south. Rich folk,
bankers and ship captains, the
“gentry,” up from New York, built
estates—“manors”—overlooking the
Hudson. (17, page 5)
During this year, the Presbyterian
congregation moves from the church
at Sparta Burying Grounds (the
tavern building at "The Corner" in
Scarborough) up the road to Sing
Sing, and also moved services to
Sing Sing. The tavern building was
moved to the corner of the Albany
Post and Scarborough Station Roads.
(1, page 18) (15, page 11)
The Presbyterian congregation
residents went for their devotions to
the Old Dutch Church at Philipsburgh
Upper Mills, to Sing Sing or to the
Friends Meeting House in Croton. (1,
page 18)
Notable Scarborough resident
William H. Aspinwall, is born in
Scarborough. (2, page 76)
1810
1810s(?)1890s
1811
1812
1812
Elms
Elms
Becker
Family
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
Briarcliff
Manor
School
District
The "Elms" estate is constructed by
Thomas Bailey of Ossining. It was at
one time called the "Ancients" house
because alumnae of Mrs. Dow's
School stayed there. (1, page 14)
(2, page 16)
The "Elms" estate is purchased soon
after 1810 by Mr. Jesse Bishop, and
then some of the Bishop family lived
there until it was soon sold to Mr.
Walter W. Law for a sale price of
$25,000.00 including the adjoining
159 acres, part of which is the
Briarcliff Junior College land (as of
ca. 1952) in the 1890s, who gave
the estate its name of "The Elms."
(1, page 14) (2, page 16)
Emil C. Becker, the future owner of
the Thomas Van Husen (Van
Houden, Van Houten) homestead
(located in Scarborough) is born in
Roden, Germany, and was "a leading
importer of his day" later in his life.
(1, page 25)
The Rural Delivery system,
delivering mail to 75 families, is
established. (2, page 64)
During this year, school districts
were set up in the county, fourteen
of them. (1, page 27)
post1812(?)1912
1813
Long Hill
School,
District
Number 4
Village of
Sing Sing
At one time and up until 1912, there
was the Long Hill School, District No.
4, built on the Croton Aqueduct
property at the corner of Long Hill
and Scarborough Roads in an area in
back of the parish house of The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church, in
the Scarborough area. It was in the
pulbic school system, and served
that part of the present day Briarcliff
school dsitrict that is west of Sleepy
Hollow Road, as well as the River
Road and Chilmark sections that are
now within the present Ossining
school district. The school had two
simple rooms and two devoted
teachers, Miss Charlotte Coburn and
Miss Adelaire Wheeler, who had to
instruct 70 pupils, who were not
always interested in learning. The
class got their water from one pail
and its one dipper. The school's two
rooms were heated by an antique
central stove, which left pupils
feeling roasts on one side but
freezing on the other. The school
had no illustrated textbooks, no
electric lights, and all students
walked to school. Sanitary facilities
were "outside." The 'three R's" were
taught, with sewing extra for girls,
and, as the reward for their merit,
During this year, the New York State
legislature approved the charter for
the Village of Sing Sing within the
Town of Mount Pleasant. It was the
first village charter within the state,
and to this day is different from all
other village charters. (15, page 10)
1813-(?)
1816-1836
b. 1818-(d.
1897)
1820s:
The line between Sparta and
Scarborough was not set unitl this
year, when the village of Sing Sing
was incorporated (the first
incorporated village in the county).
Many years after the line was drawn,
parts of Scarborough were still
referred to as Sparta, as this
account reads: "Sparta can also
boast of being the birthplace of
Admiral Worden, who performed the
gallant service of sinking the
Merrimac . The Monitor went whack
Sparta and into the Merrimac , And she went,
Scarboroug played "Yankee Doodle Dandy O!"
h
(1, page 18)
William Creighton, D.D., the future
founder of the St. Mary's Episcopal
Chruch, located in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, serves as the Rector
of St. Marks-in-the-Bouerie during
Creighton
this twenty-year period. (1, page
Family
19) (15, page 66)
John L. Worden, future Rear Admiral
of the U.S. Navy and commander of
the U.S.S. "Monitor," is born in
Scarborough in the stately Greek
revival mansion "Hillside" (since
demolished, ca. 1990) on the
Famous
southeast corner of Scarborough
Scarboroug Road and the Albany Post Road. (1,
h Residents page 18 and 29) (2, pages 75-76)
ca. 1820
1820
ca. 1825
The Joseph Whitson house, or "The
Crossways" home (later a teahouse),
is built by Joseph Whitson (the uncle
of John, Richard, and Reuben
Whitson, the three Whitson
brothers), which was then occupied
by his nephew John H. Whitson.
Whitson's post office was established
for some time in this building. It
was one of three farmhouses
occupied by the three Whitson
brothers: John, Richard, and
Reuben, on their combined farms of
400 acres, where this area was
called various titles: "Whitson's,"
"Whitson's Corner," "Whitson
Station." The elms surrounding this
house were judged (in ca. 1952) as
being more than a century old. This
historic home formerly existed by
the corner of Pleasantville Road and
South State Road, but was torn
down. This building formerly stood
Joseph
on the southeast corner where the
Whitson
parish house of the Congregational
House
Church now stands (ca. 2014). (1,
("Crossways page 31) (2, pages 13 and 64) (14,
")
page 3)
By this year, there were three
farmhouses in total all built and
owned by the three Whitson
brothers: John (the nephew of
Joseph Whitson, and who would
inherit “The Crossways” from his
uncle), Richard and Reuben. They
all occupied adjoining farms that
Whitson
totaled around 400 acres of land.
Family
(14, page 3)
Ashridge
Estate
During this year, the big house at
Ashridge is believed to have been
built by George Swords at its original
address on the Post Road near Saint
Mary's Church. (1, page 26)
1825
Hudson
River
History
1827
"Altheim"
(Thomas
Van Husen
(Van
Houden,
Van
Houten)
"Becker"
Homestead)
1828
Holden
Family
Farms in the Hudson River Valley
begin to change to growing specialty
crops, fruit orchards and dairy
products, after the opening of the
Eire Canal in 1825 started to bring
competing produce and livestock
down the river from the west and far
upstate. (1, page 22)
The Thomas Van Husen (Van
Houden, Van Houten) "Becker"
homestead is built on some ninety
acres. (1, page 25)
During this year, Dr. James Holmes
Holden, who would later build a
homestead with his wife, Emily
Brush Holden, high on the ridge east
of Scarborough Road on twenty-five
to thirty acres purchased by C.C.
North, is born in New York City. (1,
page 25)
1830s:
(?)-1830
Century
Homestead
1830s-1860
Ryder
Family
ca. 1830
Ward
Homestead
Since there are no Whitsons on the
Mt. Pleasant sensus rolls before
1830, the "Century Homestead" was
probably another Washburn house.
(1, page 13)
During this period, the land that C.C.
North later purchased from Lydia
and Edward Ryder (some hundred
acres adjacent to the Van HusenBecker property) was owned by
members of the Ryder family. (1,
page 25)
The house on the opposite corner of
Sleepy Hollow Road across the street
from the 1860s Weber House dates
from around this year and was built
around this time. It belonged to the
Ward family. (1, page 65) (15, page
35)
1830
1830
1830(?)1930(?)
1833
1833-1834
During this year, Alexis de
Tocqueville travels to Sing Sing to
Alexis de
visit the prison, which was a model
Tocqueville for its time. (1, page 25)
During this year, a house later
occupied by L. Raymond Aten was
L. Raymond built on Chappaqua Road. (15, page
Aten Home 18)
During this period, except that some
of the roads were paved, the views
Hudson
in the Hudson River Valley remain
River
bascially unchanged for a hundred
History
years. (1, page 25)
Elijah Pierson and Benjamin Folger
become the new owners of the
Beechwood "Beechwood" estate, calling it "Zion's
Estate
Hill." (2, page 17)
Prophet
Matthias
The religious leader Robert
Matthews, also known as "Matthias,"
stays at the estate he renames
"Zion's Hill" (the old part of the
Webb-Vanderlip "Beechwood" estate
in Scarborough) as the highlyhonored guest of the religious
fanatics Elijah Pierson and Benjamin
Folger. There is some evidence that
this house may have also been built
for Matthias under his supervision.
Matthias was a resident prophet, selfproclaimed, who had a vision of
himself as the resurrection of the
New Testament Matthias (Acts
1:26). He had been preaching on
street corners and in an out of prison
when he became aquainted with
some wealthy men of storng relgious
inclinations and great credulity, such
as Pierson and Folger, who advanced
large sums of money to Matthias and
deeded the house and land to him,
mortgagaed at $5,000.00. (1, page
18) (2, page 76)
1833-1834
1834
ca. 1835
Prophet
Matthias
Auchmuty
Family
Prophet
Matthias
During this period Matthias spends
the money of his hosts Elijah Pierson
and Benjamin Folger, as well as that
of his other wealthy supporters, on
clothing and trappings suitable for
his divine calling: frock coats "of
green lined with white satin or black
lined with pink," a vest of "rich silk
figures," silk tunics and pantaloons,
high topped boots and sandals, a
conical leather hat of "black
japanned leather, with a visor," the
"Sword of Gideon," and the "Chariot
of Israel," which he rode in the
countryside drawn by a matched
team of four white horses. His hair
and bear flowed long because he
believed it was wrong to cut them,
or his fingernails. His sleeping cap
had twelve tassels, each inscribed
with the name of an Apostle, and he
claimed to carry a golden key "to the
gates of Heaven, " and claimed to be
the "Angel of Revelation." Matthias
preached "the trumpet of truth" from
his pulpit of Zion Hill, and one of his
sermons dwelled on "females who
lecture their husbands are full of
deviltry." (1, page 18) (2, pages 7677) (15, page 23)
Henry J. Auchmuty, a lieutenant in
the United States Navy and nephew
of Sir Samuel Auchmuty, a rector of
Trinity Church in New York City,
buys a hundred acres "more or less"
on the banks of the Hudson just
south of Benjamin Folger's land. (1,
page 19)
Harper's book: "Matthias and His
Imposters, the Progress of
Fanaticism," is written by William L.
Stone, where the life of Robert
Matthews, a.ka. "Matthias," was
described in detail. (2, page 77)
1835
Prophet
Matthias
1836
Creighton
Family
Matthias runs out of the money that
his hosts and followers had lavished
onto him when Benjamin Folger,
who had been paying the bills at
Beechwood, then known as Zion Hill,
went bankrupt. This caused Mr.
Folger to accuse Matthias of being
an imposter, and Matthias became
violent. Soon after drinking a brew
Matthias had prepared for him, Elijah
Pierson, who while sheltering
Matthias believed himself to be John
the Baptist, died. Then the whole
Folger family fell mysteriously ill.
"Matthias" was in court in White
Plains that same year charged with
the murder of poisoning Pierson
when he stopped paying his bills;
murder; and severly beating his
daughter. Matthias is later acquited
during this year becuase of lack of
evidence. However, the exhumed
body of Pierson was found to contain
traces of arsenic. He was only
successfully charged with severly
beating his grown daughter, for
which he received a short jail term.
After leaving jail, he vanished from
the neighborhood of
Sparta/Scarborough and then loses
himself out West. However, the
scandal resounded through the
Louisa, Henry J. Auchmuty's widow,
sells the Auchmuty estate to William
Creighton, D.D., who in the words of
historian James Elliot Lindsey,
"deserves a prominent niche in the
iconography of the Diocese of New
York." Creighton was also a
graduate of Columbia College. (1,
page 19)
1836
Beechwood
Estate
1836
Creighton
Family
1836-1850s
Beechwood
Estate
Rev. William Creighton buys an
estate, he calls the estate
"Beechwood" for the first time, this
name being taken from the many
large trees of this type found there.
Creighton also builds a house on the
land overlooking the river (on a tract
of land which included the present
site of The Sleepy Hollow Country
Club and much of the River Road
section of Scarborough), and lives
there with his daughter, Catherine
Schermerhorn Creighton, and his
daughter and son-in-law, Jane and
Edward Meade. Meanwhile, Mrs.
Creighton, whose illness was
nervous, or mental, lived apart with
an attendant in "the Cottage." Like
most of the surrounding countryside,
those acres had been farmed,
perhaps profitably, before Lieutenant
Auchmuty bought them. The
Reverend William Creighton also
bought and developed land that
included the River Road section of
Scarborough and the present
grounds of the Sleepy Hollow
Country Club. (1, page 22) (2, page
17) (15, pages 12 and 66)
Due to his wife's ill health, William
Creighton, D.D., followed his friend
Washington Irving into retirement
into the country and resigned from
his post as Rector of Saint Mark's-inthe-Bouerie in New York City, and
from there served simultaneously as
Rector of Christ Church in Tarrytown
(which he founded in 1837), Zion's
Church in Dobbs Ferry, and of St.
Mary's Episcopal Church. (1, page
19) (15, page 66)
Rev. William Creighton lives with his
family and his daughter and son-inlaw, Jane and Edward Meade, at
their house on the "Beechwood"
estate, until the first rectory was
build for the Meades in the 1850s.
(1, page 22)
1836-1892
Beechwood
Estate
1837
Speyer
Family
1837
Creighton
Family
November
1837 13th
Law Family
b. 1837-(d.
1924)
1839
1839
Law Family
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
The "Beechwood" estate goes
through many owners until 1892. (2,
page 17)
During this year, the banking
company that James Speyers would
later work for, Uncle Philip's Speyer
& Company, is founded. (1, page
103)
During this year, the reverend
William Creighton, who would later
become the first Rector of St. Mary’s
Episcopal Church in Scarborough
(part of present-day Briarcliff
Manor), founds Christ Church in
Tarrytown. (15, page 66)
Walter William Law, the future
founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, is born, the son of a carpet
dealer in Kidderminster (carpet
country), England, (which was a
carpet center near the Scottish
border) and also educated there
both locally and in his father's office,
where he assisted him until he came
to America. A Village Between Two
Rivers , a 1977 history of Briarcliff
Manor, suggests that it might have
been this upbringing that influenced
him to go into the carpet trade that
would later make his fortune. (1,
page 36) (2, page 72) (15, page 5)
During this period, Walter William
Law, the later founder of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, lives. When he
died in 1924, he was 86 years old.
(15, page 5)
Rev. William Creighton, D.D. founds
the St. Mary's Episcopal Church,
Scarborough, on its original property
on an acre of land (a "glebe lot") on
his estate of "Beechwood." It is the
first church that is built in the land
that would later become the Village
of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 19) (2,
page 36)
William Creighton is elected as the
first Rector of the St. Mary's
Episcopal Church. (2, page 36)
1839
Law Family
1839 December
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1839-1851
December
(1839)St. Mary's
September Episcopal
21st (1851) Church
1839-1865
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1839-1882
1839-1939
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
During this year, Georgianna
Ransom Law, the future wife of
Walter W. Law, Sr., the founder of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, was
born. (1, page 215)
The son-in-law of Rev. William
Creighton, D.D., Rev. Edward
Nathaniel Meade, conducted the first
service of the St. Mary's Episcopal
Church in a small one-room
schoolhouse at the corner of Sleepy
Hollow Road and the Albany Post
Road (Route 9). Some of this
church's first parishioners lived in
Archville, a community of laborers
who were building the Croton
Aqueduct at the time. This location
was also the site of this church's first
rectory. (1, page 19) (2, page 36)
(15, page 66)
During this twelve-year period, the
members of the congregations of the
St. Mary's Episcopal Church met in
the unadorned schoolhouse on the
"Beechwood" estate lands, before
eventually moving into the more
noble and beautiful Gothic church
with the only set of stained glass
windows manufactured by John
Bolton of Pelham in existence. (1,
pages 19-21) (2, page 36)
During this period, William Creighton
serves as the first elected Rector of
Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church. (1,
page 235)
For this first forty-three years of the
parish of St. Mary’s Episcopal
Church, the parish was presided
over by its founder, Dr. William
Creighton, and his two sons-in-law,
Dr. Mead and General Morell. (1,
page 175)
During the first century of St. Mary’s
Episcopal Church, this parish had
only six rectors. (1, page 175)
1839-1989
1840s:
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
Scarboroug
h
Part of the house as Central 2 Drive
was the old Briarcliff Golf Club, a
tiny, neat two stories, was built. It
was at one time dated at 1790, but
because the oldest beams are
evidently milled that date has been
advanced to around 1840. (1, page
14)
Until the Reverend William Creighton
started to hold services for the first
congregations of Saint Mary's
Episcopal Church in the 1840s there
was no church within present village
limits. (2, page 36)
Captain Slidell-Mackenzie, a resident
of Scarborough, orders the hanging
from the yard-arm of the ship
"Somers" for mutiny, a man who
was the son of the Secretary of War
at the time, Spencer. (2, page 75)
Before it was called "Scarborough"
by its inhabitants by 1845, before
this year, the area of Scarborough
was a sparsely-settled region for
many years. (2, page 61)
The inhabitants of a settlement near
the region that would later bcome
the Village of Briarcliff Manor call
their settlement "Scarborough" for
the first time, after the name of an
English town, located in York
County, but this village name was
not officially sanctioned at this point.
(2, page 61)
Town of
Ossining
As the Village of Sing Sing spread to
the north and west, many found the
Mount Pleasant town offices too far.
This need for independent facilities
prompted residents of the area on
this date to request the state to form
a separate township. (15, page 10)
ca. 1840
(formerly
dated to
1790)
Number 2
Central
Drive,
clubhouse
of Mount
Pleasant
Golf Links
1840s
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1842
pre-1845
1845
1845 May 2nd
During this period of 150 years, in
all, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church has
had ten rectors (eleven with Dr.
Hillary Bercovici, who came to the
parish in 1989), with an average
tenure of ten years. (1, page 175)
Famous
Scarboroug
h Residents
Scarboroug
h
1845 May 2nd
Town of
Ossining
1846-1848
Mexican
War
1846-1848
Mexican
War
State legislature minutes show “An
Act to Erect the Town of Ossinsing in
the County of Westchester": “The
people of the State of New York
represented in the Senate and the
Assembly do enact as follows: All
that territory hereinafter described
agreeable to a map made by Jesse
Ryder being part of the Town of
Mount Pleasant in the County of
Westchester, shall be and hereby is
set off and erected into a new town
by the name of Ossinsing; being at a
cleft in a perpendicular rock on the
east shore of the Hudson River,
between the lands of Abraham
Leggett and William Creighton, and
from Bishop’s Rocks in said river
south…then east…to the middle of
the Pocantico or Mill River at a
bridge over the same; thence up
said river following the middle
thereof, to the south line of the
Town of New Castle…thence with
said New Castle line, north to the
rock on the east shore of the Croton
River opposite Deer Island at a
corner of the towns of Cortland, New
castle and Mount Pleasant; thence
southwardly along the east shore of
the Croton and Hudson rivers to the
place of beginning.” (Ossinsing, later
Lieutenant-Colonel Henry
Bainbridge, a resident of
Scarborough, fights notably during
the Mexican War. (2, page 75)
Commodore Matthew Calbraith
Perry, a resident of Scarborough and
the great seafaring man known as
the "Father of the Steam Navy and
the Opener of Japan," and who
opened up Japan to trade with the
West, fights notably during the
Mexican War. He was a parishioner
of Saint Mary's Beechwood (as Saint
Mary's was then called) and gave
that church its first bell, which he
had captured at the Battle of
Tabasco. (1, page 29) (2, page 75)
1847
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1848
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
During this year, Commodore M. C.
Perry, a future parishioner of St.
Mary’s Episcopal Church, captures
the bell in the Battle of Tabasco that
he would later give to the church.
(1, page 29) (15, page 67)
The erection of the All Saints
Episcopal Church is begun by the
Rev. John D. Ogilby, a Professor of
Ecclesiastical History at the General
Theological Seminary, in New York
City after his return from England.
It was built on his summer estate,
just east of and overlooking what is
now Ossining, which he had named
"Brier Cliff" after his family home in
Ireland. While in England, Ogilby
had noted the similarity of the
corner of his land at Old Briarlciff
and Scarbororugh Roads to the site
of the beautiful ivy-covered Gothic
church at Bremerton (near
Salisbury, Wiltshire) England, once
the church of poet and clergyman
George Herbert. Each lay between
and looked out on the forks of a
highway; however, unlike Bemerton,
there was no church outlines on the
horizon of Brier Cliff. He resolved to
build a chapel on this corner of his
land to provide services for his
neighbors. Architect Richard
Upjohn, who had designed Trinity
Church and the Church of the
Ascension in New York City, drew up
the plans for a church like the one at
Bremerton. Dr. Ogilby died before
the building was finished, but the
1848
1848
The Hudson River Railroad Compnay,
authorized by the State Legislature,
offered $2,789.00 for a parcel of
Creighton's river front (roughly three
acres above and two below highwater mark) plus damages and
counsel fees, he refused, although
the transaction and the sum had
been approved by a jury of his
neighbors in the county. In this
case, "the Matter of the Hudson
River Railroad Company and William
Creighton," the names of the jurors
called included some of the oldest in
the county: Isaac Purdy of Rye,
Andrew See of Mount Pleasant,
Joseph Merrit of Newcastle, Michael
Varian of West Farms and Bernardus
Montross of Yorktown, showing that
the social makeup of the county had
not yet changed much since
revolutionary days. In spite of
Creighton's refusal, the land was
appropriated, the money deposited
to his credit in the Westchester
Rail Roads County Bank. (1, pages 22-23)
During this year, James Watson
James
Webb builds Pokahoe, "a stone
Watson
mansion" on "some sixty acres of
Webb
finely wooded land," where Philipse
Estate
Manor is today (ca. 1990). (1, page
("Pokahoe") 87)
1848-1874
1850s:
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1849
Rail Roads
1849
Briarcliff
Artists:
Abbott
Henderson
Thayer
1849 September
Rail Roads
The All Saints Episcopal Church "was
sustained from its beginning until
1874 cheifly by the efforts of the
Brinkerhoff family…" some of whom
lived on Old Briarcliff Road, north of
the corner. The Ogilbys, McFarlans
and Brinkerhoffs were related, and
members of all three families owned
houses that were close to the
church. A history of All Saints,
exquisitly written by Helena
Duncombe and illustrated by
Katherine Figart, which is one of the
church's treasures, reveals some
details of the relationships of these
families. The Brinkerhoffs may also
have been related to Henry R.
Remsen as well, who later who own
the house and part of the property
of the present (ca. 1990)
"Beechwood" estate from 1850 to
1903. (1, pages 21-22)
Trains enter Sing Sing for the first
time after the Hudson River Railroad
establishes a line north during this
year. It was now possible to avoid a
six- or seven-hour carriage ride up
the rutted Albany Post Road from
New York City. (2, page 20) (17,
page 5)
During this year, the famous
American artists, Abbott Henderson
Thayer, who would later live in the
Holden family homestead in
Scarborough in the late 1880s, was
born in Boston. (1, page 211)
The Hudson River Railroad
"screeched" through to Peekskill for
the first time. (1, page 23)
1850s
Beechwood
Estate
1850s
Old Croton
Aqueduct
The inventory of stock and other
articles sold to Rev. William
Creighton with the land of his
"Beechwood" estate, which was a
"gentleman's farm," and was not a
big investment, is typical of small
local farms of the 1850s: "Five cows.
One Pair of oxen. One Pair of Farm
horses. Eight swine. About Thirty
head of poultry. One farm wagon.
One wood Sled. Set of farm harness.
Two Ox chains. Four Ploughs. One
harrow. One hay rake. Two shovels.
Two iron shovels. Two Spades. Four
scythes. Three hoes. One corn knife.
Two Potato hooks. One pair of
Steelyards. One garden edging iron.
One Pick axe. Two garden rakes.
One Trowel. One wheelbarrow. one
watering Pot. Three Churns. Three
Tin pails. Twenty pans. Two Trays.
One Strainer. One Stone boat." (1,
page 22)
As far back as this time, Benjamin
Church, the chief engineer of the
Croton Aqueduct, worked as the
person in charge of the impossible
task of supplying water to the
growing city. Mary J. D'Alvia, in her
book, The History of the New Croton
Dam . (1976) says that also at
around this time, the tunnel had to
be inspected frequently for cracks
and leaks, and on one occasion
water was let in during an
inspection. "A group of men
grabbed a ladder forming a human
chain to keep from being swept
away. One of them tried to get out
before his turn and had to be pulled
back. By the time the last man was
out, the water had reached Church's
neck, but the crew had been saved."
(1, pages 114 and 231)
1850s
1850s(?)1860s(?)
ca. 1850
Briarcliff
Maps
Maps of the area that would later
become the Village of Briarcliff
Manor clearly show Brier Cliff at the
corner of Scarborough and Old
Briarcliff Roads and designate the
road connecting Pleasantville Road in
Ossining to Scarborough Road as
Brier Cliff Road. (15, page 21)
By the middle of the nineteenth
century, at the corner of
Scarborough Road and the Post
Road, a hamlet had formed, which
consisted of a small group of houses
and stores facing south and west,
and the tavern, grown prosperous,
that had incorporated the old
Presbyterian church. There was a
blacksmith shop and hay scale which
served as a dance floor for the
young people on festive occassions.
"One small store, owned by a Mr.
Hogby, supplied the settlement with
necessities such as needles, horse
blankets, leather boots, grains and
meats. Oil cans contianing kerosene
for lamps and lanterns stood in long
rows, each with its potato on the
spout the prevent spilling....Back of
these buildings was a pond filled
with ducks and Calamus reeds in
Scarboroug summer and skaters in winter." (1,
h
page 27) (2, page 61)
At this time, as Scarborough began
to expand, homes were built along
Scarborough Road, and Scarborough
Road back then was "a dirt
Scarboroug thoroughfare lined with huge
h
willows." (1, page 25) (15, page 12)
ca. 1850
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
Around this year, when the church
building for St. Mary’s Episcopal
Church was built in Scarborough
(part of present-day Briarcliff
Manor), John Bolton was
commissioned to design a set of
windows for this church. John and
William Bolton were English
immigrants who established one of
the earliest stained glass studios in
America in Pelham. The Bolton
windows depict a Dove—the symbol
of the Holy Spirit—and a
representation of the Last Supper;
the Winged Man of St. Matthew, the
Lamb Triumphant, an Alpha and a
Winged Ox of St. Luke; the Winged
Lion of St. Mark, the very rare
Pelican-in-her-Piety, an Omega and
the Eagle of St. John; the Doctrine of
the Trinity; the Instruments of
Passion; and the glory of St. Mary’s.
This set of Bolton windows in this
church is the only complete set of
John Bolton stained glass windows in
existence. (1, page 19-21) (15, page
67)
1850
1850
1850
The edifice of the St. Mary's
Episcopal Church is built principally
financed by both Dr. Creighton and
Dr. Meade. Its construction was also
paid for in part by contributions from
wealthy and prominent neighbors in
the area, such as Commodore
Matthew Calbraith Perry, General
James Watson Webb, William H.
Aspinwall, the shipping magnate,
and Ambrose C. Kingsland, mayor of
New York City in the 1850s. Dr.
Mead drew the plans for the church,
where he relied on his memories of
the thirteenth-century Saint Mary's
Church in Scarborough, Yorkshire,
England, where he and his wife, Jane
(Creighton), had visited on a tour of
Europe, and then pursuaded his
father-in-law, Dr. Creighton, to build
the church. The church is built of
native granite by local stonemasons,
and architecturally, it closely
resembles the north aisle chapel of
its counterpart in England and its
narrow lancelet windows, vaulted
ceiling and perfect proportions of its
chancel arch make it one of the
finest examples of early English
St. Mary's
Gothic architecture in America. It
Episcopal
has a complete set of stained-glass
Church
windows by John Bolton of Bolton
William H. Aspinwall, as resident of
Scarborough, begins his interest in
the Panama Canal project of 1850,
which later results in the port on the
eastern end of the Panama Canal
Famous
being named after him (the port's
Scarboroug name is later changed to Colon). (2,
h Residents page 76)
By this year, only three families of
the original settlers remained in
Sparta. Most of the residents by this
time were laborers or guards at Sing
Sparta
Sing Prison. (15, page 10)
1850(?)1859(?)
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1850-1880s
Beechwood
Estate
1850-1903
Beechwood
Estate
Sometime during this period, the ivy
which covers (ca. 1952) nearly the
whole exterior of the St. Mary's
Episcopal Church, was brought and
planted by Washington Irving
(author of The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow ), to whom it was given by Sir
Walter Scott (author of Ivanhoe ),
from Abbotsford, Scotland.
Washington Irving also frequently
worshipped at St. Mary's. (2, page
36) (14, page 17) (17, page 29)
During this period, the Remsen
family spent summers almost
certainly in the very house at the
"Beechwood" Estate, on some eleven
acres, where Benjamin Folger had
entertained the infamous Matthias.
(1, page 85)
Henry R. Remsen owns the house
and part of the property of the
present (ca. 1990) "Beechwood"
estate during this period. (1, page
22)
ca. 1851
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1851
Law Family
1851
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
September
1851 21st
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
Around this year, when St. Mary’s
Episcopal Church first opened for
services in its present location in
Scarborough (part of the presentday Village of Briarcliff Manor), there
were many notables that were early
parishioners. Other than
Commodore Matthew Calbraith
Perry, who opened Japan to trade
with the West and was called the
“father of the steam navy” and a
veteran of the Mexican War of 18461848, there were also George
Cartwright, who sank the first shaft
for a silver mine in Sparta; William
Aspinwall, a man keenly interested
in the construction of the Panama
Canal and was an Envoy to the Court
of St. James during the Civil War;
Major General James W. Webb,
newspaper editor and Minister
Plenipotentiary to Brazil during the
reign of Pedro II; Rear Admiral John
L. Worden, commander of the
Monitor at the time of its victory
over the Merrimac and Major
General George W. Morrell,
commander of the Fourth Division,
Army of the Potomac. (1, page 29)
(15, page 67)
During this year, Walter Law goes to
work as a draper at the age of
fourteen. His duties for this job also
left him much time to read about
opportunities in America. (1, page
36) (15, page 5)
During this year, the Reverend John
David Ogilby, D.D., who had begun
the effort to build the All Saints
Episcopal Church in 1848, dies. (15,
pages 67-68)
The first services are held in the
present edifice (as seen ca. 1952) of
the St. Mary's Episcopal Church. (1,
page 21) (2, page 36)
1851-1921
1852
Buckhout
House
(Luthany)
Briarcliff
Writers:
James
Barrett
Swain
Extensive research by the Mount
Pleasant historians John Crandall
and Carsten Johnson II found no
Buckhouts among the several
owners of the Buckhout house
during this period. This house,
named Luthany in 1923 by the
Baroness De Luze when she bought
it during that same year, had been
commonly referred to as the
Buckhout house before the Baroness
De Luze bought it. (1, pages 13 and
123-124)
During this year, the first
noteworthy writer who lived in the
Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough area,
James Barrett Swain, worked as the
city editor of the then-fledgling The
New York Times newspaper. Mr.
Swain was also editor of the Hudson
River Chronicle , a small paper
published at Sing Sing (Ossining),
and assistant on Horace Greeley’s
New York Tribune . He is credited
with the introduction of the
correspondent system. He was also
a friend and Scarborough neighbor
of Dr. William Creighton, the first
rector of St. Mary’s Church in
Scarborough. In addition, Mr.
Swain’s wife, Relief Davis Swain,
was the organist of Saint Mary’s
Church. When she died, her
daughter Florence, then eighteen
years old, went to New York City,
“where the original organ came
from,” as Florence Dinwiddie
remembered, “and studied how to
play it,” and took her mother’s place
at the console. She was the church
organist for many years. (1, page
216)
post-1852
Briarcliff
Writers:
James
Barrett
Swain
1853
"Altheim"
(Thomas
Van Husen
(Van
Houden,
Van
Houten)
"Becker"
Homestead)
1854
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1854 December
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
After he was the city editor on the
fledgling The New York Times
newspaper in 1852, James Barrett
Swain, a resident of Scarborough
and writer, then worked for The New
York Times newspaper as their
Albany correspondent. (1, page 216)
The Thomas Van Husen (Van
Houden, Van Houten) homestead,
built on some ninety acres, is bought
by Emil C. Becker. (According to
Fred Becker, a former resident of
this house, it was once called
"Altheim"). (1, page 25) (16, page
1)
During this year, the building of All
Saints Episcopal Church was
completed with funds provided by
the Reverend John David Ogilby,
D.D., Henry McFarlan. (1, page 177)
(15, pages 67-68)
At this time, an account of the All
Saints Episcopal Church’s opening
service in Banner of the Cross, a
church publication of the day,
described the church as a “small but
beautiful stone
sanctuary…commanding one of the
finest views along the whole length
of the Hudson.” It noted that the
furniture was most appropriate, the
wood being yellow pine, oiled and
varnished. All the windows were of
stained glass by Gibson of
Philadelphia and the very beautiful
chancel window was intended as a
memorial to Dr. Ogilby. (15, page
68)
December
1854 13th
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1854-1869
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1854-1882
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1854-1977
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
The first service of the All Saints
Episcopal Church is held. Six visiting
clergymen took part in this opening
service. The sermon was preached
by Dr. Ogilby's brother, the
Reverend Frederick Ogilby, and holy
communion administered by Dr.
Creighton. A church pulbication of
this time described the church as a
"small but beautiful stone
sancuary...commanding one of the
finiest views along the whole length
of the Hudson." The building was
entriely furnished, the interior
finished in pine, oiled and varnished.
An English friend of Dr. Ogilby gave
the chancel windows in his emeory
and sir Robert Ogilby gave money
for the other windows. All the
windows were of stained glass from
Gibson of Philadelphia. (1, page 21)
(2, page 38)
During this period, All Saints
Episcopal Church, although it had
completed its building by 1854, its
parish was not regularly established
and recognized as part of the
Episcopal Diocese of New York until
1869. (1, page 177)
During this period, before the title to
the church property was transferred
to the church corporation of the All
Saints Episcopal Church, the
worshippers of this church had
become a body corporate union with
the Diocese of New York as a
regularly established parish. (15,
page 68)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, since its beginning in
1854, All Saints Episcopal Church
parishioners and friends have
traditionally given time, money,
land, labor and gifts for church
enrichment. (15, page 68)
1857
1857
1858
1858
1858-1883
1859
b. 1859-(d.
1947)
Lieutenant-Colonel Henry
Bainbridge, a resident in the vicinity
Famous
of Scarborough for a time, goes
Scarboroug down with his ship and crew on the
h Residents Louisiana . (1, page 29) (2, page 75)
During this year, the New York
Infirmary for Women and Children
was established by Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell as a hospital staffed by
Hospitals
women doctors. (1, page 91)
During this year, Colonel Shepard
Shepard
was admitted to the bar. (1, page
Family
47)
During this year, William Whitehead
Fuller, who later built the Haymont
mansion high on the hill north of
Fuller
Chappaqua Road around 1910, was
Family
born. (1, page 122)
During this twenty-five year period,
Colonel Shepard "organized and was
counsel for banks, savings banks,
insurance companies, churches, and
commercial and other
enterprises…[and did] much toward
Shepard
settling the railroad law of the
Family
State…." (1, page 47)
During this year, at the age of
twenty-two, Walter Law travels to
New York City without friends,
connections, or money to try his luck
in seeking his fortune that he was
well on his way to finding. He
landed in New York City on January,
22nd, 1860. (1, page 36) (2, page
Law Family 72) (15, page 5)
During this period, Carrie Chapman
Catt, the famous suffragette and
resident of Briarcliff Manor from
Catt Family 1919-1928, lives. (17, page 23)
Date
(Year):
1860s:
Month and
Day (If
Available):
1860s
1860s
1860
1860
January
1860 22nd
Subject:
Description of Event:
The large Boorman property directly
north and east of the Sparta
Boorman
Cemetary Burial Ground is
Estate,
designated Hollingbourne on maps
"Hollingburn drawn from surveys made in the
e"
1860s. (1, page 23)
During this decade, the Weber House
Weber
at 24 Sleepy Hollow Road was
House
constructed. (15, page 35)
The deed of C. C. North for the land
that Ashridge was moved to,
mentions the "Old Ryder Homestead"
or the Smith farmhouse, which may
be the house that was built in the
Federal style in the early 1800s that
sits on the land adjacent to the
Ashridge estate mansion. (This
handsome little house, which the
Whiting family would later remodel
and use for guests, is most often
referred to as "the Cottage," or
"Hoover Cottage," after Mrs.
Whiting's friend President Herbert
Hoover, who stayed there on his
"Hoover
several visits to Ashridge. (1, pages
Cottage"
114-115)
During this year, C.C. North
purchased from Lydia and Edward
Ryder some hundred acres adjacent
to the Van Husen-Becker property.
Ryder Family (1, page 25)
Walter William Law, the future
founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, arrives in America from
England for the first time. At this
time, he was so poor that he could
not buy a new suit of clothes, but
Law Family eager to get to work. (2, page 72)
1860-1861
January
22nd(?)
1860Autumn
1861
Law Family
During this period, Walter William
Law, the future founder of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, works for a rug
and carpet business in New York
City. This was Mr. Law's first job, as
a traveling salesman at a dollar a
day (quite a novelty in the trade,
incidentially). When he discovered
that the company was passing
domestic carpets as imported, his
business ethics forced him to seek
employment elsewhere. His next
employer was a firm that outfitted
steamships and hotels, but the
company soon found itself caught up
in the rigors of the Civil War.
However, such was Mr. Law's ability
that, though the firm had to cut its
staff, it retained Mr. Law until the
last moment of bankruptcy. (1, page
36) (2, page 72) (15, page 5)
1860-1889
The wanderings of the mysterious
traveling journeyman hermit, Jules
Bourglay, (supposedly from France)
a.k.a. the "Old Leather Man"
(because he was clothed in leather
patched together from old boot tops
and the like, which weighed some
sixty pounds) begin, covering a route
of 366 miles from Hartford,
Connecticut to the neighborhood of
Briarcliff, and then to Nyack, N. Y.
"The Leather Man" continues walking
this yearly route for almost 30 more
years. Families and farmers along
his way fed him, aware that he
would arrive with an exactness of
schedule almost to an hour, and who
came to know him as a harmless and
perhaps a bit deranged human
being. He did not speak, but grunts
made known his simple needs, and
he appeared during this period for
thirty years at the same time. He
lived on the simplest of food and yet
seemed to possess funds,
supposedly from France. He would
also sometimes rest from his
wanderings in a cave or a hut on the
Dell Farm, and lived in a series of
Famous
other caves along his route. The
Scarborough definitive identity of the "Leather
Residents
Man" remains unknown, although it
1861
1861
1861
During this year, James Holmes
Holden, a New York City dentist, and
his wife, Emily Brush Holden, built
their homestead high on the ridge
east of Scarborough Road on twentyfive to thirty acres purchased from
C.C. North. Dr. Holden was in his
thirties when he settled in
Scarborough and must have
travelled regularly to his Fifth
Avenue office to carry on his
practice. He and Emil Becker were
among the first, if not the very first,
communters in the neighborhood.
After the deaths of the elder
Holdens, this homestead was rented
to a variety of tenants, including the
Impressionist painter Abbott Thayer
and Rodney Deans and their four
children. (Mrs. Dean later married
Harold Pierson of the horticulturist
Holden
Pierson family and wrote Roughly
Homestead Speaking , the story of her life). (1,
"Sunset Hill" page 25)
During this year, the son of General
Samuel Blatchley Webb (an aid to
General George Washington during
the Revolutionary War) was made a
general when he entered the
diplomatic service at the outbreak of
the Civil War in 1861. After youthful
adventures in the military among
hostile Indians in Michigan and
Illinois (?), James Webb had been a
newspaper editor and proprietor,
"one of the most influencial editors in
that age of personal journalism." He
was also twice married and fathered
eight sons and two daughters. (1,
Civil War
page 87)
During this year, James Speyer, the
furture owner of the "Waldheim"
estate located in Briarcliff Manor, is
born in New York City. He is then
Speyer
educated in Germany, at FrankfurtFamily
am-Main. (1, page 103)
1861 August
Sparta
Burying
Grounds
1861 Autumn
Law Family
1861-1862
Civil War
1861-1862
Civil War
This is the date of the oldest of the
Boorman family graves in the Sparta
Cemetary Burial Ground, which is a
sarcophagus inscribed: "Mary
Boorman, died City of New York,
August 1861 and there interred,"
which is said to have been
transported from a cemetary where
Boorman graves had been
desecrated by grave robbers who
stole bodies and held them for
ransom. (1, page 23)
Walter William Law, the future
founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, with help from letters of
introduction he had from England
and determined not to return to
England, enters the firm of W. and J.
Sloane Company after he
approached Mr. William Sloane, who
met him with a kindness he ever
remembered, from whom he
received an initial salary of $350.00
a year. His first job in this company
was working once again as a
salesman with his samples wrapped
in oilcloth. (2, page 72) (15, page 5)
General Alexander Stewart Webb,
the son-in-law of Henry R. Remsen,
a resident of Scarborough who lived
in the present (ca. 1990)
"Beechwood" estate, fights in the
Civil War, serving in the Army of the
Potomac as the assistant to the chief
of artillery.
Major-General George Webb Morell,
a resident of Scarborough who lived
in Creighton's Beechwood (and
twenty years older than his cousin,
Alexander Webb, who also served in
the Civil War in the Army of the
Potomac as the assistant to the cheif
of artillery), serves as a brigadier
general of the United States
Volunteers in the Army of the
Potomac, and as the Commander of
the 4th Division of the Union Army of
the Potomac during the Civil War. (1,
page 87) (2, page 75)
1861(?)1865(?)
Civil War
1861(?)1865(?)
Civil War
1861(?)1865(?)
Civil War
1861-1898
Law Family
Colonel James B. Swain, a resident
of Sacrborough, raised and
commanded a regiment of cavalry,
the "Scotts 900" (officially the 11th
New York), that served as President
Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard during
the Civil War. Also during the Civil
War, he conducted the regiment to
Camp Relief, named for his wife,
Relief Davis Swain, at Meridian Hill,
Washington. Swain's sone, Chellis,
served as a lieutenant under his
father. (1, page 29) (2, page 75)
William H. Aspinwall, as resident of
Scarborough, is sent to England to
prevent the building of Confederate
ironclads. (2, page 76)
Colonel Elliot Finch Shepard, a
resident of Scarborough, was an aidde-camp of Governor E. D. Morgan.
The 51st Regiment of New York
Volunteer Infantry, the "Shepard
Rifles," was named in his honor.
When Governor Morgan's term of
office expired, President Lincon
offered Colonel Shepard a brigadier's
commission, which he declined,
"from a sense of fairness to other
officers, who had seen more filed
service than himself." He recruited
the 9th Army Corps and, among
other good works, helped to secure
the passage of laws providing for the
allottment of soldier's pay to their
families and enabling soldiers to vote
in the field. (1, page 29)
Walter William Law, the future
founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, works for the firm of W. and
J. Sloane for nearly 39 years, until
he retired in 1898. (2, page 72)
1862
1862 March 9th
1863
1863
1863 Spring
The big porticoed Greek Revival
Ashridge house on the ridge above
Scarborough Road is sold by J. Butler
Wright to C.C. North for $500.00
with the understanding that it be
moved within a certain time. It was
then taken down in sections,
carefully marked, loaded on sledges
and hauled up the hill over the snow,
and moved from the Butler Wright
estate on the Albany Post Road.
North called his new home Ashridge,
because the only large tree on the
ridge was an ash. At this time, the
interior of this house was divided
Ashridge
into many small rooms. (1, pages 26
Estate
and 114)
Rear Admiral of the U.S. Navy, John
L. Worden, a resident of
Scarborough, commands the USS
"Monitor" against the Confederate
"Merrimac" in a naval battle at
Hampton Roads, Virginia in the first
encounter in world history of ironclad
Civil War
warships. (2, pages 75-76)
The Rev. John D. Ogilby donates the
building and grounds and the
incorporated title of the All Saints
Episcopal Church to the "Rector,
Church Wardens and Vestrymen of
All Saints Church, Brier Cliff, Sing
All Saints
Sing, New York," "Brier Cliff" having
Episcopal
been the name of his earlier home in
Church
Ireland. (1, page 21) (2, page 38)
During this year, Dr. Matthew Howell
Reaser, later the founder of the
Reaser
Edgewood Park School, is born. (8,
Family
page 64)
The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church traces its earliest beginnings
to this time when Mr. and Mrs.
Warren Rogers established the
Scarborough Mission School in the
upper rooms of the Long Hill School
on Sunday afternoons. They had
been teaching in a Mission School in
Scarborough Brooklyn and felt there was a need
Presbyterian for religious training in their new
Church
neighborhood. (15, page 69)
1863(?)
post-July
4th(?)
September
1863 19th
1863-1900s
Civil War
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
Hillside
At around this time, one of the sons
of James Watson Webb, Alexander
Stewart Webb, was awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor for
"distinguished personal gallantry in
the battle of Gettysburg." (1, page
87)
On this date, the following church
officers were elected for the All
Saints Episcopal Church: Wardens:
Peter R. Brinckerhoff, John M.
Stuart; Vestrymen: Orison Blunt,
William Grant, P. Remsen
Brinckerhoff, Henry M. Patterson, I.
Mulholland, Henry Morton. (2, page
38)
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Warren Rogers
come to live in Scarbororugh during
this period, starting in 1863 (in the
stately Greek revival mansion in
which Admiral John L. Worden was
born), and they then named this
mansion Hillside that same year.
Also during this same year, they
started the Scarborough Mission
Sunday School with help of a group
of neighbors, including Mr. and Mrs.
C. C. North and Dr. James Holden.
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Warren Rogers
founded this Sunday School becuase
they both ahd taught previously in a
mission Sunday School in Brooklyn
and, finding that the children of their
new neighborhood of Scarborough
were apparently receving no
religious education of any kind,
founded this Sunday School. Classes
for this chool were held on Sunday
afternoon in the upper room of the
Long Hill schoolhouse, until it was
decreed that religious education
could not take place in public
schools. At this time, the Sunday
school moved to All Saints parish
house. However, Mr. and Mrs.
Joseph Warren Rogers still resided at
Hillside until the 1900s. (1, pages 18
and 28)
1863-1952
1864
1864 September
1864 November
December
1864 2nd
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
The All Saints Episcopal Church has
13 Rectors during this time period.
(2, page 38)
During this year, Walter W. Law
becomes the first person to become
a traveling salesman for the firm of
Law Family W. & J. Sloane Company. (8, page 9)
Cassius Bishop, a Civil War casualty
listed for the town of Ossining (who,
if he did not live in the vicinity of
Scarborough or Whitson's Corners
(later Briarcliff Manor), he was
almost certianly connected to
familie(s) who did) and a member of
the New York Heavy Artillery, died in
Andersonville Prison in September
1864 during the Civil War. (1, pages
Civil War
29-30)
Private Andrew J. Orser, a Civil War
casualty listed for the town of
Ossining (who, if he did not live in
the vicinity of Scarborough or
Whitson's Corners (later Briarcliff
Manor), he was almost certianly
connected to familie(s) who did) and
a member of Company E, 51st
Infantry, of the Union Army, died in
November 1864 while fighting in the
Civil War. He was buried in the
Sparta Cemetary and Burial Ground.
Civil War
(1, pages 29-30)
The village title of "Scarborough" is
first officially given to the
Scarborough area with the
establishment of the first Post Office
there by the U. S. Government, the
Scarborough Post Office, down by
the railroad, and Scarborough Road,
with the short jog on the Post Road
so familiar to commuters, was
extended to the railroad station. It
was given the name Scarborough
after the former home in England of
William Kemeys and Josiah Rhodes.
Scarborough (1, page 27) (2, page 61) (15, page
Post Office
11)
b. 1864-(d.
1937)
Vanderlip
Family
ca. 1865
1865
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1865
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
Mr. Frank Arthur Vanderlip is born in
1864 in Aurora, Illinois. By the time
of his death in 1937, he achieves
prominence later in life as an expert
in finances, and as a banker and
economist. He served as the
President of The National City Bank
of New York, and wrote seven books
dealing with finances and statecraft.
Mr. Vanderlip was also honored by
degrees from four American
Universities and also received
decorations from four foreign
governments. (2, pages 75) (3, page
386)
The first public school-house in what
would become the Briarcliff area, is a
one-room "little red schoolhouse"
that was built on land that was
donated by Mr. John H. Whitson that
was near the present Route 9A
access road on Pleasantville Road
near Route 100. It was then called
the title of "Union Free School,
District No. 6, Towns of Ossining and
Mt. Pleasant." There was only one
teacher, Paris Bowers, and one
trustee, Mr. Joseph I. Pierce. This
school had hard wooden benches for
its students and an old-time wood
stove that baked the pupils on one
side while they froze on the other.
The number of pupils is unknown but
it differed with the seasons. The
demands of farms often kept
children at home, there to study the
Farmer's Almanac and handle the
milk pail and plow. (1, page 31) (2,
page 49) (14, page 13) (17, page
18)
Edward Nathaniel Mead is elected as
the second Rector of the St. Mary's
Episcopal Church. (2, page 36)
During this year, Dr. Creighton, the
first Rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal
Church, dies. He was buried under
the chancel of the church. (15, page
67)
1865 July
1865-1877
1865-ca.
1990
post-18651902
The first president and sole trustee,
Joseph Pierce, of The Board of
Briarcliff
Education of the area which would
Board of
become the Village of Briarcliff
Education
Manor, is elected. (2, page 60)
During this period, Edward N. Mead
St. Mary's
serves as the second elected Rector
Episcopal
of Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church. (1,
Church
page 235)
During this period, The Briarcliff
Board of Education members were:
Joseph Pierce, George A. Todd, Jr.,
Mrs. E. C. Carter, Mrs. R. M. Hersey,
Mrs. Leon Brown, Andrew B. Vosler,
Henry B. Valentine, Mrs. Sherman
Dean, Mrs. William Kallman, Albert
Matthes, Lawrence P. Bengert, John
O. Logan, Edward P. Anderson, Mrs.
E. R. Beal, Robert C. Heim, Nicholas
B. Marden, Henry O. Letiecq, Emile
Brown, Mrs. F. S. Sergenian, Mrs. G.
O. Evans, Fritz C. Heynen, Theodore
B. Malsin, Ralph Lewis, Wilbur H.
Ferry, Raymond R. Ammarell,
Virginia Grinager, William F. Matthes,
Jr., Benjamin F. Erlanger, Dudley V.
I. Darling, Virginia B. Wuori, Jacob
Evanshon, George S. Dillon, William
C. Eadie, Charles E. Rogers, Jr.,
Jerome W. Harris, Harold A.
Mandelbaum, Allan A. Michie, Betty
J. Lee, Harry K. O’Gara, Dr. Robert
D. Dugan, Thomas B. Shearman,
William J. Lamb, Myra Sobel, Murray
Neitlich, Dr. Gerald M. Shattuck,
Susan Dawkins, Dr. Barbara Stewart,
Dr. Robert W. Murray, Roy G.
Dollard, Thomas A. Dunkerton, Jean
Briarcliff
H. Flink, Richard W. Murray, Peter D.
Board of
Hofstedt, Michael A. McNerney, Joan
Education
Austin, Kathleen Caltagirone, Ronald
After the Civil War, Alexander Webb
was elected president of the College
of the City of New York and served in
that office until 1902. Before he
settled with his family in Riverdale,
New York, two of his children, Henry
Remsen and Elizabeth Remsen
Webb, were born in Scarborough. (1,
Webb Family page 87)
1866
Holbrook
Preparatory
School for
Boys
1866
Law Family
During this year, off the road that
bears his name, the Reverend David
H. Holbrook founded a school that
offered an academic-military
education to as many as 137 boys at
the height of its enrollment from
many of the U.S. states for the
possibility for a collegiate education.
(However, while Mary Cheever's
book, A Changing Landscape: a
history of Briarcliff ManorScarborough states that this school
was founded in 1866, the semicentennial book of Briarcliff's history,
Our Village: Briarcliff Manor: 1902
To 1952 says that this school may
have been running as early as
1854). (1, page 27) (2, page 46)
Walter Law becomes the partner of
W. & J. Sloane Company at the age
of twenty-nine. He would later go on
to become the company's vicepresident and a member of its Board
of Directors. One of the many
mottoes by which he lived, "Nothing
is good enough if it can be bettered,"
is well-illustrated by the great
betterment of American
carpetmaking in the course of his
business career. As a partner, Law
both organized and developed the
wholesale department of W. & J.
Sloane Company, and when he
secured the account of the Alexander
Smith & Sons Carpet Company in
Yonkers for marketing moquette
carpets, it naturally fell to him to
manage the account. The
remarkable growth of the Smith
Company from that time was largely
due to his energy and good
judgment, the "dogged
perserverance" he called his British
birthright. (1, page 36) (2, page 72)
(15, page 5)
1866
1866-1883
1867-(for a
brief
period?)
During this year, Catherine
Creighton marries General George
Webb Morell (Henry Walter Webb's
cousin). In his will, Dr. Creighton
(after various other bequests,
including $500.00 to "Mrs. Margaret
Short the attendant of my afflicted
wife"), gave "All the other portion of
my farm Beechwood...to my
youngest daughter Catherine
Schermerhorn Creighton & together
with the land all improvements
thereon viz. Dwelling houses Barns
& Carriage houses; the farm stock,
farming utensils, poultry pigs, cows,
horses &carriages-all the furniture of
the house & all the Library books.
Also half the plate & half the pictures
& one of the two silver pitchers
presented to me by the Widow of
Peter G. Stuyvesant. The remaining
half of all the plate & pictures & the
other of the two Pitchers I give &
bequeath to my daughter Jane C.
Mead." As executor of his will,
Remsen named his son-in-law,
General Alexander Stewart Webb.
Remsen's neighbor, George Webb
Morell, who survived his wife
Catherine Creighton Morell and was
Creighton
her principle heir, named as
Family
executors of his will his cousin,
In 1866, General George Webb
Morell settled at Creighton's
"Beechwood" Estate and until his
death in 1883, devoted himself to
farming and neighborhood affairs,
such as the supervision of St. Mary's
Beechwood when that church was
Morell
without a rector from 1877 to 1882.
Family
(1, page 87)
The area that would become
Scarborough was known as
"Weskora," after the Mohegan Indian
sachem/chief of earlier days. (1,
Scarborough page 11) (2, page 61)
1867
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1867
Century
Homestead
1867
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
The first simple school building of the
area that would become Briarcliff
Manor, Whitson's School, was
replaced by another building, called
the "White School" since its exterior
paint was white. Its interior
consisted of one room for all grades,
being taught by one teacher, George
A. Todd, Jr., who replaced Paris
Bowers as the sole teacher of thirtyfive pupils, but attendance differed
with the season, for farm-needs kept
children home, so that planting crops
always meant small attendance (1,
page 31) (2, page 49) (14, page 13)
The "Century Homestead" gets this
title for the first time in the old
Beers' Atlas of 1867 in the Briarcliff
Realty Company's office with its
name "R. Whitson" and the comment
"Century Homestead." (1, page 13)
(2, page 13)
During this year, the students at the
school that served Briarcliff Manor
had to make frequent trips to the
nearby railroad station to get warm.
(14, page 14)
1867-1906
1868
1868
ca. 1869
Mr. George A. Todd, Jr., a resident of
the area that would become Briarcliff
Manor, becomes the new one
teacher of the thirty-five students in
all grades of the "White School," and
replaced Paris Bowers, who formerly
held this position. Attendance varied
with the seasons becuase the
farmers' children stayed home to
help with planting and harvesting.
Todd himself worked his own farm at
his family home, the old Washburn
house on Washburn Road. (The
Todds and Washburns were related).
Todd also taught Sunday school and
was instrumental in establishing the
Congregational Church. He would
also serve as the first principle
(Superintendent of Schools) of this
school during this period, and
continue to teach students for the
next 39 years, until 1906. Before he
retired, almost forty years after he
first started to teach, he was the
Public
growing school district's first
Schools,
superintendent. Todd School and
Grade and
Todd Lane are named after him. (1,
High School page 31) (2, pages 49, 53 and 74)
During this year, Colonel and Mrs.
Elliott Fitch Shepard marry and later
Shepard
have six children, five of whom lived
Family
to maturity. (1, page 47)
During this year, Edward Walker
Harden, who would later build and
own the Wilderness estate, was born
Harden
into a large family that were living in
Family
Kansas at the time. (5, page 3)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, some seventy years
ago from 1939 (ca. 1869) a strange
fatality occurred on the farm of
Jacob Coope, a farmer, when the
vicious bull that he kept on his
pasture to ward off trespassers
Jacob Coope gored him to death. (14, pages 20Farm
21)
1869
1869-1878
1869-1887
1870s:
the late
1800s
1870s
1874
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
During this year, the parish of All
Saints Episcopal Church is regularly
established and recognized as part of
the Episcopal Diocese of New York,
when the widow and heirs of the
founder, Dr. John D. Ogilby,
conveyed title to the church property
to the church corporation. (1, page
177)
Rev. J. Breckenridge Gibson serves
as the first Rector of the All Saints
Episcopal Church (after its
incorporation) during this period. (1,
page 177) (2, page 38)
During this period, most of the
activities of All Saints Episcopal
Church were motivated by the
related families of Brinkerhoff and
McFarlan, who were also related by
marriage to the Ogilby family. (1,
page 177)
Holbrook
Preparatory
School for
Boys
At this time, Dr. Holbrook’s Military
School, The Holbrook Preparatory
School for Boys, was one of the bestknown preparatory schools for boys
in the United States. (15, page 41)
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
During this decade, the Kennedy
Galleries (in New York City), is
founded by the grandfather of Rudolf
Wunderlich. Rudolf Wunderlich was
the later executive of the Kennedy
Galleries (in New York City) and a
long time resident of Ossining would
later hang 19th-century American oil
paintings in the Maison Lafitte
Restaurant (formerly the Haymont
mansion of William Whitehead Fuller)
when its main dining room was done
Briarcliff Arts over in the 1980s. (1, page 123)
During this year, Walter Lathrop
Johnson, who would later in the early
1920s buy Oakledge on Central Drive
in Briarcliff Manor and live there until
the house burned down on January
1st, 1961, when they moved to 175
Johnson
Holbrook Lane, was born. (1, page
Family
121)
ca. 1875
Washburn
Family
ca. 1875
Lewis Hunt
Farm
Around this time, the Washburn
family holds their family reunion at
the Washburn house. (1, pages 1516)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, around this year, a
very unique method of churning
butter was employed on the Lewis
Hunt farm, which was at the south
foot of what was then called Old
Hickory Nut Hill (the hill on which
The Briarcliff Lodge was later built).
At this farm was a coach dog named
“Major” having at least two values:
as a coach dog to trot along with
that vehicle, and as a butterchurner. A wheel was so rigged up
that this dog’s weight and walk was
connected with an old-fashioned
churn, no only thus producing butter
from cream but also providing one of
the sights of that day, in about 1875.
(14, page 21)
1875
Washburn
Family
1876
Shepard
Family
1876
Briarcliff
Writers:
James
Barrett
Swain
1877-1881
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
A story of a typical atrocity which
occurred in the future Scarborugh,
Briarcliff, and Ossining area during
the Revolutionary War, was told by
Joseph Bowron Washburn at the
1875 Centennary of Reuben
Washburn at his house on Washburn
Road in Briarcliff: "Joseph, our
grandfather, lived in this house, kept
bachelor hall until he was married to
Freelove Matthews in 1775. The first
of fourteen children was Reuben.
This farm belonged to "Philipse
Manor" and once a year Joseph went
to the manor house near Tarrytown
to pay his rent. Joseph, who lived in
this place during the war, suffered
severly from lawless bands of
skinners, who robbed and beat him
nearly to death for his money. He
gave them the silver and they beat
him still more for his gold. He
refused to give that up. He was then
hung from an apple tree."
Fortunately, after the rascals
departed, Washburn's family
returned in time to save his life. (1,
pages 15-16) (2, page 16) (7, page
247)
During this year, Colonel Shepard
founds the New York State Bar
Association. (1, page 47)
During this year, after his Civil War
army service and some years of
work as an engineer on the staff of
Governor Reuben Fenton, James
Barrett Swain returned to
journalism, revving during this same
year the Hudson River Chronicle ,
which was for several years printed
in Scarborough at the “Sunnyside
Press.” (1, page 216)
An Interim in the position of Rector
begins at the St. Mary's Episcopal
Church, which still runs for five years
under the supervision of MajorGeneral Webb-Morell. (1, page 87)
(2, page 36)
1878
1878-1882
1879
1879(?)
1880s:
ca. 1880
ca. 1880
ca. 1880
1880
Vanderlip
Family
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
December(?
)
Rail Roads
During this year, Frank A.
Vanderlip's father dies on the farm in
Oswego, Illinois. (3, page 386)
Rev. Abraham H. Gesner serves as
the second Rector of the All Saints
Episcopal Church during this period.
(1, page 177) (2, page 38)
The first rectory of All Saints
Episcopal Church, on Old Briarcliff
Road opposite a tennis court (later
on the property of Charles Samson,
and more recently of Mr. and Mrs.
Alexander Racolin), was given to All
Saints Episcopal Church during this
year (1879) by Harriett McFarlan. (1,
page 177)
The 1939 history of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor suggests that it is
possible that the first train stopped
at “Whitson’s Station” in the area
that would become the Village of
Briarcliff Manor in December of
1879. (14, page 5)
By around this year, before the
incorporation of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, the village was
called “Whitson’s Corners,” after the
Whitson
Whitson family that had first settled
Family
the area. (14, page 3)
Around this year, there was a
stagecoach in the future Briarcliff
Manor area, and in winter a stage –
sleigh, between Pleasantville and
Ossining (then called Sing Sing).
Roads and
Also, by stage still, passengers
Transportati traveled on the old Albany Post Road
on
north or south. (14, page 5)
Mrs. Susan D. Ransom “our oldest
citizen” according to the 1939 history
of Briarcliff Manor said that around
this year, ox-teams were called into
Roads and
use to haul out cars stuck fast in the
Transportati heavy mud of the old highways. (14,
on
page 5)
During this year, Frank A.
Vanderlip's family loses their farm
Vanderlip
and has to move to Aurora, Illinois.
Family
(3, page 386)
1881
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
1881
Briarcliff
Maps
The first train arrives at "Whitson's
Station," located in the area that
would later become the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, traveling on the New
York City and Northern Rail Road
(later named the Putnam Division of
New York Central). (1, page 31) (2,
page 20)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , it is believed that starting on
this date, Ben Fisher was the first
station agent of "Whitson's" Station
(as of ca. 1952 the Millwood station).
After him and for 25 years after(?),
the station agent of "Whitson's"
Station was Charles H. Whitson. His
first salary, as he himself told the
writer, was all of $35.00 a month
and his working hours were from 7
A.M. "till the milktrain came
through," which was occasionally
midnight, so that some days were
seventeen working hours long. (2,
page 20)
"Whitson's" Post Office is established
at Whitson's Station, back when the
rail road that ran by it was called
New York and Northern rail road.
John H. Whitson is the first
postmaster. In addition, the
intersection of Unionville (later
Pleasantville) and South State Roads
was named Whitson's Corners by
this time. (1, page 31) (2, page 64)
(8, page 11) (14, page 11)
During this year, Robert Bolton's
Westchester Indian Map, 1609,
which shows the settlements of
Indian tribes in the area that would
later become the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, is printed. (1, page 4)
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
Some 71 years ago (1881-1952),
only a few letters passed through the
"Whitson's" Post Office. (2, page 64)
December
1880 13th
Rail Roads
December
13th(?)
Rail Roads
1880(?)
1881-1952
(?)-1882
1882
1882
1882
1882-1884
Henry Walter Webb went to
Columbia College and practiced law
in New York City until 1882, when he
joined his brother's banking firm. (1,
Webb Family page 87)
During this year, Roger Nestor
Wallach, a distinguished resident of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, is born
in Mulhouse, Alsace-Lorraine,
later(?) educated there and in
Wallach
Switzerland, and worked(?) in his
Family
father's dye company. (1, page 121)
During this year, the Reverend
Abraham H. Gesner leaves his
position as Rector for All Saints
All Saints
Episcopal Church to become the
Episcopal
Rector for St. Mary’s Episcopal
Church
Church. (1, page 177)
During this year, title to the church
All Saints
property was transferred to the
Episcopal
church corporation of the All Saints
Church
Episcopal Church. (15, page 68)
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
Rev. A. F. Tenney serves as the third
Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church
during this period. (2, page 38)
1882-1884
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1882-1895
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1883
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1883
Morell
Family
During the rectorship of A. F. Tenney
when he was the Rector of All Saints
Episcopal Church, the present
rectory of All Saints Episcopal
Church, on Scarborough Road, was
built on two acres given by Robert
Oliver, with the help of $1,025.00
from the sale of the first rectory.
Also, the Sunday school conducted
by the J. Warren Rogers family in the
Long Hill schoolhouse became a
mission of All Saints Episcopal
Church, “thus adding sixteen
children to the Sunday School.” In
addition, during this time Miss
Harriett McFarlan presented the
church was a new organ, and the
family of Henry Brinckerhoff,
vestryman for many years,
established a memorial fund.
Another fund, “in memory of the
little girl we have lost,” was also
given by Mr. and Mrs. Charles W.
Woolsey, who lived (until 1891) in
the stone manor house (later Walter
Law’s house) on forty-six acres just
east of the property of All Saints
Episcopal Church. (1, page 177)
In 1882, the Reverend Abraham
Herbert Gesner is elected as the
third Rector of the St. Mary's
Episcopal Church, and serves in this
position until 1895. (1, page 175) (2,
page 36)
The first church in what is now the
Village of Briarcliff Manor was
incorporated as "St. Mary's Church,
Beechwood." (2, page 36)
During this year, General George
Webb Morell, who had lived at
Creighton's "Beechwood" Estate
since 1866, dies. (1, page 87)
1883
Speyer
Family
1883
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1883-1887
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
During this year, at the age of
twenty-two in Frankfurt-on-Main,
James Speyer entered the family
banking house to work there. He is
later transferred to Paris and London
to enlarge his experience before
returning to New York to become a
partner in his Uncle Philip's Speyer &
Company (founded in 1837). (1,
page 103)
During this year, the present rectory
of All Saints Episcopal Church was
constructed on two acres of land on
Scarborough Road, which were given
to the church for this purpose by
Robert Oliver, with help from the
$1,025.00 from the sale of the first
rectory. (1, page 177) (15, page 68)
During this period, All Saints
Episcopal Church continued to
expand, and memorials of this period
include chancel furniture, art glass
windows and an oak door of gothic
design. (15, page 68)
post1883(?)1939
Speyer
Family
1884
Shepard
Family
1884
Shepard
Family
During this period, James Speyers
serves as a senior partner of the firm
of his Uncle Philip's Speyer &
Company (founded in 1837), until
the firm went out of business in
1939. During this time, it was said
that from his "high-ceilinged, Old
World office in a Pine Street building
modeled after the Palazzo Pandolfini
in Florence...[he] operated a
patrician one-man banking house."
He is also descibed in Birmingham's
Our Crowd as "a small, dapper,
starch-collard, and rather prickly
man....[his] personal bearing so Old
World...so Continental, as to have
seemed downright exotic." A publicspirited, generous American, James
Speyer was also a truely
international banker. An Anecdote in
Our Crowd about Speyer "lunching
with the old Kaiser Wilhelm,"
illustrates his cordial relations with
that monarch: "Mr. Speyer
mentioned his sorrow at having no
sons to carry on. "But surely there
are some Speyers left in Frankfurt,'
said the Kaiser. 'None,' said Speyer
sadly. 'This will never do,' said the
Kaiser. 'There must always be a
Speyer in Frankfurt!' And he
conferred the title 'von Speyer' on
During this year, Colonel Shepard
becomes the president of the New
York State Bar Association, an
association which he founded in
1876. (1, page 47)
During this year, Colonel Shepard
gives up his law practice to devote
himself to travel and writing. His
best known pamphlet was "Labor
and Capital Are One" was translated
into various languages and sold
more than a quarter of a million
copies. In it he called the modern
corporation "one of the greatest
blessings of the nineteenth century,
and a distinguishing remark of its
civilization." (1, page 47)
1884
Spiegelberg
Family
1884
Harden
Family
1884-1887
1885
ca. 1886
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
Shepard
Family
Briarcliff
Farms
During this year, Mr. Spiegelberg
gives up engineering for the
brokerage business with the firm of
J. & W. Seligman. His "keen
business judgment…combined with
his high sense of honor in all
business as well as personal
relationships soon won him
recognition as one of the leading
brokers of Wall Street. (1, page 107)
During this year, when he was
sixteen, after growing up in Florida,
Edward Wlaker Harden starts a
teaching job, and then switches to
journalism, working on several small
papers as a reporter and editor. (5,
page 3)
Rev. A. M. Sherman serves as the
fourth Rector of the All Saints
Episcopal Church during this period.
(2, page 38)
After William Henry Vanderbilt's
death in 1885, all eight Vanderbilt
heirs (Mrs. Elliott Fitch Shepard, who
before her marriage was named
Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt, was one
of these heirs) built palaces where
they could live, as Louis Auchincloss
put it, "in the style to which
Vanderbilts rapidly began to
accustom the newspaper readers of
their day….By 1893 [they] had
probably between them more beaux
arts palazzi, more wide-ranging rural
demesnes, more yachts, pleasure
domes, greenhouses, and servants
than any other group of siblings
since those of Napoleon Bonaparte."
(1, page 47)
The area that would become
"Briarcliff Farms" is still the property
of James Stillman on Pleasantville
Road at this time. (1, page 10)
ca. 1886
1886
1886
At around this time, William
Rockefeller, the brother of John D.
Rockefeller, had bought Rockwood,
the estate of William H. Aspinwall,
shipping and railroad magnate, from
General Lloyd Aspinwall. Rockefeller
tore down the Aspinwall mansion and
built a grander one, which he named
Rockwood Hall. While it was being
rebuilt he lived at Edgehill, "the Brick
Villa," which was designed by
Stanford White, on Sleepy Hollow
Rockwood
Road just south of the town line. (1,
Hall
page 112) (9, page 1)
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
Vanderlip
becomes the editor for the Aurora
Family
Evening Post . (3, page 386)
George Jackson Fischer, M.D.,
writing in Scharf's 1886 History of
Westchester County , described the
views from Scarborough Ridge to the
Hudson and east across the
Pocantico Valley as fields and
pastures without woodlands or trees,
except around houses and along
roads: "scenery at Sing Sing...from
the hills and terraces of every
portion of the town of Ossining, [as]
extremely beautiful....The broad
expanse of the Tappan Zee, and of
the Haverstraw Bay, divided by the
long and narrow penisula known to
the world as "Teller's Point," of
Revolutionary fame; the Palisades,
far to the south; the triple-headed
mountain, known as the "High
Taurn," rising eight hundred and fifty
feet above the river level, in the
northwest; with the distant domes of
the rugged Highlands far to the
northward, embraces a stretch of
over thirty miles, with flourishing
villages and hamlets here and there,
all in full view; the bosom of the
noble river is whitened with the sail
of a multitude of craft of every sort."
Fischer ends with a quote by Alexis
Hudson
de Tocqueville: "I must except the
River History view of the Bay of Naples, out of
1886
Vanderlip
Family
1886
Spiegelberg
Family
the late
1880s
1887
Briarcliff
Artists:
Abbott
Henderson
Thayer
Rail Roads
During this year, when Frank A.
Vanderlip was just twenty-two years
old, he moved to Chicago and took a
job with Investor's Agency as
secretary to Moses Scudder, a broker
and investors' agent, a sort of
pioneer in investment banking:
"Schudder had gone into an
uncharted sea of commerce" and
Vanderlip got his first financial
training examining mortgages and
bond issues, mostly for insurance
companies. (1, page 89) (3, page
386)
During this year, Mr. Spiegelberg
purchased a seat on the New York
Stock Exchange and…began to trade
independently." At this time he was
also a member of Temple Emanu-El
in New York City, where he also
maintianed a residence. (1, page
107)
During this period, the Holden family
rented the family homestead in
Scarborough, built by Dr. James
Holden in 1861, to the painter
Abbott Henderson Thayer. Mr.
Thayer was a contemporary and
friend of Childe Hassam, Frank
Benson and Winslow Homer, but
according to American
Impressionism (Abbeville Press New
York. 1984), by William H. Gerdts,
his work is not classified as American
Impressionism. Mr. Thayer had
studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts
in Paris, and is best known for his
ideal figure pictures. (1, pages 211
and 232)
The New York City and Northern Rail
Road, which stops at the "Whitson's
Station," located in the area that
would become the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, changes its name to the New
York and Northern Railway Co. (2,
page 20)
1887
1887
post-1887
1887-1900
1888
1888
1888
By this year, when the New York and
Northern Railway extended its line,
the station stop in the preincorporated area that would become
Briarcliff Manor became known as
Rail Roads
Whitson’s Station. (15, page 21)
All Saints
By this year, All Saints Episcopal
Episcopal
Church stopped expanding. (15,
Church
page 68)
After 1887, attendance at All Saints
Episcopal Church diminished and
deficits increased to such an extent
All Saints
that “the vestry questioned the
Episcopal
expediency of separate corporate
Church
existence.” (1, page 177)
Rev. H. L. Myrick serves as the fifth
All Saints
Rector of the All Saints Episcopal
Episcopal
Church during this period. (2, page
Church
38)
During this year, Marion Dinwiddie
moves to Scarborough from New
York City with her father, her sister
Florence, her aunt and her
grandmother just after the great
blizzard of 1888, and lived in a
house on the corner of Becker Lane
"not in its present form," while her
father bought thirty-three acres to
Dinwiddie
the north and built two houses. (1,
Family
page 26)
During this year, Colonel Shepard
Shepard
buys the Mail and Express from
Family
Cyrus Field. (1, page 47)
During this year, when he was thirty
years old, William J. Burns left his
father's tailoring business in
Columbus Ohio, and set up as a fulltime private investigator. (1, page
Burns Family 117)
1888
1888-1893
1889
1889
1889
During this year, Mary Dusenberry of
Ossining started the Sing Sing
branch of The Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
after she saw horses being whipped
Society for
as they pulled coal wagons up
the
nearby hills. She and her friends
Prevention
bought land in the pre-incorporation
of Cruelty to Briarcliff area, and built the Society’s
Animals
first home there. (17, page 47)
During this period, Colonel Shepard
manages the newspaper the Mail
and Express , shaping "its policy on
every question and writing many of
the editorials," until his death in
1893. He aimed "to introduce the
Shepard
Christian spirit into journalism." (1,
Family
page 47)
Forty years after William Creighton
refused to sell his land to the Hudson
River Railroad Company, Arthur T.
Hadley wrote: "The railroads of the
world are today worth from twentyfive to thirty thousand million dollars
[which]…probably represents onetenth of the total wealth of civilized
nations, and one-quarter, if not onethird of their invested capital....The
capital exchanged in banking is but a
Rail Roads
trifle beside it." (1, page 23)
The National Cyclopaedia of
American Biography , Vol. 6, New
York, published in 1889, describes
how James Watson Webb sold
Pokahoe to General John Fremont (?)
when he was named minister to
Brazil, in which post "he….through
James
his intimacy with Napoleon III, aided
Watson
in procuring the withdrawal of the
Webb Estate French forces from Mexico." (1,
("Pokahoe") pages 87 and 230)
During this year, Joseph French
Johnson, the man who would later
help Frank A. Vanderlip get a job as
a reporter for The Chicago Tribune ,
becomes the finacial editor for the
People
Chicago Tribune . (3, page 30)
During this year, Joseph French
Johnson, the financial editor of the
Chicago Tribune and the friend and
preceptor of Frank A. Vanderlip,
hired Frank A. Vanderlip as a
reporter for the Chicago Tribune ,
making a salary of twenty dollars
each week. Those were adventorous
days in journalism, and Vanderlip
often covered stories in the company
of such great humorists as George
Ade of the News and Finley Peter
Dunne of the Herald . (1, page 89)
(3, page 30)
During this year, Abbott Henderson
Thayer, a resident of Scarborough,
painted the first of his winged
figures, now owned by Smith
College, and then following this he
painted the Caritas , and the Virgin ,
which hang in the Freer Gallery of
the Smithsonian Institution of
Washington, D.C., along with the
Virgin Enthroned and other angel
paintings. The models for the
Caritas (Charity) were Mary Thayer,
Gerold Thayer and Dr. James
Holden’s granddaughter, Harriet. (1,
page 211)
1889
Vanderlip
Family
1889
Briarcliff
Artists:
Abbott
Henderson
Thayer
1889
The Briarcliff Congregational Church
was the outgrowth of a Sunday
School that was held in the
schoolhouse on Pleasantville Road
(the “White School”) when the
locality of Briarcliff Manor was known
as Whitson’s Corner, and which was
started in 1889 by some members of
the Sing Sing Heights Chapel (by
1939 the Ossining Heights Methodist
Church), having been started by
Briarcliff
Edgar Johnson, Jr., with its first
Congregatio superintendent being John C.
n-al Church Johnson. (1, page 42) (14, page 19)
1889(?)
Law Family
Before his arrival in 1890 in the area
that would become the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, Walter Law, when
he lived in Yonkers, New York, with
his wife, Georgianna, and his two
sons and three daughters, Mr. Law
had personal popularity with the
citizens of the area, which prompted
them to urge him to run for a
congressional seat—but he declined.
Mr. Law and his family lived in
Yonkers near the large carpet
factories for which W. & J. Sloane
(Mr. Law's employer) acted as selling
agents. (8, page 9) (15, page 6)
The "Old Leather Man" dies while
staying in a cave on the George Dell
Farm (the Old Indian Rock Shelter)
in Briarcliff. He is found dead there
and in 1889 was buried in the Sparta
Cemetary, just north of Scarborough
Famous
where a bronze plaque marks his
Scarborough grave. (1, page 13) (2, page 76)
1889 March 24th Residents
(14, page 20) (15, page 22)
1890s:
1890s
104 Long
Hill Road
East House
The land that the old house, which is
now at the address of 104 Long Hill
East, was built on in the 1840s is
bought by Walter W. Law, the future
founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, from the Bishop family. This
land was farmed by Ruth Oakely's
father, Alvah Oakley, who, old timer
Emil Brown remembered, "had
eleven children, lived to be a
hundred and smoked Ploughboy
Tobacco." (1, page 14)
1890s
1890s
1890s
1890s
The millionaires who came to
Scarbororugh in the 1890s-Elliot
Shepard, James Speyer, Henry
Walter Webb and others-were all
large investors in railroads. Colonel
Shepard "did much toward settling
the rialorad law of the state." Also,
at this time, more express trians
stopped at the Scarborough Station
than at the stations in other villages
of comparable size on the Hudson
Rail Roads
River line. (1, page 23-24)
Toward the end of the nineteenth
century, Colonel Elliot Fitch Shepard
purchased over 500 acres high
above the Hudson north of
Tarrytown. Shepard's wife,
Margaret, was the eldest daughter of
William H. Vanderbilt, thus a
Shepard
granddaughter of Commodore
Family
Cornelius Vanderbilt. (4, page 1)
During this decade, as the Dinwiddie
sisters remembered, Scarborough
Road in the Village of Briarcliff Manor
was “a country road…with plenty of
dust,” where “a mixed team of horse
and cow,” pulling a sleeping farmer
in his wagon home to the barnyard.
Scarborough (1, page 225)
By this decade, many prominent
families discovered the beauty of
Scarborough and began to
“commute” from New York City.
Some estates comprised hundreds of
acres and commanded views as far
south as Manhattan Island and north
to West Point as well as west to the
foothills of the Catskills beyond the
Palisades. The list of famous owners
includes the names Macy, Whiting,
Speyer, Rogers, Vanderlip, Shepard,
Scarborough Vanderbilt, and Law. (15, page 12)
1890s
Briarcliff
Farms
ca. 1890
Briarcliff
Rose
1890
Woodlea
Estate
During this decade, the Briarcliff
Farms, as Mr. Walter Law’s estate
was called, prospered. Also during
this decade, the name of "Whitson's
Corners" was replaced by Briarcliff as
Mr. Law's farm operations expanded
in the 1890s. (8, page 9) (15, page
21)
Around this time, Mrs. Law
(Georgianna Ransom Law) could not
cut one of the Briarcliff Roses for
herself without the gardener’s
permission. (17, page 6)
Colonel and Mrs. Elliot Fitch Shepard
(a. k. a. Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt
Shepard, the grandaughter of
Commodore Vanderbilt) come to
Scarborough, to live in Woodlea, the
140-room Renaissance Revival
mansion designed for them by
Stanford White of the architectural
firm McKim, Mead, & White. This
manor house was a 75-room
Victorian structure typical of the
Italian Villa achitecture that was
popular during the 18th century. It
had high patterned ceilings,
elaborate cornice work, hand-carved
mahogany paneling, a ballroom, and
a graceful, winding stairway near the
front entrance. outside, there was
an elaborate terrace, which offered a
panoramic view of the Hudson
Valley, and overlooked sunken,
formal gardens. The gatehouses at
the Club's entrance and exit were
built of massive pillars of carved
stone, and the gates themselves of
ironwork, both of which were
imported fron France. (1, page 47)
(4, page 1) (15, page 69) (17, page
20)
1890
1890
1890
Briarcliff Farms is founded in the
central and eastern parts of the
present village, after Walter W. Law,
a vice president of W. & J. Sloane
Company, first purchased the
Stillman Farm, around 236 acres
between Pleasantville and Old
Briarcliff Roads in the hamlet of
Whitson's Corners in the Town of
Ossining, for $35,000.00 to establish
a country estate. Almost all of this
land was farmed, but because
farming was less and less rewarding,
many young men and women had
gone to work in the industries that
were growing up in the county,
especially along the Hudson River.
Walter Law had previously been
living in Yonkers with his wife,
Georgianna Ranson Law, and their
two sons and three daughters when
a struggle with tuberculosis forced
him, at the age of 53, to retire. He
added to it, in rapid succession, 160
acres bought from Jesse Bishop, 48
acres from Stephen Buckhout, 106
acres from Aaron Hyatt, 115 acres
from John Kip, 90 acres from John
Whitson, 112 acres from John
Washburn, 368 acres from Emma
Briarcliff
Minnerly, and a number of smaller
Farms
tracts; making some forty purchases
During this year, Henry Walter Webb
becomes a vice-president of the New
York Central and Hudson River
Webb Family Railroad Company. (1, page 87)
During this year, when the artisans
and workers engaged in the
construction of the Shepards’ family
home in Scarborough, they wanted
church services, and these services
were begun in a building near
Morrell’s Pond and in the Butler
Scarborough Wright house, formerly the golf
Presbyterian house of The Sleepy Hollow Country
Church
Club. (15, page 69)
1890
Briarcliff
Farms
1890
Whitson
Family
1890
Steele
Family
After his first purchase of the
Stillman property, which would
become his Briarcliff Farms, Walter
Law had found a “small, worn-out
and unprofitable farm” and
proceeded to make it into an
internationally known operation. He
used existing building on the
property for this, and also
constructed new ones, and many of
these newer structures were
designed in the half-timber and
stucco Tudor style, a popular theme
for architecture at this time, but
perhaps also reminiscent of Mr.
Law’s English roots. (8, page 9)
By the year that he had purchased
the first plot of land for his Briarcliff
Farms, Walter Law’s farms were
located in an unincorporated area
known then as “Whitson’s Corners”
after the Whitson family. (8, page 9)
During this year, Chauncey Depew
Steele, who would later manage the
Briarcliff Lodge, was born in New
Rochelle, New York. He was the son
of Frederick Albert Steele and
Caroline Marie Steele. Frederick was
a prominent real estate man in New
Rochelle, and was noted for his
collection of early editions of
American literature, including the
works of Edgar Allen Poe. He was
also the friend of Theodore
Roosevelt, Sir Thomas Lipton, and
William Cullen Bryant. Frederick had
named his last son after New York
Central Railroad president Chauncey
Depew, former U.S. senator, and a
resident of nearby Peekskill, New
York, and also godfather to
namesake Chauncey Depew Steele.
(8, page 41)
1890(?)1902 (?)
pre-1891
1891
1891
During the early years of the
Briarcliff Farm's operation, Briarcliff
Steamer Company #1 is formed to
protect the increasing number of
buildings on the Farm's land. This
first fire company that served the
area which would later become the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, was
supported by volunteer
contributions, and the first fire house
was an old barn. The first fire
apparatus was a simple, handBriarcliff
drawn, chemical outfit; later it
Manor Fire
became a horse-drawn wagon. (2,
Department pages 26 and 29)
For some years before 1891, there
had been a group of Ossining
residents who valued their Jewish
heritage and wanted their children to
be educated as good American Jews.
According to the “Forward” by Ronny
Borrok, written for the Congregation
Sons of Israel Album of 1981, from
the collections of The Briarcliff ManorScarborough Historical Society, these
Jewish residents had hired a Jewish
teacher, but his earnings as a
teacher were so meager that he
added to them by the timeconsuming business of selling kosher
Congregatio food, which he bought in New York
n Sons of
City, traveling there from Ossining
Israel of
by ferry at 25 cents a trip. (1, pages
Ossining
166-167 and 231-232)
The Ward family owned thirty-seven
of the surrounding acres around their
house on the opposite corner of
Sleepy Hollow Road, which
supposedly dates from ca. 1830. (1,
Ward Family page 65)
During this year, Edward Walker
Harden, learning of an opening at
the Chicago Tribune , got a job
Harden
working for this newspaper. (5, page
Family
3)
1891
1891
1891
1891
During this year, William J. Burns
becomes an operative of the United
States Secret Service, which was at
that time a division of the Treasury
Department and mostly concerned
with counterfeiters. Burns' exploits
in apprehending just about every
corrupt master engraver in the
western world have been the
inspiration of countless mystery
Burns Family writers.
Congregatio During this year, The Congregation
n Sons of
Sons of Israel of Ossining was first
Israel of
organized as a mutual-aid society.
Ossining
(1, page 166)
During this year, Walter Law
purchased the forty-six acre Woolsey
estate of Mr. and Mrs. Charles W.
Woolsey, which included the stone
mansion later called “the Manor
House.” This house would serve as
Walter Law's home. It had been
built a short walk away from where
the Briarcliff Lodge was later
"Manor
constructed. The house had a stone
House"
wall built around its property by Mr.
(Walter W.
Law with a front gate. (1, page 177)
Law House) (8, page 14)
During this year, Howard Ashman
Patterson, who would later become a
well-known painter and become a
member of the Pennsylvania
Academy of Fine Arts (and whose
Briarcliff
son, Robert Burns Patterson, would
Artists: The also became an artists and live in the
Patterson
Village of Briarcliff Manor), is born in
Family
Philadelphia. (1, page 213)
ca. 1892
During this period, James Speyers is
a member (and twice the vicepresident) of the New York Chamber
of Commerce. James Speyers was
also an office and director of many
other companies during this time as
well. In addition, he was also so
active in many charitable and
educational enterprises that he
became better known for these than
for his banking career. He was "the
guiding spirit" behind the Museum of
the City of New York. He was also a
founder of the Provident Loan
Society, of the Salvation Army, and
of the American Society for the
Control of Cancer. "He was a
director of Mount Sinai Hospital, a
steady donor to Jewish charities and
an outstanding critic of clubs and
schools that practiced racial or
religious discrimination. Yet he was
a member of the Racquet Club,
where other Jews were not even
Speyer
welcomed as guests of members."
Family
(1, pages 103-104)
Around this year, Mr. Blessing and
Mr. Edmund C. Stout made
application for the organizing of The
Scarborough Scarborough Presbyterian Church to
Presbyterian Westchester Presbytery, Mount
Church
Kisco. (1, page 50) (15, page 70)
ca. 1892
Around this year, on the
recommendation of Stanford White,
the architect of Woodlea, the
Shepards engaged the firm of Haydel
& Shepard to draw up the plans for
The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church. Augusts Dennis Shepard of
that firm was Colonel Shepard’s
brother, a vice-president of the
Scarborough American ban Note Company, and,
Presbyterian later, the colonel’s executor. (1,
Church
page 50) (15, page 70)
1891-1941
1892
Law Family
1892
Beechwood
Estate
1892
Buckhout
House
(Luthany)
Mr. Walter William Law, the future
founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, is bestowed an honorary
degree of Master of Arts by Yale
University. (2, page 72)
Henry Walter Webb buys Creighton's
"Beechwood" Estate and the
adjoining Remsen property. He
expands its mansion to much of what
remains at present (ca. 1952). In
the last decades of the nineteenth
century, in fact, this house and fifty
to one hundred acres surrounding
the present Beechwood (ca. 1990)
were bought and sold, bequeathed
and inherited by members, and
connections by marriage, of the
distinguished Webb family. The
railroad that the Reverend William
Creighton had resisted in the 1840s
as an abomidable intrusion on his
peaceful farm was Webb's principle
business and source of income as
vice-president of the New York
Central and Hudson River Railroad.
The Remsen house, which Webb
chose to live in, was further up the
hill from the river, and the railroad
tracks, than Creighton's house. The
Webb's Beechwood connection had
started when Alexander Stewart
Webb (Henry Walter Webb's half
brother) married Anna Remsen, the
daughter of Creighton's neighbor,
Henry Rutgers Remsen. (1, page 85)
(2, page 17)
According to the Law Notebooks in
The Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough
Historical Society, during this year,
Walter William Law, the future
founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, buys the Buckhout land
located in the future Briarcliff area in
one of two purchases, of forty-eight
acres and seven acres, from the
members of the Buckhout family. (1,
pages 14, 124 and 231)
1892
late 1892
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
succeeded his friend and preceptor
Joseph French Johnson as the
financial editor of the Chicago
Tribune , when Mr. Johnson moved
to Spokane, Washington, to help
found the Spokesman newspaper.
Mr. Vanderlip's salary eventually
Vanderlip
totaled forty-five dollars each week.
Family
(1, page 89) (3, page 32)
Starting late in this year, regular
church services of The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church were held in the
former store and roadhouse at the
fork of the Old Post Road at
Scarborough, with the Reverend
Frank Fenton Blessing, a graduate of
Princeton Theological Seminary, in
charge. Colonel and Mrs. Shepard
bought the little country store in
Scarborough and "the Corner"
(where Albany Post Road (Route 9)
meets Scarborough Road) was made
the site of the new church. In the
area around "the Corner" there may
have been seen a few houses, a
blacksmith shop and hay scales,
clustered around a tavern and a
store. This church was previously
demanded by the increasing number
of the community of workers and
artisans who had come to
Scarborough to build Woodlea
indicated a desire for church
services. The little store was
enlarged and remodeled with new
diamond-shaped paned windows,
new floors, "huge" kerosene lamps,
Scarborough side lamps with reflectors and new
Presbyterian porches. (1, page 50) (2, page 61)
Church
(15, pages 69-70)
1892-1900
Rev. Frank F. Blessing serves as the
first minister of The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church during this
period. During his pastorate at the
church, Mr. Blessing lived with the
Misses Dennis, cousins of Mr.
Shepard, whose home was on the
site of the Arcadian Shopping Center.
When the Misses Dennis' home, The
Villa, was completed on Sleepy
Hollow Road, Mr. Blessing moved
there with them. In addition, The
Women's Missionary Society, the
Ladies' Aid and the Christian
Endeavor were all organized during
Scarborough the pastorate of Mr. Blessing. (1,
Presbyterian pages 53-54 and 235) (2, page 39)
Church
(15, page 70)
ca. 1893
Around this time, when construction
began on The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church, among the new
residents the building of this church
brought to Scarborough was John
Smith, who came from Scotland to
take charge of all the stonework. His
family grew up in the neighborhood
and, in due course, his two sons,
William Murchieson and George
McNeil Smith, married two Holden
sisters, Helen and Harriet. When
their sister, Euphemia Smith, was
married to Scottish John Duncan, a
master gardener, a band of pipers in
kilts and tartans marched up Kemeys
Scarborough Avenue playing appropriate Scottish
Presbyterian airs in celebration of the event. (1,
Church
page 52) (15, page 70)
During this year, Henry Walter Webb
purchased the Remsen house on
some twelve acres for $20,000.00.
He enlarged the house, adding a
"south wing whose Colonial Revival
central portico and details were
sympathetic extensions of the
original Federal core." He also
bought General George Webb
Morell's property, including
Creighton's house, from Morell's
heirs. Webb then took the name
"Beechwood" for his own
reassembled estate. (1, page 87)
During this year, the Woodlea manor
house was completed, at a cost of
$2,500,000.00. Colonel Shepard did
not live to see the house completed,
as he died in 1893. (4, page 1)
1893
Beechwood
Estate
1893
Woodlea
Estate
1893
During this year, the construction of
The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church building was begun.
Carpenters, masons, stonecutters
and many other skilled craftsman
began the giant task of preparing the
ground and building for the church.
When many of these workers moved
to Scarborough with their families,
the little community began to grow.
Quicksand at the back of the
property made it necessary to
excavate thirty feet below the
surface for a solid concrete
foundation. Also, the railroad was
expanded and a special sidetrack
was added to the railroad to deliver
great slabs of granite, Indiana
limestone and wood (the railroad
boasted but two tracks at that time.
Every piece of stone was cut and
every piece of carving was done on
the north lawn on the property,
Scarborough including the carving of the figures
Presbyterian over the front door. (1, pages 50 and
Church
52) (14, page 19) (15, page 70)
During this year, Colonel Elliot Fitch
Shepard dies, before The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church
was finished (but Mrs. Shepard
continued with his plans until the
church was completed in 1895).
After Colonel Shepard's death in
1893, Henry Walter Webb bought
some ten more acres from the
Shepard estate to add to his own
growing estate lands. Shepard, in
expanding his Woodlea Kingdom,
had purchased Jane Creighton
Mead's share of her father's property
from her heirs and proposed to name
the whole Shepard desmesne
Woodica. Henry Walter Webb took
the name Beechwood for his own
Shepard
reassembled estate. (1, pages 52
1893 March 24th Family
and 87) (15, page 70)
On this date, a Diagram from
"Abstract of Title of H. Walter Webb
to Premises in Town of Ossining,
Beechwood, or, in other words, a
map showing H. Walter Webb's
Beechwood Beechwood lands, is both surveyed
1893 August 23rd Estate
and published. (1, page 86)
The organization meeting of The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church is
held in the temporary Chapel which
Colonel Elliot Fitch Shepard
established. Then they all
assembled at the site of the new
church, and Elliot Fitch Shepard, Jr.,
the son of Colonel and Mrs. Shepard,
lays the cornerstone of the new
Scarborough Presbyterian Church on
this same date, with a suitable
engraved, silver trowel. This was
the third church built in Briarcliff
Manor's history, and was called "The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church,
erected to the glory of God and in
loving memory of Elliot Fitch
Shepard by his wife, Margaret Louisa
Vanderbilt Shepard. Nineteen
Scarborough charter members were enrolled at
October
Presbyterian this first meeting. (1, page 52) (2,
1893 13th
Church
page 39) (15, page 70)
ca. 1894
Scarborough
Presbyterian
Church
1894
Rail Roads
1894
Vanderlip
Family
1894
Searle
Family
1894(?)1896(?)
Vanderlip
Family
1894-1900
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1894-1929
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
1895
Scarborough
Presbyterian
Church
The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church organ, made around this
year "by J. J. and C. S. Odell &
Company at a cost of $7,357.00 and
was the first all electric action organ
in the world. There were 1,498
pipes in it, the longest…sixteen feet
and made of Michigan pine...the
smallest...one-half inch in length."
(1, page 53)
The New York and Northern Railway
Co., which stops at the "Whitson's
Station," located in the area that
would become the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, changes its name to the New
York and Putnam Railroad Company.
(2, page 20)
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
became the editor of the Economist .
(1, page 89)
During this year, Dr. Robert Wyckoff
Searle is born in New Brunswick,
New Jersey. (1, page 169)
Sometime around this time period,
the work that Frank A. Vanderlip had
done for the Economist had
attracted the attention of Lyman
Gage, who, upon his appointment as
secretary of the treasury in President
McKinley's cabinet, invited Frank A.
Vanderlip to become his secretary.
(1, page 89)
During this period, the Reverend H.
L. Myrick, the Rector of All Saints
Episcopal Church at this time, is not
paid his salary, and this debt was not
settled until 1902. (1, page 177)
Charles H. Whitson serves as the
third postmaster of the "Whitson"
Post Office, located in the area that
would become the Village of Briarcliff
Manor during this period (35 years).
Before him, Walter E. Howard served
as postmaster for an undetermined
period. (2, page 64)
The present (as seen in ca. 1952)
building of The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church is completed.
(2, page 39)
1895
1895
1895
1895
1895
1895
The Guild, St. Mary's Episcopal
Church, is organized to "advance the
work of the women of Saint Mary's
Parish in the program of the
Church," and is allied with the
Guild, St.
Women's Auxiliary of the National
Mary's
Council of the Protestant Episcopal
Episcopal
Church. The first President was Mrs.
Church
William Kingsland. (2, page 42)
Roads and
As of this date, there were only four
Transportati recorded motor-driven autos in the
on
United States. (2, page 20)
St. Mary's
During this year, Henry Walter Webb
Episcopal
became a warden of Saint Mary's
Church
Church. (1, page 87)
During this year, Edward Walker
Harden, a friend of Frank Vanderlip's
from his newspaper days, succeeded
Vanderlip as the financial editor of
the Chicago Tribune at the age of
twenty-seven, after Frank Vanderlip
left the Chicago Tribune to become
Harden
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
Family
(5, page 3)
During this year, James Barrett
Swain, writer and Scarborough
Briarcliff
resident, died. During this same
Writers:
year after he died, Mr. Swain’s the
James
Hudson River Chronicle , a four-page
Barrett
weekly which he revived in 1876,
Swain
was discontinued. (1, page 216)
During this year, the Briarcliff Realty
Briarcliff
Company was first begun with 2,000
Real Estate acres of land. (14, page 5)
1895 May
Despite Colonel Shepard's death on
March 24th, 1893, Mrs. Shepard
continued with their plans and the
completed church was dedicated in
May of 1895. The Church later
became also a Memorial to Mrs.
Shepard, herself donor of not only
the Church but also the Manse and
the Church House. This Church is of
Spanish Renaissance architecture,
stately and worshipful. The
memorial plaque that was installed
inside the church above the inside
door of the front vestibule bears the
inscription: "Erected to the glory of
God in loving memory of Elliot Fitch
Shepard by his wife, Margaret Louisa
Vanderbilt Shepard." The local paper
described the dedication event as
follows: "In the large company that
thronged about the building...one
saw the loving neighbors and helpers
of Mr. Shepard come at his bidding
to bless his work for them and to
mingle their tears of sorrow at his
untimely death with their grateful
acknowledgment of his generous
deeds and purposes which are
Scarborough already assured and imperishable."
Presbyterian (1, page 52) (2, page 39) (15, page
Church
70)
Sunday,
1895 May 12th
Shepard
Family
A cousin and close friend of the
Shepards' daughter Edith, Adele
Sloane, visited Edith at Woodlea
three weeks before her marriage to
James A. Burden. (Adele was also
the grand-daughter of William
Sloane, Walter Law's sometime
employer and friend). She said in
her diary, while in Scarborough: "I
spent most of last week here and
came up again early yesterday
morning. This will be my last
Sunday with Edith until I am
married. I only have three more to
spend as a girl, only three weeks and
four days left of my girl life. I have
felt very serious and very quiet these
last few days. I am realizing so
much more the reality of leaving this
first part of my life and starting on
the second, the fuller, larger, more
earnest life of the future. God help
me to make it all that it now is in my
dreams. How wonderfully beautiful
the country looks! The fresh green
trees, the long stretches of green
lawn, the orchards of white apple
blossoms, the smell of lilacs, the
blue violets, the wonder of it
all!...Tomorrow will be my last day in
town, tomorrow night the last night
in my room....It is very hard to be
Sunday,
1895 May 12th
1895-1904
1895-1905
Adele Sloane's diary entry above
continues: "My wedding presents are
beginning to come in fatser and
faster....Papa gave me a gorgeous
diamond sun, the largest one I had
ever seen. Mother gave me a
diamond and sapphire necklace, one
that she had worn a little herself and
therefore all the dearer to me, and
from Uncle Corneil [Cornelius] a
most gorgeous stomacher of
diamonds and one enormous
pearl...enough to turn my head and
quite spoil me....LATER. Edith and I
have just come back from a walk
together and such a nice long talk. I
am sure that the talk we had that
day in Marguerite's still quiet room
[Marguerite Shepard died of
pneumonia January 31, 1895, a the
age of fifteen] with her peaceful
white face smiling near us, borught
us closer together than we had been
in years. I only hope that we will not
grow apart again, never lose the
sympathy which makes the perfect
understanding of friendship. A
woman in her married life needs her
friends just as much, perhaps more
than when she is a girl. The sun has
Shepard
just set behind the hills, and there is
Family
such a beautiful glow of light on the
In 1895, the Reverend Thomas
Robinson Harris, B.D., is elected as
the fourth Rector of the St. Mary's
Episcopal Church, and serves until
St. Mary's
1904, when he resigned to accept
Episcopal
another call. (1, page 175) (2, page
Church
36)
In addition to the orchastra,
organized shortly after The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church
was built, the choir, for this first tenyear period of the church's history,
was a paid quartette. There was a
Scarborough choir of men and boy sopranos, then
Presbyterian one of boys and girls, who sang at
Church
the evening services. (1, page 53)
1896
1896
The "White School" building, in the
area that would become the Villlage
of Briarcliff Manor, is moved to
Hawthorne, where it still serves as a
fire house (ca. 1952). A two-roomed
Public
more modern building was erected
Schools,
on the same site locally, now with
Grade and
two teachers and a stove for heating.
High School (2, page 49) (14, page 13)
When the schoolteacher, George A.
Todd, Jr., became superintendent of
the Sunday School of some sixty
people started in the White
schoolhouse (the small District 6
schoolhouse, part of Whitson's
Corners on Pleasantville Road) by
Edgar Johnson, Jr., and others from
the Sing Sing Heights Chapel (later
Ossining Heights Methodist Church)
on Camp Woods Road, in 1896, he
approached Walter Law concerning
the need for a more permanent and
better-equipped church. At this
time, this was the only religious
service in a radius of two miles. Law
responded with characteristic
enthusiasm and generosity; the
property at Elm and South State
Road was transferred to the church
by deed of gift, so that the church
could be erected as his gift to the
Briarclff community. When this
church was first built, Mr. George A.
Todd, Jr. proved his devotion by
giving the stones for the church,
while others contributed lumber and
labor. This church had originally
Briarcliff
thirty-three charter members. (1,
Congregatio page 42) (2, page 39) (14, page 19)
n-al Church (15, page 71)
1896
During this year, V. (for Valentine)
Everit Macy bought several large
tracts of land just north and west of
Walter Law's Briarcliff Farms. Macy,
then in his mid-twenties, was the
son of an official of the Standard Oil
Company, a descendant of
prosperous Nantucket whalers, and a
nephew of a founder of R. H. Macy &
Company. He and his bride, Edith
Carpenter, set up housekeeping in
their newly built Tudor-style stone
and stucco mansion set on the
highest hill of their estate,
overlooking the Hudson. They
named it Chilmark, after the Macy
family's ancestral home in England.
The mansion was surrounded by
gentle sloping lawns planted with
shade trees and shrubbery,
meadows and woodlands. Great
stone barns housed Guernsey cows,
givers of prize-winning milk, and
Hampshire Down sheep. There was
a gatehouse for the estate, a
greenhouse for the gardens, a
carriage house with apartments over
it for the help, a chicken house, a
stable of spirited ponies, a polo field
Chilmark (V. (the Holbrook School football field),
Everit Macy) squash courts, a swimming pool, two
Estate
tennis courts and a small but
October
1896 20th
October
1896 20th
The Briarcliff Congregational Church
is organized. Walter Law had been
an elder and a generous contributor
to the First Presbyterian Church in
Yonkers, but before deciding on the
denomination of the new church he
called a meeting in the schoolhouse
of the people identified with the
Sunday School and all other
interested villagers. Because those
assembled were of many different
denominations, community members
voted and decided that the new
congregation should join the
Fellowship of Congregational
Churches because of the
Briarcliff
Congregationalists' democratic
Congregatio policy. (1, pages 42-43) (2, page 39)
n-al Church (15, page 71)
On this date, the first wedding held
in The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church, that of Edith Shepard and
Ernesto Fabbri, is held. The
bridegroom was the son of Ernesto
Fabbri, partner of Drexel, Morgan &
Company, who had met Edith in
Europe. The event was reported in
The New York Times as "one of the
most brilliant weddings celebrated in
Westchester County." The church
was decorated with banks of
chrysanthemums and asparagus
fern, the stained-glass windows and
the aisles were wreathed and
garlanded. A special train brough
the two hundred guest from the city.
The bride wore a Worth gown, and
favors for the bridesmaids and
ushers were diamond and emerald
pins. During the ceremony the
church was crowded with emebers of
the New York Society, "while outside
stood the members of this little
community, having come on
Scarborough bycycles and afoot." The wedding
Presbyterian party is held on the steps of
Church
Woodlea. (1, pages 52-53)
October
1896 21st
Shepard
Family
1896 Christmas
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
1896-1897
Briarcliff
Farms
18961925(?)
Chilmark (V.
Everit Macy)
Estate
1896-1946
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
1896-ca.
1952
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
The New York Times reported about
the Edith Shepard and Ernesto
Fabbri one this date, describing "An
immense number of presents were
received by the young couple. Exdetective Sgt. Charles Heidelberg
with ten picked men from New York
will guard them until they can be
removed to the city. Festivities on
the estate were concluded by a
dinner to the 150 employees." (1,
pages 53 and 230)
The first parts of the structure which
would become The Briarcliff
Congregational Church, (the
southern part of the present (ca.
1990) building, its Norman tower,
the nave and strong stone walls), is
completed. (1, page 42) (2, page
39)
During this period, although Walter
Law’s reasons for moving to Briarcliff
were mainly for personal health and
his family, he began to focus his
energy on Briarcliff Farms in 1896
and 1897. (8, page 9)
The Macy's property, added to over
this following quarter of a century
period, amounted to some 300 acres
bounded, roughly, by Old Briarcliff
and Pleasantville roads on the east,
Croton Avenue to the north and
Holbrook and Scarborough roads on
the south and west, with some lots
on its western border within the
Village of Ossining. (1, page 55)
The Briarcliff Congregational Church
continued to be a very diverse
congregation of worshippers during
this period. (1, page 43)
During this period, The White School,
which used to serve the students of
the Briarcliff Manor area before it
was moved to Hawthorne to serve as
its firehouse in 1896, serves as the
firehouse for the Hawthorne
community for around fifty-six years.
(15, page 48)
ca. 1897
1897
Around this year, about the same
time the post office was called The
Briarcliff Manor Post Office, the
railroad station in Briarcliff was given
the title of Briarcliff Manor Station.
Rail Roads
(14, page 11)
The Women's Society of the
Congregational Church is organized,
and performed, according to the
book Our Village: Briarcliff Manor:
1902 To 1952, "religious services
such as sewing for any in distress,
helping the Ossining Hospital,
providing Thanksgiving supplies and
Women's
donating flowers for the sick. As a
Society of
philanthropic group, its concern for
the
humanity grew to include missionary
Congregatio interests at home and abroad." (1,
n-al Church page 43) (2, page 44)
1897
Dysart
House
1897
Speyer
Family
1897
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
During this year, Walter Law built a
large guest house on Pleasantville
Road on the hill across from the
railroad station. He named this
lodging Dysart House, probably after
Dysart House in Kirkcaldy, Scotland,
where roses from the Briarcliff
Greenhouses were sent at one time.
The architectural style of the Dysart
House foreshadowed Briarcliff Lodge;
it had a stone foundation, an upper
story of half-timber and stucco,
dormer windows built into the roof,
and gables with pointed wood finials.
(1, page 73) (8, page 15)
During this year, James Speyer
marries Ellin Prince, a gentile of old
American stock, and gave her name
to one of the first (and still the
foremost) animal hospitals in New
York City. (1, page 104)
During this year, the parish house
and cloister of St. Mary’s Episcopal
Church were built for the church as a
gift of Mr. and Mrs. William
Kingsland, in memory of their son,
Cornelius. (1, page 176)
1897
1897
January
1897 10th
1897 October
November
1897 3rd
1897-1898
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
moves to Washington, D. C., and
Vanderlip
becomes the Assistant Secretary of
Family
the Treasury. (3, page 386)
During this year, the original Norman
tower and nave for The Briarcliff
Congregational Church were
Briarcliff
completed with the help of Walter
Congregatio Law’s generosity and support. (17,
n-al Church page 14)
The Briarcliff Congregational Church
is officially dedicated and
incorporated, and its original thirtyBriarcliff
three charter members were
Congregatio received into the congregation. (2,
n-al Church page 39) (15, page 71)
The "Whitson" Post Office is given
the official title of "Briarcliff Manor
Briarcliff
Post Office," and as of ca. 1952, it
Manor Post remained the only United States post
Office
office with this name. (2, page 64)
The Briarcliff Congregational Church
is officially received into the
Congregational denomination (as a
part of the Fellowship of
Congregational Churches), and was
doubtless the favorite of all the
structures made possible by Walter
W. Law's generosity. The affiliation
of this church was based on a vote of
those so concerned in the
community and "if possible a religion
selected that had no representation
on the farm." The first minister of
this church, the Reverend Alexander
MacColl, was officially installed and
Briarcliff
ordained at this time as well. (2,
Congregatio page 39) (14, page 19) (15, page
n-al Church 71)
During this period, The Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Congregational Church uses a parlor
Congregatio organ for their church services. (15,
n-al Church page 72)
1897-1901
1897-1907
1897-1977
1897-1977
Mr. Frank Arthur Vanderlip, a
resident of Scarborough, serves as
the assistant secretary of the
treasurery of the United States
during this four-year period. While
in this junior cabinet officer position,
Frank A. Vanderlip had various
extraordinary experiences, including
editing Theodore Roosevelt's
speeches at the request of that man
Vanderlip
of the hour. (1, page 89) (2, page
Family
75)
Rev. Alexander A. MacColl serves as
Briarcliff
the first Minister of The Briarcliff
Congregatio Congregational Church during this
n-al Church period. (2, page 41)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, since its 1897
incorporation and up to 1977, a
number of famous guests have
shared the pulpit with the ministers
of The Briarcliff Congregational
Church, including Dr. Booker T.
Briarcliff
Washington, Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin
Congregatio and Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick. (15,
n-al Church pages 71-72)
During this period, according to the
1977 history of Briarcliff Manor, A
Village Between Two Rivers, since
the incorporation of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church, there have
been seven organists and eleven
choir directors. In addition to the
Senior Choir, Junior Choirs and
Briarcliff
Youth Choirs have all added to the
Congregatio musical life of this church. (15,
n-al Church pages 71-72)
ca. 1898(?)
1898
1898
1898
Around this year, the Premier of
Canada, who ardently desired to see
the Briarcliff Farms, of which he had
heard such high praise, set the time
of his visit as 11 A.M. of a coming
Sunday. However, Mr. Law's reply
was often quoted as: "I already have
an engagement every Sunday at 11
A.M.," and said he hoped the Premier
would come to visit some other time.
The Briarcliff Congregational Church,
which Walter William Law so heartily
began and continued, was ever
Briarcliff
deeply engraved in his plans. Of it
Congregatio he said "My heart is there!" (1, page
n-al Church 43) (2, page 73)
The Briarcliff Farms become very
active during this year, when Mr.
Walter W. Law, the future founder of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, retires
from active business and focuses all
his efforts on farming and dairy
interests in the region that was later
called Briarcliff Manor, making the
Briarcliff Farms a place where "only
Briarcliff
the best was good enough." (2, page
Farms
32)
During this year, the Manse was built
for The Briarcliff Congregational
Church as the home of its ministers
Briarcliff
throughout the years. It was a gift
Congregatio from Walter William Law. (14, page
n-al Church 19) (15, page 71)
During this year, Mr. Walter William
Briarcliff
Law donated a regular organ to The
Congregatio Briarcliff Congregational Church. (15,
n-al Church page 72)
1898
Briarcliff
Farms
On the increasing acreage of hs
landownings, Walter Law at once set
about building his Briarlciff Farms.
To those of his new neighbors who
were glad to work for him he added
others invited down from upstate,
until there were some three hundred
workers. Briarcliff Farms specialized
in pure-bred Jerseys and was one of
the first producers of certified milk in
America, based everyway on
scientific principles, and considered
the best of its kind in all the United
States. Besides 2,500 head of
cattle, there were some five hundred
pigs, four thousand chickens, many
thoroughbred horses, some
pheasants, a few peacocks and a
flock of sheep. (1, page 35) (2, page
35) (14, page 5) (17, page 6)
1898
Briarcliff
Farms
During this year as well, there were
six main barns: Barn A, near the old
farms' office building (later the
operating engineer's office) on
Pleasantville Road, housed all the
horses, both for farm and livery
purposes in connection with the
operation of the Hotel (Briarcliff
Lodge). Surrounding Barn A were
the blacksmith shop, wheelwright
shop, harness shop and other
buildings, including the Briarcliff
Steamer Company No. 1, the first
firefighting organization in the
village. Barns B and C, on Dalmeny
Road, housed 78 and 118 head of
the milking herd. Barn D, at the
junction of Beech Hill Road and
Route 117, housed 116 of the miling
herd. (This barn was later used as a
boarding stable for horses). Barn E,
for another 118 milk cows, was on
Pleasantville Road just east of the
present (ca. 1990) Taconic Parkway.
In fact, the home of Mr. Nicholas
Marden was the residence of the
barn foreman. Barn F, on the old
Saw Mill River Road, west of the
crossing of the Taconic and Route
100, housed 118 more milk cows. (1,
page 35) (2, page 32)
1898
Briarcliff
Farms
1898
Briarcliff
Farms
During this year, in connection with
the dairy at the Briarcliff Farms was
the supply store, a large barn from
which was issued all the feed and
other necessities of the Farm. Its
location was on that part of Route 9A just southeast of Creighton's
garage. At each barn there was an
icehouse. The ice, used to cool the
milk and for other purposes, was
harnessed from Echo Lake.
Supplimentary supplies of ice were
harvested from Kinderogan Lane
(now part of the Girl Scout
property). There were also young
stock farms throughout the county,
one of which was the Cross River
Farm of eight hundred-odd acres,
later part of the Pound Ridge
Reservation, and also the Yorktown
Farm, King Street Farm, Glenbrook
Farm and New Rankeilour Farm. (1,
page 35) (2, page 35)
During this year, three to four
thousand quarts of milk were
produced daily by the milking herd at
the Briarcliff Farms, and the milk,
cream and butter were processed for
consumption at the Briarcliff Dairy
(the stone building still standing on
Woodside Avenue, in 1952 the
garage of the Briarcliff Laundry) and
sent to New York City every night via
the Putnam Division Railroad for
delivery the following day. The milk
(12 cents a quart), cream and butter
were sold at the Windsor Arcade,
Fifth Avenue and 46th Street. The
milk was also sold by the glass in
leading hotels and restaurants, and
the demand was always greater than
the supply. (1, page 35) (2, page
32)
1898
Briarcliff
Farms
1898
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1898
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1898
SpanishAmerican
War
Also during this year, the main dairy
complex at the Briarcliff Farms was
at the north end of Dalmeny Road,
adjacent to the farm office. Barn A,
which was a livery stable and
blacksmith, and wheelwright and
harness shops stood here, as did the
Briarcliff Print Shop and the Briarcliff
Table Water Company. (8, page 16)
The 6th School District votes
$3,750.00 to build a new school
house, located again on the same
site as the "White School" school
house. Much larger, it served as a
school, later as the Briarcliff
Community Centre (Club). (2, page
49)
District School No. 6, located in the
area that would later become the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, is built
and dedicated as a primary school.
When this building was dedicated,
the school district it served officially
became Union Free School District
No. 6, Towns of Ossining and Mount
Pleasant. (1, pages 68-69) (2, page
48) (15, page 48) (17, page 18)
Two or three men from the village
(Scarborough?, Ossining?), among
them Fred Becker and Bob Grannis
of Scarborough Road, served in the
Spanish-American War. Marion
Dinwiddie remembered seeing the
troops off down the road, cheering
them on and then greeting them
when they returned. It was, as she
said, "a very short war." (1, page
30)
1898
1898
1898
Despite no known enlistments for
certain from the area that would
later become the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, The Briarcliff Congregational
Church installs a Memorial window in
their church with the inscription: "In
Memory of the Soldiers and Sailors
who died in the War with Spain,
1898." The upper section reads: "To
undo the heavy burdens and to let
the oppressed go free." (Isaiah
Spanish58:6). This window shows St.
American
George overcoming the dragon. (1,
War
page 30) (2, page 79)
The first of the four Tiffany windows
is given by Walter Law to The
Briarcliff Congregational Church,
called the "Joseph Window" in the
front of the church, and it is
dedicated during this same year to
the memory of his longtime friends
Mr. and Mrs. William Sloane of New
York City. Ultimately, the book Our
Village, Briarcliff Manor: 1902 To
1952 has said that the structures of
The Briarcliff Congregational Church
are "a lasting testimony and
monument to Walter Law's devotion
Briarcliff
to the religious welfare of Briarcliff
Congregatio Manor." (1, page 43) (2, pages 39
n-al Church and 41)
During this year, the enrollment in
the Sunday school of The Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Congregational Church is about
Congregatio sixty, and it quickly increases. (1,
n-al Church page 43)
1898
1898
The National Cyclopaedia of
American Biography , Vol. 1, New
York, published in 1898, describes
how the younger sons of General
James Watson Webb, who came of
age in more peaceful times, took up
nonmilitary professions and careers,
mostly in finance, particularly of
railroads. William Seward Webb was
educated at Colonel Churchchill's
Military Academy in Sing Sing before
going on to Columbia College, and
studying medicine there and abroad.
Then, abandoning his medical
practice, he established the Wall
Street firm of W. S. Webb &
Company. He married Lila
Vanderbilt, Mrs. Elliot Shepard's
sister, and, at his father-in-law's
request, took over the management
of the Wagner Palace Car Company,
reorganized it, and became its
president and "a director in several
railroad companies." (1, pages 87
Webb Family and 230)
During this year, after Frank A.
Vanderlip had successfully handled
the $200,000,000.00 bond issue
during the Spanish-American War,
James Stillman, president of the
National City Bank in New York,
offered Frank A. Vanderlip a viceVanderlip
presidency of that bank. (1, pages
Family
89-90)
1898
Harden
Family
During this year, when he was
secretary of the treasury, Frank
Vanderlip arranged for Edward
Walker Harden to go on the maiden
voyage of the cutter Hugh M'Culloch
to the China coast in 1898. In
Vanderlip's words, "That was all I
had to do with Harden's feat." The
feat referred to was the scoop of all
the newspapers of the world with the
news of Admiral Dewey's destruction
of the Spanish fleet at the Battle of
Manila Bay. The Spanish cable to
Hong Kong had been cut, and the
Hugh M'Culloch was picked to be the
dispatch boat. Two other reporters
and Admiral Dewey's flag lieutenant,
with his official dispatches, were
aboard. At Hong Kong dock, Harden
was first off the boat and managed
to get a forty-word bulliten
containing the essence of the great
news through to the Chicago Tribune
more than five hours ahead of the
official dispatches. An editor at the
Tribune telephoned the White House
at four-thirty in the morning and got
President McKinley out of bed to tell
him of the victor. A variation on this
story attributes Harden's newspaper
scoop to his friendship with Filipino
insurrection leader Emilio Aguinaldo,
The new two-roomed schoolhouse of
the area that would become the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, closes due
to the interior temperature
registering the highest temperature
at 40 degrees above zero, according
to an issue of The Sing Sing Register
(also published on this date),
despite the use of the stove for
heating. The Sing Sing Register
from this date states: "The schoolmistress of the free school at
Whitson's, in this town, on
Wednesday morning was obliged to
close the school, as 40 degrees
above zero was the highest
temperature that could be reached
with the heating apparatus on hand.
The attention of the School
Commissioner is to be called to the
affair." The nearby Putnam Railroad
February
Public
station was the refuge at such times
2nd,
Schools,
when "thoughts that burn" did not
Wednesday Grade and
raise the school temperature. (2,
1898 morning
High School page 49) (14, page 13)
Walter Law gives four Tiffany
Briarcliff
windows to The Briarcliff
Congregatio Congregational Church during this
1898-1905
n-al Church period. (1, page 43) (2, page 39)
During this period, the third school
building of the public schools that
serve Briarcliff Manor, served the
Public
village as their public school building
Schools,
until a new fourth building was
Grade and
opened near Law Memorial Park in
1898-1908
High School 1909. (17, page 18)
1898(?)1908(?)
During this period, Walter Law
foresaw the potential of Briarcliff's
pure water, and formed The Briarcliff
Table Water Company on
Pleasantville Road, north of where
Saint Theresa's Church now stands
on Pleasantville Road. The water,
from reservoirs of a natural spring
250 feet below all surface
contamination, was "bottled at the
mouth of the well at Briarcliff
Farms," served to guests at the
Briarcliff Lodge, and sold at the New
York City stores of Briarcliff Farms
and at other stores in Yonkers,
Tarrytown, White Plains, Ossining
and Lakewood, New Jersey. This
water was also sold in five cities.
Also, near The Briarcliff Table Water
Company, the Briarcliff Print Shop
printed dairy information,
advertisements, and even bottle
caps. Walter Law steered clear of
misleading advertising claims of his
day, as one of the advertisements
for this water read: "There's no
sulphur or Perpetual youth, or
Medicinal theory about it. Just Purity
Briarcliff
and Safety in water and handling."
Table Water (1, page 38) (8, page 36) (14, page
Company
9) (15, page 27)
1898(?)1920s(?)
Briarcliff
Farms
During this period, horticulture, like
dairy farming was profitable in the
growing New York City. With the
assistance of the Piersons family, "of
famous name in the rose business,"
Walther Law took up rose culture.
The space of his greenhouses that he
built soon grew to seventy-five
thousand square feet and the annual
return from the sale of American
Beauty roses went up to
$100,000.00 a year. Twelve
greenhouses were owned and
operated by Paul M. Pierson and F.
R. Pierson. As many as eight
thousand roses were cut and shipped
to florists daily in the city, packed in
long wooden boxes filled with
newspapers and ice. Carnations
were also grown. While most of the
roses were shipped to New York City,
some that were sent to Scotland
were received "fresh and fragrant"
eighteen days after they were cut.
These greenhouses were located on
the hill between Pine and Sleepy
Hollow roads, just above where
Fountain Road now runs. (1, pages
36-37)
1899
Walter William Law, the future
founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, attempted to incorporate the
future Village of Briarcliff Manor
under the name of Scarborough but
failed because the area did not
contain three hundred persons per
square mile as required by state.
This was done because the need for
municipal services grew in the area
so Mr. Law started proceedings to
incorporate some of his landownings
into a village. This was done
because incorporation would allow
taxation to provide services to
residents of the incorporated area.
Walter William Law then turned his
attention to the property east of his
house on Scarborough Road and
arranged for houses to be built and
sold to the farm workers on
generous terms. He held the
mortgages himself. Eileen O'Connor
Weber said that Mr. Law even
underwrote college scholarships for
residents' children, and even paid
the medical expenses of those
needing help at this time. (1, pages
vii and 43) (15, page 21) (17, page
Scarborough 7)
1899
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1899
Hoolbrook
Preparatory
School for
Boys
The taxes that needed to be raised
for this particular school year to
support the school in the area that
would become the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, amounted to $340.00. Willet
Nodine was hired as Truant Officer
during this year at $25.00 a year for
his salary. (2, page 49)
After Dr. Holbrook's death during
this year, his academic-miltary
school continued as Holbrook
Preporatory School for Boys,
managed by three Holbrook sons. (1,
page 27)
1899
1899
December
1899 21st
During this year, a Young People’s
Christian Endeavor group, the
forerunner of all the young people’s
groups, was formed. The Briarcliff
Congregational Church then became
an important social center for young
people in the village and beyond,
and residents of various faiths and
neighborhoods still remember and
speak with pleasure of social
activities there. Eileen (O’Connor)
Weber and Joan (Borough)
Goldsborough, who were Catholic,
would attend mass and then go over
to The Briarcliff Congregational
Church. "As there were few
Catholics, after attending Mass," said
Eileen Weber, "all the activity was at
the Congregational Church, so that is
where I would go. Later, I was on
its Young Peoples Board. Years
afterward, Rev. Stanley North said to
me, 'Eileen, you started the
ecumenical movement before Pope
John!'" When she was in high
school, Eileen “ended up on the
Executive Board.” She remembers
the “turkey suppers…with Henry
Law, James Minshall and Alfred
Briarcliff
Pearson carving and Mrs. Wolf, Mrs.
Congregatio Pearson and Mrs. Courreges serving
n-al Church mashed potatoes.” And at Christmas
After his retirement from the carpet
business, Walter law by this year
made Briarcliff Farms a second
career, and the design for his farms
was a serious, methodical system for
manufacturing the best possible farm
Briarcliff
products for human consumption. (8,
Farms
page 10)
An order is placed for seven pints of
milk, seven and one -half pints of
cream and two pounds of butter
processed at the Briarcliff Dairy on
December 21st, which was then put
Briarcliff
on board the S.S. Luciana . (1, page
Farms
35)
December
1899 22nd
Briarcliff
Farms
December
1899 29th
Briarcliff
Farms
1899 July 12th
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
September
1899 12th
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1899-1900
Holbrook
Preparatory
School for
Boys
The order for seven pints milk, seven
and one-half pints cream and two
pounds of butter that was ordered
from the Briarcliff Farms traveled on
the S. S. Luciana to Liverpool on this
date. (15, page 24)
The order placed for seven pints of
milk, seven and one -half pints of
cream and two pounds of butter
processed at the Briarcliff Dairy on
December 21st, which was then put
on board the S.S. Luciana, reaches
Liverpool on December 29th. (1,
page 35)
The old school in the area that would
become the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, is auctioned off for $42.00,
with its desks bringing one dollar
each, and its inadequate stove four
dollars. (2, page 49) (15, page 48)
The school district which serves the
area that would become the Village
of Briarcliff Manor is officially given
the official title "Union Free District
No. 6, Towns of Ossining and Mount
Pleasant. However, the district
boundaries at this time were not
clear, as the Archville section edges
in somewhat, and part of the
Briarcliff of today (ca. 1952) was
allotted to the Ossining School
District. (2, page 49) (15, page 48)
A handbook issued during this period
from The Holbrook Preparatory
School for Boys states: “Its nearness
to New York and the excellent
railway service (sixty-four trains a
day) render it easily accessible.” (15,
page 41)
before 1900
George C.
Holden
Homestead
Before 1900, the George Clarence
Holden Homestead was built.
George and his brother, J. Henry
Holden, were both the sons of Dr.
James Holmes Holden and Emily
Brush Holden, and each of these
sons married and had, repsectively,
five and seven children. There were
two houses with french roofs built on
the hill below the Holden Homstead
of Dr. Holden, ("Sunset Hill") that
were built for the two families of
George and J. Henry. George
manufactured pressed stone, and J.
Henry ran a coal and wood business
in the village of Ossining at the time.
(1, page 25) (15, page 14)
Date
(Year):
1900s:
1900s
the early
1900s
the early
1900s
the early
1900s
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
Description of Event:
Baekeland
Family
During this year, Leo Hendrik
Baekeland, the father of Nina
Baekeland Roll (later Mrs. Wyman
after her marriage to Phillip Wyman),
who lived in the Kemeys-Ailes house
in Scarborough, invented a
substance called Bakelite, which
made him a fortune. (1, page 102)
The Briarcliff Lodge during this
period had brought many Irish
Catholic immigrants, as employees,
as well as some Catholic guests, to
the village. In the early 1900s a
priest, supplied by the Dominican
Fathers in Pleasantville, travelled by
bicycle on Sundays to hold masses in
the shed of the golf house at number
2 Central Drive, until the new Parish
was ordered in Briarcliff Manor, the
first Mass here being held on July
27th, 1926, by Father Kelly. Before
that, Catholic masses were held in
either Ossining or Pleasantville.
Church of
Also, "for several years Mass was
Saint
said in various old houses of the
Theresa of Lodge which were recognized as
the Infant
Chapels." (1, page 79) (2, page 41)
Jesus
(14, page 19) (15, page 72)
At this time, Theodore Neidi,
Postmaster for The Scarborough Post
Scarboroug Office, had to catch mailbags with an
h Post
iron hook as the express trains went
Office
by. (15, page 16)
At this time, the milk room at Barn C
Briarcliff
of the Briarcliff Farms had a barn
Farms
foreman. (15, page 25)
the early
1900s
the early
1900s
the early
1900s
the early
1900s
During this time, the original location
of the clubhouse for the Mount
Number 2
Pleasant (Briarcliff) Golf “Links” was
Central
in the house located as Number 2
Drive,
Central Drive in the Village of
clubhouse
Briarcliff Manor, before it was moved
of Mount
to Elderslie, a house on Pine Road in
Pleasant
the Village, at a later date. (1, page
Golf Links
81) (15, page 32 and 34)
During this time, the Weber House at
Weber
24 Sleepy Hollow Road was
House
remodeled. (15, page 35)
During this period, parties and
Scarboroug holiday celebrations were held at the
h
1908 Church House of The
Presbyterian Scarborough Presbyterian Church.
Church
(15, page 70)
During this period, the interior layout
of the Briarcliff Lodge was altered
and the number of rooms in the
Briarcliff
original Lodge building varied. (8,
Lodge
page 24)
the early
1900s
Briarcliff
Lodge
the early
1900s
Briarcliff
Lodge
the early
1900s
Briarcliff
Farms
At this time, at the north end of the
Briarcliff Lodge a smaller Shinglestyle building was constructed as an
amusement building. It was referred
to as the Casino, when gambling
took place there. (8, page 33)
By this time, there were stables for
the Briarcliff Lodge that had been
constructed. Later, this building
became the Briarcliff Garage of the
Briarcliff Lodge when mass-produced
automobiles, including Lozier
limousines and Maxwell “big fours,”
became popular means for surveying
the hills and valleys of Westchester
County. (8, page 34)
By this time, Harmony Hall had been
built on the property of the Briarcliff
Farms and was being used as a farm
workers’ quarters for Briarcliff Farms
employees. (8, page 90)
the early
1900s
ca. 1900
ca. 1900
ca. 1900
ca. 1900
During this period, the Harris
portable fire escape was advertised
in the Briarcliff Outlook as one of the
safety features of the Briarcliff
Lodge. In addition, by this time, the
bathrooms of the Lodge, which had
solid porcelain baths and basins,
were equal to those in the most
Briarcliff
expensive private dwellings of the
Lodge
time. (8, page 109)
At around this time, Dr. Percy
Norman Barnesby was the medical
director of the City Bank and Frank
Vanderlip's personal physician. In
addition, at around this same time,
Mr. Vanderlip built a brick house for
Dr. and Mrs. Barnesby at the south
Barnesby
corner of River Road and the Albany
House
Post Road. (1, page 111)
At around the turn of the century,
the Ashridge mansion and estate
(before it was remodeled) had one
distinguished resident, Benjamin
Church, chief engineer of the Croton
Aqueduct Commission, who had
Ashridge
made his country home at Ashridge
Estate
at around this time. (1, page 114)
By this time, there was a supply
store for feed and other necessitates
located in a large barn on part of
Route 9A just southeast of
Birrittella’s garage. Ice required at
the dairy was cut during the winter
months from Echo Lake in Millwood,
and was supplemented from
Kinderogan Lake, off Washburn
Road. Several young stock farms
were operated outside of Briarcliff
Manor, namely, Yorktown, Cross
Briarcliff
River, King Street, Glenbrook and
Farms
new Rankeilour farms. (15, page 27)
Around this time, the press of the
Briarcliff Print Shop, located north of
Saint Theresa’s Church on
Pleasantville Road, was kept busy
printing dairy information and
advertisements of the village, and
Briarcliff
they even printed the bottle caps!
Publications (15, page 27)
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
1900
The demand was greater than the
supply and so excellent was the
quality that Briarcliff Farm's brand of
milk wins the Gold Medal at the Paris
Briarcliff
Exposition of 1900. (1, page 35) (2,
Farms
page 32) (15, page 24)
By this year, Mr. Law increased his
landholdings to eventually amount to
over 5,000 acres, the beginnings of
the land consolidation that would
eventually become the later Village
of Briarcliff Manor These
landownings also inlcuded large
tracts in Yorktown, Milwood, Pound
Ridge and as far as Glenville,
Connecticut. These landownings also
stretched from the present day
Beech Hill Stables at the corner of
Route 117 and Beech Hill Road north
Briarcliff
to Kitchawan. (1, page 35) (2, pages
Farms
32 and 72) (15, page 21)
During this year, Mr. Frank Arthur
Vanderlip accepts the vicepresidency of the National City Bank
in New York from James Stillman,
Vanderlip
president of the National City Bank in
Family
New York. (1, page 90)
During this year, Waldheim, which
later became the estate mansion of
Waldheim
James Speyers and his family, is
Estate
built. (10, page 1)
During this year, The Congregation
Congregatio Sons of Israel of Ossining purchased
n Sons of
the land of the Jewish Cemetery
Israel of
between Havell Street and Dale
Ossining
Avenue in Ossining. (1, page 167)
During this year, All Saints Episcopal
Church’s “parish was indebted to the
All Saints
rector [the Reverend H. L. Myrick]
Episcopal
for salary accumulated over a period
Church
of seven years.” (1, page 177)
By this year, the Briarcliff Farms had
Briarcliff
a store at 2061 Seventh Avenue,
Farms
New York City. (15, page 25)
During this year, Walter W. Law was
inspired by the needs of the Briarcliff
Farms to found the School of
Practical Agriculture and Horticulture
as a three-year experiment to train
young men and women in
management of land use. This
school was located on 66 acres on
Pleasantville Road, now the property
School of
of Frank B. Hall and Co., Inc. Some
Practical
of the local men serving as trustees
Agriculture, were Walter W. Law, Francis W.
Pocantico
Holbrook, V. Everit Macy and James
1900
Lodge
Speyer. (8, page 10) (15, page 41)
The order placed for seven pints of
milk, seven and one -half pints of
cream and two pounds of butter
processed at the Briarcliff Dairy on
December 21st, which was then put
on board the S.S. Luciana, was then
transferred to the S.S. Carmania on
Briarcliff
January 5th going out of Liverpool.
1900 January 5th Farms
(1, page 35)
The order placed for seven pints of
milk, seven and one -half pints of
cream and two pounds of butter
processed at the Briarcliff Dairy on
December 21st, which was then put
on board the S.S. Luciana, was then
transferred to the S.S. Carmania on
January 5th, is found "fresh and
sweet" when the last pint was used
in New York Harbor on January 13thJanuary
Briarcliff
23 days old! (1, page 35) (15, page
1900 13th
Farms
24)
At this time, Walter Law gave prizes
at Christmas time for the best kept
barn, the cleanest room in the
Dalmeny (dormitory) Harmony Hall,
which Law built for his workers, and
for the gentlest handler of his cows
on Briarcliff Farms. Mr. Law firmly
believed that kindly treatment would
cause better cattle. No abuse or
shouting of any kind was tolerated,
and a man he saw kick a cow was
Briarcliff
told to work elsewhere. (1, page 35)
1900 Christmas
Farms
(2, page 35) (14, page 5)
1900 (and
for several
years after)
1900-1901
1900-1902
1900-1903
The "Briarcliff Farms" first appears in
1900. This first publication of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor was a
pamphlet dealng with the dairy
Briarcliff
products from 1900 for several years
Publications after. (14, pages 15 and 17)
Rev. James Sheerin serves as the
All Saints
sixth Rector of the All Saints
Episcopal
Episcopal Church during this period.
Church
(2, page 38)
During this period, All Saints
Episcopal Church used The
Brinckerhoff Fund to meet the
obligation of the Reverend H. L.
Myrick’s salary, which had not been
paid from 1894 to 1900. Also,
during this period, services were
conducted by clergymen at All Saints
Episcopal Church on a temporary
basis until 1902, when the reverend
Thomas R. Hazzard was called to
All Saints
serve as the new Rector for All
Episcopal
Saints Episcopal Church. (1, page
Church
177)
During this period, the School of
Practical Agriculture and Horticulture
on Pleasantville Road at the present
site of Frank B. Hall that was
estalbished by Walter W. Law is in
operation. Its first director was Mr.
George T. Powell and the school had
many young men under special
instruction. "I shall not be satisfied
to stop," he said, "until the Briarcliff
Farms has placed itself in the
School of
forefront of any institution of its kind
Practical
to be found in the whole country."
Agriculture, The school later moved upstate in
Pocantico
1903. (1, pages, 36 and 71) (2, page
Lodge
35) (14, page 5)
1900-1906
Scarboroug
h
Presbyterian
Church
1900-1907
Women's
Society of
the
Congregatio
n-al Church
1900(?)1928
Woyden
Family
Rev. Benjamin T. Marshall serves as
the second minister of The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church
during this period. Also during Mr.
Marshall's pastorate, a manse was
established in the old homestead Dr.
Holden had built for his son George
Clarence Holden on the hill between
the Holden homestead and
Scarborough Road (later the Mrs. C.
H. Easton house). (1, pages 53-54
and 235) (2, page 39) (15, page 70)
Mrs. Alexander McColl serves as the
first President (of nineteen furture
presidents, up to ca. 1952), of The
Women's Society of the
Congregational Church, during this
period. (2, page 45)
From the turn of the century, when it
was the farm of the Sidney Bayliss
family, until Route 9A went through
in 1928, the Woyden property
extended to South State Road. (1,
page 165)
1900(?)1929(?)
Barnesby
Family
During this period, there was a linefence quarrel between William
Rockefeller and Dr. Barnesby, who
"had become the squire of six acres,
wedged like Belgium between
Beechwood and Rockwood Hall."
The boundary between the Barnesby
and Rockefeller properties was a
broken-down fence and a ragged
growth of scrubby bushes, all rooted
in Rockefeller land. Mr. Vanderlip
tells that: "One day as the Barnesbys
stood in their garden
[they]...discovered that a heavy-set
stranger who rested his elbows on
that troublesome fence was no less a
personage than the master of
Rockwood Hall...accompanied by
Hawks, the estate superintendent.
Barnesby strolled over and said,
"How do you do, Mr. Rockefeller? I
am Dr. Barnesby." There was no
word, only a piercing look from the
granite-featured gentleman. Dr.
Barnesby cleared his throat and
spoke his piece anyway: "Would you
mind if I took down these scrub
bushes and planted a nice row of
trees in place of them?" At that, Mr.
Rockefeller, who was really tall,
reared himself high above Dr.
Barnesby. Not until he had buttoned
1900(?)1929(?)
1900-1932
pre-1901
Frank Vanderlip's autobiography,
From Farmboy to Financier
continues to tell of the border
dispute between the lands of the
Rockwood Hall estate of William
Rockefeller, and the lands of the
Barnesby House of Dr. Barnesby:
"When Barnesby's rage had cooled,
hired half a dozen Italian laborers
and directed them as they cleared
away the scrubs. Then it was
Vanderlip's turn to rage-at his friend
Barnesby, for fear Rockefeller's
dignity had been so "seriously
affronted" that he might "salve it
through some action against me or
the bank" (the City Bank, of which
Barnesby
Rockefeller was a director)." (1,
Family
pages 112 and 230-231)
During this period, James Speyers
was a trustee of the Teacher's
Speyer
College of Columbia University. (1,
Family
page 104)
Before the Congregation Sons of
Israel of Ossining was officially
organized in the spring of 1901, a
Congregatio minyan , the ten men required to
n Sons of
conduct a complete service, could
Israel of
not always be counted on to attend
Ossining
the service. (1, page 167)
ca. 1901
Briarcliff
Farms
ca. 1901(?)
Briarcliff
Real Estate
Around this year, Briarcliff Farms
dairy products were advertised as
“the highest quality, produced and
handled at every point under rigid
equipment and approved by the
highest scientific authority.” The
Briarcliff Farms had several stores
selling their products by this time as
well, including on in the Windsor
Arcade. Walter Law encouraged
cleanliness and gentle handling of
cattle and gave awards to workers
who best demonstrated those
characteristics. These practices
“resulted in a more thorough
understanding of the true value of
pure milk and the safeguards which
must surround its production and
handling.” Farm employees were
frequently lectured on the topics of
cleanliness and the “evils of
contaminated milk.” (8, pages 10
and 17)
Possibly around this time, the David
Graham residence on Horsechestnut
Road rented for $40.00 per month,
or could be bought for $6,500, “easy
terms.” (15, page 77)
During this year, The Briarcliff Realty
Company, which was the combined
real estate holdings of the Law
family, was started in the office of
the Briarcliff Farms on Pleasantville
Road. It was located on the site of
the dairy building, which had burned
down in 1901. The Briarcliff Realty
Company then set to work promoting
residential development. In
"Briarcliff Once-a-Week" residential
lots were advertised, along with the
services of "the builder of the new
Lodge at Briarcliff," Briarcliff Milk and
Farm Products, Briarcliff Table
Water, Frederick C. Messinger (sic )
Plumbing, Heating and Tinning,
William McGowan, Nurseryman (of
Briarcliff Farms), and "inexpensive
but durable carpets" from W. & J.
Sloane (Walter Law's former
employer). Almost everything a
prospective resident might require
was to be had right there in
Briarcliff. (1, pages 58 and 63)
1901
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1901
During this year, The Briarcliff
Steamer Company #1 was organized
under the leadership of Frederick
Messinger with a horse-drawn steam
operated pumper and a horse-drawn
hose wagon contributed by the
Briarcliff Realty Company, owned by
Walter W. Law. Both were loaned to
the company without charge. This
new apparatus took the place of a
hand-drawn chemical outfit. Fire
protection was necessary because
the hamlet of Whitson's Corner's was
growing rapidly and many fine
buildings, including the Briarcliff
Lodge, were under construction. The
equipment was housed in the Barn A
complex of the Briarcliff Farms and
the men used a room in the adjacent
Briarcliff
blacksmith shop for meetings; all at
Manor Fire no charge to the department. (1,
Department page 61) (15, page 80)
1901
Briarcliff
Farms
1901
Wharton
Family
During this year, the original Tudorstyle dairy building of the Briarcliff
Farms on Pleasantville Road burns
down. Walter Law's personal office
had been in this building. (1, page
63) (8, page 16)
Edith Wharton, who was the novelist
that helped Ogden Codman to write
and publish the book The Decoration
of Houses (Scribner's 1902), was
planning here house in Lenox
Massachusetts in 1901, when
"Codman, who had been prospering
visibly…demanded what Edith
regarded as exorbitant advance
payments even for his rough
sketches." They remained friends,
but she engaged another architect.
(1, page 88)
Hillside
During this year, the J. Warren
Rogers house was called Hillside on
the Watson map of 1901, and this
house, the birthplace of Admiral
Worden, was purchased by Mr.
Vanderlip(?) and for a time served as
a dormitory for a few Scarborough
boarding students(?). Before that, it
housed some junior employees of
the National City Bank. One of
these, Dudley N. Schoales, married
Virginia Vanderlip, and they raised a
family in a remodeled barn (since
demolished) between River Road and
Creighton Lane. (1, page 94)
1901
1901
1901
1901
During this year, Milton E. Ailes
succeeded Frank Vanderlip as
assistant secretary of the treasury,
and was for Frank Vanderlip, "his
eyes and ears" in Washington, and
his devoted friend and trusted
associate. Eugene Ailes, Milton's
brother, at this time bought the
Kemeys house at the head of
Kemeys Cove in Scarborough. There
were six Ailes children who went to
the Scarborough School. Miss Lulu
Ailes, sister of Eugene and Milton,
taught fourth grade and ancient
history at The Scarborough School
Ailes Family for many years. (1, page 102)
During this year, some two hundred
acres belonged to the Ryder family,
on which around 1910, the Haymont
Ryder
mansion of William Whitehead Fuller
Family
would later be built. (1, page 122)
During his year, a house was built at
729 Pleasantville Road for the
foreman of Barn E of Walter Law’s
Briarcliff Farms. (The house would
later be the home of Brice Marden,
the famous abstract artist and his
Briarcliff
family for almost fifty years). (1,
Farms
page 213)
1901
The "Briarcliff Bulletin" first appears.
It is printed by the Briarcliff Print
Shop that was near the Table Water
Company on Pleasantville Road, near
where Saint Theresa's Church now
(ca. 1990) stands. The "Briarcliff
Bulletin" contained information and
articles on agricultural matters,
dealing cheifly with dairy information
and interest, and also the
advancement of the Village. More
specifically, it primarily contained
information on cattle and milk, and
articles on such things as the
ravages of tuberculosis in cows. This
publication was well illustrated and
edited, and printed on a printing
press that was owned at this time by
the Briarcliff Farms, who also had
their own office. (1, page 38) (2,
Briarcliff
page 35) (14, page 17) (15, page
Publications 27)
1901 Spring
During this time, The Congregation
Sons of Israel of Ossining was
officially organized. There were
eleven founders of the Congregation.
Eight of them served as the first
officers: Abraham Feinberg,
president; H. B. Myers, vicepresident; Daniel Levy, recording
secretary; Abraham Altman, financial
secretary; Michael Hyams, treasurer;
Myer Myers, Harry Macy, and
Nachman Hart, trustees. A. L. Myers
also donated the first Torah used by
Congregatio this Congregation, and the other two
n Sons of
of the eleven founder members were
Israel of
Morris Cohen and Henry Philipson.
Ossining
(1, page 167) (15, page 74)
1901 Spring
1901 May 15th
At this time, in line with promoting
the high purpose of Mr. Walter
William Law clearly stating: "I shall
not be satisfied to stop until Briarcliff
Farms has placed itself in the
forefront of any institution of its kind
to be found in the whole country," he
completed the construction of the
school building of the School of
Practical Agriculture and
Horticulture. When the school
opened at this time, its students
were taught scientific basics of
farming and gardening, as well as
product conservation and the
development of specialty markets for
fine goods. In its day, this school
was preeminent in the country. Its
director was George T. Powell, and
this school had many young men
School of
under its special instruction. This
Practical
school was housed in Pocantico
Agriculture, Lodge, on Pleasantville Road. (1,
Pocantico
page 71) (2, page 35) (8, pages 10
Lodge
and 18) (17, page 21)
On this date, Walter William Law
wrote to his attorney, William A.
Arthur, that he had a parcel of land
of "some one and 11/100's of a
square mile with some 331 persons
residing" and would soon have the
petition of twenty-five adult
freeholders necessary to start
incorporation papers moving. The
square mile included land in both the
towns of Ossining and Mount
Briarcliff
Pleasant (as allowed by state law)
Manor
and within two school districts (as
Incorporatio required by state law). (1, page 43)
n
(15, page 22)
1901 June 29th
1901-1902
Spring
(1901)-(?)
(1902)
Alfred H.
Pearson
Home (1326
Pleasantville
Road)
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Ossining
1901-1911
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1901-1952
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
On this date was written a deed that
was typical of those written for
house in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor prior to the establishment of
official zoning policies in 1928. This
deed was the origninal deed written
for the home of Alfred H. Pearson at
1326 Pleasantville Road. This deed
was also signed by Walter law, and
Georgianna, his wife, includes the
following covenants: "First That the
said premises conveyed hereby shall
be used solely for the purpose of a
private residence. Second That no
business of any kind whatsosever
shall ever be conducted on said
premises. Third That no liquor,
beer, ale or wine shall ever be sold
or given away on said premises.
Fourth That no stable, piggery, cowpen or nuissance of any kind shall
ever be constructed or maintained
on said premises. It is expressedly
understood and agreed that the said
several covenants herein above
specified shall attach to and run with
the land." The owner of this house,
Alfred pearson, had come to work at
Briarcliff Farms as a boy of
seventeen. (1, pages 65 and 67)
(15, page 76)
During this period, services for The
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining were held in private homes
and vacant stores. One of these
meeting places was above the A. L.
Myers furniture store. (1, page 167)
(15, page 74)
During this period, Fred C. Messinger
served as the first chief of The
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department (11
years). He was also the village's
first plumber. (1, page 233) (2, page
74) (17, page 11)
Fred C. Messinger serves in the
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department for
51 years during this period. (1, page
233) (2, page 74)
1901-1990
pre-1902
pre-1902(?)
ca. 1902
As it does today, The Briarcliff Manor
Fire Department works closely with
neighboring departments in
Ossining, Pocantico Hills, Archville
and Pleasantville. The firemen of
1901 were also not much different
from those of the 1980s. In the
intervals of the difficult, even
dangerous, firefighting, they got
Briarcliff
together to play pool, hold monthly
Manor Fire parties and march in parades. (1,
Department page 61)
At this time, due to Dr. Ogilby, the
founder of All Saints Church,
designating his church as All Saints’
Church, Brier Cliff, Sing Sing, N.Y.,
and the name of “Brier Cliff” was
unofficially given to the area of the
Briarcliff
future Village of Briarcliff Manor in
Manor
the years before its official
Incorporatio incorporation as a village. (14, page
n
7)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , although there had been
changes in the school district
boundaries through the years, the
Public
establishment of the original
Schools,
"Briarcliff" School District antedated
Grade and the incorporation of the Village of
High School Briarcliff Manor in 1902. (2, page 60)
After the official incorporation of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, Briarcliff
Steamer Company #1 petitions the
Board of Trustees of the Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor Village Government to make
Manor Fire the Fire Company part of the Village
Department Government. (2, page 26)
ca. 1902
ca. 1902
ca. 1902
Elms
As of this year, limiting the
calculations to the actual boundary
of the incorporated Village of
Briarcliff Manor, "The Elms" is the
oldest house standing. The other
very old houses previously
mentioned, "The Century
Homestead" and the Joseph
Washburn house, were in fact within
"Whitson's" area, but not within the
official limits of what became the
Village of Briarcliff Manor. They are
in the Town of Mt. Pleasant. (2, page
16)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , around the incorporation of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor in
Briarcliff
1902, the first president of the
Board of
incorporated Free School District was
Education
Mr. J. Sidney Baylis. (2, page 60)
By around the year of its
incorporation as a village, the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, organized around
the estate of Walter William Law, the
Village’s founder, was said to be a
city within itself. It had fences made
of stone from the land,; houses built
for employees; roads built by him for
them to travel on; The Briarcliff
Congregational Church, his gift to
the community; Briarcliff Lodge, a
vacation resort for many
distinguished families, which he built
as an outlet for his farm products,
long distance telephone and
telegraph lines; the Briarcliff Manor
Light and Power Company; and
eventually the Briarcliff Realty
Corporation, which maintained that
any person, rich or poor, of high
moral character, may built a house
which must cost $5,000.00, but
Briarcliff
which shall never be used as a
Manor
saloon, shop, or tenement, or for
Incorporatio manufacturing purposes. (15, page
n
7)
ca. 1902
ca. 1902
ca. 1902
ca. 1902
Around this year, many visitors were
attracted to The Briarcliff Lodge by
the “Mount Pleasant golf links,”
which the Briarcliff Outlook called
Briarcliff
“one of the prettiest course on the
Lodge
Hudson.” (15, page 32)
Around this year, gests of The
Briarcliff Lodge toured the area
around the Lodge and traveled to the
Briarcliff
train in stable turnouts driven by two
Lodge
horses. (15, page 34)
Around this year when the Village of
Briarcliff Manor was first
incorporated, the first trustees and
president of the village government
Village
were somewhat handpicked by
Government Walter W. Law Sr. (15, page 88)
By around this year, Walter and his
wife, Georgianna Ransom, had six
children. This included three
daughters—Martha, Carolyn, and
Edith. Two of the sons were Walter
Law Jr. and Henry Law. Their sixth
child died at a very young age. (8,
Law Family page 13)
ca. 1902
Briarcliff
Lodge
For the design of the Briarcliff Lodge,
constructed in 1902, Walter Law
hired Philadelphia-based architect
Guy King. Law instructed King to
design a hotel that looked not so
much like a hotel but was
“aesthetically pure in type,”
containing the “atmosphere of the
cultivated gentleman’s home.” A
graduate of the Atelier Girard in
Paris, King returned to Philadelphia,
and in 1885 established an office
with Moses Arnold. By 1896, he was
working independently and
specialized in resort cottage and
bungalow architecture. By the time
he died in 1925, he had designed
over a 100 known projects, including
residences, banks, stores and
factories in Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, New York, and elsewhere.
He also designed hospitals through
his involvement with the
International Red Cross. King also
designed a number of buildings in
Westchester County, including farm
residences, a stable, and hitching
sheds for the Briarcliff Farms. He
also designed a pumping station for
the American Poe Company along
the nearby Pocantico River. The
builders of the Lodge were S. Wood
ca. 1902
1902
When the Briarcliff Lodge was first
built, each individual stone making
up the first-floor walls was carefully
selected in the nearby woods, with
care taken no to “injure the weather
properties of the stone, consisting of
moss, lichens, etc, all of which
remain.” Indiana limestone was
used for the trimmings. Half-timber
with pebble dash decorated the
second floor. The red roof shingles
and red brick chimneys harmonized
with the stonework. A Hotel
brochure stated, “Where clustering
eaves and tall chimneys, each
creating its own delightful
irregularity, inevitably call to mind
the rambling inn of bygone coach
days.” The main entrance was the
porte cochere on the east front of
the Lodge. A Hotel brochure stated,
“Here is seclusion and rest and the
stimulating companionship with
nature at her best, along with the
luxury of the most refined home and
the freedom of the forest and hills at
your doorstep.” The Health Annex
was located at the north end of the
Lodge. Furthermore, there was also
an outdoor pergola at the south end
Briarcliff
of the Lodge. This structure, likened
Lodge
to an Italian pavilion, hosted openAlbert Coddington serves as the first
Village
Clerk of the Briarcliff Manor Village
Government Government. (2, page 24)
1902
Briarcliff
Lodge
1902
Briarcliff
Farms
The Briarcliff Lodge is completed in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, as one
of Walter Law's most famous guest
lodgings for his lands in Briarcliff
Manor. Situated upon the highest
ridge in the Village of Briarcliff Manor
at 500 feet above sea level, and
overlooking the country and Hudson
River for many miles, Law saw it as
more than a hotel: as he said "it
stands a building which should have
about it the atmosphere of a
cultivated gentleman's house." (W.
W. Law). The furnishings were
elaborate, there were Sunday
evening musicales, and indoor as
well as outdoor swimming pools. (2,
page 26) (8, page 9) (15, page 29)
(17, page 3)
During this year, the herd of Jerseys
numbered over twelve hundred at
the Briarcliff Farms, and many of the
new recruits were weeded out as
below Briarcliff requirements, and
many improvements were made in
the methods of milking and dairy
work; a new dairy building on this
farm was constructed, and was
found at this time to be more
practical than the former one; on the
farm, a favorable year resulted in a
bountiful harvest of all kinds of
crops, as well as the increase in
poultry and livestock; in the Briarcliff
Farms greenhouses nearly a half a
million roses and carnations have
been cut for the market. (2, pages
24 and 26)
1902
1902
1902
1902
1902
During this year, many new buildings
were constructed in the newlyincorporated Village of Briarcliff
Manor. Among the ones built by
Walter Law on Scarborough Road for
his three children on the land
opposite his large stone mansion off
Scarborough Road: Six Gables for
Walter W. Law, Jr., Mount Vernon for
Edith Law Brockelman (who was
active in the Girl Scout
organization); Hillcrest, on the
corner of Sleepy Hollow Road, for
Henry H. Law. Hillcrest was for
many years the home of Mayor
George Kennard. Orchard Lea, and
Braeview, (built by George McNeir),
as well as fourteen small cottages at
various points in the Village were
also built, together with one large
Historic
greenhouse, with the new office
Homes built building being built and to be
from 1902- completed by the spring of 1902. (1,
1910
page 65) (2, page 26) (15, page 7)
During this year, many roads in the
Roads and Village of Briarcliff Manor were
Transporati improved and extended. (2, page
on
26)
During this year, the water supply of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor was
many times increased as a stronger
pressure was given on the
Briarcliff
completion of the new water tower
Water
on the hill. (2, page 26)
During this year, new trains were
added to improve the service on the
Putnam Division which served the
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (2, page
Rail Roads 26)
During this year, the Briarcliff
Lyceum was reorganized to take
charge of the musical, literary and
social interests of the community,
and a new building was
contemplated for its use in the near
future; and The Band and Orchestra
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor are
Briarcliff
now (ca. 1902) on a permanent
Arts
basis. (2, page 26)
1902
1902
1902
During this year, a complete Fire
Department was been organized in
Briarcliff
the Village of Briarcliff Manor,
Manor Fire provided with modern apparatus,
Department and properly housed. (2, page 26)
Walter William Law, the founder of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, with
his generosity helps to erect the
original Sunday School rooms of The
Briarcliff Congregational Church.
Walter Law also added the two pipe
organs, and the northern part of the
church, which consisted of the
Briarcliff
transcepts and the original Sunday
Congregatio school rooms. (1, page 43) (2, page
n-al Church 39)
During this year, with his friend the
novelist Edith Wharton, Ogden
Codman wrote and published The
Decoration of Houses (Scribner's,
1902). A reaction to "the vulgarity
of current decoration," the excesses
of some of the Vanderbilts and
others, this work advocated interior
decoration as a function of
architecture and cited many
European, especially French,
authorities. It was addressed to
"those whose means permit"
because, "when the rich man
demands good architecture his
neighbors will get it too." Wharton
did the work of writing the book, but
she defferred to Codman's dicta, as
is illustrated in an anecdote in R. W.
B. Lewis's biography. A young
woman who had been coolly recevied
by Wharton "as she was struggling
with her snowshoes in the
vestibule...heard the novelsit say in
a very different voice, warm and
humorous: 'What do you think,
Ogden-could one in a little house like
this allow a Chippendale clock on the
Codman
hall table, or should it be only a card
Family
tray?'" (1, page 88)
1902
1902
1902
1902
During this year, James Speyer
presents to Columbia University the
Speyer
Speyer School in his wife's name. (1,
Family
page 104)
During this year, Louis E. Ettlinger,
the father of Flora Ettlinger Whiting,
who bought the Ashridge estate from
C. C. North in 1910, purchased
Ettlinger
Boscobel, the Henry Ward Beecher
Family
estate in Peekskill. (1, page 114)
During this year, the membership of
The Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining of twenty-three families and
Harry Macy, the president of the
congregation, bought a building on
Durston Avenue (later Hunter Street)
in Ossining for use as a synagogue.
Each family contributed materials
and labor, and it is told that one of
the founders carried lumber on his
back to save the cost of carting.
When renovations were completed in
the new building, services were held
upstairs, and the first rabbi was
hired and lived downstairs. The
rabbi also served as cantor and
teacher and, as the first teacher had
Congregatio done, supplemented his very small
n Sons of
salary of $2.00 weekly by selling
Israel of
groceries. (1, page 167) (15, page
Ossining
74)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, when Walter Law,
the founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, first built The Briarcliff Lodge
in 1902, it was not to be a hotel, but
to be “a building which should have
about it the atmosphere of a
cultivated gentleman’s home.” The
furnishings were often elaborate, its
Sunday evening musicals were of the
best, its Tearoom and Grillroom were
well patronized; and tennis, golf,
swimming pools indoors and out, and
other specialties appealed to a
society clientele so that guests often
Briarcliff
made it a summer-long resting
Lodge
place. (14, page 6)
1902
1902
1902
1902
1902
1902
By this year, when Briarcliff Manor
was officially incorporated as a
village, the residents of Scarborough
were cut off from the rest of the
unincorporated area of the Town of
Ossining, leading to their petition to
be annexed to the Village of Briarcliff
Manor in order to receive municipal
services (their request for
Scarboroug annexation was granted in 1906).
h
(15, page 13)
During this year, the dairy building
of the Briarcliff Farms was rebuilt in
the Shingle style and became the
office of the Briarcliff Realty
Briarcliff
Company. (15, page 27) (8, page
Farms
16)
During this year, in a 1902 catalogue
for The School of Practical
School of
Agriculture and Horticulture, the
Practical
motto for this school was listed: “no
Agriculture, grass, no cattle; no cattle, no
Pocantico
manure; no manure, no crops” (a
Lodge
Belgian proverb). (15, page 41)
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
moves to New York and officially
begins his job as Vice President of
Vanderlip
the National City Bank of New York.
Family
(3, page 386)
Before the Village of Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor’s incorporation, the village’s
Population population was 331. (17, page 11)
By this year, since the new Village of
Briarcliff Manor had no street lights
yet, the first fire engine of The
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department was
Manor Fire painted white, for greater visibility at
Department night. (17, page 12)
1902
During this year, some of the horsedrawn fire wagons were motorized,
and new apparatus bought. Since
the villagers were concerned about
the speed of the new horseless
carriages as the raced to fires, a
speed limit was established—twenty
miles an hour for the chief’s car,
twenty for the fire engines. Despite
the regulations, however, there were
Briarcliff
complaints that the firemen raced to
Manor Fire fires at as much as 50 m.p.h. (17,
Department page 12)
During this year, a building boom
starts in Briarcliff, especially along
Elm, Poplar, Pine, and other roads.
The names of the streets are not
simply “pretty”; Walter Law had rows
of elm trees planted on Elm, as well
Briarcliff
as other varieties on the streets
Real Estate named for them. (17, page 13)
By this year, Briarcliff Farms, run in
conjunction by this year with the
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Lodge, had 1,200 head of
Farms
Jersey bulls and cows. (8, page 4)
During the first year of its operation,
Briarcliff
Arthur Brave, its first manager, ran
Lodge
the Briarcliff Lodge. (8, page 4)
1902
Briarcliff
Lodge
1902
Briarcliff
Farms
1902
1902
1902
By the year the Briarcliff Lodge was
built, Walter Law had invested some
$2.5 million in Briarcliff. (8, page 13)
By this year, the Briarcliff Outlook, a
promotional newspaper, wrote that
“care and treatment of cows should
be such that disease cannot
develop,” protecting cattle and
ultimately consumers of the farm
products. Cleanliness was important
to stop the transfer of diseases from
animals to humans, as in 1902 Dr.
Garnault of Paris inoculated himself
with bovine tuberculosis and
subsequently developed tumors,
disproving a throaty that humans
were not susceptible to bovine
disease. (8, page 17)
1902
Briarcliff
Lodge
1902
Law Family
By this year, when the Briarcliff
Lodge was completed, it was made
in the brick, stucco, and half-timber
Tudor style, which had become
popular in the United States in the
1890s. The main façade of the
Lodge by this time was two stories
tall, while third- and fourth-floor
dormer windows peppered the
roofline, occasionally interrupted by
cross-pitch gables. “In [Briarcliff
Lodge] was to be placed every
convenience, and every device which
modern luxury demands. Without it
was to be a dream of architectural
beauty; within, an illustration of the
refined and artistic era in which we
live.” The grounds of the Briarcliff
Lodge were designed by the
Olmstead firm, and were
“acknowledged to be one of the most
highly improved park forms in
America.” Founded by Frederick Law
Olmstead (no relation to Walter
Law), one of America’s preeminent
19th century landscape architects
and co-designer of Central Park in
New York City, this firm also
designed many projects in the
surrounding area, including the
private estates for frank Vanderlip
(Beechwood), Margaret Louisa
By the time he had successfully
incorporated the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, Walter Law owned all the
land in the mile-square village,
except two small parcels. He also
employed nearly all of the 100 or so
residents in the village. In addition
to the farms, guest lodgings, and
employee housing, Law provided for
a new Church and a new railroad
station. Ultimately, his interest in
Briarcliff was real estate. The hotel,
churches, schools, railroad station,
and new house served as vehicles to
promote the sale of numerous tracts
of land for residential development.
(8, page 19)
1902
1902 June 26th
September
1902 2nd
September
1902 12th
When the Briarcliff Lodge first
opened during this year, the second,
third, and fourth floors of the
Briarcliff Lodge hotel building (which
would later become the women’s
dorm of The King’s College) all
originally had bedrooms furnished in
mahogany and designed after styles
of the early 1800s, and all of these
bedrooms faced outwards, as there
were no inside rooms. In addition,
the primary bedrooms had open
fireplaces. Also when the Briarcliff
Lodge first opened in 1902, longdistance telephones were installed in
each bedroom. A hotel brochure
claimed that Briarcliff Lodge was one
of the first hotels in or near New
Briarcliff
York to provide this service. (8, page
Lodge
84)
On this date, the newly completed
Briarcliff Lodge officially opened its
doors to paying guests for the first
time, with the Lodge under the
management of Arthur Brave. The
original hotel was a wood-frame
structure containing approximately
75 guest rooms. Japanese lanterns,
obtained by Walter law from
missionaries, decorated the Lodge
grounds. Also, the Chicago Bridge
and Iron Company constructed the
Briarcliff
water tower in the rear of the Lodge.
Lodge
(8, page 22)
The two town supervisors meet with
the freeholders in the offices of the
Briarcliff Farms, to discuss the
incorporation of the future Village of
Briarcliff Manor. There being no
Briarcliff
objection to the incorporation, state
Manor
law prescribed that there be an
Incorporatio official election. (1, page 43) (15,
n
page 22)
A favorable vote was held on this
Briarcliff
date concerning the future
Manor
incorporation of the Village of
Incorporatio Briarcliff Manor. (1, pages vii and
n
43)
The New York Times reported the
event of the favorable vote for the
incorporation of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor: "BRIARCLIFF
MANOR ON STATE MAP ONLY 25
VOTES CAST BUT THEY ARE
UNANIMOUS FOR THE NEW
HONORS. Enjoying the distiction of
being one of the few American
millionaires to own villages of their
own, Walter W. Law, the prominent
carpet manufacturer and popular
club man, now waits with interest
the election for the village officers to
be held in Briarcliff Manor on the
Hudson next week. Until yesterday
Mr. Law did not own a village. His
possessions in Briarcliff Manor
consisted simply of a large tract of
September Briarcliff
improved and unimproved but
13th
Manor
unincorporated land. Yesterday the
(November Incorporatio place assumed the dignity of a
1902 22nd?)
n
village." (1, page 44)
The New York Times article quoted
above continues: "As Mr. Law owns
all but two small parcels of land in
the manor and employs almost all of
the 100 persons who live in the
village limits he had a vital interest
in the result of the election to decide
whether Briarcliff Manor should
assume corporate airs. The vote in
favor of such a move was
unanimous. The tract now forming
the new village is one mile square,
and part of it was [sic] in the town of
Ossining and the remainder in Mount
Pleasant. Only 25 votes were cast,
23 from Ossining and 2 from Mount
Pleasant. Mr. Law, the owner of the
village, who can at will wipe out its
entire population by discharging it, is
a member of the Alpine Club, the
Players', the Century Association,
American Fine Arts Society, Ardsley
Casino and the Metropolitan Museum
of Art. He takes keen interest in
September Briarcliff
municipal government and, it is said,
13th
Manor
will spend much money to make
(November Incorporatio Briarcliff Manor a model village." (1,
1902 22nd?)
n
page 44)
A proposition was presented to the
Supervisors of the Towns of Ossining
and Mount Pleasant that an area
Briarcliff
consisting of 640 acres and with a
Manor
population of 381 people be
Incorporatio incorporated as the Village of
1902 October 8th n
Briarcliff Manor, N. Y. (2, page 23)
1902 November
November
1902 21st
The first election of Briarcliff Manor
Village Government officials was
held, where two trustees, Walter W.
Law, Jr., and J. Sidney Bayliss, and a
president (mayor), William DeNyse
Nichols, were elected. Soon after
this election, the number of trustees
was increased to four, and the title
was changed from "president" to
"mayor." In addition, among those
whose held office in the Briarcliff
Manor Village Government during
these early years after 1902 were V.
Everit Macy, William McGowan,
Henry H. Law, Dr. Dwight Holbrook,
William C. Holden and Isaac
Village
Hotaling. (1, pages 58-59) (17, page
Government 13)
The actual incorporation of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, by
election, is completed, along with
three separate annexations of
territory to the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, including the Community of
Scarborough. Walter William Law's
friend, Andrew Carnegie had called
him (accurately) "The Laird of
Briarcliff Manor," (and who wrote of
him an article for the Outlook
Magazine with that title) a title that
appealed to all concerned, and so
the latter day manor found its name.
In large measure, this name was
also barrowed from Dr. John Ogilby
(who founded All Saints Church in
1848), designating it as All Saints'
Church, Brier Cliff, Sing Sing, N. Y.
Dr. Ogilby had adopted the title
"Brier Cliff" from his property in
Ireland, and Walter Law liked the
name and applied it to Briarcliff
Farms and later to the Village of
Briarcliff Manor. The population of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor was
331 at the time of its incorporation,
when Briarcliff became its own
Briarcliff
independent Village under its own
Manor
officers, now elected for the first
Incorporatio time. (1, pages 43 and 65) (2, page
n
23) (14, page 7)
November
1902 21st
Briarcliff
Population
1902 December
Department
of Public
Works
December
1902 19th
Village
Government
December
1902 23rd
Village
Government
post-1902
Misses
Tewksbury
school for
young boys
and girls
1902-1904
Village
Government
The population of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor was 331 people at
the time of the Village's
incorporation. (1, page 65).
On this date, at the first business
meeting of the village, John Hotaling
was appointed street comissioner,
since state law requires a village to
appoint a street commissioner upon
incorporation. This was the start of
what would become the Department
of Pulbic Works. Hotaling did most
of the road work himself, hiring men,
horses and wagons to help him as
needed to keep up with road repair.
At that time nearly all of the roads in
the village were owned by Law
enterprises. Later, as they were
paved, they were turned over to the
village one by one. (1, page 62) (15,
page 86)
The first election in the Village of
Briarlciff Manor is held in the old
Briarcliff Steamer Company rooms.
(2, page 23)
The first organizational meeting of
the Briarcliff Manor Village
Government is held, when the
following government officers were
elected: President: William DeNyse
Nichols; Trustees, Walter W. Law,
Jr., and J. Sidney Baylis; Treasurer,
Stanley Kidd; Collector, Llewllyn B.
Jones; Clerk: Albert Coddington. (2,
page 23)
After this year, when Walter Law's
guests could be accommodated at
Briarcliff Lodge, the Dysart House
was used by the Misses Tewksbury
to conduct a school for young boys
and girls in this house. This house
on Pleasantville Road was the one
time residence of Mr. Arthur Ware,
who was an architect. (1, page 73)
(2, page 46)
Stanley Kidd serves as the first
Treasurer of the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government during this
period. (2, page 24)
1902-1908
William DeNyse Nichols serves as the
first President of the Briarcliff Manor
Village
Village Government during this
Government period. (2, page 24)
During this period, Arthur Ware, Sr.,
later painter and architect who lived
in the Village of Briarcliff Manor in
Briarcliff
The Dysart House during the 1930s,
Architects: studied painting and architecture at
Arthur
the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. (1,
Ware, Sr.
page 215)
Rev. Thomas Hazzard serves as the
seventh Rector of the All Saints
Episcopal Church during this period.
Under his leadership, the parish of
All Saints Episcopal Church grew,
and with the increased revenues,
much-needed repairs were made to
the church building. Also during this
period, the church saw renewed
growth when their regular
congregation was supplemented by
students from Mrs. Dow's School, the
All Saints
Holbrook School, and guests from
Episcopal
Briarcliff Lodge. (1, page 177) (2,
Church
page 38) (15, page 68)
During this period, John Hotaling,
after he was appointed the Village of
Briarcliff Manor’s first Street
Department Commissioner in December of 1902,
of Public
serves in this position until 1908. (1,
Works
pages 62 and 234)
19021910(?)
From 1902 on, one large house after
another was built in the vicinity of
the Briarcliff Lodge, mostly by former
guests at the Lodge: High View, built
by U. T. Hungerford of Chase Copper
& Brass; Treetops, on Scarborough
Road, home of the Hilton family; and
the homes of the Case and Albright
families, who were associated with
the F. W. Woolworth Five and Ten
Cents Stores. Number 2 Central
Drive was the clubhouse of the
Historic
Mount Pleasant Golf Links across the
Homes built road, which was used by Lodge
from 1902- guests before the complete course of
1910
the Lodge was laid out. (1, page 65)
1902-1905
1902-1905
1902-1907
1902-1921
19021923(?)
William H. Coleman serves as the
second Clerk of the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government during this
Village
period (19 years). (2, pages 24 and
Government 74)
Briarcliff
Lodge
For more than twenty years, the
Briarcliff Lodge, located in the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, is "one of the best
modern country hotels in existence,"
the resort and favored summer
residence of the wealthy and
prominent of New York and other
cities. Along with all that could be
offered to assure "a sense of comfort
as in the best appointed home," the
Briarcliff Lodge had fifteen tennis
courts, an indoor swimming pool,
croquet lawns, a nine-hole golf
course, a riding school, stables,
miles of bridle paths. (1, page 2)
19021923(?)
Briarcliff
Lodge
During this period, Walter Law had
built The Briarcliff Lodge on the
highest point of his estate,
overlooking the Hudson River and
the countryside for many miles. As a
brochure that was circulated at this
time put it, "Every room commands
an inspiring view." A resort hotel,
the Lodge, in its first decades,
served mostly as a summer
residence for New Yorkers. Also
convenient for commuters and
visitors to the city, it was easily
accessible by train either over "the
main line of the New York Central" to
Scarborough or, from downtown, by
way of the Sixth and Nineth Avenue
elevated lines to 155th Street, where
these connected with trains of the
Putnam Division of the New York
Central to Briarcliff Manor Station.
Lodge automobiles met principle
trains at both Scarborough and
Briarcliff stations, and touring car
and coaching parties ran from
Central Park and 59th Street in the
city "into the State road of perfect
macadam which intersects Briarcliff
Manor village." Some Lodge guests
also traveled by private motor car
and by yacht to Scarborough dock.
(1, pages 38-39)
19021923(?)
Briarcliff
Lodge
A brochure issued during this period
says that guests at the Lodge
enjoyed meals prepared by "the
finest chefs" from "choice vegetables
and fruits…grown in Briarcliff
gardens…Briarcliff milk, cream and
butter and Briarcliff Table Water"
(the food and milk was from the
Briarcliff Farms and the table water
came from the artesian well of the
Briarcliff Table Water Company).
They might find there "perfect rest"
or enjoy a variety "of delightful
recreation...to fill their days with
pleasure." A golf course "with the
start and finish near the Lodge and
clubhouse features midway, a music
room equipped with a pipe organ and
other musical instruments, concerts
every afternoon and evening during
the season, a swimming pool
[indoor], a small theatre, a casino
with a billard and pool room, a
library, several parlors, [a ballroom]
and lounging rooms for...social
diversions." (1, page 39) (15, page
29)
19021923(?)
1902-1933
1902-1937
November
(1902)February
(1937)
The brochure issued during this
period further says that out of doors,
there were "well-kept tennis courts
and many inviting wood paths." For
"the health and happiness of children
every provision [was] made in the
way of play-grounds, swings...and
croquette grounds, freedom seldom
possible at a large resort hotel, and
the best companionship." There was
a stable of well-kept saddle horses
and many well-shaded dirt roads to
ride on, and a baseball field on which
a Lodge organization played a fixeddate schedule. For "automobile
patrons" there was a special dining
hall, with dressing rooms, smoking
rooms and "perfect provsion for the
comfort of their attendants
[chauffeurs] and the safe keeping of
their machines." There was a garage
with a large parking floor, "a repair
and supply shop, dining room and
chamber service," and "for guests
without automobiles a livery of Fiat
Briarcliff
touring cars and limousines for use
Lodge
at any time." (1, pages 39-40)
During this period, over the years
The Briarcliff Lodge had many
distinguished guests, including J. P.
Morgan and F. W. Woolworth; James
J. Walker, the raffish Mayor of New
York City, film stars Warner Baxter,
Mary Pickford, and Tallulah
Bankhead, tennis star Vincent
Richards, operatic contralto
Ernestine Schumann-Heinck and
actress Sarah Bernhardt: all the
"beautiful people" of the era showed
Briarcliff
up at the Lodge. (1, page 40) (15,
Lodge
page 32) (17, page 6)
During this period, the village
records of the Briarcliff Manor Village
Government were housed in the
office building on Pleasantville Road,
Village
which is now the home of the
Government Operating Engineers. (15, page 77)
1902-1943
1902-1948
1902-1952
1902-1990
During this period, the Law family
was still represented in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor. In 1943, this family
was still represented in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor by Walter Law's
grandson Theodore Gilman Law as
deputy county director of civilian
Law Family protection. (1, page 143)
Henry B. Valentine serves as an
Engineering Consultant; Part and FullVillage
time Engineer, during this period (46
Government years). (2, page 75)
Since the incorporation of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, there have been
some $960,000.00 of bonds of all
kinds, namely water, sewer roads
Village
fire and other improvement bonds.
Government (2, page 23)
Village Trustees from 1902 to ca.
1990 were: Walter W. Law, Jr., V.
Everit Macy, J. Sydney Baylis,
William McGowan, William C. Holden,
John H. Simpson, Richard F. Stewert,
Henry H. Law, Charles H. Schuman,
John Proctor, Oliver J. Bevier,
Edward Caterson, James L. Selfridge,
Issac C. Hotaling, J. Henry Ingham,
Norman C. Babcock, Peter Olney,
Roger Sherman, Norton Conway,
John R. Rode, Kingsland T. Rood,
James M. Bisioly, Harry A. King,
Robert C. Plumb, Hollister W.
Marquardt, Alexander M. Hunter, Dr.
B. F. Curtis, Dr. Dwight Holbrook,
Walter McPhee, Howard Holmes,
George Dillon, Emile H. Munier, Fred
H. Kossow, Franklin Middleton,
Robert E. O’Brien, Robert Arnold,
William F. Olson, Richard B. Purdy,
Albert C. Goudvis, Frederick G.
Butler, Bryan Houston, Kenneth L.
Holmes, James J. McCaffrey, Chester
L. Fisher, Jr., Stephen McQueeny,
Jerome H. Low, David De Wahl,
Jerome W. Harris, Richard W.
Murray, Anita P. Miller, George F.
Kennard, Mary Roegge, William A.
Wetzel, Barbara Zinke, James Biezer,
Village
Charles Strome, Freda Delton,
Government Robert L. Cerrone, Kathryn
1902-1990
1902-2003
ca. 1903
ca. 1903
1903
1903
Since 1902, many of the roads of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, including
Pleasantville, South State,
Scarborough, Long Hill and Sleepy
Hollow roads, have been
substantially realigned. Dalmeny
Road then ran through to Central
Drive, Elm Road was named
Tarrytown Road, and there were
Roads and parts of Washburn Road that have
Transportati since disappeared altogether. (1,
on
page 62)
During this period, the Briarcliff
Lodge stood in the heart of
Westchester County in the Village of
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor for 101 years. (8,
Lodge
page 7)
When The Briarcliff Fire Department
was first incorporated in 1903 as
part of the Village of Briarcliff Manor,
its firemen were not much different
from those of today. For example,
they played pool (as evidenced by
the many bills for new cue tips), they
Briarcliff
had monthly smokers (stag-getManor Fire togethers) and they marched in
Department parades. (15, page 80)
Around this year, the message of
The Briarcliff Manor Fire Department
Briarcliff
was: We hope you never need us,
Manor Fire but if your do, you can be sure we’ll
Department be there. (15, page 83)
Briarcliff
Manor Fire The Briarcliff Manor Fire Department
Department is organized. (2, page 9)
The first annual town budget
adopted by the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government amounts to
$3,059.00: $2,000.00 for streets,
$200.00 for lights, and $859.00 in
Village
general. (1, page 61) (2, page 23)
Government (17, page 13) (14, page 7)
1903
1903
The school building of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor is once again
enlarged and improved, but the
State Commissioner of Education
Public
does not sanction its facilities, and it
Schools,
did not meet the requirements set by
Grade and the state commissioner of education.
High School (1, page 68) (2, page 49)
"The Briarcliff Outlook" first appears.
This booklet was well illustrated and
edited by Arthur Emerson, and was
printed as "the official organ of the
Village." It was printed at the
Briarcliff Print Shop. This publication
gave local news as well as farm
information and editorial advice, and
also agricultural articles, a "who's
who" listing of weekly hotel guests,
and box scores for the Briarcliff
Lodge baseball team. (2, page 35)
Briarcliff
(8, page 40) (14, page 17) (15, page
Publications 27)
1903
Ayers and
Simpson
"village
houses"
1903
Vanderlip
Family
Several houses, somsetimes referred
to as the "village houses," on the
south side of Pleasantville Road east
of Route 9A, were built during this
year by the local contractors Ayers
and Simpson. (1, page 65)
During this year, Mabel Narcissa Cox
meets Frank Arthur Vanderlip, and at
this time, she was an honors student
at the University of Chicago and the
editor of the university paper. She
was later married to Mr. Vanderlip
(1903), and celebrated the first
birthdays of her eldest daughter,
Narcissa, with parties for tenement
children. Mrs. Vanderlip was also a
social feminist and philanthropist,
with distinguished achievements like
her husband. (1, page 90) (3, pages
76 and 386)
1903
Harden
Family
Edward Walker Harden marries Frank
Vanderlip's younger sister, Ruth
Isabel, during this same year Frank
Vanderlip marries Narcissa Cox, who
was Ruth's sorority sister. Mr.
Harden had fallen in love with Ruth
Isabel, who had been sent by her
older brother, Frank Vanderlip, to
the University of Chicago. Mr.
Harden later then moved back to
Chicago where he became editor-inchief of the Chicago Journal .
Eventually, though, Mr. Harden got
tired of writing about finance and
wanted to make some money for
himself. He moved back to New
York, became a stock broker, and
eventually a partner in the firm
Baker, Weeks and Harden. When
the Hardens had moved to
Westchester County, perhaps to be
near Ruth Harden's brother, Frank
Vanderlip, and his family, Mr. Harden
was not only a stock broker, but also
a member of the New York Stock
Exchange and a director of many big
corporations. In Tarrytown, the
Hardens built the mansion at 200
North Broadway, where their
children grew up, that later became
the administration building of the
Tarrytowns' public schools. (He
1903
1903
1903
1903
During this year, President Theodore
Roosevelt, suspecting that the nation
was being cheated out of vast tracts
of public land in Oregon, transferred
Burns to a new position in the
Department of the Interior.
Roosevelt's belief that he had hired
the one investigator who would bring
him the truth was justified when
Burns proved that the United States
General Land Office was (according
to Gene Caesar's book, Incredible
Detective, Prentice-Hall, Englewood
Cliffs, N.J., 1968), "corrupt at every
level...corrupt to the very core." The
new position created for Burns was
the forerunner of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. Years later, at the
end of his career, Burns was director
of the F.B.I. J. Edgar Hoover was his
aid. Burns went on to solve the San
Franciso graft case, in a three-year
struggle, and the case of the
bombing of the Los Angles Times ,
exposing the domination of the
Burns
California government by corrupt
Family
railroad officials. (1, page 119)
During this year, The School of
Practical Agriculture and Horticulture
moved to near Poughkeepsie, New
York, the building became Pocantico
Lodge. This lodge, another
School of
enterprise of Walter W. Law,
Practical
operated as a small year-round
Agriculture, hotel, under the management of the
Pocantico
Briarcliff Lodge. (8, page 18) (15,
Lodge
page 41)
Mrs. Mary
During this year, Mary E. Dow starts
E. Dow's
a school for girls at the Briarcliff
School
Lodge. (17, page 13)
By this year, David B. Plummer took
Briarcliff
over as the second manager of the
Lodge
Briarcliff Lodge. (8, page 4)
1903
1903
1903
1903
The Briarcliff Steamer Company #1
become the offical fire department of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor.
Frederick Messinger was elected as
its first fire chief, an office that he
would hold three times. The new
department, which was house in the
old blacksmith shop near Barn A on
Dalmeny Road, recorded a
membership of 42 (all volunteers) as
of this date. Some of the names of
the first members of this Fire
Department were: Chester D.
Schoonmaker, Fred C. Messinger,
Joseph Va Wagnen, Theodore B.
Griffin, T. Everett Bishop, William B.
Ayers, John D. Simpson, Harry
Tompkins, Jack F. Dougherty,
Gordon Davis, John Geary, William
Briarcliff
B. Jones, Llewllyn B. Jones, O. H.
Manor Fire McKeel, Isaiah Smalley, and Howard
January 1st Department Bishop. (1, page 61) (2, page 29)
The Briarcliff Steamer Company #1's
Briarcliff
request to become part of the
February
Manor Fire Briarcliff Manor Village Government
10th
Department is granted. (2, pages 26 and 29)
At this time, a chance meeting
brought Katherine Moran (her name
before her marriage to James
Briarcliff
Forsythe Douglas), a famous
Musicians: operatic soprano and future Briarcliff
Katherine
resident, to the attention of Heinrich
Moran
Conreid of the Metropolitan Opera
Spring
Douglas
Company. (1, pages 222-223)
On this date, the total official
Assessment Roll (the total assessed
value of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor) that year was $610,000.00.
Village
(1, page 61) (2, page 23) (14, page
April 21st
Government 7)
1903 May 27th
Briarcliff
Lodge
1903 June 2nd
Village
Government
1903 August 7th
Village
Government
Briarcliff
Congregatio
1903 August 23rd n-al Church
According to an advertisement
published in this date’s issue of the
Ossining Democratic Register, the
Briarcliff Lodge was described as
“Situated on one of the most
beautiful eminences of picturesque
Westchester County, six hundred
feet above tide water, and twentynine miles from New York City,
stands the Briar Cliff Lodge. From its
broad verandas, its vine covered
pergola, and its many windows,
there is afforded a panorama of the
majestic Hudson for a dozen miles,
with three distinct ranges of the
lower Catskills shutting in the
western horizon beyond. To the
east, the north and south are the
wooded Westchester hills, the rivals
of the Berkshires. Immediately in
the foreground and stretching to the
Hudson a mile away are the great
estates of Walter W. Law, James
Speyer, V. Everit Macy, William
Rockefeller and others, which from
the commanding height of the lodge
are to be seen in al their natural
beauty and perfection. In every
direction, as far as the eye can
reach, the country is unblemished
with factory, town or anything which
would mar the natural attractiveness
The tax rate for collection in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor is $5.00
per $1,000.00 of assessed valuation.
(1, page 61) (2, page 23)
On this date, a Board of Health, with
three men headed by Jessie
Coddington, was selected. (14, page
7)
On this date's issue of "Briarcliff
Once a Week," Arthur Emerson
wrote: "Within the population of the
place nearly or quite all forms of
Protestant were represented, but a
canvass showed that there were no
Congregationalists…and all other
creeds were disarmed and rallied to
the banner of active support." (1,
pages 43 and 230)
1904
At this time, young Katherine “Kitty”
Moran (her name before she was
Briarcliff
married to James Forsythe Douglas)
Musicians: made her official debut in the first
Katherine
stage performance outside of
Moran
Bayreuth of Wagner’s Parsifal . (1,
Douglas
pages 222-223)
Mrs. Mary E. Dow's School (the
forerunner of Briarcliff Junior
College), which was founded in
1903, was run at the Briarcliff Lodge
by Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Dow during
this period. Mary Elizabeth Dow had
previously been the headmistress at
Mrs. Mary
Miss Porter's School in Farmington,
E. Dow's
Connecticut. (1, pages 71 and 148)
School
(2, page 53)
Duirng this two-year period, the
building that used to be used for The
School of Practical Agriculture, is
used by Walter Law as a small, yearSchool of
round hotel called Pocantico Lodge,
Practical
another of Walter Law's enterprises,
Agriculture, which was under the management of
Pocantico
The Briarcliff Lodge. (1, page 71) (8,
Lodge
page 18)
During this year, the Reverend Berry
Oakley Baldwin, B.D., is elected as
St. Mary's
the fifth Rector of St. Mary's
Episcopal
Episcopal Church. (1, page 175) (2,
Church
pages 36 and 38)
1904
Electric street lights were first
installed in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, numbering 29 electric lights
installed in the center of town for the
entire village. There was no gas or
oil used in this way. (1, page 67) (2,
page 23) (14, page 7) (17, page 14)
1903 December
1903-1905
1903-1905
Briarcliff
Utilities
1904
1904
1904
1904
1904
1904
The Briarcliff Farms increases to over
5,000 acres of land employing 300
workers taking care of a herd
numbering 2,460 heads of Jersey
Cattle, which were housed on the
various farms of the Estate. There
were also uncounted numbers of
poultry and pigs on the farms, and
these farmlands were also reserved
for growing grains such as corn, rye,
and oats; apple orchards; and
vegetable gardens. Also at this time,
"Aristocrat", one of the Briarcliff
Farms Jersey Bulls, resided in Barn C
Briarcliff
of the Briarcliff Farms. (2, page 32)
Farms
(8, page 23)
During this year, Henry Walter
Webb, who owned the "Beechwood"
Webb
Estate, died in his forties. (1, page
Family
87)
On this date, the Reverend Thomas
R. Harris, B.D., resigned as the
rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
in order to accept another call.
Marion Dinwiddie remembered when
expressing her regret at this
resignation, that, referring to St.
Mary’s Episcopal Church “We’re the
kind of church where they
St. Mary's
stayed—and stayed and stayed, and
Episcopal
we like to have them stay.” (1, page
Church
175)
During this year, Walter Law began
to give land for what later became
Briarcliff
the park for the use of the residents
Park and
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor. (14,
Pool
page 6)
Roads and During this year, roads were laid out
Transportati in the Village of Briarcliff Manor. (15,
on
page 87)
After the streets in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor are lit in 1904, the
white color on the fire engines of The
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department
Manor Fire becomes a Briarcliff tradition. (17,
Department pages 12 and 14)
1904
1904-1905
1904-1914
1904-1937
1905
1905
During this year, the Briarcliff Farms
was officially established. It
occupied an area from what is now
“downtown” Briarcliff and the
surrounding residential area from
Old Briarcliff Road to the north,
Pleasantville Road and the Taconic
Parkway to the east, Beech Hill Road
Briarcliff
to the south, and Dalmeny Road to
Farms
the west. (17, page 14)
During this period, at the beginning
of her second season with the
Metropolitan Opera Company, young
Katherine “Kitty” Moran (her name
before she was married to James
Forsythe Douglas) was chosen to go
Briarcliff
on a scholarship to Germany and
Musicians: Austria, where, then and later, she
Katherine
studied repertoire with the great
Moran
conductors of the time, including
Douglas
Gustave Mahler. (1, pages 222-223)
During this period, Berry Oakley
St. Mary's
Baldwin serves as the fifth elected
Episcopal
Rector of Saint Mary’s Episcopal
Church
Church. (1, page 235)
T. Everett Bishop serves as Village
Village
Treasurer during this period (33
Government years). (2, pages 24 and 74)
The first sidewalk in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor is built on a narrow
Roads and strip from the Putnam Bridge to the
Transportati railroad station. (2, page 21) (14,
on
page 9)
The penalty fine of $10.00 is made
the penalty for riding one's bike on
the sidewalk instead of on the road,
Roads and since the bike was too dangerous for
Transportati the foot passenger then, so it had to
on
stay on the roads. (2, page 21)
1905
1905
1905
During this year, Mr. Frank Arthur
Vanderlip, a resident of Scarborough,
buys the "Beechwood" Estate (which
by this time consisted of two
"Beechwood" houses: the original
"Creighton's Beechwood" house
closer to the Hudson and the
"Webb's Beechwood" closer to the
Albany Post Road) in which by this
time the Webb's "Beechwood" house
was, in its interior as well as exterior
design, of a classic type of
architecture. Its commanding view
towards the Hudson River made it
one of the most imposing properties
along the Hudson Valley. He buys
the estate from Webb's widow, Leila
Howard Griswold Webb (by then she
was remarried to Ogden Codman,
and her former husband, Henry
Walter Webb, had been a vicepresident of the New York Central
Railroad), and this estate consisted
of some twenty-three acres, "and
also the furniture and other property
listed in the annexed inventory and
situtated in the dwellinghouse...for a
total price of Eighty Thousand
Beechwood Dollars...." (1, page 87) (2, page 17)
Estate
(15, page 12)
Miss Alice Knox, who was associated
with Mrs. Mary Dow in the Briarcliff
Lodge, founded her own private
school during this year in the
Pocantico Lodge, located on
Pleasantville Road about opposite
Buckout Road. Here previously the
Practical Agricultural and
Miss Knox's Horticultural School had been
School
housed. (1, page 71) (2, page 46)
Public
The number of pupils enrolled in the
Schools,
public school serving the Village of
Grade and Briarcliff Manor numbered 108. (1,
High School page 68) (2, page 52)
1905
1905
Mr. Walter W. Law, founder of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, erects the
present (ca. 2002) building of the
Mrs. Mary E. Dow's School (also
called The Dow School for Girls) on
Elm Road, with thirty-five acres of
land surrounding it, and passes this
property on to Mrs. Dow's control.
The building was built in the
chateauesque brick style, and was
later named Dow Hall, the center of
the later Briarcliff College. The
architect of this new brick building
for this school was H. (Harold) Van
Buren Magonigle, who also designed
the Fireman's Memorial in Riverside
Mrs. Mary
Park, New York City. (1, page 71) (2,
E. Dow's
page 53) (8, page 35) (14, page 14)
School
(17, page 15)
During this year, the 1902 addition
to the Briarcliff Congregational
Church (two pipe organs, and the
northern part of the church,
consisting of the transcepts and the
original Sunday school rooms) is
completed and dedicated. Walter
Law had also by this time donated
Japanese lanterns and four Tiffany
Briarcliff
stained-glass memorial windows to
Congregatio the church. (1, page 43) (8, page
n-al Church 15)
1905
1905
1905
During this year, the Croton Dam
was completed, and after this
happened, many immigrants moved
there to work in the quarry, the
limeworks and a nearby shoe
factory. Some worked as gardeners,
some in the Pierson nursery and
greenhouses (Arcadian Gardens) on
the Post Road. Many also worked as
employees of Sing Sing prison, with
which drug and liquor smuggling
were associated. The hamlet was
crowded and as local enterprises
failed, incomes fell and the crime
rate rose (according to Hibbard
Shirley, "An Invesigation of the
Sparta and Vanderlip 'Preservation' Project at
Scarboroug Sparta, New York," Typescript,
h
1987). (1, pages 97 and 231)
During this year, Walter William Law,
the founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, dedicates the Sunday School
room of The Briarcliff Congregational
Church. Walter Law also dedicated
the manse, two pipe organs, and the
northern part of the church, which
consisted of the transcepts and the
original Sunday school rooms.
Walter Law's generosity had
originally allowed these structures of
Briarcliff
the Briarcliff Congregational Church
Congregatio to be constructed, starting in 1902.
n-al Church (1, page 43) (2, page 39)
During this year, the Rotary
International constitution was
written, which forbade women from
becoming members of any chapter of
the Rotary Club. This was not
overturned until 1987 by the
Supreme Court, and The Rotary Club
of Briarcliff Manor was one of the
Rotary Club first Rotary Club chapters in the
of Briarcliff country to allow women to join it. (1,
Manor
page 210)
1905
1905
1905
During this year, when Mrs. Mary E.
Dow’s School moved into its new
Mrs. Mary
building on Elm Road, it originally
E. Dow's
provided for 150 girl students. (14,
School
pages 14-15)
During this year, the women of the
parish of All Saints Episcopal Church
constructed a small fieldstone parish
house behind the Scarborough Road
rectory. Under the supervision of
the Reverend Thomas R. Hazzard,
the women, in particular Elizabeth,
Emily, Bertha, and Helen Becker, did
all the building by hand, except for
placing the roof, and its fireplace
front was laid by the Misses Emily
and Helen Becker. In addition, the
All Saints Episcopal Church: The
Guild, had helped to make the Parish
House of the All Saints Episcopal
Church possible. It is an Auxiliary of
All Saints
the National Council, Diocese of New
Episcopal
York. (1, pages 177-178) (2, page
Church
42) (15, page 68)
In the minutes of one of the first
meetings of the Board of Trustees of
Briarcliff Village, there is a reference
Village
to the establishment of an open
Government primary. (1, page 59) (15, page 88)
1905(?)
Beechwood
Estate
The inventory of the Beechwood
estate house, possibly from 1905,
lists the contents of every room in
the house: on the third floor one
double and seven single servants'
bedrooms, one bath, a sewing room,
storerooms and two "Men's Rooms"
(for visiting valets and chaffeurs?),
all the bedrooms furnished with
white or black iron bedsteads with
mattresses, springs, and pillows,
carpets and small rugs, bureaus,
tables, side chairs, rockers, Swiss
sash curtains and shades,
washstands with five-to seven-piece
toilet sets, and scrap baskets. On
the second floor are listed: "End
Guest Room...Bath...Bed Room next
End Room...Yellow Guest Room,
Bath, Writing Room, Pink Bedroom,
Blue Bed Room, Bath Room
adjoining, Mr. Codman's Room, bath
adjoining, Small Guest Room, Bath
Room opposite, Maid's Room, Mr.
Walter's Room, Dressing Room
adjoining, Store Room, Mr.
Griswold's Room, Square Hall outside
Mr. Griswold's Room, stairs to First
Floor, Hall outside small Guest
Room, Hall, Main Staircase." (1,
page 88)
1905(?)
1905(?)
Beechwood
Estate
The inventory of the Beechwood
estate continues: the guest and
family bedrooms were furnished with
Brussels carpet and rugs, framed
mirrors, chiffoniers, commodes,
mahogany chairs and desks, chintz
or velvet portieres, candlesticks,
vases and inkstands, all itemized
down to the last chintz lambrequin
and "china hair receiver
forgetmenots." Furnishings for
fireplaces are listed for the Pink and
Blue Bedrooms. A handwritten note
at the end of the inventory-"Mrs.
Codman's Bedroom. Blue silk
damask portiere. Blue silf damask
hangings to bed"-seems to indiciate
that the blue bedroom was Mrs.
(Leila Howard Griswold Webb)
Codman's. Rooms on the first floor,
for which full and elaborate
furnishings are listed, were: "Main
Staircase...Main Hall...Entrance
Hall...Middle Hall and
Staircase...Library...Piazza...Library
Telephone Room...Drawing
Room...Dining Room...Breakfast
Room...Butler's Room [with
bed]...Pantry...Room next
Pantry...Hallway outside Drawing
Room...Back Hallway with staircase
and Hall outside Breakfast
Beechwood
Estate
Around this time (1905?), when the
Webb-Codmans left the Beechwood
estate, they took with them little
more than their personal attire and
one or two beds, leaving the pictures
on the walls and many decorative
knickknacks. This indifference to the
Webb famiy furnishings may be
explained by Ogden Codman's
profession. An architect, he was,
beyond that, a pioneer in the "reform
in house-decoration" in America.
Ogden had disliked many of the
excessive architecture and
furnishings of the Vanderbilts, and
therefore would not have desired
these furnishings. (1, page 88)
1905 May 12th
post-1905
1905-1906
The Board of the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government isssues an
ordinance on this date "that all
vehicles must slow down to 8 miles
an hour," and ordered signs posted
in the Village to "give fair warning to
speed demons who might have
longing for higher and terrific risks."
The ordinance had real teeth in it, a
fine of $250.00 and possible
imprisonment also, but there is no
record that anyone was ever charged
Village
with breaking this ordinance. (2,
Government page 32) (15, page 36)
Shortly after Bertha Becker, with her
three sisters, had built the first
Parish House for All Saints Episcopal
All Saints
Church in 1905, she began to teach
Episcopal
sewing and chair-caning at St.
Church
Mary’s Church School. (1, page 179)
Briarcliff
Musicians:
Katherine
Moran
Douglas
During this period, during her third
season with the Metropolitan Opera
Company, young Katherine “Kitty”
Moran (her name before she was
married to James Forsythe Douglas)
sang with Enrico Caruso in Zlotow’s
Martha and in Hansel and Gretel .
She was also selected by Puccini to
sing, with Caruso and Antonio Scotti,
in the first Metropolitan Opera
Company performance of his Manon
Lescaut . In addition, in the first
Italian production in America of
Madame Butterfly , she sang la Zia.
She also crossed the American
continent with the opera company
three times, singing in all the major
cities. Katherine Moran also sang in
musical comedies and on the concert
stage before her marriage to James
Forsythe Douglas, a British wool
merchant whom she had met on an
Atlantic crossing. (1, pages 222-223)
1905(?)1918
1905-1918
sometime
after
1905(?)1923
1905present (ca.
1990)
pre-1906(?)
ca. 1906
During this period, Arthur Ware, Sr.,
later painter and architect who lived
in the Village of Briarcliff Manor in
Briarcliff
The Dysart House during the 1930s,
Architects: worked for his father’s architectural
Arthur
firm in New York City until his
Ware, Sr.
father’s death in 1918. (1, page 215)
Walter W. Law, Jr., the eldest son of
Walter W. Law Sr., the founder of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor,
succeeded Nichols as President,
when he serves as the second
President of the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government during this
period. Walter W. Law, Jr. had
served as chairman of the state tax
commission under Gov. Nathan L.
Miller. (1, page 59) (2, pages 24 and
Law Family 74) (8, page 13)
Around this time, the young ladies of
Mrs. Dow's school conducted a
school for handicapped children in
the Buckhout house, until the house
Buckhout
was bought by the Baroness De Luze
House
and named Luthany. (1, pages 71
(Luthany)
and 123-124)
Since 1905 and continuing to the
present (ca. 1990) open nonVillage
partisan primaries have been held.
Government (1, page 59) (15, page 88)
Just before the train station building
was moved to Millwood, The Briarcliff
Manor Post Office was temporarily
housed in a small edifice a bit
southeast of the train station
Briarcliff
building (later the library). This
Manor Post building was moved in time to Elm
Office
Road. (14, page 11)
At this time, shortly after the
annexation of Scarborough to
Briarcliff, the Village approved a
large referendum to widen and
improve Scarborough Road and
Scarboroug acquire a Village Dock at
h
Scarborough. (15, page 76)
1906
1906
1906
The community of Scarborough is
officially incorporated into the Village
of Briarcliff Manor. Previously, the
residents of Scarborough, intent,
then as later, on maintaining a
separate identity, held out for a year
or two before petitioning for
annexation to the village of Briarcliff
Manor in order to receive municipal
services. In 1906, annexation was
granted. Briarcliff then agreed with
Scarborough for a peaceful
separation with the village of
Briarcliff to keep Scarborough's
identity intact. It is situated
between the town of Mt. Pleasant on
the south and Ossining (previously
Scarboroug Sing Sing) on the north. (1, page 44)
h
(2, page 61) (17, page 17)
The Briarcliff Manor Police
Department revises the 1905
ordinance in 1906 to permit
automobliles to run at up to 10 miles
per hour, but down to four miles per
Briarcliff
hour at corners and over the bridge,
Manor
but there was still the fine of
Police
$250.00 put in place as a penalty for
Department speeding. (2, page 32) (15, page 36)
The original Whitson's and Briarcliff
Manor railroad station was loaded on
a flatcar and moved to Millwood. (1,
Rail Roads page 39) (2, page 20) (8, page 35)
1906
1906
1906
The new Briarcliff Manor Train
Station building was built by Walter
Law for the Putnam Division of the
New York Central Railroad in the
same style as the Briarcliff Lodge. It
was fully furnished in keeping with
Mr. Law's idea of the genteel: as it
was furnished with flowers, oriental
rugs and tables and chairs in the
fashionable Mission style which
decorated its interior. A trip on the
train from Briarcliff Manor to the
15th Street terminus of the Sixth
and Ninth Elevated Railroad took 65
minutes. Lodge automobiles met
principle trains at both Scrborough
and Briarcliff stations, and touring
car and coaching parties ran from
Central Park and 59th Street in the
city "into the Street road of perfect
macadam which intersects Briarcliff
Manor village." Some Lodge guests
also travelled by private motor car
and by yacht to Scarborough dock.
(1, page 39) (2, page 20) (8, page
Rail Roads 35)
During this year, three stores with
apartments overhead were built on
the corner of Pleasantville and North
State roads: a drugstore (now
Briarcliff Manor Pharmacy on the
Briarcliff
same site), a luncheonette and a
Stores
general store. (1, page 67)
During this year, All Saints Episcopal
Church: The Guild (also called the
Auxiliary Women's Guild, according
to Mary Cheever's book, The
Changing Landscape ), is started with
Miss Fanny E. Rogers as its first
President and with only seven
members. Meetings were held in the
homes of members; the purpose
being, according to the book Our
Village: Briarcliff Manor: 1902 To
All Saints
1952 "to serve the Church in every
Episcopal
phase of its life and in every field of
Church: The the Church's activity." (1, page 178)
Guild
(2, page 42)
1906
1906
1906
1906
1906
During this year, Pace University was
founded as a one-room business
school for accountants. This
university would later buy the former
Briarcliff College in April of 1977 and
establish part of their campus in the
Pace
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, pages
University
186-187)
During this year, young Katherine
“Kitty” Moran (her name before she
was married to James Forsythe
Douglas) was with the Metropolitan
Opera Company that was staying at
the Palace Hotel in San Francisco
when the great earthquake struck.
With Enrico Caruso, Antonio Scotti,
Briarcliff
and other members of the company,
Musicians: Katherine Moran escaped from the
Katherine
quaking, flaming city in a coal cart
Moran
commandeered by Antonio Scotti.
Douglas
(1, pages 222-223)
During this year, a trolley electric
line from Ossining to Sherman Park
Roads and via Briarcliff was considered and
Transportati came near to realization, but not
on
quite. (14, page 5)
Roads and By this year, Pleasantville Road was
Transportati back then known as State Road. (15,
on
page 77)
By this year, the Village of Briarcliff
Manor had officially taken over the
management of The Briarcliff Manor
Briarcliff
Fire Department, which was a
Manor Fire private force at its founding. (17,
Department page 12)
1906 April 16th
1906 May 14th
1906 December
The Briarcliff Manor Police
Department is founded when the first
foot-patrolman, L. Harold Bayley,
and several special policemen
volunteers were appointed, who
"served without pay," having no
patrol car or motorcyle and whose
office was in an old barn in the back
of the Briarcliff Realty Company
office building (the Operating
Engineers building) on Pleasantville
Briarcliff
Road. Then followed three members
Manor
who patrolled on bicycles. (1, page
Police
62) (2, page 31) (15, page 84) (17,
Department page 17)
At a meeting held on this date, Fred
C. Messinger was appointed Foreman
Briarcliff
of the Briarcliff Steamer Company
Manor Fire #1 to follow O. H. McKeel, the
Department previous Foreman. (2, page 29)
Briarcliff Steamer Company #1 is
reorganized and receives the new
title of the Briarcliff Fire Company.
All previous members who had
continued in good standing from the
time they joined the Steamer
Briarcliff
Company were considered as
Manor Fire members of the new company. (2,
Department page 29)
1906 and
some years
after the
annexation
of
Scarboroug
h into the
Village of
Briarcliff
Manor
Scarborough is unique in having a
Post Office by that name, while
geographically and politically a part
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor. The
1977 history book on the history of
the village of Briarcliff Manor and
also of Scarborough states that
"residents of Scarborough have
steadfastly held on to their identity,"
and when, some years after the
annexation of Scarborough in 1906,
a sign reading "Briarcliff West" was
put up by the railroad at the
Scarborough station, it was thrown
into the Hudson River and replaced
with the Scarborough sign. In a
similar episode, a proposal to
discontinue the Scarborough post
office or make it a branch of the
Briarcliff office was met with a storm
of protests, a mass meeting and a
lengthy study of the volume of mail
handled by the Scarborough post
office. Rather than change their
address from Scarborough-onHudson, N. Y. 10510 to Blank Road
(or Lane or Circle), Briarcliff Manor,
N. Y. 10510, Scarborough residents,
even some former residents who had
Scarboroug moved away, preferred to go to the
h Post
post office every day to pick up their
Office
mail. (1, page 101) (2, page 61)
1906 and
some years
later
1906-1907
1906-1910
1906-1927
ca. 1906the late
1930s
1906-1942
During this year, the National City
Bank united with the banking firm of
Speyer & Company to finance and
oversee the building of a railroad in
Bolivia. As head of the construction
company, Vanderlip selected Philip
W. Henry, "an engineer of wide
experience," and the husband of
Narcissa Vanderlip's sister, Clover.
Some years later the Henrys built,
on the north lot of Linden Circle, a
handsome stone house designed by
the architect Bertram Grosvenor
Goodhue. Philip Henry's choice of
architect may have reflected his
years in South America, for Goddhue
is noted for his revival of the Spanish
style, particularly in southern
California. Henry must have seen
examples of Goodhue's work while
visiting the Vanderlips on their Palos
Philip Henry Verdes property, near Los Angeles.
Mansion
(1, page 102)
The
Briarcliff
During this period, L. H. Bayley
Manor
serves as the first chief of The
Police
Briarcliff Manor Police Department.
Department (1, page 233)
Edgar L. Andrews serves as the
Public
second School Principle of the School
Schools,
serving the Village of Briarcliff Manor
Grade and during this period. (1, page 234) (2,
High School page 53)
During this period, a peaceful
separation existed between Briarcliff
and Scarborough in order to retain
Scarboroug Scarborough’s identity. (17, page
h
17)
During this period, the Village of
Scarboroug Briarcliff Manor used the Village Dock
h
at Scarborough. (15, page 76)
During this period, Mayor Charles
Schuman and Fire Department Chief
Paul Schuman were still residents of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, having
Schuman
lived in the Village since 1906. (1,
Family
page 143)
1906ca.1952
1907
1907
After the original "Whitson's" Post
Office building that served the
Village of Briarcliff Manor was moved
to Millwood in 1906, the Briarcliff
Manor Post Office had a temporary
housing in a small edifice a bit southeast of the present station. A
concrete post office was next erected
and used until the Briarcliff-Peekskill
auto cut-off took that Pleasantville
Road land, after which it was in the
"Brookside Inn" which has since
been demolished to make way for
the cut-off on the Old State Road. It
Briarcliff
was then moved to the "Crossways,"
Manor Post and later to its present (ca. 1952)
Office
location. (2, page 64)
During this year, the Briarcliff
Steamer Company #1 was
reorganized and incorporated as the
Briarcliff Fire Company, and held its
first elections of officers, who were:
President James Flemming; VicePresident Henry H. Law; Treasurer T.
Everitt Bishop; Secretary L. B. Jones.
The following are the names of those
who petitioned for the Articles of
incorporation of the Briarcliff Fire
Company during this year: Fred C.
Messinger, L. Harold Bayly, Oliver J.
Bevier, James E. Fountain, L. W.
Blankenship, Leon H. Reid, James
Briarcliff
Fleming, F. Crosswaite, George W.
Manor Fire Tuttle, and Arthur W. Emerson. (1,
Department page 61) (2, page 29)
During this year, a corporation called
The Mrs. Dow's Company of Briarcliff
Manor was formed, with a capital
stock of $100,000.00 to take over
the property of Mrs. Mary E. Dow's
Mrs. Mary
School, and legally be authorized to
E. Dow's
deal in real property of all kinds. (2,
School
page 53)
1907
Law Family
1907
Law Family
At his seventieth birthday celebration
at his Briarcliff Lodge attended by
many dignitaries from east and
midwest, it was said that Walter Law
had played a central role in the shift
of control of the carpet industry to
this country from his native England.
(1, page 36) (15, page 6)
On his seventieth birthday, in 1907,
Walter Law, in an address to the
men of Briarcliff, "all his larger
family," told the story of his life,
from his "sweetest" childhood
memories of praying with his mother
to his struggles with tuberculosis and
starting the first farm. If it had not
been for the "urgent and repeated,
and earnest requests" of Mr.
MacColl, rector of the Briarcliff
Congregational Church, he said, he
would not have spoken of himself,
although he would have gladly talked
about Briarcliff, for, as he said, "I
love it with all my heart." (1, page
44)
1907
Law Family
1907
Briarcliff
Lodge
At his seventieth birthday
celebration, in 1907, Walter Law
closed his address with the following
words: "You see, I did not find an
ideal condition in the country. Yet, it
has been given to me to work it out
and to make an ideal country life up
here , which I have been
endeavouring to do. But what of the
future? It may be that I shall not be
able to speak to you again in this
delightful way, for the shades of
Life's evening are drawing around
me, or I should say that the glimmer
of the Beulah Land is already
dawning. But I have strong
conviction that with the golden rule
always in the ascendant Briarcliff
Manor will go on to increase both in
numbers and moral power, each
member of it as one happy family,
filled with charity and thoughtfull
consideration for his neighbor, and
above all, having the blessing of the
Lord. "It maketh rich and addeth no
sorrow thereto." A veritable Garden
of Eden, where God Himself will love
to dwell." (1, page 44) (2, page 94)
During this year, a north wing of
sixty-five new guest rooms was
added as an extension on the north
side of the original Briarcliff Lodge.
It was built by John Udall Clark in a
fashion sympathetic to the original
structure. This new extension was
built of steel and concrete and
designed to be fireproof. Guest
capactiy at the Briarcliff Lodge now
reached approximately 150 rooms.
(1, page 42) (8, pages 19-20 and
24)
1907
1907
1907
1907
During this year, the first official
chief of The Briarcliff Manor Police
Department, Edward Cashman, was
appointed by the Board of Trustees,
with, shortly thereafter, two paid
assistants that were appointed:
Patrolman Floyd Bernard, whose
widow lived in Briarcliff ca. 1977,
and Allan O. Keator, who served as
cheif of The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department from 1910 to 1939.
Briarcliff
They patrolled the village on foot
Manor
until a bicycle was later purchased.
Police
(1, page 62) (2, page 31) (15, page
Department 84)
During this year, when the First
National City Bank, at 55 Wall
Street, was remodeled, two huge
Ionic columns were discarded.
Vanderlip, then a vice-president of
the bank, had the columns shipped
to Scarborough, and the Beaux Arts
architect, William Welles Bosworth
incorporated them in the main
entrance complex of Beechwood. He
solved the problem of their
disproportionate height by digging
one-third of them into the ground. A
wrought-iron elevator shaft with a
vaulted roof was also discarded by
the bank, and Vanderlip had the top
of this made into a cage for his
children's pet rabbits. The rabbits
dug their way out, but with the
addition of a concrete foundation the
Beechwood elegant cage contained them very
Estate
well. (1, page 92)
During this year, Frank Vanderlip,
Jr., the son of Frank Vanderlip, the
Vanderlip
owner of the Beechwood estate, is
Family
born. (3, page 94)
Briarcliff
Manor
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Police
Police Department bought its first
Department bicycle for patrols. (15, page 84)
1907
Briarcliff
Farms
1907
Rail Roads
1907
Briarcliff
Lodge
During this year, Patrick Manahan,
who would later become a long-time
Superintendent of the Village Water
Department, was an employee of the
Briarcliff Farms. (15, page 87)
During this year, the private club car
of the North River Association was
begun running from Scarborough
Station. (17, page 17)
According to a map owned by Henry
Valentine from 1907, the map shows
the extent of the property of the
Briarcliff Lodge Association. The
Briarcliff Lodge Association was a
company formed by Walter law to
manage the hotel operations. The
core campus of this hotel was
bordered by Scarborough Road on
the south, Dalmeny Road on the
east, Central Drive on the north, and
Briarcliff Road on the west. The
lodge was located practically in the
center of this property, and to the
west of the main lodge building,
were located the casino, helps’
cottages, and the lodge stables. The
Briarcliff Farms office, print shop,
table Water Company, stable
complex, and former Stillman
residence were to the northeast of
the lodge on Pleasantville Road. As
for the golf course of the Briarcliff
Lodge, it started at the parapet
outside the lodge and went east to
Dalmeny Road, north, and then west
behind Central Drive to Briarcliff
Road and back to the lodge near the
lake. (8, page 2)
1907
1907
1907
September
1907 3rd
By this year, The Plasmon Company
of America was located on Woodside
Avenue in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, and went bankrupt during
this same year with author Mark
twain as its acting president. Here,
skimmed milk was converted into
Plasmon, a powdery food
preparation, and “the most nutritious
food known to modern science.” The
Briarcliff Laundry, the Briarcliff
Manor Light and Power Company,
Plasmon
and one of the Briarcliff Dairy
Company of buildings were also located on
America
Woodside Avenue. (8, page 18)
During this year, as the Briarcliff
Farms began to be moved from
Westchester County to Duchess
County, this model farm gave way to
Briarcliff
a model “English Countryside
Real Estate community.” (8, page 19)
By this year, Walter Law had
purchased 3,249 acres of land in
Pine Plains, Dutchess County, and
began moving his Briarcliff Farms
there. By this time, the Briarcliff
Manor lands offered limited
agricultural opportunities, and real
estate values encouraged Law to sell
the former farm lands for residential
development. George W. Tuttle
supervised the purchase and
Briarcliff
development of the new farm in Pine
Farms
Plains. (8, page 37)
The Clerk's book of the Briarcliff
Manor Village Government records
that "Sept. 3, 1907. Chief of Police
Cashman made a report to the
Trustees as to the advisability of
purchasing a Bloodhound to be used
in connection to police work in the
Village-and citing results that might
have been accomplished in the
Village when two young women were
recently followed by some men on
Briarcliff
the streets." However, there is no
Manor
record that the Bloodhound was
Police
acquired. (2, page 32) (14, pages 9
Department and 11)
November
1907 15th
December
1907 29th
William Berri, writing an article for
the issue of The Carpet and Upolstry
Trade Review on this date, quotes
Walter Law's business associate
George McNeir, as saying that Walter
Law's library was "an immense room
about 25 by 75 feet in size, filled
with bookcases, books, esay chairs
and sofas. Here, lost to the world,
with head embedded in the book of
some favorite author, at peace with
all men...may most frequently be
found the owner of Briarcliff, Walter
Law Family W. Law." (1, pages 75 and 230)
On this date's issue of "Briarcliff
Once-a-Week" published plans and a
sketch of the front elevation of one
of three "Briarcliff Cottages Now
Building" of "a pure type of Italian
renaissance…beautifully located on
the new Pine Road….Foundation
porches are of stone, house of
fireproof tile and cement, roof of
Spanish tile...showing to the outside
world that country home
construction in Briarcliff is finding
expression in the very last words of
the building vocabulary." Two
houses built from the plans shown
are now numbers 55 and 71 Pine
Road. One, Number 55, was the
home of the parents of Henry Law's
second wife, Gertrude Watson. The
other, Number 71, was for a time
the home of opera singer Kitty
Morgan Douglas and her husband,
James Forsythe Douglas. The plans
55 and 71
for "Barnham Cottage," on the west
Pine Road
corner of Elm and Pleasantville
Houses and roads, were pulbished in another
"Barnham
issue of "Briarcliff Once-a-Week." (1,
Cottage"
page 63)
1907-1908
1907-1909
1907-1910
1907-1938
As the increased emphasis on real
estate soon made the farmlands of
The Briarcliff Farms become
inevitably converted to use as land
for village residences, the Briarcliff
Farms were removed upstate to Pine
Plains, Dutchess County, New York,
during this period; and 5,000 acres
of land was taken over for the new
location of the Briarcliff Farms, and
this is where many of the
Briarcliff
farmworkers went. (1, page 58) (2,
Farms
page 35)
During this period, David B. Plummer
manages the Briarcliff Lodge during
Briarcliff
its expansion period of 1907-1909.
Lodge
(8, page 4)
Briarcliff
During this period, Edward Cashman
Manor
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Police
Manor Police Department. (1, page
Department 233)
Scarboroug Rev. Anthony N. Petersen serves as
h
the third minister of The
Presbyterian Scarborough Presbyterian Church
Church
during this period. (2, page 39)
1907-1984
Rail Roads
ca. 1908
Briarcliff
Lodge
ca. 1908
Briarcliff
Lodge
Starting in 1907, a club car came
down from the Croton railway yards
every weekday morning and
returned every evening running from
the Scarborough station. In it
members could relax in Pullmanstyle armchairs in the carpeted car,
waited on, in the early years, by a
white-coated porter. There was a
bar and several card tables, where
there was always a bridge game
going. The private club was called
the North River Association and was
truely a private club. Members had
to be proposed and voted upon, and
paid regular dues as well as fares.
Families of members were allowed
on board. Residents of the
community, however affluent, who
were not popular were not admitted.
One of the duties of the club
president was to give a party in the
car early in the Christmas season.
The club car was discontinued in
1984. (1, page 82) (17, page 17)
By around this year, the north wing
of the Briarcliff Lodge had been
added but the tower addition had not
been built yet. The Briarcliff Outlook
said at this time that “Surely the
builders of the Lodge have no error
in its location, standing as it does
upon the highest ridge for miles
around, and commanding the widest
sweep of the valley and river from its
wide verandas.” (8, page 25)
By around this year, the Briarcliff
Lodge offered a variety of
conveyances to guests over the
years, such as the service of horse
tandems, providing service between
the railroad stations at Scarborough
and Briarcliff to the Lodge. The
Briarcliff roadways near the Lodge
were made of perfectly conditioned
macadam, lined with cement drains,
and surrounded by stone fences. (8,
page 28)
Due to the foresight of the Law
family, the water system of Briarcliff
Farms (including the Briarcliff Table
Water Company) was purchased by
the Village of Briarcliff Manor for
$75,000.00, thus beginning our
present (ca. 1990) systems. The
Briarcliff Table Water Company had
distributed water in the village
through an ever-growing system.
Patrick Manahan, foreman of the
Table Water Company, became
superintendent of the village water
department. Under the direction of
the Village Board, Manahan created
one of the finest, small-town water
systems in the country. A steam
pump took water from the Pocantico
Brook Pond, deep wells were driven
near the high school (now Pace
University Village Center), and there
was a reservoir on the hill between
Pine and Dalmeny roads. The village
also took over the sewer systems
from Briarcliff Farms during this year
as well. (1, pages 62-63) (2, page
23) (15, page 80) (17, page 18)
1908
Briarcliff
Utilities
1908
The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department's (formerly Old Steamer
Briarcliff
Company #1) held their First Parade,
Manor Fire which went past the great Briarcliff
Department Lodge. (2, page 27) (8, page 28)
1908
1908
1908
1908
"The Briarcliff Once a Week" first
appears. It was edited and largely
composed by Arthur W. Emerson.
This booklet was hansomely laid out
and was a combination of business
and sentiment. It was printed at the
Briarcliff Print Shop. It was also
illustrated and contained elegant,
brief essays on nature, religion and
bits of history as well as the social
news of Briarcliff Lodge and
Pocantico Lodge, listing the
occasions and names of guests, who
included F. W. Woolworth, J.
Pierpont Morgan and Chauncey
Depew. This publication also gave
local news as well as farm
information and editorial advice.
This publication also contained
agricultural articles, a "who's who"
listing of weekly hotel guests, and
box scores for the Briarcliff Lodge
baseball team. (1, page 38) (2, page
Briarcliff
35) (8, page 40) (14, page 17) (15,
Publications page 27)
The Briarcliff Realty Company is
incorporated, coming naturally to the
Village of Briarcliff Manor as more
emphasis began to be placed upon
more of the Briarcliff Farm's land
Briarcliff
being sold for the building of family
Real Estate homes. (2, page 35)
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
Briarcliff
Manor
Police
Department
Rev Alleyne C. Howell serves as the
eighth Rector of All Saints Episcopal
Church during this year. (2, page 38)
The Briarcliff Manor Police
Department is organized. (2, page 9)
1908
1908
1908
1908
1908
During this year, the Church House
of The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church, given by Mrs. Shepard and
designed by Augustus D. Shepard,
was completed. It was originally
planned as a library and reading
Scarboroug room, but has become a meeting
h
place for the Church School and for
Presbyterian other societies, clubs and groups as
Church
well. (1, page 53) (15, page 70)
Briarcliff
Manor
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Police
Police Department purchses its first
Department motorcylce. (1, page 62)
During this year, $50,000.00 was
voted in order to purchase the
present (ca. 1952) site on
Pleasantville Road adjacent to Law
Park and to erect the Grade School
building that would serve the
students of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor up to the eighth grade.
Public
Construction of this new building is
Schools,
also begun during this same year.
Grade and (1, page 68) (2, page 49) (17, page
High School 18)
Over two-hundred years after Henry
Hudson's crewman Robert Juet wrote
about the Hudson River in his
journal, William E. Verplanck wrote
(in a book written with his co-author,
Moses W. Collyer, entitled: The
Sloops of the Hudson . New York,
1908) that "Sturgeon weighing 250
pounds would be seen leaping
several feet into the air....The
catching and packing of these fish
Hudson
became an important industry, the
River
product known as 'Albany Beef!'" (1,
History
pages 6 and 229)
During this year, the Village Band of
Briarcliff Manor was formed, with 22
musicians and Edgar S. Stowell. (14,
Village Band page 9)
1908
1908
1908(?)
1908(?)
1908 April
During this year, $50,000.00 was
voted to buy to site on Pleasantville
Public
Road near the burgeoning business
Schools,
district to erect the building that by
Grade and 1977 was the front of the Middle
High School School building. (15, page 50)
The Briarcliff Fire Department’s First
parade passed the great Briarcliff
Lodge. The hotel was not strictly an
enclave for the exclusive, but it
Briarcliff
hosted many community events in
Lodge
its century of existence. (8, page 28)
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Briarcliff
Fire Department acquired a steamer.
Manor Fire It blew up at a fire in Ossining. (1,
Department 61) (14, page 9)
During this year, the farm pumps
used to get water for The Briarcliff
Fire Department to fight fires gave
way to a system with a steam pump
Briarcliff
taking water from the Pocantico
Manor Fire Brook Pond at the Dairy. (1, page
Department 61) (14, page 9)
The Briarcliff Fire Company
purchases a hook and ladder truck
and combination hose and chemical
truck (both horse-drawn) for the
Briarcliff
sum of $2,700.00 from the American
Manor Fire La France Company. (1, page 61) (2,
Department page 29)
1908 April 24th
1908 April 24th
On this date, Louis Strang, driving
an Isotta car, managed to cross the
finish line first at the Briarcliff
Automobile International Road Race.
He was awarded the Briarcliff
Trophy, reputedly worth $10,000.00,
donated by Walter W. Law, as well
as cash prizes from companies
whose equipment he used. Strang
was twenty-three when he won the
Briarcliff trophy but had already
gained much experience in the
nascent sport of automobile racing.
He attended a private school in
Scarborough and credited his victory
to his intimate knowledge of the
Roads and roads. He started his “racing” career
Transportati as a chauffeur. (15, pages 36 and
on
38)
Roads and On this date, Joe Seymour raced his
Transportati Car No. 21, Simplex in the Briarcliff
on
Trophy Race. (8, page 34)
April 24th,
1908 4:45 a.m.
In the spring of 1908 the village
sponsored the Briarcliff Automobile
International Road Race. The
competing cars were waved past the
starting point in front of the Briarcliff
Lodge at one-minute intervals.
Spectators from far and near
crowded the roadsides and even
hung from tree branches over the
course. Local authorities were well
prepared for trouble of any kind.
County Sheriff Charles M. Lane
detailed many deputies to assist
local sheriffs "for the duty of
preserving the peace only, AND IN
NO CASE DO YOUR DUTIES RELATE
TO KEEPING THE COURSE CLEAR."
These temporary deputies were
further instructed "to make arrests
only for misdemeanors that are
committed in your presence....You
are in no case to use your club
except in self defense, or to prevent
a prisoner from escaping, after
having been arrested, or to prevent
his rescue by other people." Special
trains on both the Putnam and New
York Central Hudson Division ran all
night before the race. Large
Roads and grandstands were erected at the
Transportati finish line near the center of the
on
Village. In addition, each racer that
April 24th,
1908 4:45 a.m.
April 24th,
1908 4:45 a.m.
In this date's issue of "Briarcliff Oncea-Week," a Briarcliff resident, R.
Everitt Whitson, told about road race
held in Briarcliff at that time. The
American International Road Race
for stock cars (the Briarcliff
Automobile International Road Race)
competing for the Briarcliff Trophy,
valued at over $10,000.00 given by
Mr. Walter W. Law, Sr., was started.
Over 300,000 people witnessed the
race, and Briarcliff had over 100,000
visitors that day. the course covered
was from Briarcliff to Kitchawan
through Mt. Kisco, Armonk to
Kensico and on to Briarcliff, a
distance of about 35 miles over dirt
roads. The autos competing in the
race were: Lozzier, Fiat-Panhard,
Thomas, Simplex, Isotta-Franchina,
Stearns, Renault, Mercedes, and
others. Among the drivers were the
well-known Strang Bros. (Louis and
Arthur), Ralph De Palma, Barney
Oldfield, and many others. Speeds
of over 60 miles per hour were
obtained on straightaways. Louis
Strang, driving No. 4, in the IsottaFranchina car, won the race. Total
Roads and elapsed time for 256 miles was 5
Transportati hours and 15 minutes. (R. Everitt
on
Whitson, at the age of eight, had the
On this date, Barney Oldfield drives
the Stearns racecar in the Briarcliff
Automobile International Road Race.
Oldfield was the favorite of the crowd
but all of the drivers in the race had
friends cheering for them. Barney
Oldfield, who had a reputation for
sensational feats, did not disappoint
his fans in this race, when he
narrowly escaped being wrecked by
a train at Kitchawan. Tradition
maintains that a cow catcher of a
Roads and train actually lifted one of his rear
Transportati wheels off the track. (1, page 83) (2,
on
page 21) (15, page 36)
April 24th,
1908 4:45 a.m.
April 24th,
1908 5:07 a.m.
On this date, a "Pinkerton man" puts
a gambler's plant (den) out of
operation by dismantling it during
the Briarcliff Automobile
International Road Race. Race
officials had a diffcult time keeping
some spectators off the course, but
Roads and others were more interested in the
Transportati betting than in the race itself. (1,
on
page 84) (15, page 36)
At this time, the first car was waved
past the starting point for the
Briarcliff Automobile International
Road Race in front of the Briarcliff
Lodge. At one-minute intervals the
other twenty one cars began the
race that would take them over
thirty-one miles of dirt roads from
Briarcliff Manor to Kitchawan,
Roads and through Mount Kisco to Armonk and
Transportati Kensico, and back to Briarcliff Manor.
on
(15, page 36)
1908 June
Speyer
Family
1908-1911
Department
of Public
Works
1908-1914
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1908-1920
1908-1939
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
Briarcliff
Manor
Police
Department
On this date's issue of "BriarcliffOnce-a-Week," this issue confirms
Mrs. Speyer's concern for animal
welfare in a report on the second
annual New York work-horse parade
on Memorial Day: "The official list of
the Auxiliary [of the A.S.P.C.A.]
carries many of the most prominent
names in New York City as its
elective officers, executive
committee, Patrons and subscribers,
among which it is noted that
Briarcliff has representation in the
persons of Mrs. James Speyer,
treasurer, and Mrs. Robert G. Mead
and Mr. James Speyer contributors."
Briarcliff had other reasons to be
proud of the parade: "Honors fell to
Briarcliff's New York store.
Superintendent Tuttle, of the Farms
Department, who is himslef a lover
of the horse, approved of two entries
for the parade, and Manager
Crockett, of the New York Store,
helped forward the entries in every
way possible. In division A of class
30, "Milk and Cream," entry No. 539
by Briarcliff Farms included a team
of seven-year-olds, "Louise" and
"Minnie," driven by John Corcoran,
which was awarded a white ribbon of
honor, and in division B, same class,
During this period, L. H. Bayley
serves as the Village of Briarcliff
Manor’s Street Commissioner. (1,
page 234)
Rev. John A. Howell serves as the
ninth Rector of the All Saints
Episcopal Church during this period.
(2, page 38)
Rev. Carl H. Elmore serves as the
second Minister of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church (including
Y.M.C.A. War Service, in France)
during this period. (2, page 41)
During this period, Allan O. Keator
serves in the Briarcliff Manor Police
Department (32 years total). (1,
page 233) (2, page 74)
1908-1940
pre-1909
ca. 1909
1909
1909
1909
Patrick Manahan works in the Public
works for 32 years during this period
until his death in 1940. He worked
during this period as the Village of
Briarcliff Manor's first superintendent
of the village water department for
Department the village's Public Works
of Public
Department. (1, pages 62-63 and
Works
234) (2, pages 23 and 75)
A Hotel brochure from before 1909
says “[Briarcliff Lodge is] a modern
manor house in the beautiful country
of the lower Hudson, less than an
hour from New York, with riding, golf
links, tennis courts and every
opportunity for rest and recreation.”
Also, although the exterior Tudor
decoration of Briarcliff Lodge at this
time was ornamental, the original
Briarcliff
section was built with heavy timber
Lodge
framing. (8, page 24)
Around this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
and his wife created a congenial
community for his family—since only
Linden
his fellow City Bank officers were
Circle
permitted to buy homes along River
Historic
Road and Linden Circle. (17, page
Houses
16)
Although there is no discoverable
record of when the first train stopped
Roads and at Scarborough, during this year,
Transportati this station was for a short time
on
styled "Briarcliff West." (2, page 20)
During this year, the new Grade
Public
School building was erected,
Schools,
completed, and opened to serve the
Grade and students of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
High School 68) (2, page 50) (17, page 19)
The Old Folks Concert is held at the
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Community Club. (1, page
Arts
2)
1909
1909
During this year, a west wing tower
structure is added to the Briarcliff
Lodge as an addition to the building.
This new extension, like the previous
one to the Lodge built in 1907, was
built of steel and concrete and
designed to be fireproof. The
addition added six floors above
ground and three floors below and,
from the roof, a view of Manhattan
to the south and Stony Point and
Bear Mountain to the north. The
addition was seven stories in total
and provided 72 additional rooms,
and was designed by Guy King on
the steeply sloping hillside to the
west. John Udall Clark was the one
who built this extension. The roof of
this addition was intended to be used
as an aerial wharf for airships. Thus,
Briarcliff Lodge gained the distinction
of having the world's first aerial pier
built for the embarkation of voyages
by dirigibles. It is not known to have
Briarcliff
been used for this purpose. (1, page
Lodge
42) (8, pages 19-20 and 24-25)
During this year, by the 1909 report
to the Board of Trustees, the police
counted as their greatest
achievement a notable decrease in
buglaries. Forty-three arrests were
made by The Briarcliff Manor Police
Briarcliff
Department during this same year,
Manor
twenty of disorderly persons and two
Police
for "incorrigible children." (1, page
Department 62) (15, page 84)
1909
1909
During this year, The Briarcliff Steam
Laundry on Woodside Avenue, is
founded by Fred P. Stafford, at its
peak employed over one hundred
people to cover twelve routes in
Weschester, Connecticut and New
York City. The finest hotels used its
deluxe service. Drivers of the
laundry's delivery vans wore
chauffer's uniforms. Stafford also
operated a coal, lumber and supply
business from the same location.
For the laundry workers, he built,
around the corner on North State
Road, two-family houses, which still
Briarcliff
stand. His own residence was at
Steam
1210 Pleasantville Road. (1, page
Laundry
67)
Isaac Newton Spiegelberg builds a
forty-nine room Tudor style mansion
on some twenty acres off Sleepy
Hollow Road and named it Miramont
Court (Spiegel-mirror, Bergmountain). Mr. Spiegelberg was
born in America to a family of
wholesale clothing merchants who
had prospered during the Civil War,
but, like Speyer, he was educated in
Germany. Trained as an engineer,
he worked for a time on the St.
Gothard Railway in Switzerland
before returning to America, where
he worked, mostly in Oklahoma, on
the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad.
Outbuildings, including a seventyfive-foot water tower, and plantings
formed a courtyard around the
facade of the house. From the portecochere an entryway leads into the
wood-panelled "great hall," with a
large fireplace and set into the
ceiling in terra cotta the initials of
the Spiegelbergs, I.N.S. and S.F.
(Stella Friedlander) S. To the right is
the Music Room with a stage and a
Miramont
piano on it; an organ; a big window
Court
with seats cushioned in red velvet; a
(Spiegelsmall balcony in the back; and,
mirror, Berg- seated on an overhang around the
mountain) ceiling, child-sized cast or carved
1909
1909
1909
1909
Starting in this year, many concerts,
theatricals and special occassions
were celebrated in the Music Room
Miramont
of the Spiegelbergs' Miramount Court
Court
estate house, including the marriage
(Spiegelof the Spiegelbergs' daughter Marie
mirror, Berg- to Alan Harcourt Black. (1, page
mountain) 107)
During this year, Miramont Court
starts to serve as the summer
residence of the Spiegelberg family,
including Issac Newton Spiegelberg,
his wife Stella, and their children,
Marie and Stanley. Spiegelberg took
great pleasure in the gardens there.
Pierre Courreges was superintendent
of the estate, and his daughter Kay,
who grew up there, remembers the
large flower and vegetable gardens
and the arbors of "special" grapes,
from which her father made wine.
Courreges was assisted at all times
by at least three other gardeners.
Many plants were imported for the
gardens, mostly from Japan, becuase
local nurseries were comparatively
undeveloped at the time. The house
had a grand view-from the lawn and
tennis courts in the foreground,
across the gardens, a vienyard, a
pond and a strip of woodland, to the
Hudson River and the hills of
Rockland County on the horizon. On
fine afternoons Stella Spiegelberg
took tea in a treehouse in the
Miramont
garden. She had to climb steep
Court
steps up into the treehouse, but
(Spiegelthere was a dumbwaiter to convey
mirror, Berg- the tea and accompanying delicacies
mountain) to her there. (1, pages 107-108)
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
becomes the President of the
Vanderlip
National City Bank of New York. (3,
Family
page 386)
During this year, Isadora Duncan
danced in the arbors of the gardens
Beechwood at the Beechwood estate of Frank A.
Estate
Vanderlip. (17, page 16)
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
World royalty attends a Gala held at
the Briarcliff Lodge for the HudsonFulton Anniversary Celebration held
during this year. (17, page 19)
By this year, there were major
improvements that were made to the
Briarcliff Lodge’s facilities on its
grounds, and the Lodge began to
keep its doors open year-round. To
more efficiently manage the
expanding operations, Walter Law
formed the Briarcliff Lodge
Association to run to hotel and
recreational facilities. (8, page 20)
During the Hudson-Fulton
Anniversary Celebration held during
this year, the Briarcliff Lodge was in
top condition for the thousands of
tourists who passed through its
doors, and by this time, the Briarcliff
Lodge had firmly established itself as
the premiere resort in the Hudson
Valley, if not the country. (8, page
20)
By this year, there were private
greenhouses behind Walter Law’s
home, that were managed by
William McGowan, which produced
decorations for the entire Briarcliff
Farms, including Briarcliff Lodge,
Law’s own mansion, and the smallframe employee cottages. Law
awarded prizes to the workers with
the best-kept cottage gardens. On
average, 20 men worked at the
greenhouses and flowerbeds, while
100 men were employed when new
gardens were laid out around the
Lodge. (8, page 26)
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
By this year, as the first- and fourthfloor plans of the Briarcliff Lodge
reveal, at the full extant of this
building during the hotel era, the
Lodge had a first floor with: a front
porch on the east side, leading into a
main Lobby; to the west of this
Lobby was the Ball Room with
porches on its three sides; to the
south of the Lobby was the porch
that continued to a Pergola, two
Dining Rooms, a Parlor, the Dutch
Room, the Game Room, and Offices;
and to the north of the Lobby was
more hotel guest rooms and the Oak
Room. The fourth floor had a Loft at
the top of the stairs on the fourth
floor, and several guest rooms, and
the Loft led to the tower levels, there
being a fifth, sixth, and seventh
floors with even more guest hotel
rooms. All in all, by 1909, the
Briarcliff Lodge had 221 guest rooms
in total. The hotel was also lighted
by electricity and offered elevator
service. A system of suction wheels
in the attic of the Lodge provided
active ventilation for closets and
bathrooms, something not installed
in any other hotel in the country at
that time. (8, page 29)
By this year, the Briarcliff Lodge had
a Great Hall (or Lobby), whose
interior and the interior of the Lodge
as a whole was designed in full
accord with the beauty of the
exterior. This Great Hall featured a
large fieldstone fireplace, a tiled
fireplace, and an Aeolian organ.
Armor and medieval weapons
decorated this Great Hall in this early
hotel period of the Lodge. (8, page
30)
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
By this year, the Briarcliff Lodge had
a Dutch Room. As the Briarcliff
Outlook states: “Holland has
contributed much of the furnishings
of the Dutch kitchen, which is rich in
Rembrandt effects and a veritable
treasure room of rare China
paintings and articles of verdu.” Also
rough adze-hewn timbers, a hipped
ceiling, and an “enormous cozy
fireplace” were decorated with
etchings from England and oil
paintings by European and American
artists. The design of this room was
based on a restaurant in Edam, the
Netherlands. (8, page 30)
By this year, there was a Ballroom in
the Briarcliff Lodge with classical
fluted columns (topped with Ionic
capitals) and Italian marble walls,
which provided a refined setting for
parties and dances. This Ballroom,
which was located on the first floor
of the tower extension to the Lodge,
opened on three sides to a threesided veranda. (8, page 31)
During this year, Thomas Edison was
honored in the Ballroom of the
Briarcliff Lodge. (8, page 31)
By this year, the Briarcliff Lodge had
a Library room, as the Briarcliff
Outlook said: “The Lodge library, a
home-like apartment in warm colors,
is well-supplied with popular books
and richly and suitably furnished.”
This room was adjacent to the north
of the large dining room and
contained one of the tiled fireplace
mantels. (8, page 32)
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
During this year, a steam plant was
built below the Lodge and heated the
hotel and sterilized water for
drinking and cooking, using
equipment from the Standard Steam
Specialty Company. The new steam
plant was built so that the
tremendous traffic of coal and ashes
would no longer go to the hotel; the
transfer of materials was an
objectionable practice to guests. (8,
page 32)
During this year, the Briarcliff
Garage of the Briarcliff Lodge was
enlarged and rebuilt from the inside.
The early 20th century was a time of
incredible scientific advances, yet
many guests still preferred horsedrawn carriages. At this same time,
the Lodge was planning for the day
when airships would deliver visitors
to its roof. (8, page 34)
During this year, the Dalmeny House
on Dalmeny Road was moved
“month by month” to the Briarcliff
Lodge property, near two small
“helps’ cottages.” Dalmeny House
had been a boarding house for
unmarried men who worked on the
Briarcliff Farms. It featured a large,
airy dining room, a well-stocked
waiting room, and amusement was
encouraged through suitable games
provided to the men. Walter Law
frequently visited the workers and
arranged for readings and lectures.
It was later named Harmony Hall. (8,
page 36)
Briarcliff
Lodge
During this year, the 35- by 50-foot
extension to the Briarcliff Lodge off
the east side of its north wing, called
the “Oak Room” was built for Ella
Holmes White, who held a long-term
lease. White and her companion,
Marie G. Young, piano teacher to the
children of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt,
were survivors of the sinking of the
Titanic in 1912. (8, page 53)
1909
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
1909
Briarcliff
Lodge
By this year, the dining rooms of the
Briarcliff Lodge were built and were
located at the south end of the
building and offered views in three
directions. The menu offered fresh
dairy, garden, and hatchery produce
from the famous Briarcliff Farms.
Meals were served on the European
and American plans. The tables
were covered with Irish linens
designed expressly for the Lodge.
The kitchen was built entirely of
marble and was a duplicate of the
kitchen in the Manhattan Hotel in
New York City. (8, pages 29 and 54)
During this year, the second of the
Briarcliff Lodge’s dining rooms was
also built. A Hotel brochure stated,
“The Stone Dining-room, cozily
tucked away in the deep woods—a
perfect retreat, a haven of coolness
and quiet.” The distinctive feature of
this room was the floor of six-inch
squares of red potters titles inset
with three-foot squares of minor tile
in Moravian design. (8, page 54)
From this year, the Briarcliff Lodge
was a destination on the automobile
Club of America’s ideal Tour.
Indeed, visitors did not need an
overnight reservation to use the
Lodge dining rooms. Chauncey
Depew Steele advertised the Lodge
as an attractive place to stop for
motorists on the Albany Post Road
(Route 9) or the newly paved Saw
Mill River Road. Dinners on fineweather Sundays were popular with
the “duster and goggles set.” (8,
page 55)
During this year, a two-story building
was constructed to serve as a
laundry building for the Briarcliff
Lodge on its property. (8, page 90)
1909 September
At this time, at James Speyer's
invitation, Kaiser Wilhelm's son,
Crown Prince Wilhelm, came to
Briarcliff for the Hudson-Fulton
Anniversary Celebration in
September 1909. It was the
centennial of the first voyage of
Fulton's first steamship Clermont on
the Hudson River and the
tricentennial of Hendrik Hudson's
discovery of the river. There was a
naval parade of 1,542 ships,
including replicas of the Clermont
and the Half Moon , the Navy's entire
Atlantic fleet, and 1,500 ships from
many other nations passed in
review. The German battleship that
conveyed the Crown Prince to these
shores, anchored off Scarborough
dock, inspired the awe of Frank
Vanderlip, Jr., who was a small boy
at the time. The Crown Prince led a
HudsonPrussian regiment in a spectacular
Fulton
parade in honor of the anniversary in
Anniversary New York City. (1, page 106) (17,
Celebration page 19)
1909 September
At this time, in Briarcliff, as in towns
all up and down the Hudson River, a
parade was held, starting from the
Briarcliff Lodge. This was part of the
Hudson-Fulton Anniversary
Celebrations, to honor the Crown
Prince of Germany, who was a guest
and ivsited the Village of Briarcliff
Manor at James Speyer's request.
Eileen O'Connor Weber remembers
looking at the photograph of the
parade and asking her widowed
mother, Mrs. Lillian O'COnnor, why
her father, Daniel O'Connor (who is
in the front row, left, in the 1909
photograph of the parade in front of
the Briarcliff Lodge), was so dressed
up. "Because the Crown Prince of
Germany was visiting Briarcliff," she
was told. (Eileen also remembers
Hudsonthat memories of this event, and
Fulton
Speyer's part in it, were less
Anniversary enthusiastic a very few years later,
Celebration during World War I). (1, page 106)
1909-1919
Vanderlip
Family
1909-1929
Briarcliff
Real Estate
During this period of eleven eventful
years, Mr. Frank Arthur Vanderlip
serves as the president of the
National City Bank of New York. So
"in six moves [he] got out of overalls
and became president of the nation's
biggest bank." Frank A. Vanderlip's
experience and gifts as a journalist
made him "the publicist banker,"
unique among financiers of the time.
He wrote articles and made speeches
which gave the bank a reputation
enabling it "to cast a big shadow."
He worked with J. P. Morgan, E. H.
Harriman, Woodrow Wilson, Jacob
Schiff, Henry Clay Frick and other
great men of the era. His
accomplishments-helping to draft the
Federal Reserve Law, creating a
system of War Savings Certificates
as a Washington D.C. dollar-a-year
man in World War I-are history. He
was equally active and influential in
his home community of
Scarborough. (1, page 90) (3, page
386)
During this period, the Village of
Briarcliff Manor prospered, as
residential construction flourished
throughout the village and municipal
services were expanded and
improved. (15, page 77)
1909-1933
1909-1952
1909-1953
1909-1994
During the tenure of Chauncey
Depew Steele as manager of the
Briarcliff Lodge, there was a
grandfather clock in the front hall
entrance of the Lodge, as the
Briarcliff Outlook stated, “The
furnishings of this hall express the
general tone of the lodge better than
any other room. Everything is of the
richest, from the celebrated rose
vase which the City of Dresden sent
as its exhibit to Paris in 1900 to the
tall cathedral clock which chimes out
the hours beside the entrance, and
yet so harmoniously chosen and
arranged that there is always the
element of comfort, of refinement,
and the indescribable something
Briarcliff
which is called ‘home feeling.’” (8,
Lodge
pages 29-30, 41 and 51)
The School District which includes
Public
the School serving the Village of
Schools,
Briarcliff Manor is called District #2.
Grade and It continues under this name to the
High School present day (ca. 1952). (2, page 49)
During this period, the 1909 grade
Public
School building serve the Briarcliff
Schools,
community as their main public
Grade and school building until Todd School
High School opens in 1953. (17, page 19)
During this period, the “tall
cathedral” grandfather clock
remained inside the Briarcliff Lodge
Briarcliff
right until the King’s College closed
Lodge
in 1994. (8, page 51)
Date
(Year):
1910s:
1910s
1910s
ca. 1910
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
Description of Event:
The house at Central 2 Drive, which
is now (ca. 1990) gray-shingled and
numbered 104 Long Hill Road East,
was "all put together with pegs, not
a nail in it," Ruth Oakley, who lived
Historic
there as a child in the 1910s,
Homes
remembered. (1, page 14)
During this decade, just below Todd
Lane, which climbs from
Pleasantville Road to one of the
highest points in the village, and to
the north of the crest, a large house
was built as a rest home for working
women by a group of young lady
philanthropists, including the
Historic
daughter of J. P. Morgan. (1, page
Homes
125)
Two farmhouses on Sleepy Hollow
Road around the corner from Henry
Law's house were remodeled by
Mortimer Flagg around this year.
Flagg, a Philadelphian related to the
Wanamaker family, was active in the
Flagg
affairs of All Saints Church. (1, page
Farmhouses 65)
1910
1910
1910
During this year, the vestry of All
Saints Episcopal Church voted to
enlarge the church and, with funds
pledged by the congregation,
architect William Henry Deacy
designed the extension, using the
existing building as a nave and
adding transcepts and a chancel to
create the present cruciform
fieldstone church building. A bell
tower was also erected over the
crossing of the church. In addition,
Miss Brinckerhoff, Mrs. Mortimer
Flagg and other members of the
congregation donated stone for the
walls from their estates, and Charles
A. Fowler donated a pipe organ to
the church, which the church later
installed during this same year. In
addition, the art glass windows,
broken beyond repair while being
relocated, were replaced by a
circular leaded glass window
depicting the "Adoration of the
Magi." This window was designed by
All Saints
a local resident associated with the
Episcopal
Tiffany Glass Works. (1, page 178)
Church
(2, page 38) (15, page 68)
The Briarcliff Community Center,
Inc. (Commonly known as the
Briarcliff Community Club, ca. 1952)
is established in the 1898 school
building, which was bought by the
village in 1910 for the establishment
of a Community Center for the
Village of Briarcliff Manor. It was
founded by such residents as George
Tuttle, first President, Henry
Valentine, A. B. Tappen, Henry H.
Law, Charles Schuman, Asa H.
Briarcliff
Geeding, and others of like desire for
Community the welfare of Briarcliff Manor. (1,
Center, Inc. page 75) (2, page 81)
The first U.S. Census of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor is taken. The
population of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor at the time was 950
U.S. Census residents. (1, page 65) (2, page 9)
1910
During this year, the founders of the
soon to be opened Sleepy Hollow
Country Club and the village officials
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor
established a "joint-venture"
telephone for the use of patrolmen
in the distant Scarborough region of
the village. Watchmen's punch
clocks were installed at various
Briarcliff
locations around the village to
Manor
assure the Board of Trustees that
Police
rounds were being made faithfully.
Department (1, page 62) (15, page 84)
By this year, the total population of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor
increased to 950 with the annexation
Briarcliff
of Scarborough and new residents.
Population (1, page 65)
1910
During this year, William Rockerfeller
and Frank A. Vanderlip buy Woodlea,
the Shepard mansion on a 338-acre
estate at the corner of Route 9 and
Sleepy Hollow Road, after Shepard's
widow, Margaret, sold the manor
house to them during that same
year (1910). Frank A. Vanderlip
referred to this estate as "the Elliot
F. Shepard (sic ) estate." He wrote,
"It was a great place, on which
about $2,000,000.00 had been spent
and I picked it up as a bargain,
paying, I think, about
$165,000.00...but...Mrs. Vanderlip
was unwilling to live there; it was
too grandiose." She preferred to
remain at Beechwood. Frank A.
Vanderlip, like Walter Law, was also
a self-made millionaire whose
enegrgetic benevolence had a great
impact on the village, except his
money was made in journalism and
banking instead of manufacturing,
and when his career was at his
height, he had moved with his wife,
Narcissa Cox, and their growing
family into the Beechwood estate in
Scarborough in 1905. (1, pages 87
and 89) (4, page 1) (17, page 20)
1910
Woodlea
Estate
1910
Ashridge
Estate
1910
Burns
Family
During this year, Giles Whiting and
his wife, Flora Ettlinger Whiting,
bought Ashridge from C. C. North.
The Whitings' 1910 purchase
included, as well as the stables and
the other outbuildings of a working
farm, a house in the Federal style
built in the early 1800s. (1, pages
114-115)
During this year, William J. Burns
left government service and
established the Burns National
Detective Agency in Chicago, with
his son Raymond as manager of the
headquarters and a network of some
two dozen regional offices. Burns's
own office was in a Pullman car
because he was constantly
travelling. Unlike its rival, the much
older Pinkerton Agency, the Burns
Agency was never involved in strikebreaking operations. Burns favored
neither capital nor labor. (1, page
119)
1910
1910
1910
Burns
Family
Stimson
Family
Hebrew
Sisterhood
of
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Ossining
At this time, accused by Clarence
Darrow, the leading labor lawyer, of
masterminding a capitalist
conspiracy in the case of the
McNamara brothers, William J. Burns
told a reporter (according to Gene
Caesar's book, Incredible Detective,
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,
1968): "I'm no respector of persons
when they're criminals...If I'd found
evidence in this case to implicate the
president of the largest corporation
in the United States, and the board
of directors, I'd have been right after
them all....When I'm employed to
figure out who committed a crime, I
go out to find him. I don't care a
row of red apples who he is or where
he is. These people who are calling
me an "enemy of labor" for running
down these dynamiters [the
McNamaras] are as muddleheaded
as the jawsmiths in San Francisco
who called me an "enemy of capital"
for going after big fellows in the
graft investigation out there. When
I have my case against a criminal, I
put clamps on him just as quick
whether he has diamond rings on his
fingers or callouses as big as hoofs."
(1, pages 119 and 231)
During this year, Julia C. Stimson
writes and publishes her book: The
Nurses' Handbook of Drugs and
Solutions . (1, page 133)
During this year, the Jewish women
of Ossining formed The Hebrew
Sisterhood of The Congregation Sons
of Israel of Ossining, the first
Hebrew Sisterhood of this
Congregation. (1, page 167)
1910
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1910
Law Family
1910
Briarcliff
Community
Center, Inc.
Briarcliff
Community
Center, Inc.
1910
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1910
Vanderlip
Family
1910
During this year, the congregation of
All Saints Episcopal Church, now
including guests from the Briarcliff
Lodge and students from Mrs. Dow’s
School, had outgrown the space of
the All Saints Episcopal Church.
Boys from the Holbrook School had
to sit outside on the stone wall
during services because there was
no room inside the church. (1, page
178)
During this year, Georgianna
Ransom Law, the wife of Walter W.
Law, Sr., the founder of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, died. (1, page
215)
By this year, The Briarcliff
Community Club was used as a place
for public addresses in Briarcliff, and
used sometimes for meetings of the
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. It was
located on Pleasantville Road where
by 1939 there was a byroad that led
down to Route 404. (14, page 11)
By this year, The Briarcliff
Community Club numbered as high
as 100 members. (14, page 11)
Records indicate that by this year,
fire hydrants existed in much of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor that The
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department was
able to use to help them get water
to fight fires with. (15, page 80)
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
attends the Federal Reserve Planning
Session on Jekyll Island. (3, page
386)
1910
Haymont
Estate
Briarcliff
Utilities
1910
Steele
Family
1910 June
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1910
1910 July 4th
1910 October
Scarboroug
h
Presbyterian
Church
Briarcliff
Community
Center, Inc.
Around this year, Haymont, high on
the hill north of Chappaqua Road,
was built by William Whitehead
Fuller. The central section, with its
pediment and huge pillars, was
balanced by long three-story wings
at both ends, the present parking lot
was a formal garden and the
mansion stood on some two hundred
acres that in 1901 had belonged to
the Ryder family. Mr. Fuller, a
native of North Carolina, was general
counsel, and for a time(?),
president, of the American Tobacco
Company and other corporations. (1,
page 122) (17, page 20)
During this year, Briarcliff gets its
first telephones. (17, page 20)
By this year, Chauncey Depew
Steele had studied accounting and at
the age of 20 got a job at the
Algonquin Hotel in New York City.
(8, page 41)
During this year, The Briarlciff Manor
Fire Department took part in a
parade across the river in Kingston,
traveling there by boat from Sparta
dock with two pieces of apparatus
and the Briarcliff Band. (1, page 61)
(15, page 80)
On this date, the "Knights of King
Arthur" boys group of The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church
compete in the high jump
competition at the Holbrook School
playing field. Frank Brigham, Arthur
Slater, Chet C. (?), and William
Holden are some of the members
who competed in this competition.
(The girls group of The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church was called the
"Camelot Circle"). (1, page 54)
On this date, the Briarlciff
Community Club held its annual
men's dinner. (1, page 76)
1910-1919
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
Sleepy
Hollow
Country
Club
1910-1920
Steele
Family
1910-1913
1910-1939
1910-1939
Briarcliff
Manor
Police
Department
Briarcliff
Manor
Police
Department
1911
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1911
Woodlea
Estate
Charles C. Hunt serves as the third
school principle for the pulbic School
that serves the Village of Briarcliff
Manor during this period. (2, page
53)
During the 1910s decade, ballroom
dancing was the range at the Sleepy
Hollow Country Club as elsewhere at
this time. (17, page 20)
During this period, Chauncey Depew
Steele works for the Algonquin Hotel
in New York City. (8, page 41)
Floyd Bernard serves as a Police
Lieutenant in the Briarcliff Manor
Police Department during this period
(29 years). (2, page 74) (14, page
11)
During this period, Allan O. Keator
serves as the Police Chief of the
Briarcliff Manor Police Department.
(1, page 233) (2, pages 31 and 74)
The new Grade School building,
called Union Free District No. 2, the
school serving the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, and with ample space for an
athletic field, is occupied for the first
time for students up to the eighth
grade. (2, pages 49 and 52) (15,
page 50)
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
sells the Woodlea mansion and the
surrounding acres to his fellow
organizers of the Sleepy Hollow
Country Club. They then purchased
adjacent land owned by William
Rockerfeller, making the total land of
the Sleepy Hollow Country Club 338
acres in total. (1, page 79)
1911
1911
1911
1911
During this year, when William J.
Burns had solved the case of the
bombing of the Los Angeles Times ,
The New York Times called him
(according to Gene Caesar's book,
Incredible Detective , Prentice-Hall,
Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968), "the
greatest detective...perhaps the only
really great detective, the only
detective of genius the country has
Burns
produced." (1, pages 117, 119 and
Family
231)
During this year, J. F. Dorherty
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
By this year, as the Village of
Briarcliff Manor kept growing, The
Briarcliff Fire Department tried to
keep pace, as the Village began to
Briarcliff
consider purchasing motorized
Manor Fire equipment and building a firehouse
Department to accommodate it. (15, page 81)
Within a year of getting a job at the
Algonquin hotel in New York City,
Chauncey Depew Steele was the
Steele
assistant manager of the hotel to
Family
Frank Case. (8, page 41)
1911 May
Sleepy
Hollow
Country
Club
1911 Summer
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
September
1911 22nd
Briarcliff
Lodge
The Sleepy Hollow Country Club is
founded and opens, having two golf
courses on 125 acres (which would
later increase to 338 acres) and a
stable of riding horses. The 140room Club house was the former
residence of Elliot F. Shepard and
costing over two million dollars. The
first twenty-seven directors of the
club included some of the richest
men in the United States of
legendary wealth and structure-John
Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt,
Oliver Harriman, William Rockerfeller
and his son, Percy, James Stillman
and Harrison Williams-as well as
Frank Vanderlip, V. Everit Macy, A.O.
Choate, James Colgate, and Edward
Harden. Vanderlip "got Charles Blair
MacDonald, a famous golfer," and
his engineer, Seth Raynor, to design
and oversee the construction of the
intial 9 holes of the golf course in
1911. A letter sent to prospective
members described the club: "The
house has a very large dining room
capable of seating over 200
persons...there are salons suitable
for lounging and reading and 18
large double bedrooms with
bathrooms. In addition there are 21
smaller rooms suitable for
During this time, the remodeling of
All Saints Episcopal Church was
completed, at a cost of $7,000.00
(1, page 178)
On this date, Madame Lillian Nordica
sang in the Ballroom of the Briarcliff
Lodge to an audience including John
D. and Laura Spelman Rockefeller,
Frank A. and Narcissa Cox Vanderlip,
John D. and Annie Mills Archbold,
and Chauncey M. and May Palmer
Depew, among many other
prominent businessmen who lived in
the area. (8, page 31)
November
1911 1st
1911-1913
1911-1916
1911-1919
1911(?)1960s
pre-1912
1912
1912
The expanded structure of the All
Saints Episcopal Church is
All Saints
consecrated by the Rt. Rev. David
Episcopal
Hummel Greer, D.D., Bishop of New
Church
York. (2, page 38)
During this period, James Holden
Department serves as the Village of Briarcliff
of Public
Manor’s Street Commissioner. (1,
Works
page 234)
During this period, Fred C. Messinger
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department for a second
Department time. (1, page 233)
During this period, those students at
the Briarcliff public school that want
Public
to continue their education in high
Schools,
school went to Ossining until 1919
Grade and when advanced studied were
High School introduced locally. (15, page 50)
J. Butler Wright's house, which dates
in part from 1779, serves as the golf
house and, at times, the main
J. Butler
clubhouse of the Sleepy Hollow
Wright
Country Club, until it was torn down
House
in the 1960s. (1, page 26)
Before 1912, Barrett Harper Clark,
Briarcliff
later the drama critic, author, editor,
Writers:
translator and teacher and Briarcliff
Barrett
resident, studied at the University of
Harper
Chicago and the University of Paris.
Clark
(1, page 217)
During this year, the lake near the
Briarcliff Lodge is converted into a
"Roman Pool," the largest outdoor
Briarcliff
pool in the world at that time. (1,
Lodge
page 42) (17, page 21)
During this year, John Jacob Astor,
Sleepy
one of the founding wealthy men of
Hollow
the Sleepy Hollow Country Club, dies
Country
when the Titanic sinks that same
Club
year. (4, page 1)
1912
During this year, when their children
were very young, Mr. and Mrs.
Vanderlip pioneered the Montessori
method at the Harden's residence in
North Tarrytown, New York. Their
school began here in this home of
Mrs. Edward W. Harden, where
originally, twelve children gathered
Scarboroug to receive an education. (1, page
h School
93) (2, page 57)
During this year, after the Dean
house was demolished, Edward
Walker Harden, while living in
Tarrytown, gave the village the land
for Dean Park, on the corner of
Harden
Broadway and Main Street. (1, page
Family
109)
During this year, when he was fiftyfour years old, William Whitehead
Fuller retired from business "to
devote himself to farming and
country life." Mr. Fuller did so until
Fuller
he died in 1934 at the age of
Family
seventy-six. (1, page 122)
Public
Schools,
By this year, the old Grade School
Grade and building that served Briarcliff had
High School 176 students. (14, page 13)
1912
During this year, the Long Hill
School, which had served the
Scarborough area west of Sleepy
Hollow Road, as well as the River
Road and Chilmark sections of
Scarborough in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, as a school, was
sold at auction and then ceased to
exist at the corner of Long Hill Road
and Scarborough Roads in back of
the parish house of The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church. (15, page 50)
1912
1912
1912
Long Hill
School,
District
Number 4
1912
February
1912 11th
During this year, Dr. Matthew Howell
Reaser founds the Beechwood
School in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Reaser, who would later go on to
found the Edgewood Park School
that would move to Briarcliff Manor,
was born in Leavenworth, Kansas,
and received his doctorate from
Westminster College in Fulton,
Missouri. A proponent of high
education for women, before he
founded the Beechwood School he
had previously been president at
Reaser
Lindenwood College and later Wilson
Family
College. (8, pages 61 and 64)
The Miss Knox's School for Girls,
located in the Pocantico Lodge (on
Pleasantville Road near Buckhout
Road), burns down. The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department fought this
fire. Mrs. Louise Houghton, who
took over this school as its new
headmistress after Miss Knox's ealier
death, moves the school to
Tarrytown and later to Copperstown,
New York, where it continues (ca.
1952) under Miss Knox's name. All
that remains of this school is the
retaining stone wall that stands in
front of the stone house built for Dr.
Rufus P. Johnston in 1925.
Problems in fighting a large fire such
as this prompted the Village of
Briarcliff Manor to later approve
buying mechanized fire equipment
and building the first Municipal
Building to house the fire
Miss Knox's department. (1, page 71) (2, page
School
46) (15, page 80) (17, page 21)
June
1912 8th/9th
1912 July
1912-1913
ca. 1913
1913
Waldheim
Estate
On this date, James Speyers and his
family occupied the country estate
Waldheim (Forest Home). This
estate occupied a large tract of land
between Scarborough Road and the
Albany Post Road. It is remembered
that alone among the local
millionaires that James Speyers
conducted the "Waldheim"
household in the aristocratic
European manner, with, for
example, a footman stationed
behind the chair of each guest at the
dinner table. (1, page 103) (11,
page 1)
At this time, in order to raise money
needed for the purchase of
motorized equipment and a new
firehouse for The Briarcliff manor
Fire Department, the fire company
Briarcliff
sponsored a gala fair for three days.
Manor Fire This first step to start a building fund
Department netted over $500.00. (15, page 81)
During this period, Barrett Harper
Clark, later the drama critic, author,
editor, translator and teacher and
Briarcliff
Briarcliff resident, played the season
Writers:
of 1912-1913 with Mr. Fiske’s acting
Barrett
company, as actor and stage
Harper
manager in New York and on the
Clark
road. (1, page 217)
Around this time, The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department also worked
closely with neighboring
departments (like they do today) in
Briarcliff
Ossining and Pocantico Hills,
Manor Fire Millwood, Archville and Pleasantville.
Department (15, page 80)
During this year, the New York and
Putnam Railroad Company, which
stops at the "Whitson's" Station,
located in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, finally merges with the New
York Central system. (1, page 39)
Rail Roads (2, page 20)
1913
1913
1913
1913
On this date, village residents voted
to approve a bond resolution to build
a village firehouse and buy
Briarcliff
motorized apparatus for The
Manor Fire Briarcliff Manor Fire Department. (1,
Department page 62)
The first Municipal Building, used by
the Briarlciff Manor Village
Government, is first constructed at a
cost of $20,000.00. This building,
located at 1133 Pleasantville Road,
also accommodated The Police
Department, the Department of
Pulbic Works, The Fire Department
and an apartment for the
Village
Superintendent of Streets. (1, page
Government 62) (2, page 23) (15, page 78)
During this year, V. Everit Macy was
elected county superintendant of the
poor (the title later changed to the
commissioner of public welfare). (1,
Macy Family page 56)
During this year, the Misses
Tewksbury school for young boys
and girls was taken over by the Mrs.
Frances Schraff Marshall's Day and
Boarding School for little girls. The
Mrs.
Dysart house served as the
Frances
classroom building, which also had
Scharff
school bells installed, while boarders
Marshall's
lived in the house next door. The
Day and
cost of each student's board and
Boarding
tuition was $900.00, and piano
School for
lessons cost another $20.00. (1,
little girls
page 73) (2, page 46)
1913
1913
1913
Vanderlip
Family
Hubert
Rogers
Estate
The three oldest Vanderlip children
were allowed to take turns
accompanying their father to the
train at Scarborough Station on
weekday mornings. Briarcliff Lodge
and the Sleepy Hollow Country Club
both sent large chaffeured touring
cars to the station back then, and
Frank Vanderlip, Jr., who was about
six years old, had seen his father off
to the city and was on his way home
when "Uncle William" Rockefeller
came by in his electric car and
offered him a ride. Frank accepted
and was driven to Rockwood Hall,
where he was lectured on how to run
a large estate economically.
Rockefeller had one of the first
gasoline-powered mowing machines
and had paved the estate roads with
blocks of a special composition
containing tar for resilience which,
set close together, kept out weeds.
Meanwhile, in the Vanderlip
household there was growing panic
at Frank's disappearance. When
Rockefeller's butler was made aware
of this, he suggested that his
employer call Mrs. Vanderlip. He did
so, with a look on his face that Frank
read to mean: What more can I do
to annoy her? He took the boy into
During this year, a house was built
on the Rogers property. (1, page
116)
Briarcliff
Writers:
Barrett
Harper
Clark
During this year, Barrett Harper
Clark, later the drama critic, author,
editor, translator and teacher and
Briarcliff resident, returned to
Europe and studied the theater of
France, England and Germany while
contributing articles to American and
English magazines. (1, page 217)
1913
1913
1913
1913
1913
Briarcliff
Writers:
Barrett
Harper
Clark
During this year, Barrett Harper
Clark, later the drama critic, author,
editor, translator and teacher and
Briarcliff resident, and also a pioneer
popularizer of European drama in
the Untied States, translated three
French plays by Emile Augier (three
of several French plays that he
translated during his lifetime) that,
in 1913, became the first book ever
published by Alfred A. Knopf. (1,
page 217)
During this year, Katherine Moran
Douglas, and her husband, James
Forsythe Douglas, (after their
marriage) settled in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor in one of the Spanishstyle houses on Pine Road. After her
husband’s death and further study
abroad, she and her daughter, Mary,
moved to a smaller house up the hill
on Pine Road, where she embarked
on the teaching profession, assisting
many singers to professional fame
and influencing the lives of many
more. She is remembered as a
strict although gracious taskmaster,
“demanding the best from her
students and thoroughly grounding
Briarcliff
them in all vocal techniques.” Some
Musicians: she helped at considerable sacrifice
Katherine
of her own time and money, because
Moran
she believed that “youth and talent
Douglas
must have a chance!” (1, page 223)
By this year, when marching in
Briarcliff
parades, The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Manor Fire Department firemen wore beige twill
Department uniforms. (15, page 81)
Briarcliff
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Manor Fire Fire department held a parade. (15,
Department page 82)
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
purchased his first tracts of land in
Vanderlip
Palos Verdes, California. (3, page
Family
386)
1913 February
1913 April 28th
The present (ca. 1990) manse of
The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church, next to the Sparta Burying
Grounds on Revolutionary Road, was
given by Mrs. Shepard and
completed in February of 1913.
Doctor Petersen, the third minister
of The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church, and his family were the first
to occupy this manse. It was
designed by William C. Holden, who
was the builder, and who owned and
Scarboroug operated the Ossining Pressed Stone
h
Company on the river front in
Presbyterian Ossining village. (1, page 54) (15,
Church
page 70)
The great barn fire in Barn B (on the
north end of Dalmeny Road, right
next to the fire company), at the
Briarcliff Farms, occurs. This barn
was right next to the first fire
department meeting room. Despite
the fire, the firemen managed to
save the equipment and horses, as
well as the house next door. (1,
Briarcliff
page 61) (2, page 34) (17, page 12)
Farms
(15, pages 24, 28 and 80)
1913 October
1913-1914
1913-1916
1913-1917
Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. Vanderlip,
moved by a desire to serve the
community and by an active interest
in educational progress, founded The
Scarborough School (also called the
Scarborough Day School) for their
own six children and the children of
their friends and neighbors, after
they moved the school from the
Harden's residence in North
Tarrytown, during that same year
(1913) to the River Gate House at
the north end of River Road. The
students were taught by a student of
Montessori. Some of the first
classes of this school were also held
on the porch of the Vanderlip home.
This may also be the same location
that was mentioned in the book Our
Village: Briarcliff Manor: 1902 To
1952 , which mentioned that this
school had initially moved from the
Vanderlip Estate, Scarborough-onHudson, in the Studio Cottage, when
the school was installed with the
name of "Miss (Elizabeth) Dean's
Scarboroug School." (1, page 93) (2, page 57)
h School
(15, page 46) (17, page 21)
During this period, the Burns Agency
of William J. Burns became
international, with offices in
Montreal, London, Brussels and
Paris. Mr. Burns moved his family to
Burns
Westchester County, and then to
Family
Bronxville. (1, page 119)
Miss Elizabeth M. Dean, a graduate
of Radcliffe, serves as the inspiring
Scarboroug director of The Scarborough School
h School
during this period. (2, page 57)
Miss Elizabeth M. Dean serves as the
first Headmaster of The Scarborough
Scarboroug School during this period. (2, page
h School
58)
1913 and
1926
1913-1947
(?)-1914
1914
1914
1914
During both of these years, the
Whitings family increased their
property of their Ashridge estate to
some hundred acres. Mr. Whiting
was an architect and manufacturer
of "Persian" rugs. They also bought
Ashridge
land from Annie C. Smith, widow of
Estate
Augustine Smith. (1, page 114)
During this period, one of the world’s
foremost operatic sopranos,
Katherine Moran Douglas, lived in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor for
over thirty years. Katherine Moran
Douglas, who originally was born in
Ossining, was the daughter of
Michael Moran, the influential
publisher of the Democratic
Briarcliff
Register , was trained in piano and
Musicians: voice at Miss Fuller’s School in
Katherine
Ossining and later under Amalia
Moran
Jaeger, a pupil of Jenny Lind. (1,
Douglas
pages 222-223)
Sometime before 1914 and up to
1914, Roger Nestor Wallach, later a
distinguisged resident of the Village
Wallach
of Briarcliff Manor, is an officer in the
Family
German army. (1, page 121)
The first steps to accomplish one of
the goals of the Briarcliff Community
Briarcliff
Center, Inc.'s (known as the "Club)
Manor Free "to establish and maintian a public
Library
library" are taken. (2, page 68)
The Briarcliff Free Library (the
Briarcliff Manor Public Library) is
started by Edward S. Arnold; at the
Community Center, its first home, in
the Club house, the old school
building then standing where now
Briarcliff
(ca. 1952) the ramp south-bound
Manor Free from Pleasantville Road to Route 9A
Library
is. (2, page 68) (14, page 15)
A fireman's parade is held. The
drivers of the hook and ladder horseBriarcliff
drawn wagon during this parade
Manor Fire were Hoard Bishop and James
Department Fleming. (1, page 60)
1914
1914
1914
1914
1914 May
During this year, the Village Board
asked Street Comissioner Arthur
Brown if an automobile would help
him with his work, he replied that he
prefeered a horse but would use an
Village
automobile if they bought one. They
Government did not. (1, page 62)
During this year, when he was still
an officer in the German army and
when World War I broke out, Roger
Nestor Wallach, later a distinguished
reisdent of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, refused to fight against
France and England, so he came to
the United States with his fiancee,
Maguerite Schweighofer. He then
obtianed financial backing to set up
a dye manufacturing plant in
Wappinger Falls, New York, and
Maguerite taught French and
Wallach
German at Mount Saint Mary's. (1,
Family
page 121)
Briarcliff
Writers:
During this year, one of Barrett
Barrett
Harper Clark’s principle works The
Harper
Continental Drama of Today was
Clark
published. (1, page 217)
During this year, John Hersey, later
Briarcliff
a Pulitzer Prize winning writer and
Writers:
Briarcliff resident is born in Tientsin,
John Hersey China. (1, page 217)
By this time The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department had two new motorized
pieces of apparatus ready, the latest
in twentieth century techniques in
fire protection. The company also
established two substations with
hose carts; one was in Scarborough
Briarcliff
on the Holden farm, and the other in
Manor Fire Mrs. Whitson’s barn on Pleasantville
Department Road. (15, page 81)
1914 June 19th
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1914 July 4th
Village
Government
1914 July 4th
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1914-1916
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1914-1918
Law Family
1914-1921
Department
of Public
Works
1914 July 17th
The Briarcliff Community Center,
Inc. (known as the "Club") writes in
their publication, the "Community
Notes," that "The Library is open for
the loaning of books. So far six
cards have been taken out." Card
No. 1 went to Miss Rosalind Marsh of
Briarcliff Lodge. (1, page 75) (2,
page 68)
The Municipal Buildings is accepted
as the home of the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government. It is also
dedicated on this same date as well,
with a great celebration. (1, page
62) (2, page 29)
The Briarcliff Fire Company moves
into their new headquarters on the
first floor of the Municipal Building,
where Mr. Walter W. Law, Jr., the
Village President, presented the key
to Mr. James Fleming, President of
the Fire Company, and Mr. Stewart,
of the Board of Trustees, turned the
new fire apparatus over to Fred C.
Messinger, Fire Chief. (2, pages 29
and 31)
By this date, persons were being
urged to return over-due books, of
which some titles were, "The
Honorable Peter Sterling," "Count of
Monte Cristo," "Uncle Remus," "Four
Pools Mystery," "Darkness and
Daylight in New York." (1, page 75)
(2, page 68)
J. C. Lewis, Jr. serves as the fourth
school principle of the Briarcliff
school during this period. (2, page
53)
Walter Law, Jr., a graduate of Yale
University Sheffield Scientific School
and Albany Law School, represented
the Third Assembly District of
Westchester County in the New York
Assembly during this period. (1,
page 59)
During this period, Arthur Brown
serves as the Village of Briarcliff
Manor’s Street Commissioner. (1,
pages 62 and 234)
Briarcliff
Community
Center, Inc.
1914-1922
1914-1925
(?)(1914)September
(1925)
Briarcliff
ParentTeacher
Association
1914-1931
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1914-1951
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1914-1952
Briarcliff
Manor
Police
Department
19141960s(?)
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
During this period, the Briarcliff
Community Club published the paper
“Community Notes,” “published in
the interests of the Briarcliff
Community Club every other Friday,”
covered considerable time and
matter. (14, pages 11 and 17)
The Briarcliff Parent-Teacher
Association has its beginning as a
group organized by Mrs. Ida Wright,
the Kindergarden teacher in the
Briarcliff school, who organized a
"Mother's Circle" to bring together
mothers to discuss their common
problems in raising their children.
This group continued under this
name until September 1925, when it
received its charter and was called
the Briarcliff Parent-Teacher
Association. (2, page 86)
Rev. Henry A. Dexter serves as the
tenth Rector of the All Saints
Episcopal Church during this period.
(2, page 38)
In 1914, the Reverend Charles
Warren Baldwin is elected as the
sixth Rector of the St. Mary's
Episcopal Church, and serves in this
position for thirty-seven years until
1951. He was the brother of the
previous Rector of St. Mary's, Berry
Oakley Baldwin. (1, page 175) (2,
page 38) (14, page 17)
The Briarcliff Manor Police
Department is first housed in the
Municipal Building. It contunes to be
housed there to the present day (ca.
1952). (2, page 31)
The bell that was located in the
tower that still tops the Municipal
Building, summoned volunteer
firemen during this period. (1, page
62)
1915
The Briarcliff Branch of the American
Red Cross, is begun under the
leadership of Mrs. Elsie Gilman Law,
then called the Briarcliff War
Auxillary. (1, page 126) (2, page 82)
The Scarborough Branch of the
American Red Cross is organized
with fifteen members, meeting at
first in homes of the members, later
in the Church House of the
Presbyterian Church. The first
Chairman of the Scarborough Branch
of the American Red Cross was
Marion L. Dinwiddie. The
Scarborough Branch of the American
Red Cross, as well as The Briarcliff
Branch of the American Red Cross,
both had services which were, as
they are now, voluntary, and
included assisting at hospitals, home
nursing, Civil Defense cooperation,
Scarboroug Blood Bank assistance, preparation
h Branch of for first aid, and sewing and knitting
the
for the armed forces and disabled
American
soldiers in Veterans' Hospitals. (1,
Red Cross
page 126) (2, page 83)
Holbrook
Preparatory The Holbrook Preparatory School for
School for
Boys closes for good. (1, page 27)
Boys
(2, page 46)
1915
One of the houses that was built by
Ayers and Simpson, ("the village
houses" on the south side of
Pleasantville Road east of Route 9A)
is purchased during this year by
Barrett Clark, distinguished critic and
author of many articles and books
on the drama, and his wife, pianist
Cecile Smith. The Clarks came to
Briarcliff becuase Ms. Smith taught
piano at Mrs. Dow's school. She also
taught at the Julliard School in New
York City. They bought the house,
which then stood on a double lot
with a very large backyard, for
$3,000.00. (1, page 65)
1915
1915
Briarcliff
Branch of
the
American
Red Cross
Ayers and
Simpson
"village
houses"
1915
Ayers and
Simpson
"village
houses"
1915
Searle
Family
The son of Barrett Clark and his
wife, Cecil Smith, Barrett, tells how
his parents changed their new
village house after they bought it in
1915: "Like many of the houses
along that road, the main porch was
on the front of the house and my
parents didn't like it there, so they
had it moved around to the
side....When you walked into the
house there was a living room and
behind it was another room about
the same size, a wall with a single
door in between them. The story is
that they had a few beers one night
with an old friend of my father's, H.
R. Baukhage, writer and for many
years the well-known radio news
broadcaster from Washington, D.C.
They decided to take the wall down,
which they did, just by running at it
with their shoulders. And, oh, the
plaster dust! It was all over the
house! So they had a nice living
room. It was a pretty room, very
long and quite narrow but a nice
room with space for this piano and
lots of books, of course." (1, page
65)
During this year, Dr. Robert Wyckoff
Searle earned his A.B. at Rutgers
University. (1, page 169)
1915
1915
1915
1915
Briarcliff
Writers:
Barrett
Harper
Clark
Briarcliff
Writers:
Barrett
Harper
Clark
Briarcliff
Writers:
Barrett
Harper
Clark
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
Barrett Harper Clark purchases a
house on the south side of
Pleasantville Road east of Route 9A
and moved into it with his wife,
pianist Cecil Smith and their son,
Barrett. They had moved to
Briarcliff because Ms. Smith taught
piano at Mrs. Dow’s School. Mr.
Clark had edited fifty-five titles in
the World’s Best Plays series for the
use of amateur actors. He also
lectured and occasionally taught at
Chatauqua, Columbia, and Bryn
Mawr. As editorial advisor of Samuel
French, he helped to publicize the
work of several young American
playwrights. He wrote regular
reviews of the New York theater for
The Drama and other magazines
and newspapers. He was active in
the National Council on Freedom
from Censorship, and wrote two
pamphlets, “Oedipus and Pollyanna”
and “The Blush of Shame,” and on
the Board of Directors of the
Provincetown Playhouse and the
Group Theater. H. L. Mencken called
Mr. Clark “a savagely industrious
man,” as a result of the many works
he wrote. The National Cyclopaedia
of American Biography described
him as “a serious-looking,
During this year, one of Barrett
Harper Clark’s principle works The
British and American Drama of
Today was published. (1, page 217)
During this year, one of Barrett
Harper Clark’s principle works
Contemporary French Dramatists
was published. (1, page 217)
During this year, a Public School
Fancy Dress Concert was held. (15,
page 55)
1915
Scarboroug
h Branch of
the
American
Red Cross
1915
Briarcliff
Lodge
1915-1921
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1915-1952
Scarboroug
h Branch of
the
American
Red Cross
1915-1953
Johnson
Family
During this year, Marion Dinwiddie,
the first chair of The Scarborough
Branch of the American Red Cross,
will organized support for troops
guarding nearby New York City
reservoirs. (17, page 22)
The Briarcliff Lodge was popular as a
setting for early silent movies, as
during this year, the Daniel Frohman
film The Seven Sisters , starring
Marguerite Clark, was shot at
Briarcliff Lodge, which was set as a
castle. (8, page 48)
For reasons unknown, there are no
further available records for The
Briarcliff Manor Free Library from
this period (for seven years). This
was perhaps due to the several
years of haphazard management
that occurred during this period of
the Briarcliff Manor Free Library's
history. (1, page 75) (2, page 68)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , during this period of this
village organization's existence, its
quotas have never failed to be
reached. (2, page 83)
During this period, Walter Lathrop
Johnson was the president of the
Commodity Clearing Corporation. (1,
page 121)
1916
The Administration building,
Vanderlip Hall, was erected during
this year and at that time the official
name was changed to "Scarborough
School." This building was erected
on the Albany Post Road, and in that
same year (1916), The Scarborough
School moved into this new building
on the Albany Post Road. This
building also served as the main
building of The Scarborough School,
and it was designed by Beaux Arts
architect William Welles Bosworth,
which Mr. Vanderlip had also hired to
build the garage, and Little Beech
(the guest house, since demolished).
This same architect was also hired
by Mr. Vanderlip to design the
addition to Beechwood of the librarypavilion north end(?) and to redesign
the living room and solarium south
end. William Welles Bosworth, who
had worked for the firm of Frederick
Law Olmsted, designed the gardens
of John D. Rockerfeller's estate in
Pocantico Hills, and the main
buildings of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in
Scarboroug Cambridge. Massachusetts. (1,
h School
pages 92-93) (2, page 57)
1916
During this year, Mr. Vanderlip hired
Beaux Arts architect William Welles
Bosworth to build the Beechwood
Theater (The Beechwood Playhouse)
in the original Scarborough School
building, since Mr. Vanderlip wanted
his own theater for his school. The
theater was designed as a replica of
the Little Theater in New York City,
which was designed by Winthrop
Ames. Although small, seating
around 250 people, the theater was
perfect in every detail. The lighting
equipment, the scene lofts and fly
gallery, the dressing rooms, the
stage floor desgined especially for
dancing, the excellent acoustics and
Beechwood ideal theater proportions mad it
Theater
possible to mount almost any kind of
(Beechwood production with professional ease.
Playhouse) (1, pages 92 and 96)
1916
1916
1916
The Scarborough School moves to
"Vanderlip Hall" designed by William
Welles Bosworth on the Albany Post
Road, and judging that the
Montessori method was
inappropriate, they sponsored a
more formal approach, with more
discipline, although there still was
"still more than average freedom in
the classrooms." The school was
designed for classes of ten, to
accommodate 120 children, but as it
grew to 300 pupils they had to add
"another building [burned down in
1959] for the younger children and
then a lunchroom and then a shop
and a studio." Vanderlip himslef had
"some great fun" in the school
teaching simplified political economy
by playing Swiss Family Robinson on
an imaginary island with students, to
"experience in play the devleopment
of capitalism." The lunchroom was
run by Mrs. Vanderlip, who served
good simple food, but gave some of
it fancy names. Rice pudding with
raisins was called Bete Noire a la
Bolshevik. There were always farm
animals nearby for the children to
see and play with and a gorgeous
Scarboroug circus carousel to ride on. Dedicated
h School
teachers, Frances Sheridan, Ethel
Briarcliff
Branch of
The Briarcliff War Auxilery's title is
the
changed during this year to "the
American
Ossining, Briarcliff, and Scarborough
Red Cross
Branches. (2, page 82)
During this year, Walter Lathrop
Johnson married Isabelle
McWilliams, daughter of the pastor
of the Ossining First Presbyterian
Church. The cross on the south
steeple of that church was installed
to honor his lifelong service to the
parish. Mr. Johnson was also an
Ossining resident for many years
Johnson
prior to his marriage to Isabelle
Family
McWilliams. (1, page 121)
1916
1916
1916-1918
1916(?)1937(?)
Wallach
Family
Briarcliff
Writers:
Barrett
Harper
Clark
During this year, Roger Nestor
Wallach, a distinguished resident of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor,
marries his fiancee, Maguerite
Schweighofer. (1, page 121)
During this year, one of Barrett
Harper Clark’s principle works
European Theories of the Drama
was published. (1, page 217)
During this period, Henry
Briarcliff
Vandermark serves as the chief of
Manor Fire The Briarcliff Manor Fire Department.
Department (1, page 233)
Mrs. Louise Randall Pierson, in her
autobiography Roughly Speaking
(Simon & Schuster, New York,
1943), devoted some chapters to a
nighly colored description of The
Scarborough community during
Frank Vanderlip's time (ca. 19161937?). She states that: "It was the
Promised Land. The burning
question was to whom had it been
promised? The Intelligentsia or the
money-grubbers? Mr.
Vanderlip...went hopefully forward
on the theory that there was no
great gulf between the bright and
the rich....Community activities were
practically ceaseless. There was
something for everyone: a
gymasium class, an amateur theater
group, folk singing, a swimming
pool, an Economic Forum....Mr.
Vanderlip, a tall stooped man with a
leonine head of white hair, led off
the first meeting of the forum with a
subject he'd been thinking about for
a long time: the wisdom of levying
heavy inheritance taxes. He was a
convincing speaker. He said it was
unwise for a man to leave great
sums to his children who had not
Scarboroug had the foresight to earn it and
h School
would not know how to conserve it.
1916(?)1937(?)
1916(?)1937(?)
1916-1952
Mrs. Pierson continues: "This speech
proved a bombshell....The moneygrubbers received it in dour silence.
Could it be that Mr. Vanderlip was a
traitor to his class, a socialist? The
intelligentsia were too smart to
applaud openly. Though Dr. John
Kingsbury, Secretary of the Milbank
Memorial Fund, and Mr. Harry
Hopkins, Assistant Director of the
Association for Imprving the
Scarboroug Condition of the Poor, were smiling
h School
broadly." (1, pages 195 and 230)
Mrs. Pierson continues: "But it gave
the forum a lift. Everybody showed
up for ex-Commisioner Frederic C.
Howe's talk on immigration....Mr.
Howe's theme was "the Melting Pot."
He said the millions of foreigners
being assimilated would be the
making of America. It would enrich
her culture and supply new blood.
This was the year after Sacco and
Vanzetti were arrested and Mitchell
Palmer, the Fighting Quaker, had
rounded up six thousand Reds...."It's
about time we put a stop to these
foreigners pouring in," somebody
shouted. "America for the
Americans!" "Your're locking the
stable door after the horse is gone,"
said the ex-Commissioner. "The
America your're talking about no
longer exists." "Your're a radical,"
someone yelled...."We had a frank
discussion," said Mr. Vanderlip,
mopping his brow after the meeting
had disbanded. "But both sides
Scarboroug seemed rather intolerant."" (1,
h School
pages 95-96 and 230)
Since 1916, officers and members of
The Scarborough School have taken
a student-written oath based on the
Scarboroug Athenian vow of citizenship. (2, page
h School
58)
1916-post1966(?)
1916-post1975(?)
1917
During this period, Miss Ethel
Daniels, a third grade teacher at The
Scarborough School, serves as The
Scarborough School's third grade
Scarboroug teacher for more than fifty years. (1,
h School
page 93)
During this period, for almost sixty
years, members of the Vanderlip
family, particularly Virginia Vanderlip
Schoales, continued to play an
important part in the administration
Scarboroug of The Scarborough School. (1, page
h School
94)
According to the Susan Colby
McKenna's album for Troop 28's
records (circa 1947) the first Girl
Scout troop in Briarcliff Manor of the
Briarcliff Girl Scout Council is
organized under the leadership of
Mrs. Alfred Jones and Miss Louise
Miller. Many women have given
their time and effort to Girl Scouting,
serving both as leaders and as
Council Members. The purpose of
the Girl Scout organization, through
program fields and cooperative effort
among the many troops it sponsors
is: "to develop character and good
citizenship." Membership in these
Briarcliff Girl troops is open to all girls of the
Scout
community regardless of race, color
Council
or creed. (1, page 77) (2, page 84)
1917
During this year, William J. Burns
buys Shadowbrook, on Scarborough
Road. Also during this year, William
J. Burns moves his family to
Scarborough to his estate mansion
of Shadowbrook. The estate
mansion of Shadowbrook was just
south of James Speyer's Waldheim
estate mansion and across from the
Dinwiddies on Scarborough Road,
and it was, according to Joan
Goldsborough, grandaughter of
William J. Burns, "a lovely, rambling
brown-shingled house with a glassedin sun porch and many bedrooms."
There were gardeners to care for the
many gardens on thirteen acres,
servants and bells to summon them.
Also, by this time, he was already an
international celebrity. He was a
supersleuth. More than a detective
or the head of a detective agency
that was growing at a tremendous
rate, he had become the national
watchdog, carrying out assignments
that exposed corruption in state and
local governments. Burns was of
medium height but compact, with
Shadowbroo red hair and a red mustache, and
k (William J. seemed to be always in motion. He
Burns
was gregarious, shrewd and witty,
Estate)
an accomplished mimic and a
1917
1917
Mrs. Burns preferred to do most of
the cooking at Shadowbrook herself.
Burns entertained famous friends
there, including governor of New
York Alfred E. Smith, the showman
John Ringling and Owen Johnson,
author of the stories of "Detective
McKenna," for whom Mr. Burns was
the real-life model. Shadowbrook
could not be seen from the driveway
entrance above it on Scarborough
Road, where many rambler roses
often attracted Sunday afternoon
motoring parties. Motorists who
stopped to admire and perhaps pick
some of the roses were scared by a
loud voice saying, "That's private
property! Don't you dare touch
those roses!" The voice, amplified
by a megaphone, issued from the
Dinwiddies' veranda. Mr. Dinwiddie
was almost as absorbed doing this
as with Everit Macy's automotive
exploits of earlier years. George,
Raymond and Sherman Burns, from
boyhood on, ably assisted their
father in his work. After a
Shadowbroo particularly strenuous assignment
k (The
investigating homestead claims in
William J.
the mountains for the land frauds
Burns
case, George got tuberculosis and
Estate)
died. Raymond and Sherman, with
During this year, after the United
States had entered World War I,
Roger Nestor Wallach's dye company
in Wappinger Falls, New York, made
Wallach
all the khaki dye for the Untied
Family
States Army. (1, page 121)
1917
1917
1917
Stimson
Family
During this year, (according to a The
New York Times article published on
October 1st, 1948) when the United
States entered World War I in 1917,
Julia C. Stimson "volunteered at
once and, in dark blue dress and
long cape, sailed…for France to
become chief nurse of Base Hospital
21," and was soon directing the
activities of ten thousand American
Red Cross Nurses in France. (1,
pages 133 and 231)
During this year, Dr. Robert Wyckoff
Searle served in the U.S. Ambulance
service, and then joined the field
Artillery and was stationed in France,
Searle
advancing in rank from private to
Family
sergeant major. (1, page 169)
By this year, the combined school
building and theater, called
Vanderlip Hall, of The Scarborough
Scarboroug School, had been completed. (15,
h School
pages 46-47)
On this date, the Beechwood
Playhouse was first opened and
dedicated, its first performance
being a concert by Ignace
Paderewski, world famous pianist
and statesman. During his
performace the "Black Tom"
explosion took place at a munitions
works in New Jersey, more than
thirty miles from Scarborough.
Frank Vanderlip, Jr., recalled the
event in a 1952 newspaper account:
"I was about ten, and it was a great
concession for me to be allowed to
go...Paderewski sat in a special chair
with tassels on it, somewhat like a
Steig drawing. The house was
jammed...in the middle of the
program a terrific detonation shook
the building. Paderewski played on
as if nothing had happened. The
automatic fire doors at the top of the
Theater sprang open, and two men
Beechwood had to be sent aloft to sit on them
Theater
until the end of the performance to
(Beechwood prevent a cold draft from sweeping
1917 January 2nd Playhouse) onstage." (1, page 96)
On this date, Edmund C. Genet,
while serving with the Lafayette
Escadrille, become the first American
killed in action when he was killed
"somewhere in France." (1, page
1917 April 16th
World War I 126)
1917 May 28th
1917-1918
1917-1918
1917-1918
An article published in The New York
Times published on this date tells of
how All Saints Church held a
memorial service for Edmund C.
Genet, the first American to fall
while fighting under the Stars and
Stripes in France during World War
I. Genet, who was twenty years old,
was killed: "somewhere in France on
April 16th, 1917, while serving with
the Layfayette Escadrille. The young
man's family and many of his
relations were among the throng
that crowded the church. There was
also a delegation of the Daughters of
the American Revolution, of which
his mother Henrietta Genet is a
member....Edmund Genet was the
great great grandson of "Citizen
Genet," first minister from the
French republic to the United States,
who married a daughter of George
Clinton, first governor of the State of
World War I New York." (1, pages 126 and 231)
Ernest Horn serves as the second
Headmaster of The Scarborough
Scarboroug School during this period. (2, page
h School
58)
Mr. Frank Arthur Vanderlip spends
one year in Washington, D. C.,
serving as a financial advisor to the
Vanderlip
Government during World War I. (2,
Family
page 75) (3, page 386)
91 men from the Village of Briarcliff
Manor enlist in the U.S. armed
forces to fight in World War I. Of
that number, two are killed during
the war: Private Howard Frame and
Ernest Van Lu Van. (1, page 126) (2,
World War I page 79)
1917(?)1918(?)
1917(?)1918(?)
1917(?)1918(?)
1917(?)1918(?)
1917(?)1918(?)
At this time, Ernest Van Lu Van, a
resident of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, a 2nd Engineer, 2nd Division,
of the U.S. Army, is killed in action
during World War I in France, where
he is buried in the Meuse-Argonne
American Cemetery. (1, page 126)
World War I (2, page 79)
The Briarcliff Boy Scouts sell Liberty
Bonds, roll trench candles, and
collect peach pits for making carbon
for gas masks to support the
Briarcliff
American war effort during World
Boy Scouts War I. (2, page 84)
During World War I, because it was
feared that the Germans would try
to cut off New York City's water
supply, troops were quartered in
small camps along the Hudson River
to guard the Croton Aqueduct.
Marion Dinwiddie remembered that
"they did find a German college man
somewhere along the aqueduct,
disguised as a laborer." (1, pages
World War I 126-127)
At this time, Lieutenant-Colonel
Hazelton, a resident of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, served in World War
I in the aviation section of the Signal
World War I Corps. (1, page 138)
During World War I, the Reverend
Church of
James F. Kelly, who would layer
Saint
become the first pastor of The
Theresa of Church of Saint Theresa of the
the Infant
Infant Jesus in 1926, serves as a
Jesus
chaplain. (1, page 166)
1917-1919
1917-1919
1917(?)1925
During World War I, Mrs. Vanderlip
served as the treasurer of the
National Women's Liberty Loan
Committee. She was also an
"American grandmother,"
corresponding with fighting men who
had lost contact with their families.
To control venereal disease and
prostitution near military camps, she
supported the Girls' Protective
League and the Social Hygiene
Association. She conducted a New
York state government skill-index
census of Westchester County
residents, supporting four thousand
women and providing a personnel
resource listing, thereby saving
thousands of dollars in labor costs
and demonstrating the ability of
women to organize and complete a
great task. As vice-chairman of the
Women's Land Army in the state,
she recruited women to work on
farms. She demonstrated food
conservation by installing a
dehydrator at Beechwood, where a
unit of the Women's Land Army, "the
Farmerettes," resided. (1, pages 9091)
Vanderlip
Family
Public
Schools,
Horatio P. Baum serves as the fifth
Grade and Briarcliff school principle during this
High School period. (2, page 53)
During this period, the elder Burnses
lived in Scarborough less than ten
years, moving to Florida in 1925
Burns
because of Mrs. Burns's chronic
Family
bronchitis. (1, page 120)
19171940s(?)
1917-1952
1917-1990
During this period, form the first
years of the Beechwood Playhouse
theater, Broadway professionals
when not other wise engaged found
it convenient to work there. Amonf
these were Sylvia Sidney, Laurette
Taylor, Lynn Fontanne, James Dean,
Judson Laire, and Parker Fenelly
("Pepperidge Farm remembuhs"). In
addition, lecturers and performers in
the theater included Sarah
Bernhardt, Robert Frost, John
Masefield, Vachel Lindsay, Eleanor
Roosevelt, H. G. Wells, Stephen
Vincent Benet and the King of Siam.
One local resident active in the
Beechwood Players from the
beginning was John Gowen, and
engineer who was by avocation a
poet and actor. He was the brother
of the filmmaker Robert Gowen. The
Beechwood Players put on several
plays a year, summer and winter.
Some of these plays were written by
Eunice Armstrong, who was the
second practicing lay Freudian anlyst
in America. One of her plays,
Technique , went on from the
Beechwood Beechwood Playerhouse to
Theater
Broadway, and is listed in Burns
(Beechwood Mantle's Best Plays of 1930-1931 .
Playhouse) (1, page 96)
Since 1917, vocational guidance, in
association with Teacher's College,
Columbia University for its research,
Scarboroug has been provided at The
h School
Scarborough School. (2, page 58)
During this period, the Beechwood
Playhouse theater served The
Scarborough School for assemblies,
plays, concerts and lectures. Also,
as the home of the Beechwood
Beechwood Players, it also served as a large
January 2nd-Theater
adult community and continues to do
present (ca. (Beechwood so in the present (ca. 1990). (1,
1990)
Playhouse) page 96)
1918
1918
1918
1918
1918
1918
1918
1918
During a heavy snow during this
year, employees of Briarcliff Garage
Roads and attached a board to the front of a
Transportati truck and plowed all the roads in the
on
village-for $6.00. (1, page 63)
During this year, Walter L. Johnson
was the president of the New York
Cotton Exchange. Mr. Johnson
began his long career on Wall Street
as an office boy(?). He also after
this job became a partner of
Johnson
Shearson, Hammill & Company(?).
Family
(1, page 121)
During this year, Julia C. Stimson
writes and publishes her book: War
Letters , which was a volume based
on her experiences in France
Stimson
working as a nurse during World War
Family
I. (1, page 133)
During this year, Arthur Ware, Sr.’s
(painter and architect and Briarcliff
Briarcliff
resident during the 1930s) father
Architects: died, and Arthur Ware, Sr. and his
Arthur
brother, Franklin Ware, reorganized
Ware, Sr.
the firm. (1, page 215)
During this year, Walter W. Law Sr.
donated seven acres of land between
the New York and Northern Railroad
Station (present day library) and the
school to create a village park. The
village once hired a landscape
architect who laid out the trees,
shrubs, skating pond, and space for
Briarcliff
tennis courts. At this time it was
Park and
known originally as Liberty Park.
Pool
(15, page 85)
During this year, the mentor of
Frank A. Vanderlip when he was at
the National City Bank of New York,
Vanderlip
Bank Chairman James J. Stillman,
Family
dies. (3, page 386)
During this year, Eileen O’Connor
Weber
Weber was born in Briarcliff Manor.
Family
(17, page 63)
During this year, Walter Law sells his
Briarcliff
new Briarcliff Farms at Pine Plains.
Farms
(8, page 37)
1918(?)
Scarboroug
h Branch of
the
American
Red Cross
1918(?)
Scarboroug
h Branch of
the
American
Red Cross
Around this time, when the influenza
epidemic struck the soldiers in the
Hudson River camps, the Red Cross
set up a hospital in the Holbrook
School, which had recently closed,
leaving vacant a big dormitory and
several cottages. Red Cross
volunteers from the neighborhood
staffed the hospital until professional
nurses arrived. Marion Dinwiddie
remembered that they worked for
three days setting up cots that had
been sent up from the arsenal. She
was working on the ambulances, but
the night before the nurses arrived,
she worked as a nurses aide. (1,
page 127)
Around the time the influenza
epidemic struck the U.S. Amry
stationed in the Hudson Valley,
Marion Dinwiddie remembers that:
"Dr. Clinton said to me, "I haven't
been to bed for three nights, don't
disturb me if you can help it, but
make half-hourly rounds." They
gave me two boys as orderlies...one
lay down on the couch in the room I
had as a dispensary, the other sat
up by the table and both went sound
asleep. If I wanted either of 'em, I
shook 'em. Toward Morning, around
four o'clock, I heard a clump clump
clump of martial feet and there
entered the office a man who I think
though he was the toughest man in
the American army-he may have
been right-a certain Corporal Tully,
and he had a large quid of tobacco in
his jaw and he said, "Well, I got the
guard posted and I went in the
kitchen and cooked them some
coffee. Woy, it was good!" I said,
"It's a wonder you wouldn't give the
Red Cross some coffee." Youse want
some?" I said Ise did, so he went
away and brought me a mug...with
something as black as ink in it...so I
thanked him and took it and drank
what I could of it." (1, page 127)
1918(?)
Marion Dinwiddie's account
mentioned above continues: "Two or
three weeks afterward-all the Red
Cross in the vicinity had sent the
hospital all their surgical nightshirts
and all their pyjamas, all the things
they could staff it with, and we
thought that possibly...they needed
some more of those things. So
Father and I drove in, I guess 'twas
in my own car and I didn't have a
uniform on...not anything but the
insignia on the car and in the
meantime Colonel Love had come
down. He was the commanding
officer of the First Provisional
Regiment that was guarding the
aqueduct and the place was
surrounded by guards armed to the
teeth so nobody could get in there.
No German could get in that place,
I'll tell you, and one of them stopped
me with drawn rifle and Father said,
"They're not going to let you in."
Just then a corporal stepped to the
Scarboroug side of this man and said, "Let her
h Branch of in. She's the Red Cross." I think he
the
still had the quid of tobacco
American
distorting his cheek." (1, pages 127Red Cross
128)
1918(?)
1918 January
Marion Dinwiddie's account
mentioned above continues: "We
had elements of the 12th Regiment,
the 23rd Regiment and Troop A of
Albany....They were really very nice.
Everybody around treated them as if
they were all their children coming
home fore Easter vacation. They
had them almost killed with
kindness. And we opened in the
village [Tarrytown] what was the
YMCA building, we equipped it with
shower baths and we always had
coffee and cake, preferably stale
sponge cake [to absorb any alchohol
they had drunk], there and towels
and things and they'd come all the
Scarboroug way down there from as far as
h Branch of Poughkeepsie....Apparently they
the
didn't have any decent place to have
American
baths in the camps...." (1, page
Red Cross
128)
At this time, Private Howard Frame,
a resident of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, dies at Georgia Military
World War I Station. (1, page 126) (2, page 79)
1918 Autumn
postNovember
1918 11th
1918(?)
December
25th,
Christmas
Day
During this year, in the first decades
of the twentieth century, the
proximity of Vanderlip's Scarborough
to the hamlet of Sparta became
uncomfortable. The Vanderlips'
uneasiness about nearby Sparta and
the prison can be inferred from this
anecdote told by Frank Vanderlip,
Jr.: One night in the autumn of
1918, the whole Vanderlip family
was asleep on the sleeping porch at
Beechwood. (They were great
believers in the health-giving powers
of fresh air). They were awakened
by the prison sirens sounding, once,
then again, then continuously. Then
the bells of the churches rang and
continued to ring. The din was
awful. They assumed there had
been a prison break, a big one. the
children had never seen their mother
so frightened. "There were tears in
her eyes." After a fearful night,
Vanderlip called his office and asked
if there was anything in the papers
about a prison break. "Haven't you
heard?" was the reply. "The war is
over. It's the Armistice." That
night, Frank Vanderlip believes, his
parents' resolve was formed to do
Vanderlip
something about Sparta, their
Family
"doorstep problem." (1, page 97)
During this period, Mrs. Vanderlip
entertained hundreds of furloughed
soldiers and sailors at Beechwood
after the Armistice, providing for
Vanderlip
their transportation from New York
Family
City. (1, page 91)
Marion Dinwidde says in her account
of serving in The Scarborough
Branch of the American Red Cross
that when the influenza epidemic
struck the U.S. Army camps along
the Hudson River that: "On
Christmas Day all the Red Crosses
Scarboroug gathered and we ran three-one noon
h Branch of and one about five o'clock and one
the
six o'clock-and we fed all the
American
outposts...their Christmas dinner."
Red Cross
(1, pages 127-128)
1918 or
1919(?)
World War I
post-1918
Scarboroug
h Branch of
the
American
Red Cross
1918-1919
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1918-1920
Law Family
19181920s(?)
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1918-1921
Briarcliff
Writers:
Barrett
Harper
Clark
1918-1922
Scarboroug
h School
The bell in the tower that once
topped the Municipal Building tolled
at the end of World War I. (1, page
62)
Sometime after the end of World
War I in 1918, the famous actress
Sarah Bernhardt, then staying at the
Briarcliff Lodge, visited the
Scarborough Branch of the American
Red Cross and personally thanked
the workers for their aid to France
during World War I. (2, page 83)
During this period, Charles H.
Schuman serves as the chief of The
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department. (1,
page 233)
Walter Law, Jr. is elected state
senator and served in the higher
house of the state legislature until
1920. He also lived in Mamaroneck
with his wife and five children, but
continued to serve as vice-president
of the Briarcliff Realty Company. (1,
page 59)
The ivy that covers the Parish House
of the St. Mary's Episcopal Church
(ca. 1952) is brought from the
Argonne battlefield by Mrs. Frank A.
Vanderlip after World War I and
planted some time after World War
I. (2, page 36)
During this period, Barrett Harper
Clark, a famous writer and Briarcliff
resident, was the associate director
of foreign language information in
Washington, D. C. and New York. (1,
page 217)
Wilford M. Aikin serves as the third
Headmaster of The Scarborough
School during this period. (2, page
58)
1918(?)1928
Briarcliff
Wines
1918-1936
Law Family
During this period, which was during
the years when Prohibition against
alchohol was enforced by the United
States Government, members of the
Greco family, who were the
neighbors to the northeast of the
Simon family, which lived in the
Woodledge estate mansion,
produced their own wine, which they
sold during those Prohibition years.
Their transactions and accompanying
merriment so disturbed the
Greendlinger family that they bought
eleven additional acres to put more
space between themselves and the
"jolly bootleggers." (1, page 124)
Henry Herbert Law, the brother of
Walter W. Law, Jr., succeeds his
brother, the past president of the
Briarcliff Manor Village Government,
and serves as the first PresidentMayor of the Briarcliff Manor Village
Government until his death in 1936.
Henry Law's term as mayor, the
longest in Briarcliff by at least ten
years, was distinguished by his
whole-hearted concern for the
people of his father's village. Young
and old felt free to go to him with
their troubles, and their trust was
always rewarded. Eileen O'Connor
Weber, a long time resident of the
village of Briarcliff Manor, said that
Henry H. Law "gave all the prizes for
the Village Field Day on Labor Day,
and was known to take the young in
his Model T Ford home for ice cream
in the summer and cocoa in the
winter. Many a hospital bill was
paid, rent was paid, assistance was
given in getting employment, and
help given to many to get a college
education." Henry Law also
managed the Briarcliff Lodge
Association. (1, pages 59 and 230)
(2, pages 24 and 74) (8, page 13)
sometime
before 1919
1919
1919
Around this time, The Baroness De
Luze's (who lived in the Luthany
House, formerly called the Buckhout
house) nearest neighboring estate to
the east of her Luthany estate was
the estate mansion called Woodlege,
a large Tudor-style house on the
wooded hillside above Pleasantville
Road. The house, on some thirty
acres, was the summer home of
Percy S. and Edith A. Straus, of the
"Woodledge department store and banking
" Estate
Straus family. (1, page 124)
Upon Mrs. Mary E. Dow's retirement
during this year, the school property
of the Mrs. Mary E. Dow's School
Mrs. Mary
begins to be controlled by the
E. Dow's
Briarcliff Realty Company. (2, page
School
53)
The Beechwood Players Theatre
Beechwood Troupe begins to be housed in the
Theater
finely-equipped Beechwood Theater
(Beechwood of The Scarborough School. (2, page
Playhouse) 58)
1919
1919
1919
1919
Records indicate that by this year,
an active Boy Scout troop was
operating in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor. During that same year, a
Sea Scout unit was formed, the
latter sailing the yawk "M. C. Perry"
out of the Philipse Manor Yacht Club.
Sponsored by the Briarcliff Manor
Post, 1054, of the American Legion,
and chartered by the Washington
Irving Council, Troop 18 and Cub
Pack 118 represent the Boy Scouts
of America in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor. Mrs. George Wolf, Sr.,
remembers that her husband was a
Boy Scout in 1919, but the actual
date of the Troop's charter seems to
be history's secret. Several sources
have named Bill Buffum as the first
Scoutmaster and John Hersey, the
first Eagle Scout. The Boy Scout
ideals are: "service and loyalty,
leadership and character-building,
together with a knowledge of skills
Briarcliff
and a love for the great outdoors."
Boy Scouts (1, page 77) (2, page 83)
The Board of Trustees of The
Scarboroug Scarborough School is first
h School
organized. (2, page 57)
During this year, after Mr. Vanderlip
resigned the presidency of the
National City Bank, the descreasing
demands on his time and energies
allowed him, with Mrs. Vanderlip, to
Vanderlip
set about rectifying the problem
Family
community of Sparta. (1, page 97)
During this year, the house on Elm
Road that Roger Nestor Wallach later
Roger
buys in 1924 is built by a Mrs.
Nestor
League, a relative of the Bonnell
Wallach
Tappans, who also built the house
House
just below it. (1, page 121)
1919
1919
1919
1919
1919
1919
1919
During this year, Roger Nestor
Wallach sold his dye company in
Wappinger Falls, New York, and
joined the Grasselli Chemical
Corporation as executive vice
president. One of his responsibilities
was the supervision of Bayer Asprin,
Wallach
then located in Albany, New York.
Family
(1, page 121)
During this year, Mrs. J. M. Reed
Briarcliff
begins her 20 years of service as the
Board of
Clerk of The Briarcliff Board of
Education
Education. (14, page 14)
Until this year, all students from the
Briarcliff school that graduated from
the eighth grade that wanted to go
on to high school continued their
studies at the Ossining High School,
since the Briarcliff school did not
cover high school education until
Public
1919. By 1919, the first advanced
Schools,
curriculum for students was offered
Grade and at Briarcliff. (1, page 68) (2, page
High School 52) (15, page 50)
During this year, there were cooking
classes offered at the Mrs. Mary E.
Dow’s School, as part of the
domestic science curriculum to “give
a practical knowledge of
Mrs. Mary
Housewifery, which will qualify the
E. Dow's
girl as competent mistress of a
School
home.” (15, page 43)
Mrs. Mary
During this year, there was also gym
E. Dow's
classes offered at the Mrs. Mary E.
School
Dow’s School. (15, page 43)
By this year, The Scarborough
Scarboroug School was chartered as a nonprofit
h School
corporation. (15, page 46)
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
goes on a trip to Europe, and soon
after he returns during this same
year, he leaves his position as
Vanderlip
President of the National City Bank
Family
of New York. (3, page 386)
1919
1919(?)
1919 August
"Juniper
Ledge"
(Carrie
Chapman
Catt
Residence)
Stimson
Family
Vanderlip
Family
During this year, Carrie Chapman
Catt, the famous suffragette, moves
to “Juniper Ledge,” a lovely house on
North State and Ryder Roads, in
New Castle. (17, page 23)
During this year, for her services
during World War I, Colonel Julia C.
Stimson received the Distinguished
Service Medal, the Florence
Nightengale Medal of the
International Red Cross, and British
and French awards, and was cited by
General John J. Pershing for
"exceptionally meritorious and
conspicuous service." (1, page 133)
During this time, the Federal
Suffrage Amendment was ratified,
and at the same time, Mrs.
Vanderlip, in The New York Times ,
liked that day to Armistice Day: "The
great war and the battle for women's
vote were very much alike. The
League of Women Voters will
continue to function as a national
body, devoting itself to urging
legislative reforms and educating the
new women voters regardless of
party lines." Mrs. Vanderlip had
been previosuly known during World
War I and earlier as a suffragist.
She campaigned throughout the
state for the ratification of women's
suffrage, logging some eight
thousand miles in her chauffeurdriven touring car and many more
miles on night trains. Her son Frank
remembered sitting in that open car
full of children singing, "Rah, Rah!
Give our mother the vote." Mrs.
Vanderlip was later elcted as
chairman of the League of Women
Voters in Albany. In a magazine
interview, she was asked, "Will most
women vote as their husbands
vote?" She replied, "Thinking
women will probably make research
into candidates and measurers and
(?)-1919
1919-the
early 1920s
1919-1922
1919-1922
Mrs. Edith Cooper Hartman, a
Wellesley graduate with abundant
experience as an educator, was
invited by Mrs. Mary E. Dow to her
school (anticipating her own
retirement at the age of seventy-six)
to become her assistant in order to
establish a college preparatory
department, as a result of the
growing demand on the part of
young women for collegiate training.
Mrs. Hartmann also became
headmistress of the Mary E. Dow's
School in 1919, and later introduced
the two-year postgraduate course at
Mrs. Mary
the Mary E. Dow's School, which was
E. Dow's
the forerunner of the Briarcliff Junior
School
College. (1, page 71) (2, page 53)
In 1919, the Woodledge estate
mansion was sold to Leo
Greendlinger, founder and head of
the Alexander Hamilton Institute of
New York City, one of the first
business schools to be conducted
through the mail. The Greendlingers
shared the house with the in-laws,
among them Bernard Lichtenberg
and his family, as a summer home,
until year-round country living was
advised for young Ruth Lichtenberg
"Woodledge after an illness in the early 1920s.
" Estate
(1, page 124)
Public
Robert A. Plumb served as the sixth
Schools,
school principle of the Briarcliff
Grade and school during this period. (2, page
High School 53)
During this period, Henry Jordan
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
1919(?)1925(?)
Mrs. Mary
E. Dow's
School
1919-1928
"Juniper
Ledge"
(Carrie
Chapman
Catt
Residence)
By 1919(?), there was a growing
demand on the part of younger
women for collegiate training, so
that Mrs. Dow, in anticipation of her
retirement at the age of seventy-six,
invited Mrs. Edith Cooper Hartman, a
Wellesley graduate with an abundant
experience as an educator, to
become her assisant in order to
establish a college preparatory
department. Under the direction of
Mrs. Edith Cooper Hartman during
this period of 1919(?)-1925(?) when
she was the headmistress of the
Mrs. Mary E. Dow's School, the Mrs.
Mary E. Dow's School becomes one
of the leading preparatory schools in
the country for young girls, sending
many of its graduates to colleges
such as Smith, Vassar, Wellesley,
and other women's colleges.
Later(?) Mrs. Hartman introduced a
two-year post-graduate course
which was the forerunner of the
Junior College. (1, page 71) (2, page
53)
During this period, despite her
house, “Juniper Ledge” being in New
Castle, located on North State and
Ryder Roads, Carrie Chapman Catt
considered Briarcliff Manor her home
and lived in Briarcliff. A leader in
the fight for women’s suffrage, she
was instrumental in getting support
for the 19th Amendment. After
many delays, it will finally pass in
1920, giving women the right to
vote. During her residence in
Briarcliff, she was also active in the
peace movement and worked for
women’s rights around the world.
Once women can vote, her
organization will become the League
of Women Voters. (1, page 161)
(17, page 23)
1919-1937
1919-1937
1919-1946
1919-1977
Mr. Frank Arthur Vanderlip serves as
the President of the Board of
Trustees of The Scarborough School
Scarboroug from 1919 until his death in 1937.
h School
(2, page 57)
During this period, Julia C. Stimson
served as the superintendent of the
Army Nurse Corps, and in this post,
she worked for higher professional
Stimson
standards and improvement of the
Family
status of nurses. (1, page 133)
Mrs. John N. Reed serves as the
Briarcliff
Clerk for the Board of Education
Board of
during this period (27 years). (2,
Education
page 74)
During this period, since 1919, The
Beechwood Players have ad their
home in the finely equipped theater
of The Scarborough School, and
served the Westchester area for
many years, with local and city
Beechwood talent. The Vanderlip family also
Players
built their theater. (15, page 47)
Date
(Year):
1920s:
1920s
1920s
1920s
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
Description of Event:
Roads and
The road comissioner and assistants
Transportati take over snow clearing during this
on
period. (1, page 63)
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
In the 1920s several families who
were associated with the Y.M.C.A.
came to live in Briarcliff. The
Herseys, the Sweetmans, the Deans,
the Herschlebs, the Rayburns, the
Rhodeses and the Sheltons are
credited (with Mrs. Bookwalter), with
the renewed interest in the library
and considerable influence on the
intellectual and social life of the
community. "Briarcliff was special
because of the Laws but also
becuase of the Y.M.C.A. people,"
Mrs. Norman Babcock used to say.
They also joined the Congregational
church and worked for it. Mr. Hersey
and Mr. Sweetman had served the
Y.M.C.A. in China. Mr. Ryaburn and
Mr. Dean wroked for the Y in New
York City. Don Odell Shelton was an
official of the International Y.M.C.A.
Associations of New York, the first
president of the National Bible
Institute, a teacher and conductor of
Bible conferences in many American
cities. He was also the author of
many books on religious subjects.
(1, pages 76 and 78)
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
During this period, the Catholic
parish of the Briarlciff Manor area
was joined by several influencial
families, including the Randal
Boroughs, the Edward Whites and
the Norman Babcocks. The demands
of the Briarcliff and Pleasantville
Parishes also increased and the
Dominicans' own Parish grew, until
the fathers could not longer spare a
priest. (1, page 79) (15, page 72)
1920s
1920s
1920s
During this period, the New York
Infirmary for Women and Children (a
concern of Mrs. Frank A. Vanderlip)
encountered financial problems, and
a new board of trustees took office
Hospitals
to run the Infirmary. (1, page 91)
During this time, the firm of
Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of
Central Park in New York City, laid
out Linden Circle, and in the 1920s,
Donald Armstrong remembered that:
"The 1920s saw the building of many
lovely houses around Linden CircleBemis, Durrell, Currier, Keys.
Durrell's had and still has a genuine
Maine hunting lodge occupying its
Linden
third floor. Gossip at the time was
Circle
that the most expensive poker game
Historic
ever played occurred there." (1,
Houses
page 92) (15, page 93)
Frank Vanderlip, Jr. remembers that
during this period, there was a stone
wall around the property on Sleepy
Hollow Road because, as Frank
Vanderlip, Jr., remembered, "Uncle
Eddy [Harden] never bought a piece
of land without building a stone wall
around it." The Dahls removed a
section of the stone wall in order to
build an entryway. "Uncle Eddy was
a very funny man," and he flew into
a comic mock rage and let everyone
know how he felt about this damage
to his wall. The Dahls, when their
house was half built, sailed for
Europe to buy furniture for it, "as
everyone did." When they were
halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, a
radiogram brought them the news
that the house had burned down.
The morning after the fire, Harden
burst into the club car excaliming, "I
did not start that fire!" The Dahls
Dahl Family later rebuilt their house in the wake
House
of this fire. (1, page 109)
During this period, Hubert Rogers, a
New York City lawyer, purchased
properties on Scarborough Road that
had belonged to the Grannis and
Crawford families, among others.
This new estate stretched from the
Dinwiddie land, well below the corner
where Scarborough Road turns east,
to the backs of properties on Sleepy
Hollow Road and to the Becker and
Whiting properties to the south.
Rogers named the estate Weskora,
after the legendary Indian cheif. (1,
page 116)
During this period, the son of the
elder Burnses, Sherman, and their
oldest daughter, Florence, married to
the artist Randal Borough, built
houses in nearby Ossining. Later(?),
Randal Borough became an art
director of a leading advertising firm
in New York City. (1, page 120)
1920s
Hubert
Rogers
Estate
1920s
Burns
Family
1920s
During this decade, on the crest that
Todd Lane leads to from Pleasantville
Road, Asa Geeding built the Grey
Ledges house, one of the finest
houses in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor. Associated with the Briarcliff
Realty Company and active in the
Congregational Church, Geeding
"had a finger in just about every pie
that was cooking in the village," one
old-timer remembered. Geeding
later(?) sold Grey Ledges to Mr. and
Mrs. Barclay Acheson. Acheson was
the brother of Lila Bell Acheson, who
with her husband, DeWitt Wallace,
founded and directed the Reader's
Digest . Acheson had been Wallace's
roommate at Macalester College in
Grey Ledges St. Paul. He worked for the Digest
(The Asa
for many years(?), as roving reporter
Geeding
and later(?) as director of foreign
Estate)
editions. (1, page 125)
1920s
1920s
1920s
1920s
The "bathing facilities" as the writer
John Hersey, who did lifeguard duty
then, remembers that the Briarcliff
Park and Pool had a pond alive with
Briarcliff
interesting creatures like leeches, as
Park and
well as little children who dove from
Pool
his shoulders. (1, page 2)
During this decade, the future
famous writer, John Hersey, came
with his family from Tientsin, China
(his birthplace) to live in the Village
of Briarcliff Manor. He was educated
in the Briarcliff schools, at the
Hotchkiss School in Connecticut and
at Yale and Cambridge. In addition,
for a time, Mr. Hersey served as
Sinclair Lewis’s secretary and then
worked as a journalist. His books
that he wrote include A Bell for
Adano , which won the Pulitzer Prize,
Hiroshima , The Wall , A single
pebble , and The Call , in which the
principle character, a Y.M.C.A.
missionary, ends his days in a
Briarcliff
fictional village named Thornhill,
Writers:
close to Ossining, New York. (1,
John Hersey page 217)
By this decade, The Briarcliff Manor
Post Office was located in the old
concrete building that used to stand
Briarcliff
near Pleasantville Road where the
Manor Post Briarcliff-Peekskill cutoff was later
Office
placed. (14, pages 11 and 20)
By this year, The Briarcliff Lodge had
become America’s foremost resort
hotel, and an opulent playground for
the rich and famous despite the hotel
being open to a wider range of
clients. It was also at this time a
favored New York resort, and for a
while eclipsed the famous mountain
houses of the nearby Catskills. Part
of the Briarcliff Lodge's increase in
business was a shift to focus on
athletics and year-round hostelry.
Briarcliff
(8, page 41) (15, page 29) (17, page
Lodge
6)
1920s
1920s
Briarcliff
1920s
1920s
Briarcliff
According to Eileen Weber’s account
of Briarcliff history, she states
concerning the 1920s in Briarcliff: “I
remember skipping to school and
greeting everyone on the way, and
sometimes stopping to help the A&P
man load his shelves. Mr. Henry
Law was a true father to all of us.
He was never too busy to buy us an
ice cream cone or to take us to his
home for hot cocoa after sleigh
riding n the golf course. It was a
quiet town; except for the local
merchants, most of the men
commuted to New York City. It was
practically unheard of for families to
be transferred in or out.” (15, page
89)
According to Eileen Weber’s account
of the history of Briarcliff in the
1920s, she states: “The “heart” of
our life was the school with its plays,
dances, and sports. From age
seven, PTA dances and plays were a
must for everyone in the community.
In the summer, the pool and the
tennis courts were second home.
Almost everyone could swim well.
We played tennis and a lot of bridge.
Many people played golf. Mr. Law
gave beautiful prizes for the Field
Day and swimming events. The
whole town took an interest in the
fire company and its parades,
costume dances, bazaars…” (15,
page 90)
1920s
1920s
1920s
According to Eileen Weber’s account
of the history of 1920s Briarcliff, she
states: “The High School sports
program was part of the Northern
Westchester League which consisted
of Briarcliff, Pleasantville, Yorktown,
Brewster, Bedford and Katonah.
(The most important thing was who
you sat with on the Brewster ride!)
There was always dancing after the
game and a big league formal dance
Public
at the end of the season. Our High
Schools,
School had students from Hawthorne
Grade and
then, and Chappaqua was our big
High School rival.” (15, page 90)
According to Eileen Weber’s account
of the history of Briarcliff in the
1920s, she stated: “I remember
seeing girls in Girl Scout uniforms
from all over the world at Camp
Andre and Camp Edith Macy. These
camps were established by V. Everit
Macy in memory of his daughter and
wife. I remember the limousines of
the Briarcliff Lodge guests going by;
the uniforms of the chauffeurs
always matched in the color of the
cars! We all remember the turkey
suppers at the Congregational
Church with Henry Law, James
Minshall, and Alfred Pearson and
Mrs. Courregeous serving mashed
potatoes; and the chicken “a la
Kane” at St. Theresa’s when the
1920s
entire supper was donated by P. J.
Briarcliff
Kane.” (15, page 90)
Apparently, there was a still where
bootlegged liquor was made in the
Briarcliff
Village of Briarcliff Manor during the
Bootlegging 1920s when prohibition against
Still
alcohol was in effect. (17, page 23)
1920s
Briarcliff
Lodge
1920s1930s
Briarcliff
Lodge
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
1920s1930s
Briarcliff
Lodge
1920s
During this decade, the “Oak Room,”
an extension off the east side of the
north wing of the Briarcliff Lodge,
served as an apartment for hotel
manager Chauncey Depew Steele
and his family. The Steele Children
were all involved in athletics at
Briarcliff. Chauncey Steele, Jr.
excelled at tennis and golf as a
teenager. B Altman designed the
interior decoration of the “Oak
Room” in addition to hosting fashion
shows at the Briarcliff Lodge. (8,
page 53)
Throughout this decade, Gertrude
Ederle, famous for swimming across
the English Channel, swam at the
outdoor pool at the Briarcliff Lodge.
(8, page 60)
During this period, the parish of The
Church of Saint Theresa of the Infant
Jesus struggled to survive. (1, page
166)
During this period, the Casino
building at the north end of the
Lodge was renamed the Health
Annex. It contained a bowling alley,
squash court, shuffleboard, an indoor
swimming pool and locker rooms,
and a darkroom for guests who
enjoyed amateur photography. The
porcelain-lined swimming pool in the
amusement building was supplied
with water from the artesian wells in
the field opposite the steam plant.
The pool measured 30 by 70 feet
and varied in depth from 4 to 10
feet. (8, page 33)
During this period, guests of the
Briarcliff Lodge included Franklin D.
Roosevelt, when he was Governor of
New York State, Alfred E. Smith
when he was Governor of New York
State, the king and queen of Siam,
and Elihu Root. Also, John Campbell
(Credit Clearing House president,
whose office was the “Campbell
Apartment” at New York City’s Grand
Central Station) and his wife
1920sBriarcliff
frequently hosted parties at Briarcliff
1930s
Lodge
Lodge. (8, page 41)
During this period, Ruth Lichtenberg,
now Mrs. Norman Simon, remembers
daily walks along Peasantville Road
to the Briarcliff post office, with her
younger sister in a baby carriage and
their nursemaid. Between
Hardscrabble and Larch roads, they
passed no more than three houses
and the stone retaining wall and
steps at the site of Miss Knox's
School. The stone house on that
site, now part of F. B. Hall, was not
yet built. Ruth Simon remembers
with pleasure the gardens and
vineyards at Woodledge and the
the early
"Woodledge massive home-preserving of the
1920s
" Estate
produce. (1, page 124)
At this time, the Westchester County
Auto Bus Lines, Inc., met the
Roads and
principle commuting trains. A
the early
Transportati commuter ticket was $10.95 per
1920s
on
month. (15, page 76)
By this time, the Village of Briarcliff
Roads and
Manor had cement sidewalks, a
the early
Transportati notable luxury at the time. (15, page
1920s
on
77)
During this period, the Johnsons
moved to Oakledge on Central Drive
Oakledge
in Briarcliff Manor and lived their
(Johnson
until January 1st, 1961, when they
the early
(?)-January Family
moved to 175 Holbrook Lane. (1,
1920s-1961 1st (1961) House)
page 121)
1920
Romaine
Family
1920
Briarcliff
Population
1920
Beechwood
Estate
1920
Stimson
Family
During this period, the Romaines
family lived close to the greenhouses
in the second house from the corner
of Sleepy Hollow Road. (1, page 37)
By this year, after the annexation of
the eastern portion of the village, the
total population of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor is 1,027. (1, page
65)
During this year, the Beaux Arts
architect William Welles Bosworth,
who was hired by Mr. Vanderlip to
construct an addition to the
Beechwood estate as well as The
Scarborough School Building, plans
the Italian Garden and landscaped
the swimming pool lawn. Also in this
period after World War I, he oversaw
the restoration in France of the
palaces of Versailles and
Fontainebleau and the cathedrals of
Reims and Chartres. (1, page 92)
During this year, Julia C. Stimson,
who lived on Horsechestnut Road in
Briarcliff Manor from 1945(?) until
1948, was designated a major in the
Army Nurse Corps. (1, page 133)
1920
1920
1920
By this year, when membership had
increased to about forty-five
families, enough money was raised
to start the school with Rabbi
Wolenchick as teacher and first
Rabbi of the Congregation.
However, the synagogue was now
crowded, particularly on the high
holy days. At a farewell banquet for
Trustee Morris Finkelstein, who was
leaving for Europe, President Morris
Schleifer made an appeal for a
building fund. The Jewish Sisterhood
of the Congregation promised to buy
the land, and pledges were made
amounting to $7,000.00. H. B.
Myers pledged to build the
foundation, and Isaac Kamm gave a
Congregatio team of horses to be raffled off for
n Sons of
the benefit of the building fund, after
Israel of
they were used to excavate the
Ossining
foundation. (1, pages 167 and 235)
During this year, the Briarcliff Realty
Company constructs the main
clubhouse for The Briarcliff Country
Club (the old Briarcliff Golf Club, also
Briarcliff
called the Mount Pleasant Golf
Country
“Links”). (1, page 81) (15, pages 32
Club
and 34)
During this period, a major
rebuilding period, which was one of
the first "urban development"
projects in the United States, is
undertaken by Mr. and Mrs.
Vanderlip Sr. in the hamlet of
Sparta, New York, when they
bought, refurbished, and re-rented
houses in Sparta. The Vanderlips
also took a trip to Japan during this
same year. (1, page 100) (15, page
Sparta
13) (3, page 386)
1920
1920
November
1920 17th
During this year, Briarcliff’s Narcissa
Vanderlip, mother of six, becomes
chair of the New York Chapter of the
Briarcliffleague of Women Voters when it is
Ossining
established after the Nineteenth
League of
Amendment is passed. She must
Women
have worked with Carrie Chapman
Voters
Catt. (17, page 24)
During this year, after 10 years
working at the Algonquin Hotel in
New York City, Chauncey Depew
Steele decided to take the
opportunity to manage the Briarcliff
Lodge over the protestations of Case
and offers to stay. I would be under
his management that the Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Lodge would achieve its greatest
Lodge
prominence. (8, page 41)
On this date, F. A. Vanderlip wrote a
letter to Geo. F. Kunz, President of
the American Scenic and Historic
Preservation Society, stating that
since the Vanderlip family were
aware of the hamlet of Sparta's
antiquity and latent charm, they
undertook "remodeling a few old
houses in order to preserve
something of their archtectural
beauty and make them livable....The
houses will be occupied by teachers
at Scarborough School and other
desirable people." At this point, Mr.
Vanderlip quietly bought more
parcels of land in Sparta, twentynine parcels in all. Some of these
houses were demolished, others
moved-back from the streets or to
face the river view. Several were
thoroughly remodeled (with sleeping
porches) to the plans of Arthur
Loomis Harmon, a well-known
architect. Mr. Vanderlip's
rehabilitation of Sparta has been
Sparta and called the first urban renewal. (1,
Scarborough pages 97-98 and 231)
November
1920 22nd
Sparta and
Scarborough
1920-1980
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Ossining
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Briarcliff
Manor
1920(?)1990
Briarcliff
Boy Scouts
1920-1927
1920-1928
On this date, the Gary Evenng Post
(Gary, Indiana) published an article
which showed how the project of Mr.
Vanderlip rehabilitating the hamlet of
Sparta attracted a greta deal of
public attention, as this newspaper
descibed it in these distorted terms:
"VANDERLIP BUYS VILLAGE-WILL
MAKE MODEL COMMUNITY....He has
bought the entire village and plans
to remodel its present houses, build
new ones and ask the undesireables
to leave." In actuality the work was
accomplished with taste and tact, in
some cases even with stealth, and it
is not recorded that any of the
residents were offended or much
disturbed. Some teachers at
Scarborough and other schools did
live there, and some artists. Some
still do. Harry Hopkins of the
Roosevelt administration lived in one
of the remodeled houses for a
time(?), as did Donald and Eunice
Armstrong and their family (in the
1920s). Louise Randall Pierson lived
there with her first husband, Rodney
Dean, and their children before
renting the Holden homstead above
Scarborough Road(?). Some Sparta
residents who would not sell to the
Vanderlips were the family of Pete
Rev. John E. Steen serves as the
third Minister of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church during this
period. (2, page 41)
During this period, Rabbi Samuel
Lifton serves as the second Rabbi of
the Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining. (1, page 235)
During this period, for decades the
school of The Congregation Sons of
Israel of Ossining (by 1960, of
Briarcliff Manor) was staffed by
volunteers. (1, pages 167-169)
Troop 18 of the Briarcliff Boy Scouts
has been active for at least the past
70 years (ca. 1990). (1, page 77)
ca. 19202002
1921
1921
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
During this period of over eighty
years, Eileen O’Connor Weber
continued to live in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor. (17, page 7)
During this year, the late Mrs. Alfred
G. Bookwalter, a well-to-do person
and a lover of libraries and books,
and a civic-minded person, comes to
the Village of Briarcliff Manor to live.
Mrs. Bookwalter was instrumental in
reopening the Library after several
years of haphazard existence and
uncertain management. Her efforts
have also been largely credited with
the registration of the library and the
increasing interest in it. Mrs.
Bookwalter and her family lived at
the end of Horsechesnut Road in the
stone house that Alfred Bookwalter
built, among others in the vicinity,
including several between the old
school and the municipal building.
At that time the house was
surrounded with gardens reaching
down to the Pocantico River behind
it. (1, pages 75-76) (2, page 68)
(15, page 62)
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
The first Board of Trustees under the
new setup is formed of the Briarcliff
Manor Free Library, consisting of
Mrs. William J. Watson, Chairman;
Mrs. Charles Schuman, Mrs.
Sherman Dean, Mrs. Arthur Crandall,
Mrs. V. Bonnell Tappan, Mrs. Ernest
F. Zuydoeck, and Mrs. Bookwalter.
The first librarian, Miss Louise Miller,
was also hired this year, acting while
she studies library service at
Columbia University. (2, page 68)
Weber
Family
1921
1921
1921
1921
1921
A Briarcliff Realty booklet of 1921
describes the Village of Briarcliff
Manor as: "An all year home
village…strictly residential…the
conveniences of a city, the freedom
and natural beauty of a charming
country…people who are cultured,
democratic and believers in
Briarcliff
progressive village government." (1,
Real Estate page 1)
During this year, Henry Law
established the Briar Hills Country
Club on the site of the old Briarcliff
Golf Club (established in 1921, its
name was changed to the Briar Hill
Country Club in 1927). A clubhouse
was built and an eighteen-hole golf
links of 6,366 yards was designed by
golf architect Deveret Emmet. The
150 acre property was bounded
roughly by Dalmeny, Poplar and Pine
roads, with a strip south of Pine
extending behind Tuttle Road to
Long Hill Road East. The grounds
included the Christie, later Melady,
property and the large white house
Briar Hills
named Elderslie, which for a time
Country
served as the clubhouse. (1, page
Club
81)
During this year, Dr. Robert Wyckoff
Searle earned his B.D. at New
Searle
Brunswick Theological Seminary. (1,
Family
page 169)
By this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Free Library was open, and the old
Briarcliff
Sunday School gave its books to this
Manor Free new library, as well as the Briarcliff
Library
Community Club. (14, page 15)
By this year, the two substations
with hose carts; one in Scarborough
on the Holden farm, and the other in
Mrs. Whitson’s barn on Pleasantville
Road, that were established by The
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department in
Manor Fire May of 1914, were discontinued. (15,
Department page 81)
1921
1921
During this year, the article "Briarcliff
in the Hills of Westchester," which
appeared in the Briarcliff Realty
Company booklet, ca. 1921, stated
that the Briar Hills Country Club has
"Besides…golf, tennis, riding, skiing,
toboganning, skating and coasting,
Briar Hills
the Club...[offered] every facility for
Country
indoor entertainment." (1, pages 81
Club
and 230) (17, page 24)
Edward Walker Harden sells the
Tarrytown house and bought
property in Briarcliff between Long
Hill Road West and Sleepy Hollow
Road, adjacent to Spiegelberg's
Miramont Court. The previous
owner, Joseph Ulman, a stockbroker,
had built a group of Saranac-style
cabins connected by covered ramps.
The Hardens tore all but one down,
and built a stone mansion, in Italian
renaissance style, named the
"Wilderness." Like the Vanderlips,
the Hardens traveled extensively in
Europe and the Middle East and
collected many antique furnishings.
An upholster and a cabinetmaker
were for some years steadily
employed in the basement of the
mansion at the Wilderness. The
Hardens "spared no expense in
creating a lovely, homey place, with
parts from the Italian past." The
driveway and courtyard of the house
were paved with Belgian
cobblestones. Shortly after the
house was built, Rosemary Harden
was married in the formal garden.
Kay Courreges remembers, "We
were little kids. We all climbed up
"Wilderness" the tower at Brandywine to watch.
Estate
It was a lovely wedding." The water
March 8th1921 13th
On this date, Raymond G. Carroll, in
the article: "All Over New York,"
published in the Public Ledger
(Philadephia), quoted Mr. Vanderlip
describing Sparta as "something of a
center of wrong-doing…avery
tumbled-down town, a place without
electricity, without gas, without
baths and possessing not a single
hot-water heating plant. It had been
left behind, skipped over by modern
Sparta and conveniences and comforts." (1,
Scarborough pages 97 and 231)
At this time, The Briarcliff Manor
Briarcliff
Free Library’s opening was held in a
Manor Free large renovated room of the
Library
Community Club. (14, page 15)
1921 June 8th
The Briarcliff Community Center, Inc.
(known as the "Club") is officially
incorporated. This organization
aimed "to establish, maintain and
operate a Community Centre in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor; to hold
and conduct lecture courses,
maintain a public library, hold
regular religious meetings, furnish a
place for the meetings of literary and
patriotic societies and for the mental
and moral improvement of men and
women;" and "to help make Briarcliff
a better place to live." Its meetingplace was in the former school
building east of the railroad station
and near Pleasantville Road. Its
worth was evidenced by a library,
gymnasium (which doubled as an
auditorium), athletic tournaments,
brass band, game room, movies,
public gatherings inside and tennis
courts on the grounds. Membership
was open to all dues-paying
residents. The Club is remembered
with great affection by people who
lived in Briarcliff at the time. Truely
the social center of the village, it was
Briarcliff
the site of many dinners, dances and
Community variety shows. (1, page 75) (2, page
Center, Inc. 81)
January
1921 21st
September
1921 1st
September
1921 22nd
1921-1926
1921(?)1928
1921(?)1930(?)
1921-1941
1921-1952
1921-1952
On this date, all the library funds of
The Briarcliff Community Club (The
Briarcliff Community Center, Inc.)
was officially passed over to the
Briarcliff
Library Committee by the Club Board
Manor Free of Directors. (2, page 81) (14, page
Library
11)
The Briarcliff Free Library, under the
"Club," is officially registered with
the New York State Library system.
At this date, there were 1,900
Briarcliff
volumes catalogued in the Briarcliff
Manor Free Manor Free Library. (1, page 75) (2,
Library
page 68)
During this period, Louise Miller
Briarcliff
served as the first director of The
Manor Free Briarcliff Manor Free Library. (1,
Library
page 234)
Sometime between 1921, and 1928,
when Mrs. Roscoe M. Hersey was
appointed as the full-time librarian,
her predecessor was Miss Elizabeth
Kelly, the Briarcliff High School art
teacher, whose art duties were only
part-time, who in turn had followed
Miss Louise Miller's tenure as the
Briarcliff
first librarian of the Briarcliff Manor
Manor Free Free Library. (1, page 78) (2, pages
Library
68-69)
During this period, after pastorates
in New York City and Albany, New
York, Dr. Robert Wyckoff Searle
Searle
became a member of the Presbytery
Family
of New York. (1, page 169)
During this period, Chester
Department Schoonmaker serves as the Village
of Public
of Briarcliff Manor’s Street
Works
Commissioner. (1, page 234)
Alfred H. Pearson serves as the
Village Clerk of the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government during this
Village
period (31 years). (2, pages 24 and
Government 74)
Since 1921, The Scarborough School
has enjoyed accredation by the
Scarborough Middle States Association. (2, page
School
58)
1921-post
1945
(six
1922 months)
1922
1922
1922
Two generations of the Law family,
Henry and, after him, Theodore
Briar Hills
Gilman Law, directed the club until
Country
some years after World War II (post
Club
1945). (1, page 81)
Public
Arthur W. Silliman serves as the
Schools,
seventh principle for the Briarcliff
Grade and
school during this period. (2, page
High School 53)
Briarcliff
Country
The Briarcliff Country Club is
Club
founded. (2, page 91)
During this year, in a candle-light
procession, the Torah of The
Congregatio Congregation Sons of Israel was
n Sons of
carried to the new synagogue on
Israel of
Waller Avenue in Ossining. (1, page
Ossining
167) (15, page 74)
By this year, there was still the arch
that supported the Croton Aqueduct,
which crossed Route 9 south of the
intersection of Sleepy Hollow Road.
Archville derived its name from this
Archville
arch. (15, page 15)
1922
1922(?)
Armstrong
Family
House
Harden
Family
According to his historical account
about Sparta, Don Armstrong gave
an insider’s look at growing up in the
Scarborough area: “We lived in the
“round” red brick house at the foot
of Spring Street. Our immediate
neighbors were Andy Katzien on the
right (now at the foot of Scarborough
Manor Drive) and Micky Zirella on
the left. Between us and Katzien
was Pete LaLuna’s Speakeasy. I
remember it as an exciting, rough
neighborhood…In the summer the
whole village swam and sailed in the
Hudson off Sparta dock. In the
winter we skate-sailed in Croton
Point Harbor. The river seemed
beautiful and clean and there were
laws against dumping into it,
particularly sewage. The only people
who broke the law were New York
State operations like Sing Sing.
Some things never change. I also
remember talk about the Vanderlip’s
subsidizing the preservation of
Sparta as a kind of Williamsburg.
They would approve the efforts that
are being made now.” (15, pages 9192)
Around this time, a decade after the
land of the Dean house, on the
corner of Broadway and Main Street,
was given by Edward Walker Harden
when he lived in Tarrytown to the
village to make Dean Park, this land
was sold to business interests. (1,
page 109)
1922 December
post-1922
post-1922
1922-1923
At this time, Chauncey Depew Steele
signed Gene Sarazen, a 21-year-old
rising star of the golf world and a
Westchester County native, to a twoyear contract to be the golf
professional. The 1922 U.S. Open
and PGA champion signed for
approximately $10,000.00 per year.
Sarazen soon found himself at odds
with his new employer, who did not
want him to play in the 1923 British
Briarcliff
Open. He was eventually allowed to
Lodge
play. (8, page 58)
According to the historical account of
Don Armstrong, he states: “Later,
Louis Dean moved into the white
apartment house to the right [the
former Andy Katzien residence].
She wrote Roughly Speaking about
this period of time and her marriage
to Paul M. Pierson (whose
Andy
greenhouses were where the
Katzien
Arcadian Shopping Center is today).”
Residence
(15, page 91)
According to Don Armstrong’s
historical account, he states: “Harry
Hopkins lived in the brick house
across the street [from Mr.
Armstrong’s “round” house in
Sparta]. Dad got Harry Hopkins a
job in the Public Health
Administration and later introduced
him to Roosevelt. The story goes
that when Hopkins went to
Washington when Roosevelt became
President, Harry owed [Pete] LaLuna
Harry
a considerable amount of money
Hopkins
which he never repaid.” (15, page
Residence
91)
During this period, Barrett Harper
Briarcliff
Clark, a famous writer and Briarcliff
Writers:
resident, spent time in France and
Barrett
Germany writing on theater. (1,
Harper Clark page 217)
1922-1925
1922-1926
1922-1928
1922-1945
1922-1960
During this period, the newspaper of
the Briarcliff Community Club,
“Community Notes,” was published
with the title “Community Club
Briarcliff
Bulletin;” “To help make Briarcliff a
Community better place to live in.” (2, page 81)
Center, Inc. (14, page 11)
Morton Snyder serves as the fourth
Headmaster of The Scarborough
Scarborough School during this period. (2, page
School
58)
During this period, Fred C. Messinger
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department for a third
Department time. (1, page 233)
Otto E. Huddle serves as the eighth
principle and Superintendent of
Schools of the Briarcliff school during
this period (23 years). Principle
Huddle is given much of the credit
for the excellence of the school in
those years. Eileen O'Connor Weber
stated that "He really made the
school!" Huddle was of slender
build, not tall, and prone to
movements and gestures so
vivacious as to suggests effeminacy.
And he wore a tam. However, as
one students recalls, when two hefty
basketball players got into a fight
and could not be separated, Huddle
went out on the court and very
quickly stopped them. Barrett Clark,
Public
Jr., stated that "He decked one of
Schools,
the guys....The story went around
Grade and
the school like wildfire." (1, pages 68
High School and 230) (2, pages 53 and 74)
During this thirty-eight year period,
the new building on Waller Avenue in
Congregatio Ossining served as the home to the
n Sons of
Jewish community that was served
Israel of
by The Congregation Sons of Israel
Ossining
of Ossining. (15, page 74)
ca. 1923
Briarcliff
Lodge
ca. 1923
Briarcliff
Lodge
Briarcliff Lodge is promoted as “the
St. Moritz of America,” with
expanded athletic facilities and
enhanced sport clubs. New
suburbanites for whom membership
was an important status joined the
various athletic associations, and
winter carnivals and sporting
exhibitions brought in local residents
who sought entertainment and
diversion. The Lodge also hosted top
professional athletes on its golf
course, tennis courts, and in the
swimming pool. A Hotel Brochure
said the Lodge and its first fairway of
its golf course was “perched on the
crest of a hill, with only wooded
ridges beyond and the skies above.”
Winter ski exhibitions were held on a
jump constructed on the first fairway
of the golf course. It also had its
own outdoor ice hockey team and
hosted top collegiate clubs. Since
under Chauncey Depew Steele, the
Lodge operated year-round, as
winter sports were implemented to
help draw visitors. Sleighing, iceskating, skiing, tobogganing,
bobsledding and snowshoeing were
offered as attractions. The Lodge
advertisements also promoted the
winter facilities that could be enjoyed
Frederick Steele, and his brother,
Chauncey Depew Steele, Jr. (the
sons of the Briarcliff Lodge hotel
manager, Chauncey Depew Steele)
take dancing lessons at the Lodge.
Chauncey Depew Steele also had a
wife, Mathilde B. Steele, and a
daughter, Gloria. Frederick recalls
how in later years he missed his first
chance to meet Babe Ruth at the
Lodge. It was a rainy day, and his
mother too him to the movies
instead, thinking Ruth would not
come to play golf. Ruth came, to
Frederick’s dismay. Frederick
eventually met Ruth and other
celebrities. (8, pages 43 and 49-50)
1923
1923
1923
1923
The first Graduation of a High School
Class of the Briarcliff school was held
at the old school building next to Law
Public
Park, with four graduates (four boys
Schools,
and girls) receiving their diplomas.
Grade and
(1, page 68) (2, page 52) (17, page
High School 24)
Public
Schools,
By this year, the number of pupils at
Grade and
the Briarcliff school numbered 273.
High School (1, page 68) (2, page 52)
By this year, there were about forty
girls in the troop of the Briarcliff Girl
Scout Council, and the troop
committee consisted of Mrs. Arthur
Briarcliff Girl Wilkins, Mrs. Arthur Wilde, Mrs. Fred
Scout
Stafford, Mrs. Harry Finne, and Mrs.
Council
Alfred Jones. (2, page 84)
During this year, the house
sometimes known as the Buckhout
House and known as one of the
oldest houses still standing in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, is bought
from William Reynolds by The
Baroness De Luze on twenty acres
just west of Pleasantville Road. The
Baron De Luze was a brewer of malt
beverages. The baroness, born Ruth
Farnum, named the house Luthany
in honor of the Baron De Luze and
lived there with her family for many
years(?). She was a member and
generous patron of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church. "She loved
the house and had the money and
good taste to make it a beautiful
home." Her gardener, Philip
Downton, landscaped the
surrounding acres with ornamental
shrubs and a bed of lavender at the
center of the driveway turnaround.
An apartment in the garage on the
Luthany estate property housed a
couple who did the laundry and
tended to the garden. This garage,
Buckhout
later(?) extensively remodeled, later
House
on(?) became a separate residence.
(Luthany)
(1, pages 123-124)
1923
1923
1923
Chancey Depew Steele takes out a
twenty-year lease on Briarcliff Lodge
and takes over the management of
this hotel from the Law family "with
the determination of adding several
important attractions and
refinements…without omitting one
single little thing that has made the
Lodge so delightful in the past." It
was to be "an all-year resort hotel de
luxe" with facilities for all winter
sports, "one of the notable dance
ocastras of the metropolis," and, golf
professional (instructor), Gene
Sarazen, who held the titles of (U.S.)
Open Champion and Professional
Champion and had "defeated Walter
Hagan in the unofficial match for the
World's Championship." To "the
sporty nine holes" already at the
Lodge was added in 1923 a new
championship course for a total of 18
holes on 6,500 yards "obtainable
only at a few golfing Edens," which
was designed by Deveraux Emmett,
architect of many leading courses in
Briarcliff
the United States. (1, page 40) (8,
Lodge
page 41)
As one of the many refinements
added to the Lodge during this year,
Chauncey Depew Steele installed
Maurice LaCroix as head chef.
LaCroix had entered the hotel
business at the age of fourteen as
assistant chef at the Hotel Bel Dor in
Reims. He emigrated to the United
States when he was seventeen and
worked at the Astor, Belmont,
Knickerboxer and Biltmore hotels in
New York City and at the Sleepy
Hollow Country Club in Scarborough.
Briarcliff
At the Lodge LaCroix composed all
Lodge
the menus. (1, pages 40-41)
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
police Department purchases its first
Briarcliff
automobile, a Ford runabout. This
Manor Police car cost under $500.00 then. (1,
Department page 62) (17, page 24)
1923
During this year, the original 1908
hook and ladder apparatus of The
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor fire Department is
Manor Fire motorized for the fire time. (15,
Department page 82)
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
Vanderlip
begins developing his land in Palos
Family
Verdes, California. (3, page 386)
During this year, after Chauncey
Depew Steele’s twenty-year lease on
the Briarcliff Lodge was enacted, the
Lodge becomes a favorite of the rich
and famous during these boom
times. Dave Taddeo caddies here for
Gene Sarazen, the golf pro at the
Lodge before he left to compete in
the tournaments that made him
famous. Mr. Taddeo says that the
golf course at the Lodge ran from the
first tee of the original nine-hole
course, players drove down the hill
to Dalmeny Road, and the second
hole, Taddeo recalls, was a 600-yard
par-5 to where Saint Theresa’s
School is today. To expand the
course, nine more holes were built to
the east (Route 9A did not then
exist), where Schrade Road is today,
and golfers simply strolled across
Briarcliff
Pleasantville Road. (17, pages 24Lodge
25)
Roads and
Transportati During this year, Route 9A did not
on
exist yet. (17, page 25)
During this year, Vincent
Richards—Davis Cup member, future
Olympic champion, and Yonkers,
New York, native—played at the
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Lodge tennis courts. (8,
Lodge
page 56)
1923
During this year, Gene Sarazen, golfpro who signed up with Chauncey
Depew Steele to a two-year contract,
with the Briarcliff Lodge, played in
the British Open. (8, page 58)
1923
1923
1923
1923
Briarcliff
Lodge
1923(?)
1923 June 1st
The everyday, a la carte menu is
designed by the head chef of the
Briarcliff Lodge, Maurice LaCroix. It
was somewhat plainer but very
complete, including twelve hors
d'oeuvres as well as oysters and
clams (at 50 cents a serving), seven
kinds of soup (45 cents), eight
salads, five kinds of ice cream and
baked Alaska ($1.25). The most
expensive item listed under Roasts
and Grill was Roast Long Island
Duckling (half) $2.50; (for two)
Briarcliff
$4.00. Lobster Newburg was $1.50.
Lodge
(1, page 41)
On this date’s issue of the
“Community Club Bulletin,”
published by The Briarcliff
Community Center, Inc. (the “Club”),
this publication states: “Briarcliff vs.
Eastview—Saturday at 3:30 Sharp.
Movies—Wednesday at 8:00 P. M.
“The Three Musketeers,” FREE.
Community Club Bulletin “To Help
Make Briarcliff a Better Place to Live
In” FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1923 The first
of what will probably be a series of
movie shows will be given at the
Community Club next Wednesday
evening at 8 o’clock. The feature
picture is Douglas Fairbanks in “The
Three Musketeers” and preceded by
an Inkwell Cartoon. EVERYBODY
WELCOME. Think of it folks! NO
ADMISSION or COLLECTION of any
kind. Come early and enjoy the
pictures. The Community Club
wishes to acknowledge recent
contributions of $464 from Henry H.
Law and $250 from Fred P. Stafford.
Plans for a mammoth fair to raise
funds for the Club are just getting
under way and will assume definite
proportions at a later date. Are YOU
Briarcliff
a BOOSTER? Better be in Briarcliff.
Community The committee for Near East Relief
Center, Inc. reports collections of 5 barrels and a
1923 June 1st
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
According to this date’s issue of the
Community Club Bulletin, this
publication stated: “Briarcliff Manor
Post Office List of advertised letters
at briarcliff Manor, N.Y. Post Office,
week ending May 29th, 1923: Gavit,
Miss Helen Palmer; EYbann, Paul A.;
Davis, Miss N.; Donodo, Alfred;
Chester, Mrs. (Postal); Camerio,
Manuel; Canorn, H. A.; Adams, Miss;
Wilson, Stephen; Naliant, Wm. H.;
Sweeney, Miss Alice; Shonkof, Miss
Dorothy; Sherman, Mrs. George;
Lakorgist, Miss Isola; Makin, D. H.;
Hoffmann, Miss Tenny (Postal) (Due
one cent each.) When calling for the
above letters, please say they were
advertised. C. H. WHITSON,
Postmaster.” (15, page 65)
1923 June 1st
1923 June 1st
post-1923
According to this date’s Community
Club Bulletin, it stated: “Library
Lines Our library—your
library—offers a feature which, so far
as the committee is able to discover,
is absolutely unique among the
public libraries of this vicinity. Such
as distinction has been made
possible through the generosity of
some of our readers with extensive
private libraries which they have
shared with us on what we call the
Loan Shelf. Here may be found
choice volumes which their owners
would not actually part with, but are
glad to loan the library for a period
of six months. Not only is the
reading public grateful for such
generosity, but more especially does
the library committee, whose funds
for the purchase of books is
decidedly limited, appreciate these
loans, and aim to take the best
possible care of such volumes. Upto-date fiction and non-fiction
publications—the latter may be too
expensive for a small library to buy
and the former too popular for our
one library copy to meet the
Briarcliff
needs—are especially acceptable. If
Manor Free any Bulletin readers owns any such
Library
books which he would gladly share in
According to this date’s issue of the
Community Club Bulletin, this
publication states: “Drum Corps The
Briarcliff Bugle, Fife and Drum Corps
has recently appointed the following
officers: Bugle Section—1st class
sergeant, E. Garvey; 2nd class
Better to be a Booster in Briarcliff
Village Band than a Burden.” (15, page 65)
Sometime after Baroness R. DeLuze
bought the Buckhout house and
name it “Luthany,” she added
several additions to the house, which
included a porch and a kitchen, and
Buckhout
ornamental wrought iron at the front
House
steps. (1, pages 123-124) (15, page
(Luthany)
23)
1923-1926
Briarcliff
Lodge
1923-1933
Briarcliff
Lodge
1923-1933
Briarcliff
Lodge
1923-1933
Briarcliff
Lodge
1923-1933
Briarcliff
Lodge
During this period, the golf
professional (instructor) at the
Briarcliff Lodge, Gene Sarazen, was a
U.S. and British golf Champion,
being golf pro during this period as
well. (15, page 32)
During this period, when Chauncey
Depew Steele held his lease on the
Briarcliff Lodge, and the Lodge grew
in fame and service during his era of
management. Henry Law, president
and mayor of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor from 1918 until his death in
1936, continued to oversee the
Briarcliff Lodge Association, which
owned the Lodge and leased it to
Steele. (8, pages 41 and 43)
By the time of Chauncey Depew
Steele’s tenure as manager of the
Briarcliff Lodge, there was an Italian
marble staircase in the 1909 tower
extension. (8, pages 41 and 52)
During this period of the tenure of
Chauncey Depew Steele, manager of
the Briarcliff Lodge, there were two
moose heads outside the Greta Hall
and in the bookshop. These moose
heads would later become icons of
the Briarcliff Lodge over the years.
(8, pages 41 and 55)
By this time, during the tenure of
Chauncey Depew Steele, manager of
the Briarcliff Lodge, the view from
the tower roof looking southward
toward New York City showed
Harmony Hall and the laundry
building of the Briarcliff Lodge, and
the Pierson greenhouses to the left
of them. The Hudson River winded
its way to New York City in the
center of this view. A Hotel brochure
stated, “A short trip brings one from
the restlessness, noise and dirt of a
city that exhausts, to the repose,
comfort and ease of a civilization
that builds up and inspires.” (8,
pages 41 and 57)
1923-1939
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1923-1940s
Baekeland
Family
1923-1942
Rode Family
1923-1952
Village
Government
1923-1990
Briarcliff
Manor Police
Department
ca. 1924
Briarcliff Art
Collections
During this period, Mrs. Emerson
Kessler (formerly Miss Helen Stowell)
served on the Library Board. (14,
page 15)
During this period, Phillips Wyman,
the husband of Nina Baekeland Roll,
(both of whom lived in the KemeysAiles house in Scarborough with their
children of former marriages),
worked as a publisher for the McCall
Corporation. (1, page 102)
During this period, John Rode, of
River Road, and a village trustee and
the commissioner of the Water and
Sewage departments, was a
comparative newcomer in the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, having resided in
the Village since 1923. (1, page 143)
Miss Idamae Oakley serves as the
Assistant to Clerk and Village
Treasurer for the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government during this
period (29 years). (2, pages 24 and
74)
During this period of 67 years,
various members of the Johnson
family served The Briarcliff Manor
Police Department. (17, page 50)
Around this year, Roger Wallach,
who lived in a Tudor house on Elm
Road, owned one of the
distinguished art collections hung in
village residences in Briarcliff Manor.
His collection included works by Sir
Joshua Reynolds and works by Old
Dutch and English masters and
modern French painters. (1, pages
121 and 213)
1924
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1924
Briarcliff
Lodge
1924
Wallach
Family
The Village Trustees of Briarcliff
Manor vote $500.00 for the Briarcliff
Free Library. Additional early
support for the Briarcliff Manor Free
Library was raised from "Club" (The
Briarcliff Community Centre, Inc.)
resources, subscriptions, fund-raising
concerts and lectures. Mrs. May
Lamberton Becker, Ruth Draper, the
popular diseuse, Barret Clark and
many others appeared on programs.
Ruth Draper often visited her sister,
Mrs. E. C. Carter, who lived on
Horsechestnut Road. (1, page 76)
(2, page 68)
After its conversion from a pond, the
large outdoor swimming "Roman
Pool" of the Briarcliff Lodge is used
for the 1924 Olympic trials, in which
both Gertrude Ederle, the most
famous swimmer of her time and the
first woman to swim the English
Channel, and Johnny Weismuller,
best known as Tarzan in the first
films of that name, tried out for the
U.S. Olympics in 1924 at this pool.
(1, pages 2 and 42) (17, page 25)
During this year, Roger Nestor
Wallach, distinguished chemist and
business executive, bought the
Tudor-style house just below the
Don Sheltons' house on Elm Road
and lived there with his wife and two
daughters (until his death in 1941).
Mr. Wallach was a brilliant and
cultivated man, an accomplished
celist, a great reader and a poet. His
art collection included works by Sir
John Reynolds and various old Dutch
masters and modern French
painters. As an anonymous
benfactor, he sent many boys
through college and supported three
french war orphans to manhood.
After that act of generosity, he was
made a chevalier of the Legion of
Honor by the french government. (1,
page 121)
1924
1924
January
1924 10th
January
1924 18th
January
1924 19th
During this year, Mr. Walter William
Briarcliff
Law donated the organ in use as of
Congregatio ca. 1977, in memory of his wife,
n-al Church Georgianna. (15, page 72)
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
Vanderlip
testifies during the Teapot Dome
Family
scandals. (3, page 386)
On this date, “A TRAINLOAD OF
SNOW ARRIVES FOR SKIERS,” as
snow from the Adirondack Mountains
arrives at Scarborough for a ski
exhibition by the U.S. Olympic team
prior to their trip to Chamonix. It
was four degrees below freezing, but
snow had not fallen in Briarcliff. The
New York Times called it the first
cargo of snow in history. Chauncey
Depew Steele oversaw the shipment,
and Helene W. Beer helped shovel
some of the snow onto a truck to
Briarcliff
take it to the Briarcliff Lodge. (8,
Lodge
page 57)
Mr. Walter William Law, the future
founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, dies at the age of 86. He lies
buried with his wife in Woodlawn
Cemetery. His tombstone reads:
"He rests from his labors, and his
Law Family works do follow him." (2, page 74)
According to the obituary of Walter
William Law published on this date,
“Briarcliff Manor, in fact, was
practically built by Mr. Law, and the
community was incorporated under
the General Village Law several
years ago. It has grown and
prospered and is now one of the
finest and best-governed
municipalities in the country.” (15,
Law Family page 7)
December
1924 31st
Briarcliff
Lodge
December
1924 31st
Briarcliff
Lodge
1924-1926
Briarcliff
Lodge
1924-1928
Johnson
Family
ca. 1925
Briarcliff
Lodge
On this date, the dinner menu which
was designed by head chef of the
Briarcliff Lodge, Maurice LaCroix, for
the "Bonne Annee Carnival," was
"Grapefruit Pamplemousse,
Consomme Viveur, Surprise
Ostendaise [the fish], Dindonneau
Farci Roti a la Vatel [the turkey],
Carrots Glacees Vichy, Pommes
Douces Louisianne, Petits Pois Au
Beurre, Salade Briarcliff, Florida
Iceberg, Friandises, Bonbons, Demi
Tasse, White Rock and Appollinaris."
(1, page 41)
Entertainment at the 1924 New Year
carnival dinner consisted of eight
acts, including: "MISS BONNIE
MURRAY with Mr. John Dolan, Solo
and Ball-Room Dances; DELMAR, An
Oriental Phatasy from the Land of
King Tut-tut; MUSETTE, from the
European Concert Stage, A Gypsy
Violinist; TRIXIE HICKS, A Flurry of
Dimpled Knees, Snappy Bits of
SInging and Dancing." Dane music
at the New Year's Eve celebration
was provided by four orchastras-the
Clifford Dance Orcastra in the Mirror
Room, Robert Gunther's Briarcliff
Lodge Orchastra in the Ball Room,
Robert Gunther's Melody Men in the
Card Room and Robert Gunther's
Rolling Stones in the Stone Room.
(1, pages 41-42)
During this period, a giant police dog
named Thor, owned by Olney B.
Mairs, retrieved wayward golf balls
hit from the Briarcliff Lodge Golf
Course. (8, page 114)
During this period, Walter Lathrop
Johnson serves as the vice-president
of the New York Stock Exchange. (1,
page 121)
Around this year, Chauncey Depew
Steele participated in a costume ball
at the Briarcliff Lodge with his wife,
Mathilde Beer Steele. (8, page 50)
1925
Scarborough
School
1925
Camp Edith
Macy: Girl
Scout
Training
School
1925
"Altheim"
(Thomas
Van Husen
(Van
Houden,
Van Houten)
"Becker"
Homestead)
An absolute Charter was granted to
The Scarborough School by the
Board of Regents of New York State,
and the school has opened as a nonprofit membership corporation. (2,
page 58)
As a memorial to his wife, Edith, V.
Everit Macy, son of a Standard Oil
official and one of Briarcliff's
wealthiest landowners, establishes
the Edith Macy Training School (its
official name), operated by the Girl
Scouts of the U.S.A., (its official
title), when he gave 265 acres of
woodland and meadows, hills and
valleys to the New York City Girl
Scouts; a variety of terrain which
provides an abundant out-of-door
course in natural history, just over
the Village line on the Old
Chappaqua Road (strictly speaking,
this part of the National Girl Scout
organization is not in Briarcliff
Manor, but is over the Village line on
the Old Chappaqua Road, in the
Town of Mount Pleasant), starting
with approximately 25 adult
students. Mr. V. Everit Macy's
concerns for the betterment of
Westchester County stands out by
his many years as Commissioner of
County Welfare. Grasslands Hospital
is largely the result of his activity
and methods. But, beyond his
achievement in good citizenship, he
would be permanently remembered
by his generous interest in Girl Scout
training, as this school is sufficient
In the Alvah P. French History of
Westchester of 1925, the Thomas
Van Husen (Van Houden, Van
Houten) homestead, also owned by
Emil C. Becker, was reported as
being "kept in fine condition…the
dignity of its Colonial architecture
unmarred, the only addition having
been a veranda...entirely in keeping
with the general plan." (1, page 25)
1925
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1925
Briarcliff
Lodge
During this year, Don Hotaling, Harry
Addis, Ruth Hotaling and Harriet
Finne were members of the church
choir of All Saints Episcopal Church.
(1, page 180)
During this year, there was a Louis
XV costume ball held at the Briarcliff
Lodge, where Katherine Moran
Douglas, Dorothea Watson, Gertrude
Watson law (Henry Law’s second
wife), Gregory Maue, Leila Peacock
Maue, and Henry Law in attendance.
(1, page 41) (8, page 50)
Briarcliff
Lodge
Evening swimming and dancing were
popular with the younger crowd at
the Briarcliff Lodge, as on this date,
Chauncey Depew Steele, U.S.
senators James Wadsworth and
Royal Copeland, and Dean Rusby
and Professor Kerr from Columbia
University placed tobernite, a
radioactive ore, in the outdoor pool
of the Briarcliff Lodge to create a spa
that would help relieve “hardening of
the arteries, rheumatism and
digestive disorders” and other “old
age” ailments. (8, page 60)
1925 May 24th
1925 May 28th
1925 September
During this year, according to the
article: "The Residence of Dr. Rufus
Johston." in The Pleasantville
Journal , from May 25th, 1925, from
the Collection of John Crandall, a
stone house is built for Dr. Rufus P.
Johnston that was designed by Oscar
Vatet, architect, of Pleasantville and
New York City, on the site of the
Dr. Rufus P. former Miss Knox School. This house
Johnston
is later the home of Dr. Arthur
House
O'Connor. (1, pages 71, 73 and 230)
Under the presidency of Mrs. William
Kossow, the Parent-Teacher
Briarcliff
Association of Briarcliff received its
Parentcharter as one of the first recognized
Teacher
Parent-Teacher Associations in the
Association State (New York). (2, page 86)
November
1925 20th
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
December
1925 26th
Briarcliff
Lodge
1925-1952
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
ca. 1926
Briarcliff
Lodge
In the issue for this date of the
"Citizen's Forum," published weekly
in the Village of Briarcliff Manor,
announced a series of lectures held
in Ossining under County League
sponsorship, and suggests that
tickets may be secured from Mrs. E.
C. Carter and Mrs. Sherman Dean.
(2, page 85)
On this date, there was an article
published in the New York Times,
which shows that the history of the
Briarcliff Lodge was not always
happy and celebratory. The article
says that in the early morning hours
of December 25ht, 1925, Alfred
Fraser, a 28-year-old bellboy,
committed suicide while jazz
orchestras played for Christmas
revelers. Despondent over a broken
love affair, Fraser jumped from a
porch roof outside the ballroom, and
his body was later found in a
flowerbed. (8, page 105)
Mrs. Marion Waterbury serves as a
member of the Post Offiice Staff of
the Post Office of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor during this period
(27 years). (2, pages 65 and 74)
Around this time, after going “Off For
A May-Time Outing,” touring the hills
of Westchester in the hotel’s new
$15,000.00 motor coach, “society
girls” from the Marymount School for
Girls in Tarrytown held their
graduation dinner at the Briarcliff
Lodge. (8, page 49)
1926
1926
1926
1926
The Holy Name Society of St.
Teresa's Church is established with
Mr. Edward White as its first
president. The mission of this
organization, according to the book
Our Village: Briarcliff Manor: 1902
To 1952 , "is for the spiritual welfare
of the members, and the active
support of the Pastor and the Parish
in all of its activities." Father Arthur
F. Nugent, who became Assistant
Pastor to Father Kelly when their was
growth of the Saint Theresa of the
Infant Jesus's Parish, also helped to
Holy Name found this Society. In addition, the
Society of
Reverend Arthur Nugent also
Saint
organized a choir for The Church of
Theresa's
Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus as
Church
well. (2, pages 42 and 45)
Mrs. Hartman is succeeded by Miss
Margaret Bell Merrill, who had
degrees B.A., Wellesley, and M.A.,
Mrs. Mary E. Oxford and Columbia, as the new
Dow's
headmistress of the Mrs. Mary E.
School
Dow's School. (2, page 53)
In this year, Miss Doris Laura Flick,
B.A. and M.A., Vassar, comes to the
Mrs. Mary E. Dow's School to serve
as its Dean. Miss Doris Flick later
become president of the Briarcliff
Junior College, of whom there were
persistent rumors about her private
life, and these rumors however
unfounded, about her private life
would later prove to be disasterous
for the school, and with the onset of
the Great Depression, would later
Mrs. Mary E. help to bring down the school's
Dow's
enrollment to an all-time low by
School
1942. (1, page 71) (2, page 53)
Briarcliff
The newly-organized Briarcliff Branch
Branch of
of the American Red Cross, officially
the
become an independent branch of
American
the American Red Cross. (1, page
Red Cross
126) (2, page 82)
1926
1926
1926
1926
1926
The Edith Macy Training School,
operated by the Girl Scouts of the
U.S.A., hosts the International G. S.
Conference, where courses in G. S.
Camp Edith administration, outdoor skills, arts
Macy: Girl
and crafts with related field work,
Scout
and world friendship were shown to
Training
visitors of the civilized world. (2,
School
page 89)
Briarcliff
Branch of
the
The Briarcliff Branch of the American
American
Red Cross collects a record $500.00.
Red Cross
(2, page 83)
During this year, the U.S. Olympic
winter trials took place at the Lodge.
One of the main events was a ski
jump that was constructed from a
platform in front of the Lodge down
to Dalmeny Road, and the jump and
landing was covered and cushioned
with snow shipped from Canada by
rail in coal cars, six freight cars full.
Some of the snow was discovered to
have cinders in it, so three more cars
of fresh snow were brought in. After
being transported by rail, this snow
was then transported to the Lodge
by truck. Also in the snow, it is
happily remembered by Bill
Sharman, were packed some bottles
of Canadian whisky that was secretly
unloaded later, a rare treat in those
Briarcliff
Prohibition years. (1, page 42) (15,
Lodge
page 29) (17, page 25)
At this time, the number of
Briarcliff
catalogued books in the Briarcliff
Manor Free Manor Free Library's possession
Library
numbers 3,000. (1, page 75)
During this year, The Church of Our
Lady of the Wayside along the Saw
Church of
Mill River Road in the hamlet of
Our Lady of Millwood is built on land donated by
the Wayside Henry H. Law. (1, page 79) (15,
(Millwood)
page 73)
1926
1926
1926
During this year, the Choral Club
was first organized in Briarcliff Manor
to “foster and develop the singing
talent here” with Alois Havrilla as
Choral Club director. (14, page 9)
During this year, “The Briarcliff
Forum” was first published, being the
most pretentious paper published in
Briarcliff
the Village of Briarcliff Manor up to
Publications that date. (14, page 17)
During this year, Mrs. Eunice
Armstrong (the mother of Don
Armstrong), who was the second
practicing lay Freudian analyst in
America, and one of her plays,
Technique , went on from the
Beechwood Playerhouse to
Broadway, and is listed in Burns
Mantle's Best Plays of 1930-1931 ,
with her husband, the physician
Donald Armstrong, built one of the
first houses on the river side of River
Road in the 1920s and moved there
from Sparta. According to Don
Armstrong’s account of growing up in
the Scarborough area, he states that
his family moved from Sparta to
Scarborough when: “In 1926, Dad
built the first house on River Road
(now the home of G. C. Whiteley). I
Armstrong
can remember the dirt road ending
Family
right at our house. Real country!”
House
(1, page 96) (15, pages 91-93)
1926
Briarcliff
Rose
1926
Briarcliff
Lodge
The Briarcliff Rose is first grown in
Pierson's greenhouse, on Pine Road,
near Dalmeny Road, in Briarcliff
Manor. The rose was a sport from
the Columbia rose. This greenhouse
was part of Briarcliff Greenhouses,
part of the enterprises of Mr. Walter
W. Law. They housed 100,000
plants of the American Beauty Rose.
The daily output was ca. 8,000 roses
which were sent to New York City,
and some sent to Dysart House,
Kirkcaldy, Scotland, were received
"fresh and fragrant," in December,
eighteen days after they were cut.
Paul Pierson's foreman, George
Romaine, "with God's help and
blessing," had propogated the pink
Briarcliff Rose in the Pierson
greenhouses located on the Briarcliff
Farms. Sports taken from the
Columbia rose were on the verge of
being thrown out when Pierson
noticed several were producing
flowers that were a decided
improvement over the parent plant,
at that time considered the leading
pink rose. The buds were longer and
more pointed, the color was brighter,
and every bud was perfect. Pierson
had the rose registered with the
American Rose Society. Romaine
Many business, political, and
religious organizations rented the
Lodge for conferences, as during this
year, the Lodge hosted the National
Conference on international
Problems and Relations, at which a
representative of the Philippines
warned of a threat to future
independence from Japan. (8, page
49)
Briarcliff
Manor Free
1926 March 19th Library
pre-May
1926 12th
1926 May 12th
post-May
1926 12th
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
On this date, The Briarcliff Manor
Free Library held a book party for
donations of books from villagers
with the result that 2,100 books
were contributed of which some 600
were retained after duplicates had
been sold. Rev. John E. Steen (a
minister of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church) did much to
advance this party. On this occasion
valuable autographs and rare books
were displayed from the collection of
Barrett Clark. (2, page 41) (14, page
15)
Long before this date, there had
been a group of twenty-five
members of The League of Women
Voters in Briarcliff who together
contributed $100.00 a year to the
County League and subscribed to the
League bulletin. This early
development was probably
influenced by the presence in the
Village of two founders of the
League, Narcissa Vanderlip in
Scarborough and Carrie Chapman
Catt, who lived on North State Road
in the 1920s. Neither Mrs. Vanderlip
nor Mrs. Catt served on the local
League board, but Margaret (Mrs.
Allan) Coggshall, of Pleasantville,
also a pioneer in women's suffrage
and League work, was an active
member of the Briarcliff League. (1,
page 161) (2, page 85)
On this date, the Briarcliff Unit of the
County League met at the home of
Mrs. W. J. Watson to consider
forming a local League. (2, page 85)
During this time, The League of
Women Voters of Briarcliff Manor,
one of the first local leagues in the
region, was organized. (1, page 161)
(2, page 85)
1926 June 8th
1926 June 12th
1926 July 1st
1926 July 4th
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
The Parish of The Church of Saint
Theresa of the Infant Jesus is
established by Cardinal Farley,
Archbishop of New York, when he
authorized this new parish to be
established in Briarcliff Manor. Its
first mass was held in the garage of
the Briarcliff Lodge. (1, page 79) (2,
page 41) (17, page 25)
The task of leadership of the Parish
of The Church of Saint Theresa of
the Infant Jesus was assinged to
Reverend James F. Kelly, who was
installed as its leader on this same
date, by the Very Reverend Thomas
Carroll, assisted by Church Officials.
(2, page 41)
On this date, the local Roman
Catholic parish of Briarcliff Manor
was officially designated as “St.
Theresa of the Child Jesus.” (14,
page 19)
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
On this date, The Church of Saint
Theresa of the Infant Jesus holds its
first mass in the garage of the
Briarcliff Lodge on the festive day
that marked the 150th anniversary
of the United States. (At this time,
the Parish only numbered 36
Catholic families, including
Millwood). At the same time,
Sunday School was first opened at
this Parish by a group of Maryknoll
sisters, and the book, Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor: 1902 To 1952
states that "they, through the history
of the Parish, have ever zealously
performed their tasks." (1, page 79)
(2, pages 41-42) (15, page 73)
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
1926 July 11th
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
1926 July 11th
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
1926 July 25th
Briarcliff
Lodge
The Millwood Mission of The Church
of Our Lady of the Wayside in
Millwood, built in 1926 on land
donated by Henry H. Law, once the
principle church of the Parish of The
Church of Saint Theresa of the Infant
Jesus, is transferred from the
Chappaqua parish to Briarcliff on this
date to become the mission church
of Saint Theresa's parish, with its
first resident pastor appointed for it:
Father James F. Kelly, assiant pastor
of Saint Raymond's in the Bronx,
New York City. Father Kelly is
remembered by a secretary in St.
Theresa's rectory as a big, ruddyfaced man, to children, a towering
giant, "right over from ireland," yet
he was so kindly that no one was
afraid of him. Standing at the
church door greeting parishioners
before the services he would reach
into the folds of his cassock and
produce a hard candy for each of the
small children. He never had his
services interrupted by a crying
child. The children were all busy
with their sweet mouthfuls, known
as "Father Kelly's Hush Candy."
Father Kelly also continued his
efforts to beautify The Church of
Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus. (1,
By this date, there were only 36
Catholic families that were members
of The Church of Saint Theresa of
the Infant Jesus, which included
those families that were taken in
from Millwood. (2, pages 41-42)
The golf course at the Briarcliff
Lodge has been the site of some
unfortunate and unusual
circumstances. For example, on this
date, Thomas Larkin, mayor of the
city of Yonkers, died of a stroke
while standing at the 13th tee,
during the annual outing of the
Yonkers City Club. (8, page 59)
1926 July 27th
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
1926 July 30th
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
September
1926 30th
early
1926 October
Briarcliff
Lodge
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
The Church of Saint Theresa of the
Infant Jesus is holds its first Mass in
the Church's new Parish located in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor by
Father Kelly. (2, page 41)
The "Citizen's Forum" of this date
tells of a picnic of the County League
at Mohansic Park. Attending from
Briarcliff were Mesdames Stoney,
Farnam, Thomas, Van Demark,
Wallach, Duncombe, Robinson, and
Dean. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt
"urged that women look higher than
getting out the vote, and further
afield than being partisan, saying
that big minded women could make
a little job into one and leave an
immortal record." (2, page 85)
During the two years before this
date, a giant police dog named Thor,
owned by Olney B. Mairs, had
retrieved wayward golf balls hit from
the Briarcliff Lodge Golf Course.
However, on September 230th,
1926, Thor chased an errant ball and
was hit by a car coming up the
Lodge Drive below the First tee.
When he was picked up, Thor
dropped the ball at the caddy
master’s feet and gave one last wag
of his tail as the huddled golfers
grieved, as reported in an article in
the New York Times. (8, page 114)
By this time, The League of Women
Voters of Briarcliff Manor was well
established with 35 members. (2,
page 85)
October
1926 21st
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
November
1926 28th
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
A "pre-election meeting" of The
League of Women Voters of Briarcliff
Manor is held. The officers then
were: Chairman: Miss Margaret
Parsons; Secretary, Mrs. David
Duncombe; Treasurer, Mrs. N. K.
Thompson. From these early days,
the Briarcliff League drew members
from neighboring Pleasantville and
Ossining and later from Chappaqua
and Hawthorne. Members of the
Briarcliff League, wherever they
lived, could study and act on the
village level only in Briacliff. Many
active members lived in Ossining,
including Mrs. Louis Brennan
(president in 1961). (1, page 161)
(2, page 85)
Father Kelly, impressed by the
Briarcliff Lodge and the four fine
stone churches already in the
Village, was ambitious for Saint
Theresa's. By this time he had
managed to incorporate the Parish
and began to raise $25,000.00 to
purchase land and build a church.
He also obtained loans form the
Archdiocese and other sources and
chose suitable land for a Church for
The Church of St. Theresa of the
Infant Jesus. Despite strong
objections, he convinced his
superiors to make the investment.
That land was secured when this
Church took over the old Stillman
house of the old Stillman farm at the
prominent location of Pleasantville
Road, the old farmhouse of which
had been Walter Law's personal
office, and the adjoining property on
the corner of Central Drive and
Pleasantville Road. This location was
indeed prominent-directly adjacent
to the Briarcliff Realty Company and
at the Pleasantville Road entrance to
the Lodge. Part of this house was
torn down to make room for the
church, but the main section was
used as a temporary chapel for a
time, and later became the present
1926 December
post-1926
post-1926
By this time, the Village Band of
Briarcliff Manor had 42 instruments
worth $1,000.00 and some 53
Village Band uniforms. (14, page 9)
According to Don Armstrong’s
account of growing up in the
Scarborough area, he states: “Later
while at Scarborough School, my
brother Stewart and I used to run a
line of traps from Crandall Pond right
up to the top of Long Hill. Caught
fox, mink, skunk, raccoon, and
muskrat. We used to send the skins
to I. J. Fox in St. Louis and got about
$600 a winter. Of course, we
continued to swim in and sail on the
Hudson. A favorite sunbathing place
was on the rocks out in the Hudson
below our home. And we anchored
the sailboat at Scarborough Station
dock…Scarborough School was
entirely due to the Vanderlips. I
Scarborough remember it fondly. Progressive.”
School
(15, pages 91-92)
According to Don Armstrong’s
account of growing up in the
Scarborough area (which included
Sparta), he states: “We sued to see
road gangs of Sing Sing everywhere
and we provided them with
lemonade. One time while sailing off
Sing Sing we picked up a swimming
escapee and intended to deliver him
to the other side of the river. But a
prison boat caught up with us.
Another time, a fellow in for
manslaughter had promised to take
me to a Yankee game when he got
out. He showed up one day with a
baseball glove for a present. My
parents let me go! The Yanks lost.
At sixteen, I swam across the river
from Shattemuc to way around the
bend toward Haverstraw. And we
used to take kayaks and get on the
wave behind barges and ride as far
as Kingston. Then we would work
our way back, camping wherever we
Sparta
felt like landing.” (15, pages 91-92)
post-1926
1926-1927
1926-1928
1926-1929
According to Don Armstrong’s
account of growing up in the
Scarborough area, he states: “One of
the very good summer stock
theaters was at Scarborough School,
called Beechwood Players. Henry
Fonda, Franchot Tone, Sylvia Sydney
come to mind as having played
there. And of course Jack Gowen.
My mother, Eunice Armstrong, who
was the second practicing Freudian
analyst in the U. S., wrote plays for
them. One, “Technique ,” went on to
Broadway and is listed in Burns
Beechwood Wentle’s Best Plays of 1930-31 .”
Players
(15, pages 91-93)
Arthur Sutherland serves as the fifth
Headmaster of The Scarborough
Scarborough School during this period. (2, page
School
58)
During this period, Elizabeth Kelly
Briarcliff
served as the second director of The
Manor Free Briarcliff Manor Free Library. (1,
Library
page 234)
Miss Margaret B. Merrill serves as
Mrs. Mary E. the headmistress of The Mary E.
Dow's
Dow's School during this period (3
School
years). (2, page 53)
1926-1946
During the first years of the League
of Women Voters (organized in
1926), Mrs. Vanderlip worked for the
legislation of child labor, the
minimum wage, the eight-hour day,
maternity and infant care clinics,
health insurance, birth control,
citizen literacy tests and the
eligibility of women for jury duty. A
digest of legislation, "City-StateNation," was originated by her longtime associate Esther Lape. She
recruited Eleanor Roosevelt,
"unskilled but willing," to assist
Esther Lape. Mr. Vanderlip
supported his wife in all her
undetakings with large financial
contributions and in every other way
he could. Among the many good
works they undertook together was
the establishment of scholarships for
Vanderlip
students in Near-East colleges. (1,
Family
page 91)
During the four years before he died
in 1930, V. Everit Macy was
president of the Westchester Park
Macy Family Commission. (1, page 56)
Mrs. William H. Coleman serves as
the first Chairman of the newlyindependent Briarcliff Branch of the
American Red Cross, a post which
she held until her retirement from
active duty in 1943, when she was
given the well-deserved title of
Briarcliff
Honorary Chairman for life, having
Branch of
served as the Chairman of the
the
Briarcliff Branch of the American Red
American
Cross for 18 years. (1, page 126) (2,
Red Cross
page 82)
Church of
During this period, the Reverend
Saint
James F. Kelly serves as the first
Theresa of
pastor for The Church of Saint
the Infant
Theresa of the Infant Jesus. (1, page
Jesus
166)
1926-1952
Briarcliff
Raymond Wolf serves in the Briarcliff
Manor Police Manor Police Department during this
Department period (26 years). (2, page 74)
19261929(?)
1926(?)1930
1926-1943
1926-1952
1926-1952
1926-1963
1926-1976
Isaac H. Hotaling serves as a Trustee
for the Briarcliff Manor Village
Government during this period (26
Village
years, after he retired in ca. 1952).
Government (2, pages 24 and 74)
To the present date (ca. 1952), over
12,000 students have been trained
since the Edith Macy Training School,
operated by the Girl Scouts of the
U.S.A., offered its first courses in
1926. These students have come
from all parts of the United States
and 40 foreign countries. It is,
therefore, easily discernable (from
the point of view of the authors of
the book Our Village: Briarcliff
Camp Edith Manor, New York: 1902 To 1952 )
Macy: Girl
that "the purpose of this G. S.
Scout
Training School is to educate adults
Training
in the techniques of democratic
School
youth leadership." (2, page 89)
Arthur W. Johnson, Sr. serves in The
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor Police Department
Manor Police during this period (37 years). (2,
Department page 74) (17, page 50)
Church of
Saint
During this period, seven pastors
Theresa of
served the parish of The Church of
the Infant
Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus. (1,
Jesus
page 166)
1926-1976
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
the late
1920s
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
Roads and
Transportati
on
Roads and
Transportati
on
the late
1920s
Briarcliff
Lodge
the late
1920s
Zuydhoek
Family
before 1927
before the
late 1920s
Since the inception of the parish of
The Church of Saint Theresa of the
Infant Jesus in 1926, its members
have been totally involved in serving
their church, as according to the
Golden Anniversary Book of 1976,
three of the ushers of this church,
John DeAngelis, Edward Fitzgerald
(deceased) and Irving Manahan
(deceased) had performed their
duties at 6,240 masses! Other
parish members serve as lectors,
eucharistic ministers, CCD teachers,
in the Altar Society and on the Parish
Council. They collect food for the
Ossining Food Pantry and assemble
clothing and food for the needy
families in New York’s inner-city
parishes. On one Sunday each
month, some of the members visit
patients in the Veterans Hospital at
Montrose. (1, page 166)
Before 1927, The Briarcliff Manor
Post Office was still located in the
concrete building that stood where
the entrance ramp to 9A is today.
(15, page 20)
Before the late 1920s, Route 9A did
not even exist. (15, page 86)
By the late 1920s, Route 9A had
been built. (15, page 86)
During this period, under the
proprietorship of Chauncey Depew
Steele, Briarcliff Lodge doubled as
the Metropolitan Masons' Country
Club. (1, page 81)
According to Harry Addis, writing in
the "Cheering Section" part of the
November 1944 issue of the
"Communique," future First
Lieutenant Paul Barr Zuydhoek was a
member of the men's baseball and
basketball teams for the Briarcliff
High School during this time. (1,
pages 139-140)
the late
1920s
the late
1920s1930s
1927
1927
1927
During this period, the Village of
Briarcliff Manor’s leaders enacted the
Village’s first zoning ordinance,
legislation that would firmly establish
Briarcliff
Briarcliff as a primarily residential
Real Estate community. (17, page 70)
Graduates of the Briarcliff High
School of the late 1920s and 1930s
period affirm that they had a "very
special education at Briarcliff." They
studied French in the fifth and sixth
grades, and theater and music.
They were taught to behave with
dignity, and were forbidden to chew
gum or to run in the corridors.
Eileen O'Connor Weber told that the
girls' field hockey team, after
matches on the home field, poured
Public
"tea for the visiting teams, with little
Schools,
sandwiches, watercress and so on,
Grade and
which they made themselves." (1,
High School pages 68 and 230)
Briarcliff
The Briarcliff Country Club changes
Country
its name to The Briar Hills Golf Club.
Club
(2, page 91)
The swimming pool and the tennis
courts in the Park were begun with
money received from the proceeds of
Briarcliff
fire insurance upon the burning of
Park and
the old Community Centre (Club)
Pool
building. (2, pages 23-24)
During this year, Charles A. Johnson,
Jr., of the Briarcliff police force, in
pursuit of rum-runners at
Scarborough dock, was pushed off
the running board of a police car.
Johnson brought the rum-runners in
but dies later of injuries. He was the
brother of Arthur W. Johnson, cheif
of police from 1939 to 1963, and the
Briarcliff
uncle of Arthur W. Johnson, Jr., chief
Manor Police of police from 1984 to 1990. (1,
Department page 62)
1927
1927
1927
1927
1927
1927
During this year, three years after
Walter Law died in 1924, his
residence, "the Manor House," on
Scarborough Road just East of All
Saints Church, became the
clubhouse of the Metropolitan
Masons. Members of the club were
offered all the athletic and social
"Manor
opportunities (including trout fishing
House"
and ski-jumping), that were enjoyed
(Walter W. by guests of the Briarcliff Lodge. (1,
Law House) page 81)
During this year, Isaac Spiegelberg,
Spiegelberg the owner of the Miramont Court
Family
estate mansion, dies. (1, page 108)
During this year, the northern part of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor was
Town of
annexed and taken over from the
Mount
Town of Mount Pleasant. (14, page
Pleasant
9)
During this year, the 1906 original
store building at the corner of
Briarcliff
Pleasantville and North State Roads
Stores
burned to the ground. (15, page 76)
During this year, the old Briarcliff
Manor Post Office building, which
was in the same general area as the
Community Center (“Club”) building,
was demolished and the post office
was moved into the former
Briarcliff
Crossways Tearoom at the corner of
Manor Post South State and Pleasantville Roads.
Office
(15, pages 77-78)
During this year, there was a
Celebration held in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, in which the
following village officials were in
attendance: A. Keator, Chief of
Police; P. Manahan, Water Dept. and
Public Works; C. Schoonmaker,
Street Dept.; H. B. Valentine, Village
Engineer; J. Selfridge, Village
Trustee; C. Schuman, Village
Trustee; E. Caterson, Village
Trustee; H. H. Law, Mayor; A Ware,
Village Trustee; C. H. Whitson,
Postmaster; T. E. Bishop, Village
Village
Treasurer; F. C. Messinger, Fire
Events
Chief. (15, page 88)
1927
1927
1927
1927 January
Around this time, an advertisement
was pulbished in the "Metropolitan
Masons' Country Club," ca. 1927
issue, which stated that the club,
which was housed in Walter Law's
former "Manor House," as "second to
none for beauty and appointments.
It contains twenty-five rooms,
eighteen fireplaces, a library of
5,000 volumes, bowling alleys,
"Manor
billiard room, dining rooms, etc., and
House"
is furnished completely with rare
(Walter W. taste and elaborateness." (1, pages
Law House) 81 and 230)
During this year, the “peaceful
separation” between Briarcliff and
Scarborough ends, as Scarborough is
more formally incorporated into the
Village of Briarcliff Manor and the
village takes over most of the
responsibilities of maintaining this
Scarborough area. (17, page 17)
During this year, Fred Kossow, who
will forty years later become Mayor
of Briarcliff Manor, becomes one of
Briarcliff
the first Eagle Scouts of The Briarcliff
Boy Scouts Boy Scouts. (17, page 26)
According to The New York Times ,
Obituaries section, from this time,
after Louis E. Ettlinger had
"purchased Boscobel, the Henry
Ward Beecher estate in Peekskill [in
1902], he made this estate his
summer home and continued the
famous preacher's work of
transplanting and cultivating trees
Ettlinger
from foreign countries." (1, pages
Family
114 and 231)
1927 April 26th
Vanderlip
Family
1927 June
Vanderlip
Family
The New York Times reported that
Narcissa Vanderlip, the sister of
Charlotte Vanderlip, married Julian
Street, Jr., in the New Church, a
small Georgian edifice on 35th Street
in New York City, "in on of the
largest and most brilliant weddings
of the spring." At the Colony Club
reception for this wedding, there
were more than fifteen hundred
guests, including the Franklin and
Archibald Roosevelts, assorted
Vanderbilts and Goulds, Bernard
Baruch, Edna Ferber and James
Montgomery Flagg. For their new
home after their marriage, Edward
W. Harden presented to the
Vanderlips' eldest daughter,
Narcissa, and Julian Street, Jr. ("son
of the celebrated author," according
to "Cholly Knickerbocker,"
(pseudonym of Maury Paul), society
editor of the New York Journal
American , on April 26th, 1927) some
of the land he had bought on the
east side of Sleepy Hollow Road
across from Brandywine. The young
Streets preferred a more secluded
property that Vanderlip owned on
Long Hill Road West, and they sold
the land on the east side of Sleepy
Hollow Road to Curtis and Anna
During this time, Norton Conway,
who was six-feet six-inches tall and
on the Yale football team, married
Charlotte Vanderlip, a few weeks
after the wedding of her sister
Narcissa to Julian Street, Jr. Norton
was the son of Carle Cotter Conway,
who was made the head of the
company the Continental Can
Company, after the National City
Bank acquired a controlling interest
in this company. The Carle Conways
lived in a large house on the east
corner of Linden Circle. (1, page 98)
1927 July
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
1927 July 3rd
Vanderlip
Family
The Briarcliff Swimming Pool is
completed at a cost of $8,641.00
furnished by the fire insurance
adjustment of the burned
Community Centre building. It was
one of the first municipal swimming
pools in Westchester when it was
built. When this pool was added to
the park, there was originally only a
narrow wall separating this original
pool from the park's pond. Henry
Jamin, the Recreation Director in
Briarcliff from 1989 up to 2002, was
told that because the pool shared a
common wall with the pond, every
rainstorm brought water-fish, frogs,
and all-into the pool. (2, page 66)
(15, page 85) (17, page 25)
On this date, The Daily Mirror
reported that Norton Conway and his
wife, Charlotte Vanderlip, were
married in Scarborough, their
"nuptuals bordering on the
pageantry of Medieval days, in a
setting of transporting beauty on the
lawns at Beechwood." The
bridesmaids' gowns were of chiffon
in various shades of blue, and they
carried bouquets of blue
delphiniums. A brick house in the
South African Dutch style was built
for the young Conways just below
the Italian garden at Beechwood.
This handsome house was designed
with some unusual features: a loft in
the garage where the young couple
could hang their sails after cruising
on Long Island Sound and an
outdoor hearth for barbecues in the
big south chimney. Charlotte and
Norton Conway had two children, but
their marriage broke up, their house
was sold and, after World War II, the
small building (Beechtwig) in the
corner of the Beechwood wall on the
Post Road was remodeled for
Charlotte and the children. (1, pages
98, 100 and 231)
September
1927 4th
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
Briarcliff
Community
1927 October 1st Center, Inc.
December
24th,
12:00,
1927 midnight
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
1927-1928
Scarborough
School
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
1927-1941
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
1927-1928
Father Kelly's desire for a beautiful,
dignified stone building for the Parish
of The Church of St. Theresa of the
Infant Jesus was accomplished with
the permission of Cardinal Hayes,
and the cornerstone of this new
church building was laid on this same
date. The building of the church
continued during these last few
months of 1927, and Ftaher Kelly
was often seen lending a hand in its
construction. (1, page 79) (2, page
41)
During this year, the "Club" land of
the Briarcliff Community Center,
Inc., is sold to the Parkway; and the
Club was discontinued, to make way
for the Briarcliff-Peekskill Parkway
(Route 9-A). This building was the
"center of village social life, whose
members represented almost every
familiy." Its various activities were
absorbed by other local institutions.
(1, pages 2 and 75) (2, page 81)
(14, page 11)
The Christmas Mass performed on
Christmas Eve was said in the new
church building of the Parish of The
Church of St. Theresa of the Infant
Jesus for the first time, although
there was no windows or heat
installed in the church as of yet.
Most of the furnishings were donated
by parishioners and friends of the
new Parish. (1, page 79) (2, page
41)
Frank M. McMurry serves as the sixth
Headmaster of The Scarborough
School during this period. (2, page
58)
During this period, The Church of
Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus
was constructed on the site of the
former right wing of the old Stillman
farmhouse. (8, page 12)
Rev. Stanley U. North serves as the
fourth Minister of The Briarcliff
Congretional Church during this
period. (2, page 41)
1927-1952
1927-1952
ca. 1928(?)
Irving Manahan, son of Patrick
Manahan, is still serving (ca. 1952)
after 25 years as the Superintendent
of Public Works, which includes the
Department Department of Streets, a position
of Public
that he first held in 1927. (2, pages
Works
23 and 75)
The swimming pool and the tennis
courts in the Park were begun with
money received from the proceeds of
fire insurance upon the burning of
the old Community Centre (Club)
building, and this, together with two
Briarcliff
or three small bond issues, have
Park and
brought them up to what they are
Pool
today (ca. 1952). (2, pages 23-24)
Most likely around this year, deep
wells were driven near the High
School building (built in 1928), and
there was a reservoir on a hill that
was later made into the Briar Hills
Country Club, but pumping units, in
Briarcliff
different places, came later. (2, page
Water
52) (14, page 9)
1928
1928
1928
The present (ca. 1952) High School
building was added to the Briarcliff
school as a result of increasing
numbers of students from the area
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor who
desired a high school level of
education. This second building was
added behind the first on
Pleasantville Road and constructed in
the same Spanish renaissance style
(both building would eventually
become the Pace University Village
Center). The Briarcliff community at
this time applauded the efforts to
make it resemble the 1909
construction in architectural style.
This enlarged school accepted
students from Millwood, Hawthorne,
Valhalla, Croton and as far away as
Granite Springs. The Hawthorne
boys filled out the athletic teams;
the Croton students, some of whom
came from the progressive Hessian
Public
Hills School, brought to Briarcliff
Schools,
some qualities of their liberal,
Grade and
intellectual parents. (1, page 68) (2,
High School pages 51-52) (15, page 50)
The Briarcliff Community Center, Inc.
(Commonly known as the Briarcliff
Community Club, ca. 1952) ceases
to exist when the Westchester
Parkway Commission bought the
land for what is now the local part of
Route 9-A. The building was marked
for demolition to make way for the
Briarlciff-Peekskill Parkway (Route 9A). Shortly afterward this building
burned down. The building on
Woodside Avenue that later housed
Briarcliff
the Thalle Construction Company
Community became the new recreation center.
Center, Inc. (1, page 75) (2, page 81)
Until this year, there was no official
zoning in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, but covenants in the deeds of
the Briarcliff Realty Company served
Briarcliff
the same purposes for many years.
Real Estate (1, page 65) (15, page 76)
1928
1928
1928
1928
1928
1928
During this year, Hubert Rogers had
another house torn down and
replaced by a residence designed by
William Adams Delano of Delano &
Aldrich, architects of several
outstanding mansions, including the
John D. Rockefellers' Kykuit in
Pocantico Hills. William McGowan,
nurseryman at the Briarcliff Farms,
Hubert
supervised plantings, particularly of
Rogers
young holly trees, on the estate. (1,
Estate
page 116)
During this year, the Wallachs'
daughter, Carrie Garrison, who grew
up on Elm Road, remembers that
after the Community Club in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor burned
down during this year (1928), the
young people in the neighborhood
played on her family's tennis court,
under the supervision of the
Reverend Stanley North of the
Wallach
Briarcliff Congregational Church. (1,
Family
page 121)
During this year, Leo Greendlinger
sold the Woodledge estate mansion
to Briar Hills Estates, Incorporated of
Ossining, which had John
"Woodledge Stephenson as president of this real
" Estate
estate company. (1, page 124)
During this year, a rare challenge to
the caucus of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor was issued, by residents of a
new section of the village who were
denied the right to vote at the
caucus, and organized a write-in
Village
campaign as a result, electing Isaac
Government C. Hotaling as trustee. (1, page 192)
Briarcliff
During this year, William Sharman,
Architects: later a local architect and long-time
William
Briarcliff resident, is born. (1, page
Sharman
215)
According to Eileen Weber’s account
of the history of 1920s Briarcliff, she
stated “—and it was standing room
only to see the Briarcliff firemen play
Briarcliff
basketball against the Holy Name
Manor Fire team from Ossining in 1928.” (15,
Department page 90)
1928
1928
1928
1928(?)
1928 July
During this year, William Kossow
joins The Briarcliff Boy Scouts. By
Briarcliff
2002, he was Briarcliff’s oldest
Boy Scouts resident. (17, page 26)
During this year, Chauncey Depew
Steele officially purchased what had
been Walter law’s residence and
leased it to the Metropolitan Masons,
who operated the Briarcliff Lodge
Golf Course. In addition to the many
"Manor
amenities the house had by this
House"
time, it also had a boxing arena and
(Walter W. a pipe organ installed at a cost of
Law House) $25,000.00. (8, page 57)
Although overnight guests could play
at the Briarcliff Lodge golf course,
membership in one of the several
exclusive athletic clubs allowed
special privileges, as during this
year, Jerome Brandt, a Mason, and
Sol Fink and Herbert Solomon
accused the Metropolitan Masons
(who had their clubhouse in the
former Manor House of Walter W.
Law) of anti-Semitism for not
allowing them to join the country
"Manor
club. The club denied the charges
House"
but soon changed its name to the
(Walter W. Metropolitan Manor Country Club. (8,
Law House) pages 57-58)
During this year, $11,000.00 for The
Law Memorial Park swimming pool
and tennis courts was voted for,
following the fire that burned down
the Briarcliff Community Center, Inc.
Briarcliff
(Commonly known as the Briarcliff
Park and
Community Club) building in 1928.
the Pool
(2, page 81)
At this time, through the interest and
generosity of the Briarcliff Realty
Company, The Briarcliff Manor Free
Library was moved to the towerroom of the Briarcliff Realty
Company building (now the
Briarcliff
Operating Engineers Building). (2,
Manor Free page 69) (14, page 15) (17, page
Library
26)
1928 July 4th
Briarcliff
Lodge
September
1928 23rd
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
October
1928 27th
October
1928 28th
post-1928
sometime
after 1928
Many world records in swimming
were set at the Briarcliff Lodge, as
on this date, Johnny Weissmuller
swam the 100-meter freestyle in 57
3/5 seconds at the Lodge outdoor
pool with the U.S. Olympic team.
With a capacity of six million gallons,
the outdoor pool at the Lodge was
said to be the largest in the world.
(8, page 60)
The formal dedication of the new
Parish building for The Church of St.
Theresa of the Infant Jesus is held
by Cardinal Hayes, and was attended
by village residents of many faiths.
(1, page 79) (2, page 41) (15, page
73)
On this date, the Illuminating
Engineers Society held their annual
meeting at the Briarcliff Lodge. They
promoted their work to audience of
10,000 people who cam to watch
Gene Sarazen play golf under the
light of a 400-million-candlpower
lamp mounted on a motor truck and
numerous other lights and reflectors.
Briarcliff
Searchlights blazed across the night
Lodge
sky as well. (8, page 59)
On this date, the second night of the
annual meeting of the Illuminating
Engineers Society held at the
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Lodge, Gene Sarazen made
Lodge
a hole in one. (8, page 59)
Public
After 1928, all High School students
Schools,
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor
Grade and
attended the new High School
High School building. (14, page 13)
Around this time, the Woodledge
estate mansion was destroyed by fire
sometime after it was sold to the
president of Briar Hills Estates,
"Woodledge Incorporated of Ossining, John
" Estate
Stephenson, in 1928. (1, page 124)
1928-1930
1928-1930
1928-1931
1928-1936
1928-1937
1928-the
late 1940s
1928-1945
The Briarcliff Manor Free Library
remains in the tower-room of the
Realty building (later the Operating
Briarcliff
Engineers Building) for the next two
Manor Free years until 1930. (1, page 76) (2,
Library
page 69)
During this period, Gilbert Johnson
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
During this period, in 1928,
Spiegelberg's heirs sold the
Miramont Court estate after he dies
in 1927, to Mrs. Ethel Barksdale, a
sister of Pierre du Pont, from
Delaware. The Barksdales then
bought more land, built a studio
(some of the family were artists), a
greenhouse and kennels, remodeled
the interior of the house, threw out
Miramont
the cherubs and named the estate
Court
Brandywine. Mrs. Barksdale, with
(Spiegelher daughter and son-in-law, John
mirror, Berg- Dublois Wack, lived there until 1931.
mountain)
(1, page 108)
The congregation of The Church of
Church of
Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus
Saint
grew starting in 1928 until the
Theresa of
Briarcliff Lodge closed, some eight
the Infant
years later, in 1936, during the
Jesus
depressed 1930s. (1, page 79)
Congregatio During this period, Rabbi Moses
n Sons of
Goldman serves as the third Rabbi of
Israel of
the Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining
Ossining. (1, page 235)
During this period, grades 1 through
12 all fit comfortably into the
Public
combined grade and high school
Schools,
buildings on Pleasantville Road in the
Grade and
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (15, page
High School 50)
F. Dean McKlusky serves as the
seventh Headmaster of The
Scarborough Scarborough School during this
School
period. (2, page 58)
1928-1952
1928-1952
1928-1956
1928-1971
1928-the
1970s
1929
Mrs. Roscoe M. Hersey takes over as
full-librarian the year the Library
moved into the tower room of the
then Realty building on Pleasantville
Road, and continued for the next
quarter of a century (ca. 1952) (24
years as librarian of the Briarcliff
Manor Free Library). She also "for
the next quarter of a century
skillfully maintained the growing
collection of books and other
publications." (Mrs. Hersey was the
mother of the noted author of A Bell
Briarcliff
for Adano , John Hersey). (1, page
Manor Free 78) (2, pages 69 and 74) (15, page
Library
63)
Mrs. Edna Wolf works on the Post
Office Staff of the Post Office of the
Briarcliff
Village of Briarcliff Manor during this
Manor Post period (24 years). (2, pages 65 and
Office
74)
During this period, Grace B. Hersey
Briarcliff
served as the third director of The
Manor Free Briarcliff Manor Free Library. (1,
Library
page 234)
During this period, the 1928
extension to the 1909 Grade School
building was used as the high school
Public
for Briarcliff Manor Students until the
Schools,
new high school campus on
Grade and
Pleasantville Road opened in 1971.
High School (17, page 19)
During this period, Bill Bowers, who
coached the first Bear (Briarcliff High
Bowers
School) teams in 1928, was still
Family
coaching in the 1970s. (1, page 143)
After serving three years as the
headmistress of the Mrs. Mary E.
Dow's School, Miss Merrill is
succeeded by Miss Doris Laura Flick,
who previously served as the Dean
of The Mary E. Dow's School from
Mrs. Mary E. 1926 to 1929, when she became
Dow's
Headmistress of the Mrs. Mary E.
School
Dow's School. (2, page 53)
1929
1929
1929
1929
1929
A Brownie troop was started in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, and the
National Council issued the first
charter to Briarcliff Girl Scouts. Mrs.
Edith Brockleman, Walter Law's
Briarcliff Girl daughter, was the first
Scout
Commissioner under the new
Council
charter. (1, page 77) (2, page 84)
During this year, the lower nine-hole
golf course is added to the exisiting
nine-hole golf course at the Sleepy
Hollow Country Club when A.W.
Sleepy
Tillinghast expands the existing 9
Hollow
hole golf course to 27 holes during
Country
that same year. (1, page 81) (4,
Club
page 1)
During this year, Mrs. Vanderlip was
elected as the new president of the
New York Infirmary for Women and
Children, after the Infirmary had
encountered financial problems
during the 1920s, and the hospital
Vanderlip
elected a new board of trustees to
Family
run the Infrimary. (1, page 91)
During this year, the Dahls family
moves into their new house on the
east side of Sleepy Hollow Road. For
a time their two children, President
and Mrs. Roosevelt's grandchildren
Buzzie and Sistie Dahl, went to The
Scarborough School. When the
Dahls were divorced(?), a bank took
over their house and rented it out.
Susan Cullman remembered with
Dahl Family pleasure visiting the Dahls there. (1,
House
pages 109 and 111)
During this year, Roger Nestor
Wallach founded the Sylvania
Industrial Corporation of New York
City and Fredericksburg, Virginia, of
which the principle product was
sylphrap, similar to the cellophane
made by the du Pont Company and
its chief competitor. Mr. Wallach
was also on of the founders of
Wallach
Stauffer Chemical in Elmsford, New
Family
York. (1, page 121)
1929
1929
1929
Soon after the "Club" (The Briarcliff
Community Centre, inc.) building
burned down in 1929, from the fire
insurance adjustement for this fire,
The Briarcliff Manor Free Library
received $5,000.00 by a vote
following much discussion of village
priorities. This has been used during
the years as a source fund for
Briarcliff
permanent library equipment. (1,
Manor Free page 76) (2, pages 68-69) (14, page
Library
11)
During this year, the old Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Community Club building burns
Community down. (1, page 75) (2, page 81) (14,
Center, Inc. page 11)
By this year, the event of the stock
market crash and the beginning of
the depression brought hardship and
bankruptcy to many Briarcliff
residents. The village had catered
through its hotels and service
industries to the “Carriage Trade,”
but with the crash of the stock
market the patrons of these
businesses were unable to continue
their lavish lifestyles. Many
businesses in Briarcliff were in
Village
serious financial jeopardy. (15, page
Events
78)
1929
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1929
Briarcliff
Manor Police
Department
1929
Briarcliff
Stores
1929
"Manor
House"
(Walter W.
Law House)
During this year, the Village Board of
Briarcliff Manor decided to start a
new company, called the
Scarborough Fire Company, and
made arrangements to lease space
from The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church, remodeling it to
accommodate a fire truck. This was
done because the question of fire
protection in the Scarborough area
became a problem, because
Scarborough is a considerable
distance form the firehouse and
there is no real east-west road to
insure prompt response. This new
fire company was also responsible to
protect the Archville fire district and
meetings were held at the Archville
firehouse (south of Sleepy Hollow
Country Club on Route 9). (15, page
81)
During this year, Arthur W. Johnson,
Sr., a member of The Briarcliff Manor
Police Department, received an
award for bravery. (17, page 50)
In part of her response to the
question What’s so “special” about
our village? in 2002, Lillian Manahan
said “In 1929, the village had an A&P
and Grand Union right in town.” (17,
page 78)
During this year, Chauncey Depew
Steele subdivided the land around
the former Manor House of Walter
Law in 51 building lots known as
“Kidderminster.” (8, page 57)
On this date, the stained-glass
window in the east transept of The
Briarcliff Congregational Church
(which was designed by Briarcliff
resident, painter, and architect
Arthur Ware, Sr.) was unveiled. Not
the least beautiful of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church’s several fine
windows, most of them made by the
Tiffany studios, the east transept
window depicts a stylized garden
scene with the steeple of All Saints
Episcopal Church just visible in the
background, and this window was
made in London by John Hardman’s
Studios. It is inscribed, “To the glory
of God and in loving memory of
Walter William Law, 1837-1924, and
his wife Georgianna Ransom Law,
Briarcliff
1839-1910. This window is
Congregatio dedicated by their children.” (1, page
1929 March 17th n-al Church 215)
Public
Schools,
On this date, students of the
Grade and
Briarcliff High School went on a trip
1929 April 27th
High School to Washington, D. C. (15, page 88)
The Planning Board for the Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor Village Government is
Manor
organized. This board was
Planning
established under the Village Law of
1929 April 29th
Board
the State of New York. (2, page 88)
Vincent Phelps serves as the
Briarcliff
Postmaster for the Briarcliff Manor
Manor Post Post Office during this period. (2,
1929-1932
Office
page 64)
During the period of The Great
Depression, the firemen of The
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department had
Briarcliff
no standard uniforms, and instead
Manor Fire dressed in regular clothes. (15, page
1929-1939
Department 83)
The reorganization of the Mary E.
Dow's School is threatened by the
Great Depression, as indicated by a
Mrs. Mary E. serious dwindling of enrollment of
1929Dow's
students to only 42.(1, page 71) (2,
1939(?)
School
page 55)
19291939(?)
1929-1942
1929(?)1945(?)
1929-1952
1929-1953
During the Great Depression, John
Stephenson, the president of Briar
Hills Estates, Incorporated of
Ossining, and his partner, Robert
Lent, abandon their plans to build a
number of houses on the property of
the Woodlege estate mansion, and
left no trace of this propsed real
estate development except for the
Briarcliff
name Stephanson Place. (1, page
Real Estate 124)
The Mrs. Mary E. Dow's School
changes its name to Briarcliff Junior
College during the tenure of Miss
Mrs. Mary E. Doris Laura Flick, B.A. and M.A.,
Dow's
Vassar, during this period. (2, page
School
53)
During the years of the Great
Depression and Word War II, the
parish of All Saints Episcopal Church
suffered through hard times, as the
All Saints
Briarcliff Lodge closed and some of
Episcopal
the large estates in the area were
Church
broken up. (1, page 178)
Gilbert Johnson serves in the
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor Police Department
Manor Police during this period (23 years). (2,
Department page 74)
During this period, under the
leadership of its president, Mrs.
Vanderlip, the New York Infirmary
for Women and Children survives the
Vanderlip
Great Depression and expands. (1,
Family
page 91)
Date
(Year):
1930s:
1930s
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
Description of Event:
During this period, the Hardens
bought Brandywine from the heirs of
Mrs. Barksdale, and a road was built
connecting it to the Wilderness. Kay
Courreges became the
Miramont
superintendent of the combined
Court
estates. Harden also bought land on
(Spiegelthe east side of Sleepy Hollow Road
mirror, Berg- across from Brandywine. (1, page
mountain)
109)
1930s
Ashridge
Estate
1930s
Zuydhoek
Family
1930s
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Ossining
1930s
Zorach
Family
During this period, the Whiting
family had the Ashridge estate house
remodeled by Aymar Embury II and
greatly enlarged by the addition of
wings to the house. (1, page 114)
During this decade, Lieutenant Paul
Barr Zuydhoek's father, Ernest
Zuydhoek, of Poplar Road, closed
the books of the Briarcliff Lodge.
Ernest Zuydhoek was also a longtime employee of Walter Law's
enterprises. (1, page 139)
During this decade, as younger
members took over the leadership of
The Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining, there was a movement to
modernize services while retaining
the ideals if Orthodox Judaism. The
rabbi of this Congregation started to
preach in English as a well as
Yiddish. Older members were much
distressed, but membership and
attendance slowly increased. (1,
page 167)
During this decade, the artist William
Zorach, who would later serve on
the Board of Trustees at Briarcliff
Junior College, created his
monumental sculpture of a nude
female figure, “Spirit of the Dance,”
which was commissioned for Radio
City Music Hall in the 1930s, and had
been the subject of controversy. (1,
page 181)
1930s
1930s
1930s
During this decade, the big stoneand-stucco house (now 924
Pleasantville Road, originally The
Dysart House) was the residence of
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Ware and their
two sons, Arthur, Jr., and Wilson
Peterson Ware. Arthur Ware, Sr.
was a painter and architect, and
among his architecture firm’s works
were Y.W.C.A. buildings in ten
American cities from Galveston,
Texas, to Stamford, Connecticut.
The firm also designed the
swimming pool and auditorium for
the New York military academy at
Cornwall, New York, the swimming
pool building for Mrs. Dow’s School
in Briarcliff, the Ossining post office
and the entrance gate and mortuary
chapel for the Sleepy Hollow
Cemetery. He took a particular
personal interest in the complex of
buildings for Marymount convent
and college in Tarrytown (completed
just before his death in 1939). As
an avocation, Ware continued to
paint “unusually well, particularly in
water colors.” He designed the
Briarcliff
stained-glass window in the east
Architects:
transept of The Briarcliff
Arthur Ware, Congregational Church. (1, page
Sr.
215)
During this decade, The Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor Free Library was housed in
Manor Free the tower of the Operating Engineers
Library
building. (15, page 62)
By this decade there was an A&P in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, and
Briarcliff
also a Grand Union too. (15, page
Stores
76)
1930s
1930s
During this decade was when Don
Armstrong remembered that in the
third floor Maine hunting lodge room
of Durrell's lovely house on
Revolutionary Road near Linden
Circle, the most expensive poke
game to ever be played took place.
Don Armstrong states that: “In the
1930s a group of bankers and Wall
Street types, who had been fiddling
with the stock market, gathered to
play poker to determine who would
take the rap for all of them.
Whitney lost and went to Sing Sing.”
Richard Whitney was president of
the New York Stock Exchange at this
time. It was a nice story, but
Whitney's other problems may have
also been responsibile for his threeyear prison term. Much of the $30
million he personally invested came
from bonds he stole from the New
York Yacht Club, Harvard, and the
Linden Circle Stock Exchange's own funds for
Historic
widows and families of dead brokers.
Houses
(15, pages 91 and 93) (17, page 27)
During this decade, Don Armstrong
states that in Scarborough: “Thomas
Mitchell lived where Henry Holms
now lives. A great Broadway actor
who later went to Hollywood and
won an Academy Award for Gone
with the Wind, he always walked
down the middle of the road when
Thomas
he came to visit because he was
Mitchell
afraid of snakes.” (15, pages 91 and
Residence
93)
1930s
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1930s
Briarcliff
Stores
1930s
Briarcliff
Real Estate
According to Cynthia Purdy’s account
of her time at Briarcliff High School
in the 1930s, she states: “No
thought was given to holding the
Senior Prom anyplace but the High
School gym. Spent Friday and
Saturday hanging crepe paper
streamers, convinced each year that
the transformation would be
complete. There was always a
receiving line of teachers and
parents and a table of punch and
cookies. Our dates were to movies
at the Victoria or Rome, and an
occasional big date to White Plains if
transportation was available. We
got something to eat afterwards at
the bean wagon in Pleasantville.
The more sophisticated went to the
Log Cabin in Armonk for dancing and
beer.” (15, page 93)
According to Cynthia Purdy’s account
of 1930s Briarcliff, she states: “Mrs.
Black’s Store (present day Briar
Rose) always smelled like freshly
ironed laundry and starch and had
five and ten type merchandise and
school supplies. Wittenberg’s sold
penny candy, dixie cups with movie
stars pictures under the lid and
cigarettes for our early
experimenting. Mr. Wittenberg
always looked stern while we
decided who would buy them for the
group.” (15, page 93)
At this time, the realtors of the
Briarcliff Realty Company were
photographed in front of the offices
of the Briarcliff Realty Company on
Pleasantville Road. They were
supporting the National Recovery
Administration, holding aloft a
banner that read: “BriarcliffScarboro Support NRA 100%.” (8,
page 37)
1930s
1930s
1930s
the early
1930s
every May
During this decade, according to
Eileen O’Connor Weber, a longtime
Edgewood
Briarcliff Manor resident and
Park School graduate of Edgewood Park School,
(Edgewood
she recalled that tuition for one
Park,
year, including a class trip to
Incorporated Bermuda, cost $870.00 a year. (8,
)
page 65)
During this decade, Percy Crawford,
later the president of The King’s
College, and his wife, Ruth, traveled
the East Coast, where they held
gospel served aimed at young
people. Pioneers of radio and
television evangelism, they founded
the Pinebrook Bible Conference
summer camp in Pennsylvania.
Crawford
Crawford was also credited as being
Family
the first televangelist. (8, page 76)
According to Cynthia Purdy’s account
of 1930s Briarcliff, she states: “In
May, the public works men scrubbed
the empty pool with hand brushes
and Gold Dust Soap. There was
great anticipation as the pool slowly
filled. Mr. Alfred Pearson, the Village
Clerk, came to school and personally
handed out solid brass pool
tags—free! We took our lunch and
stayed all day, with occasional trips
to the railroad station where there
was a candy machine or to the
stores for ice cream. There was no
recreation program; we entertained
ourselves diving for stones and
tormenting the life guards (John
Hersey and Pete O’Connor). The
only swimming lessons I had came
Briarcliff
from watching the lifeguards and
Park and
trying to imitate them.” (15, page
Pool
93)
During this decade, Eleanor
Roosevelt spoke at the Great Hall
Fireplace several times before the
Women’s Democratic Club of Mount
Pleasant, of which her daughter
Anna Roosevelt Dahl was
Briarcliff
chairwoman. (1, page 109) (8, page
Lodge
52)
1930s1940s
1930s-1949
1930s1950s
1930
1930
According to Eileen Weber’s account
of early Briarcliff, she states: “The
1930s and 40s are known as the
greatest dancing period in
civilization; Briarcliff more than did
its part. There were dancing every
noon and each Friday night, plus
special holiday dances either in
private homes or at the country
clubs. If perchance a boy had $3 or
$5, we could dance to the big bands
at the hotels in New York, Glen
Village
Island or the Long Cabin in Armonk.
Events
(15, page 90)
Starting in this decade (the 1930s),
David Swope, who would in 1949
build sixteen ranch- and Cape-Codstyle houses on Dalmeny Road, next
to the six houses Walter Law had
built for his workers just before the
incoproration of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, David Swope had
been in the business of
development, when he built houses
along the riverbank in Tarrytown on
land that had been part of the estate
Briarcliff
of the Duchess of Tallyrand (Anna
Real Estate Gould). (1, page 145)
During this period, Andrew “Doc”
Cunningham was in charge of
maintenance of the entire village
park, and under his care, the entire
park (Walter W. Law Memorial Park),
Briarcliff
including a putting green and wellPark and
stocked pond, was a showplace. (15,
Pool
page 85)
Chef LaCroix, head chef of the
Briarcliff Lodge, leaves Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Lodge to work at the Concourse
Lodge
Plaza Hotel. (1, page 42)
During this year, the owner and
founder of the V. Everit Macys'
estate of Chilmark, dies. (1, page
Macy Family 56)
1930
1930
1930
1930
During this year, by means of the
Deed Realty Company, 250 acres of
Macy land were marked off as
"Chilmark Park" with zones
established, roads laid out and
provision made for all public utilities.
The family recreation center, with its
swimming pool, squash and tennis
courts, was made officially available
"Chilmark
to all residents of the "Park." (1,
Park"
page 56)
By this year, the total population of
Briarcliff
the Village of Briarcliff Manor had
Population
increased to 1,794. (1, page 65)
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Fire Department purchased a new
hook and ladder from American
LaFrance for $9,500.00 to replace
Briarcliff
the original 1908 apparatus (which
Manor Fire
was motorized by 1923). (15, page
Department 82)
During this year, Briarcliff was still
very rural: Jackson Road and Elm
Road, from Tuttle to Long Hill and
Chappaqua Roads, were unpaved.
On Tuttle there were only two
farmhouses, one at each end. Bill
Sharman recalled playing on the
Roads and
haystacks between the two, much to
Transportati the farmer’s annoyance. (17, page
on
28)
1930
Briarcliff
Lodge
1930
Briarcliff
Lodge
Henry Law during this year cites
Prohibition as a cause for the decline
in the hotel business in Briarcliff,
starting in 1930. The proliferation of
automobiles was also a detriment, as
visitors no longer came to stay for
the entire summer. (8, page 42)
During this year, New York State
governor Franklin Roosevelt spoke at
the Briarcliff Lodge to the
Westchester County Banker’s
Association. (8, page 52)
Briarcliff
Manor Free
1930 March 18th Library
1930-1934
Searle
Family
1930-1936
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1930-1939
Village
Events
1930-1940
"Chilmark
Park"
1930-1947
Department
of Public
Works
1930-1949
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
In this year, through the kindness of
the Briarcliff Board of Education, the
library received use of a large room
on the main floor of the new High
School building. (1, page 76) (2,
page 69) (14, page 15)
During this period, Dr. Robert
Wyckoff Searle serves as the
associate minister of the Madison
Avenue Presbyterian Church in New
York City. (1, page 169)
During this period, Charles Matthes
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
233)
During this period, Briarcliff village
residents went to the Rome Theater
(now the Jacob Burns Film Center)
and to two movie houses in Ossining
to lose themselves in the films of
Hollywood’s Golden Age—starring
Clarke Gable, Bette Davis, Greta
Garbo, the Marx Brothers, and
Shirley Temple. (17, page 27)
In this first decade, while under the
control of the Macys, Chilmark was
"restricted": Some members of
minority groups were barred from
buying property there. Hedges were
allowed, but no fences could be
built, and a family might wake up
one morning to find a crew of men
planting a large tree in their front
yard to hide their house from the
Macy's view. (1, page 56)
Benjamin Addis works in the Public
Works of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor during this period (17 years).
(2, page 75)
The Briarcliff Free Library, through
the kindness of the Briarcliff Board of
Education, remained in the large
room given to them on the main
floor of the new High School building
for a nineteen-year period, until the
school required the room. (2, page
69)
1930-1940s
Briarcliff
Population
1931
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1931
Briarcliff
Architects:
William
Sharman
1931
Briarcliff
Lodge
Briarcliff
1931 August 3rd Lodge
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Number
1054, Inc.
American
1931 August 28th Legion
According to Eileen Weber, the
transfer of families in or out of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor was
“practically unheard of” during these
two decades. (1, page 207)
The present rectory of the St. Mary's
Episcopal Church is constructed
beside the 1851 church as a
memorial to this church's first two
rectors, Dr. William Creighton and
Dr. Edward Nathaniel Meade. (1,
page 176) (2, page 36) (17, page
28)
During this year, William Sharman,
later a local architect and Briarcliff
resident, first comes to live in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor when he
was five years old. (1, page 215)
During this year, Olympic champions
Helen Meany and Aileen Riggan
swam at the outdoor pool at the
Briarcliff Lodge. (8, page 60)
On this date, a Swallow biplane
piloted by jack McCarthy of
Rosedale, long Island, and Douglas
Turnbull of Garden City, Long Island,
were forced to make an emergency
landing near the seventh hole of the
golf course at the Briarcliff Lodge.
(8, page 59)
The Briarcliff Manor Post Number
1054, Inc. American Legion, is
begun in Briarcliff Manor. (2, page
78)
1931-1932
Briarcliff
Junior
College
1931-1935
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1931-ca.
2014
Briarcliff
Architects:
William
Sharman
1932
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
"Briarcliff." The College Handbook,
of 1931-1932, states the rules of
student deportment enforced at the
Briarcliff Junior College in the 1930s,
which were very stringent, as this
handbook states: "Noise in the
corridors…talking after
lights…absence from tea on Sunday,
absence from prayer or
hymns...leaving the gorunds without
a hat, tam or beret," and so on,
were regarded as serious
delinquincies." (1, pages 71 and
230)
Rev. George Witmeyer serves as the
eleventh Rector of the All Saints
Episcopal Church during this period.
(2, page 38)
During this period, William Sharman
has been a long-time resident of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, and has
continued to live in the village since
he was five years old in 1931, when
he first came to Briarcliff. He is now
(ca. 2014) eighty-six years old. He
has worked as a n independent
architect all over Westchester and
surrounding counties and in
Connecticut. Within the village he
has designed many buildings,
including the residence of Emile
Munier on Pleasantville Road, the S.
Amenta residence on Scarborough
Road (near the sight of William
Burns’ Shadowbrook), and the brick
office building at 1250 Pleasantville
Road. He also designed and
supervised the conversion of the
railroad station into The Briarcliff
Manor Free Library. (1, page 215)
With the growth of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, in this year, the
Briarcliff Fire Company and the
Scarborough Fire Company (formerly
the Archville Fire Company) were
united. (2, page 29)
1932
"Chilmark
Park"
1932
"Chilmark
Park"
Chilmark Park was a small, close
community, as may still be seen in a
film, Hot and Bothered , made in
1932 by Robert Gowen, who was a
pioneer in radio broadcasting and an
award-winning filmaker. Gowen's
films were twice selected as among
the ten best films of the year by the
Amateur Cinema League. A print of
his film, Ossining in Wartime , is in
the Library of Congress. Robert
Gowen's father, Charles Sewall
Gowen, came to Ossining to assist in
supervising the rebuilding of the
aqueduct and the Croton Dam. The
Gowens lived in their house on the
corner of Overton and Underhill
roads some years before Macy
bought the surrounding acres. (1,
page 57)
Another distinguished resident at the
time the film, Hot and Bothered was
made (in 1932) was Herbert
Gerlach, Ossining town supervisor
and later county executive. Gerlach
figures in the film as the peace of his
summer Sunday is repeatedly
disturbed by telphone calls from
distraught neighbors complaining
about some supposed mischief of the
neighborhood children. Gerlach's
exasperation mounts with the
temperature of the July day.
Residents and children in various
states of agitation and undress run
in and out of their fine houses, along
dirt roads and leafy lanes, through
gardens and meadows, handsome
young Noel Macy, mounted on a
thoroughbred, displays his
horsemanship, and the plot is at last
resolved when the children are
discovered to be as angelic as they
look, reading Bible stories aloud
down by the club. Chilmark, we
gather, was a sunny enclave of
innocent affluence in that dark
Depression year. (1, page 57)
1932
1932
1932
1932 April 17th
1932 August
1932-1936
1932 to
date (ca.
1952)
1933
During this year, Ridgecrest Road
Roads and
was laid out within the village limits
Transportati of the Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1,
on
page 62)
By this school year, three hundred
Scarborough students were enrolled at the
School
Scarborough School. (17, page 21)
Edgewood
Park School During this year, the Edgewood Park
(Edgewood
Junior College, which would later
Park,
move to Briarcliff Manor, signed a 10Incorporated year lease to use the Edgewood Inn.
)
(8, page 63)
The 15 clay tennis courts north of
the Briarcliff Lodge hosted
Westchester County championships
as well as professional exhibitions,
such as one on this date, on a cold
and windy day, where world
professional tennis champion Bill
Tilden defeated Hans Nusslein,
European champion, in a 6-3, 5-7, 6Briarcliff
3 match officiated by New York City
Lodge
mayor Jimmy Walker. (8, page 56)
The Briarcliff Manor Post Number
Briarcliff
1054, Inc. American Legion, receives
Manor Post
its Charter. Its first Commander
Number
was James Hull. There were
1054, Inc.
seventeen members when this
American
organization was first chartered. (2,
Legion
page 78)
During this period, future Sergeant
Arthur J. Quinn, Jr., goes to Briarcliff
High School, and participates in all
Quinn Family sports as well. (1, page 140)
Mrs. Lillian O'Conner serves as the
Briarcliff
Postmaster for the Briarcliff Manor
Manor Post
Post Office during this period (20
Office
years). (2, pages 64 and 74)
Briarcliff
Junior
College
During this year, the junior college
charter is given to the Mary E. Dow's
School, the predecessor of the
Briarcliff Junior College. (1, page 71)
1933
1933 February
1933 November
1933-1936
Edgewood
Park School
(Edgewood
Park,
Incorporated
)
During this year, the Edgewood Park
Junior College, which would later
move to Briarcliff Manor, held its
first graduation in Greenwich,
Connecticut, when 14 students were
awarded diplomas. (8, page 63)
At this time, Chauncey Depew Steele
surrendered his lease to the Briarcliff
Lodge and it started to close as a
hotel, and the Village of Briarcliff
Manor began to take over many
former Law family land holdings
Briarcliff
when the taxes could not be paid.
Lodge
(8, page 42) (15, pages 32 and 78)
The Ladies Auxilary of the Briarcliff
Fire Company is first organized with
Mrs. Charles Matthes as its first
President, and with eighteen initial
members. This organization's
mission "is to aid the fire department
in all its undertakings, and to be on
hand at any major fire to serve
coffee and sandwiches." Through
many money raising events, it has a
Ladies
fund to give to charitable
Auxiliary of organizations, and to help any
the Briarcliff families in need. It's original
Fire
membership was eighteen. (1, page
Company
208) (2, page 31)
During this period, a “health diet
sanitarium” operated at the Briarcliff
Lodge, and the hotel stayed open
through 1936 (when it was leased to
the Edgewood Park School, a
Briarcliff
women’s junior college and
Lodge
preparatory school. (8, page 42)
1933-1952
Scarborough
Post Office
1933-1952
Village
Government
1933ca.1990
Ladies
Auxiliary of
the Briarcliff
Fire
Company
1934
1934
Fuller Family
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
George O. Fountain has faithfully
served as the Postmaster for The
Scarborough Post Office for this past
19 year period. The father of two
older sons who served during World
War II, Lieutenant George Thomas
("Tommy") Fountain and Orill
Fountain, he was the postmaster of
Scarborough for many years both
before and after World War II during
this period. With his two older sons
in the armed forces, he enlisted in
the U.S. Navy, for service in postal
work. He achieved the rank of Petty
Officer First Class. "Communique"
called the Fountain family "the
Fighting Fountains....The old
homestead displays three stars on
its service flag in tribute to George
and his sons Tommy and Orill. What
is more, even Orill's Great Dane
Duke was one of the first dogs from
this area to join 'Dogs for Defense.'"
(1, page 139) (2, pages 61 and 74)
Norman C. Babcock serves as a
Trustee for the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government during this
period (19 years). (2, pages 24 and
74)
During this period, The Ladies
Auxiliary of the Briarcliff Fire
Company, since it was first formed
in 1933, has been at the scene of
every fire in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor to serve refreshments. The
ladies of the auxiliary march in all
the parades with the firemen, and
every year hold a penny sale to raise
funds and finish the year with a
dinner. (1, page 208)
During this year, William Whitehead
Fuller, the builder and owner of the
Haymont mansion, dies at the age of
seventy-six. (1, page 122)
During this year, there was a fire in
the rectory of All Saints Episcopal
Church. (1, page 178)
1934
November
1934 11th
During this year, the Assistant
Pastor, Rev. Arthur F. Nugent, was
assigned to the Parish of The Church
of Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus.
This was done because this
assistance was required, since the
Parish had grown (at first numbering
only 36 Catholic families, including
Church of
Millwood). Also, under Rev. Nugent,
Saint
a choir was organized, and the Holy
Theresa of
Name Society and the St. Theresa’s
the Infant
Guild started. (2, page 42) (14, page
Jesus
19)
On this date, the Automobile Racing
Club of America held another race
over a 100-mile course, consisting of
thirty 3.3 mile laps. The course ran
through the Village of Briarcliff
Manor along Tuttle, Long Hill East,
Sleepy Hollow, Scarborough, Pine,
Birch and Elm Roads, a formidable
track. Thousands of spectators lined
the route to watch the Bugattis,
Whippets, Willyses, MGs, Austins, a
Lancia Lamboda and a Riley
negotiate the hairpin turns. One of
the sixteen entrants into the race
was a woman, Mrs. Carle Conway of
Scarborough. Langdon Quimby,
driving a Willys 77, won the race
Roads and
with a time of two hours, seven
Transportati minutes and thirty seconds. (1,
on
pages 83-84) (15, page 38)
November
1934 12th
1934-1941
The New York Times, reports on the
November 11th, 1934 car race that
ran through Briarcliff Manor:
“Briarcliff, N.Y., Nov. 11 – Langdon
Quimby, piloting a Willys 77, won
the Briarcliff Trophy road race today
over a 100-mile course. The event,
sponsored by the Automobile Racing
Club of America, marked the first
time since 1908, when the late
Walter W. Law offered the prize that
the race has been held. More than
3,000 persons lined the course to
view the renewal of the sport, which
has been dormant since the war. It
was a thrilling race that the
spectators witnessed. The grind of
thirty laps was over an approximate
three-and-a-half mile course laid out
over hills and sharp curves, which
were always a source of danger.
The victor, whose time was 2:07:30,
withstood the determined challenge
of Thomas W. Dewart, to triumph.
Dewart, in an MG Midget, was only
ten seconds behind. Dewart had
started with a two-lap handicap,
while Quimby began from scratch.
Miles Collier, in a Riley, was third.
Roads and
Fourth place was taken by Robert
Transportati Love in a Willys 77. The other
on
competitors were flagged off the
During this period, Dr. Robert
Wyckoff Searle was the general
secretary of the Greater New York
Federation of Churches, and his
“tenure was marked by improved
working relationships between
various faiths, particularly in regard
to the battle against slums and the
Searle
fight for better lower-class housing.”
Family
(1, pages 169-170)
ca. 1935
1935
Briarcliff Art
Collections
Vanderlip
Family
Around this time, Frank A. Vanderlip,
a resident in Scarborough in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor who lived
in the Beechwood estate, described
in his autobiography, From Farmboy
to Financier (1935) how the
Beechwood estate mansion was
liberally hung with Dutch and Italian
Renaissance paintings. Mr.
Vanderlip was proud, as he writes in
this autobiography, of “the beauty of
my Van Dyck,” a large painting of
Andromeda robed in blue that hung
in the library. (1, pages 213 and
232)
Mr. Frank Arthur Vanderlip writes his
autobiographical book From Farm
Boy to Financier . This
autobiography tells the admirable
story of Frank A. Vanderlip's rise to
his position as a self-made
millionaire. For example, the book
tells of how his happy boyhood on
an Illinois farm ended before he was
twelve years old when his father
died, the farm failed and he went to
work in a relative's wagonworks in
Aurora, the sole support of his
grandmother, mother, sister and two
maiden aunts. He continued to read
and study, while working, and saved
enough money ($226.00) to attend
the University of Illinois at
Champaign for two years. Then, in
response to a help-wanted ad, he
became "city editor" of the Aurora
Evening Post , where he learned
typesetting and reporting. (1, page
89) (2, page 75)
The Educational Department of the
University of the State of New York
grants a provisional charter to the
Briarcliff Junior College. This is also
when this school (formerly Mrs.
Dow's School) was first called
Briarcliff Junior College. Mr. Henry
H. Law and other men were
instrumental in effecting this,
making of the Briarcliff Junior
College a non-stock educational
institution governed by at least five
trustees. The College then executed
and delivered to the Briarcliff Realty
Company a mortgage in the amount
Briarcliff
of $500,000.00, the appraised value
Junior
being $822,000.00. (2, pages 53
1935
College
and 55)
On this date, the Briarcliff Trophy
Race was again run under the
auspices of the Automobile Racing
Club of America. Seventeen
entrants began the race at 2:30
p.m. but only twelve finished due to
mechanical problems. Langdon
Quimby won for the second time
Roads and
with a time of two hours, three
Transportati minutes and six seconds. (1, page
1935 June 23rd
on
84) (15, page 38)
The Saint Theresa's Guild of Briarcliff
Manor of The Church of Saint
Theresa of the Infant Jesus is
founded with the Reverend Arthur
Nugent, curate to Reverend James F.
Kelly, as moderator. Its mission,
according to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor: 1902 To 1952, "is to
promote the spiritual and temporal
Saint
welfare of the parish." The
Theresa's
Reverend Arthur Nugent also
Guild of
organized a choir for The Church of
Briarcliff
Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus as
1935 October 4th Manor
well. (2, page 45)
1935 November
Saint
Theresa's
Guild of
Briarcliff
Manor
1935-1942
Tead Family
1935-1948
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
The first meeting of the Saint
Theresa's Guild of Briarcliff Manor of
The Church of Saint Theresa of the
Infant Jesus was held in the Church
Hall, with a roster of twenty-five
members. Mrs. Russell Cumming
was elected the first president. One
of its first activities was to start an
Altar Society, whose members would
be responsible for the beautification
of the Sanctuary and the care of the
vestments of the priests and altar
boys. Besides this, the Guild
promoted other spiritual benefitsRetreats, Novenas and a special
Sunday for the monthly Communion
of its members and the annual
Communion breakfast for the women
of the Parish. It has also aided in
the making of bandages for Rosary
Hill in Hawthorne. Socially, it has
been active with its successful parish
suppers, bridge parties and bazaars.
It has sponsored the Christmas party
for the children of the Parish. (2,
page 45)
During this period, before she was
appointed President of Briarcliff
Junior College in 1942, Mrs. Clara
Tead was the dean of Finch Junior
College. (1, page 181)
Rev. George F. Bratt serves as the
twelfth Rector (also priest-in-charge)
of the All Saints Episcopal Church
during this period. He was also the
Rector of St. Paul's Church in
Ossining at the same time. On
Sunday mornings he conducted four
services, shuttling back and forth
between Ossining and Briarcliff
Manor, but these early services were
sparsely attended during this same
period. However, under the hearty
leadership of Reverend Bratt, the
small but devoted congregation of
All Saints Episcopal Church managed
to get through these lean years. (1,
page 178) (2, page 38)
1935-1952
1936
1936
1936
1936
1936
1936
1936
Although the Vanderlip family has
continued its loyal concern for The
Scarborough School, since 1935 to
the present (ca. 1952), the Trustees
have been selected primarily from
Scarborough parents of the enrolled students. (2,
School
pages 57-58)
The Briarcliff Hook and Ladder
Briarcliff
Company, which was considered part
Manor Fire
of the Village Fire Department, is
Department formed. (2, page 29)
Henry Herbert Law, who served as
the first President-Mayor of the
Briarcliff Manor Village Government
from 1918-1936, dies. (1, page 59)
Law Family (2, pages 24 and 74)
During this year, Susan Cullman and
her husband Joseph Cullman (of
Philip Morris, Inc.) bought the house
that was formerly owned by the
Dahls family. Susan Cullman said
that when they bought the house
"The only furniture was in the big
living room-one small square rug in
the middle of the floor with a rocking
chair at each corner." The Cullmans
named the place Sleepy Hill, and
over the years added only a porch,
Dahl Family which was later enclosed. (1, page
House
111)
During this year, future Sergeant
Arthur J. Quinn, Jr. graduates from
Quinn Family Briarcliff High School. (1, page 140)
During this year, a housing boom
Briarcliff
begins on the “Tree Streets.” (17,
Real Estate page 30)
By this year, Simpson Road in the
Roads and
“Tree Streets” was named for one of
Transportati the builders of this housing
on
development. (17, page 30)
Until this year, Henry Law had
presided over the Briarcliff Realty
Company. While heading this
organization, he sold much of the
acreage owned by the Briarcliff
Lodge Association after the Briarcliff
Farms operations moved to Duchess
Law Family County. (8, page 37)
1936
1936
1936
Law Family
During this year, the son of Henry
law, Theodore Law, takes over the
Briarcliff Realty Company. While
heading this organization, he
continued to sell much of the
acreage owned by the Briarcliff
Lodge Association after the Briarcliff
Farms operations had moved to
Duchess County. (8, page 37)
According to a 1936 map from Henry
Valentine that dates to this year, it
Edgewood
showed plots labeled “A” which were
Park School leased to the Edgewood Park School,
(Edgewood
and parcels labeled “B” which were
Park,
not. The lease of the Briarcliff Lodge
Incorporated property also included a riding ring
)
on Poplar Road. (8, page 62)
Edgewood
During this year, when the
Park School Edgewood Park School first moved to
(Edgewood
Briarcliff Manor, it successfully
Park,
defended a $100,000.00 lawsuit
Incorporated claiming breach of contract. (8, page
)
63)
On this date, Dr. Matthew H. Reaser
brought Edgewood Park School, his
school for girls-essentially a junior
college-(Edgewood Park,
Incorporated) to the Briarcliff Lodge
and established the Edgewood Park
School there (the school had been
formerly established in Greenwich,
Connecticut), where this school
began its first year. This school was
also called the Edgewood Park
School for Young Women. This
school was estalbished also under
the direction of a Board of Trustees
and operated under a Charter from
the Univertsity of the State of New
York. Meanwhile, the Briarcliff
Lodge, badly hit by the Great
Depression at this time, leased its
facilities to Reaser for the winter
Edgewood
months during the hotel's offPark School season, but could continue to
(Edgewood
operate as a hotel for only three
Park,
more summers. (1, page 73) (2,
Incorporated pages 55-56) (8, page 42) (14, page
1936 October 1st )
15) (17, page 30)
During this period, Rowland H.
Briarcliff
Doughty serves as the chief of The
Manor Fire
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department. (1,
1936-1939
Department page 233)
1936-1939
1936-1939
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, during this period,
since its first year in the Briarcliff
Lodge Property in 1936, by 1939 The
Edgewood
Edgewood Park School (Edgewood
Park School Park, Incorporated) had shown a
(Edgewood
steady growth both educationally,
Park,
and in numbers of students, taking
Incorporated its place among leading schools of
)
the country. (14, pages 15)
During this period, the Briarcliff
Lodge was open as a hotel through
1939, and the Edgewood Park
Briarcliff
School operated during this hotel’s
Lodge
off-season. (8, page 42)
1936-1941
1936(?)1943
1936-1954
1936-1966
(?)November
(1943)
J. Henry Ingham serves as the
Mayor for the Briarcliff Manor Village
Village
Government during this period. (2,
Government pages 24 and 75)
During this period, future Sergeant
Arhtur J. Quinn, Jr., a resident of
South State Road in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, serves as a licensed
insurance broker employed by the
Hanover Fire Insurance Company in
New York City until he entered
service in November 1943. (1, page
Quinn Family 140)
During this period, Matthew Reaser’s
daughters and their husbands taught
classes and helped manage the
school during its stay in Briarcliff
Manor, including Helen Reaser
Temple, academic dean; Harriet
Reaser Sowell, registrar and later
managing executive; and Gilbert
Edgewood
Vance Temple and Shannon Cabell
Park School Wallace, directors of business
(Edgewood
administration. Norman Britton
Park,
Sowell was school physician, and
Incorporated Agnes Reaser Wallace taught voice
)
instruction. (8, page 61)
Church of
During this period, it took thirty
Saint
years of fundraising to pay back the
Theresa of
loans Father Kelly had taken to build
the Infant
The Church of Saint Theresa of the
Jesus
Infant Jesus. (1, page 79)
the late
1930s
the late
1930s
the late
1930s
1937
During this period, the Whiting's only
daughter, Ann eloped with a young
man who was making a very modest
living selling neckties in a
department store. Mrs. Whiting was
seriously displeased and threatened
to disinherit her daughter. But the
marriage lasted, mother and
daughter were eventually reconciled,
and the grandchildren enjoyed
visiting at Ashridge. Lisa Thomas,
Mrs. Whiting's ganddaughter, told
The New York Times reporter Rita
Reif that the year she and her
brother, W. Giles Murray, lived in the
mansion while their mother was ill
was "the greatest time of my
life...we watched the boats go by on
the Hudson and yes, on a clear day
you could see as far as the Delaware
Water Gap, fifty miles away." She
said she thought more about "how
homey" the mansion was than how
rare the antiques were. "It was such
a friendly lived-in house and that's
Whiting
the way I want to remember it." (1,
Family
page 116)
According to Harry Addis, writing in
the "Cheering Section" part of the
November 1944 issue of the
"Communique," future Lieutenant
George Thomas ("Tommy") Fountain
Fountain
"was a three letter man" during this
Family
period. (1, pages 139-140)
By this time, the Village Dock at
Scarborough, which had previously
been used by the Village of Briarcliff
Scarborough Manor, was closed. (15, page 76)
Vanderlip
During this year, Frank A. Vanderlip
Family
dies in New York. (3, page 386)
1937
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1937
Whiting
Family
1937
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
After Frank Vanderlip's death, most
of his estate was in real estate, not
cash. Hence, Scarborough
Properties, the family realty
corporation, led by its vice-president
Harry Benedict, developed the land
west of Beechwood, as River Road
was extended, Creighton and
Woodlea Lanes laid out and a sewer
system, water pipes and fire
hydrants installed. They also offered
to dedicate the road and lanes, with
improvements, to the Village of
Briarcliff Manor expecting
reimbursement of $88,933.38, less
depreciation of 2%, for the cost of
the improvements in a transaction
like those made rountinely between
the Village and the Briarcliff Realty
Company. At the request of the
board of trustees, village officials
Valentine and Manahan investigated
the developers' improvements and
reported that $50,438.33
"represented their fair and
reasonable cost." When
Scarborough Properties promptly
confirmed this figure, the Village
took possession of the roads without
paying the developer and started
collecting charges for their use from
owners of adjacent property.
During this year, Giles Whiting, one
of the Whiting family members who
had bought the Ashridge estate in
1910 from C. C. North, dies. (Mrs.
Whiting lived on at Ashridge and in
her Park Avenue apartment in New
York City into her nineties, sixty
years in all). (1, page 115)
During this year, the original bell
tower of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
was taken down and replaced by the
peal of ten bells, given in memory of
Mason B. Sterling Sr. by his two
sons. (1, page 176) (15, page 67)
1937
During this year, Jack Kahn (E. J.
Kahn, Jr.), writer and Briarcliff
resident, started to write for The
Briarcliff
New Yorker while he was still at
Writers: Jack Harvard, and after his graduation he
Kahn (E. J.
joined the staff of that magazine. (1,
Kahn, Jr.)
page 217)
1937
Richard Whitney, the man who lost
the poker game that sent him to
prison for crimes on the stock
market, may not have readily agreed
to let a poker game decide his fate
because, when stock exchange
officials caught up with him in 1937,
he said they should protect him.
“After all,” he told them, “I’m
Richard Whitney. I mean the stock
market to millions of people.” In
prison, at nearby Sing Sing, his
fellow prisoners—yet another story
Linden Circle goes—always let him get a hit in
Historic
prison baseball games because he
Houses
was “a gentleman.” (17, page 27)
Edgewood
Park School During this year, 101 women
(Edgewood
graduated during the Edgewood Park
Park,
School’s first year in Briarcliff Manor,
Incorporated out of a total enrollment of 278
)
students. (8, page 61)
1937
During this year, the Edgewood Park
School was advertised in a Hotel
brochure as “Briarcliff Lodge, home
of Edgewood Park for Young Women,
is one of the most beautiful and
adequate properties for education
use in the country.” In addition, by
this time, the grounds and landscape
of the Edgewood Park School
remained unchanged from the hotel
Edgewood
era, as the school constructed no
Park School new buildings on campus. Even the
(Edgewood
two “Foo Dog” statues, which were
Park,
on fieldstone pedestals at the west
Incorporated front entrance to the Briarcliff Lodge,
)
were still there. (8, page 66)
1937
1937 February
1937 June
1937-1938
1937-1942
1937-1952
At this time, the village records of
the Briarcliff Manor Village
Government were moved from the
office building on Pleasantville Road
(now occupied by the Operating
Engineers) to their new home in the
Village
old firehouse down Pleasantville
Government Road. (15, page 77)
At this time, Theodore Law, son of
Henry Law and grandson of Walter
law, sold the Briarcliff Lodge
building, the property it was on, and
an additional 23 acres of property
around the building to the Edgewood
Park School, previously located in
Greenwich, Connecticut. The
Edgecliff Realty Company, a property
management corporation, technically
owned the real estate and leased it
Edgewood
to the school. The sale of this whole
Park School property reported was valued at
(Edgewood
$750,000.00 at this time, but it did
Park,
not include the 130-acre golf course,
Incorporated which ultimately would be developed
)
separately. (8, page 61)
During this period, Walter Lathrop
Johnson serves once again as the
Johnson
vice-president of the New York Stock
Family
Exchange. (1, page 121)
Congregatio During this period, Rabbi Louis Feder
n Sons of
serves as the fourth Rabbi of the
Israel of
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining
Ossining. (1, page 235)
Idamae Oakley serves as Treasurer
for the Briarcliff Manor Village
Village
Government during this period. (2,
Government page 24)
1937(?)1987(?)
During this almost fifty-year period,
Brice Marden (who would later
become a famous abstract painter)
grew up and lived in the house at
729 Pleasantville Road in the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, (built in 1901 for
the foreman of Barn E of Walter
Law’s Briarcliff Farms. The Marden
family—Brice’s father, Nicholas B.
Marden, worked in a bank, his
Briarcliff
mother, Kate, and a sister and
Artists: Brice brother—lived in this house with
Marden
Brice Marden. (1, page 213)
ca. 1938
Around this time, the Edgewood Park
School, which was founded by Dr.
Matthew Reaser, had classes taught
by Dr. Reaser: high-school college
preparatory classes in addition to
upper-level “instruction in a wide
variety of subjects which will permit
a young woman to earn her own
livelihood if that be necessary.” The
school’s graduates were “accepted to
college without examination.” In
addition, general degrees were
granted to graduates in addition to
the more specific majors offered at
Edgewood
the school. Although there was a
Park School high standard of education at this
(Edgewood
school, the Edgewood Park School
Park,
was never recognized as an
Incorporated accredited junior college in New York
)
State. (1, page 73) (8, page 61)
1938
During this year, the Edgewood
Park, Incorporated, school buys out
Briarcliff Lodge and its 38 beautifullylandscaped acres. This new school
was founded by Dr. Matthew H.
Reaser, a pioneer in women's higher
education, was assisted by his three
daughters, Mrs. Shannon Wallace,
Mrs. Norman B. Sowell and Mrs.
Gilbert V. Temple, together with a
staff of forty teachers and
administrators they brought with
them from Greenwich. Dr. Reaser
had founded the school because he
felt that there was a great need for
educational opportunities beyond the
high school level, for women whose
circumstances made a four years
college course difficult of attainment.
As leader of this new school with his
three daughters and staff of forty
Edgewood
experienced teachers and
Park School adminstrators, Dr. Reaser was,
(Edgewood
indeed, one of the forerunners of the
Park,
whole movement for higher
Incorporated education for women. (1, page 73)
)
(2, page 56)
1938
The new institution of the Edgewood
Park, Incorporated, school, which
was started during this year, (1938),
combined a preparatory school for
those heading for the traditional fouryear colleges, and an upper division
that would, without neglecting
general culture, give specialized
preparation for occupations on the
semi-professional levels for which
two years of advanced training is
considered sufficient. Hence the
School title: Practical and Cultural
Arts, and the founder's ideal: to fit
modern women for modern living.
This covers training in Fine Arts,
Commercial Art, Costume Designing,
Interior Decoration, Merchandising,
Speech, Arts, Music, Home
Economics, Medical Assistance,
Kindergarten, Journalism, Real
Estate Secretarial, Secretarial
Science, and Social Work. General
College Preparatory subjects are
taught also. Many Edgewood Park
graduates are holding reponsible
Edgewood
positions in their fields. The High
Park School School Department prepares for
(Edgewood
entrance into colleges and through
Park,
this advanced training many girls
Incorporated have been enrolled in the most
)
notable colleges in the country. (1,
1938
1938
In addition to the academic work,
the first students of 1938 at the
Edgewood Park, Incorporated, school
are encouraged successfully to take
part in local civic affairs and Bible
courses, and chapel exercises were
an integral part of the curriculum .
They have acted as nurses' aides
and assistants in the dietary
departments of Grasslands Hospital;
students in the Kindergarten and
Primary Education departments have
done practical teaching in Briarcliff
schools. Humanitarian interests are
developed by preparing foods and
clothing for needy homes, the Red
Cross has been liberally served and
the Religious Association has never
failed to enter helpfully into
benevolent causes of various types.
The school also served the
community by acting as host to
performers and lecturers to whom
most residents would not otherwise
have been exposed. One of these
was the modern dancer Martha
Edgewood
Graham. Religiously, Christian but
Park School non-sectarian, Bible courses provide
(Edgewood
such instruction, and chapel
Park,
exercises, under the leadership of
Incorporated the school chaplain and visiting
)
ministers, are an integral part of the
During this year, Dr. Robert Wyckoff
Searle published the first of three
Searle
books that he would write, entitled:
Family
City Shadows . (1, page 170)
1938 July 7th
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1938 September
King's
College
1938-1944
Stimson
Family
On this date, in the court case
Scarborough Properties versus
Village of Briarcliff Manor , Court of
Appeals of New York, which settled
the dispute between Scarborough
Properties and the Village of Briarcliff
Manor over the control and toll
collecting for the use of the roads
laid out (with utilities improvements)
that were built on the Beechwood
property after the death of Frank
Vanderlip (d. 1937), Attorney Herbet
Gerlach of Ossining represented the
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, pages
101 and 231)
During this year, The King’s College
was founded and started by Dr.
Percy B. Crawford and the Young
People's Association for the
Propagation of the Godspel, with
sixty-seven students on the Marconi
estate in Belmar, New Jersey. This
90-acre estate was once used by
Gulielmo Marconi for wireless
experiments. The King's College
was a private coeducational Christian
liberal arts school that was modeled
after Wheaton College in Illinois,
Crawford's alma mater. However,
forced to raise $500,000.00 for an
endowment necessary for
accredation in New Jersey, the
school chose instead to find a new
home. (1, page 172) (8, page 71)
(15, page 45)
During this period, Julia C. Stimson
serves as the president of the
American Nurses Association, and in
this post, as when she served as the
superintendent of the Army Nurse
Corps, she worked for higher
professional standards and
improvement of the status of nurses.
(1, page 133)
1938-1947
1938-1960
1939
1939
1939
Rev. Edmund Melville Wylie serves
as the fourth minister of The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church
during this period. He also wrote
several chancel dramas during this
Scarborough period, two of which were presented
Presbyterian in the church by parishioners. (1,
Church
page 54) (2, page 39)
During this period, evangelist and
youth leader Dr. Percy B. Crawford
leads The King’s College during this
twenty-two-year period as its first
president and taught Bible classes
there, until his death in 1960 at the
King's
age of 58. (1, page 172) (8, page
College
76)
During this year, the Briarcliff
Community Christmas Cheer Fund,
which would later be organized into
the Briarcliff Community Committee
(in 1939), is formed by
representatives from ten Briarcliff
organizations and churches to
provide welfare relief for needy
Briarcliff
families of the Village of Briarcliff
Community Manor. It begins with ten groups in
Committee
this organization. (2, page 82)
At this time, the number of
Briarcliff
catalogued books in the Briarcliff
Manor Free Manor Free Library's possession
Library
numbers 6,000. (1, page 39)
Robert B. Pattison, in his A History
of Briarcliff Manor , reprinted from
"The Briarcliff Weekly" of 1939,
states that among the notables who
starred in the subscription and fundraising concerts and lectures to raise
money to support the Briarcliff
Manor Free Library were Ruth
Draper, the popular diseuse, and
Barrett Clark. Ruth Draper often
Briarcliff
visited her sister, Mrs. E. C. Carter,
Manor Free who lived on Horsechesnut Road. (1,
Library
pages 76 and 230)
1939
1939
During this year, Robert B. Pattison,
(who later served on The Historical
Committee in 1952 to create and
publish the Semi-Centenial history of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor,
entitled: Our Village: Briarcliff
Manor, N. Y., 1902-1952 ) published
what may have been the first
published history ever written of the
History of
Village of Briarcliff Manor, entitled: A
Briarcliff
History of Briarcliff Manor . (1, page
Manor
148)
During this year, just after his firm
completed the complex of buildings
for Marymount convent and college
in Tarrytown, Arthur Ware, Sr.,
Briarcliff
painter and architect, who lived in
Architects:
the Village of Briarcliff Manor during
Arthur Ware, the 1930s in The Dysart House,
Sr.
died. (1, page 215)
1939
Native
Americans
1939
Bishop
Family
1939
Whitson
Family
According to the Reverend Robert B.
Pattison, in his book, A History of
Briarcliff Manor (1939), one of the
Mohegan Indian rock shelters was
located on the Dell Farm in the
Briarcliff area, and that Indian
arrowheads of unknown age had also
been found in this same rock shelter
recently in 1939. (14, page 1)
During this year, there were three
brothers of the Bishop family that
lived in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor: Jesse B., T. Everett, and
Howard G. Bishop. These three
brothers all traced their ancestry
from Thomas Bishop, a Philipse
tenant who, with his father John,
bought 265 acres of land from the
Commission on Forfeiture in 1785.
(14, page 3)
At this time, all three Whitson
farmhouses were still standing in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (14, page
3)
1939
Joseph
Whitson
House
("Crossways"
Home)
1939
Richard
Whitson
House
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
During this year, “The Crossways”
(built in 1820 by Joseph Whitson),
still stood at the corner of
Pleasantville Road near The Briarcliff
Congregational Church. (14, page 3)
During this year, Mr. Emerson
Kessler was living in the house that
Richard Whitson had formerly lived
in on Pleasantville Road. (14, page
3)
During this year, Mr. Preston Herbert
was living in the house that Reuben
Century
Whitson had formerly lived in near
Homestead the Bronx Parkway. (14, page 3)
During this year, the former
“Whitson’s Station” of Briarcliff that
was moved to Millwood was still
serving as a railroad stop in Millwood
called “Millwood station.” (14, page
Rail Roads
5)
According to the 1939 A History of
Briarcliff Manor, there were still
people alive who remembered the
first station agent of “Whitson’s
Rail Roads
Station,” Ben Fisher. (14, page 5)
According to the 1939 history of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, The
Briarcliff Steam Laundry (Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Steamer Co.) building was west of
Steam
where the Realty office stood in
Laundry
1939. (14, page 7)
During this year, Alfred H. Pearson
Village
was the Clerk for the Briarcliff Manor
Government Village Government. (14, page 7)
By this year, the Village of Briarcliff
Manor’s land area amounted to five
and one-half square miles or 3,520
acres. This was an increase from its
original 640 acres, or roughly one
Briarcliff
square-mile. (14, page 7) (17, page
Real Estate 30)
By this year, the Briar Hills Country
Club existed on the hill where there
Briarcliff
used to be a reservoir for the Village
Water
of Briarcliff Manor. (14, page 9)
1939
1939
1939
1939
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, one of the oldest
inhabitant of the Village recalls that
there was plenty of water in the
Village, since rain or spring water
would rush down the hillside
opposite the High School building
(built in 1928) and settle like a
Briarcliff
marsh where the lake nearby was.
Water
(2, page 52) (14, page 9)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, there was a lake
near the old High School building
Briarcliff
that was built in 1928. (2, page 52)
Water
(14, page 9)
By this year, due to the growth of
the Briarcliff community, more police
officers were added to the
department, resulting in a total
Briarcliff
number of eight police officers and a
Manor Police radio car in addition to autos. (14,
Department page 9)
During this year, the railroad trains
still stopped at the Briarcliff Manor
train station, which later became the
Rail Roads
library. (14, page 9)
1939
By this year, Mrs. Douglas owned
the small edifice that temporarily
housed the Briarcliff Manor Post
Briarcliff
Office before the station building was
Manor Post
moved to Millwood, and that was
Office
located on Elm Road. (14, page 11)
By this year, there was a byroad
that led down to Route 404 on the
section of Pleasantville Road where
one of the old schoolhouses of
Roads and
Briarcliff was and where the
Transportati Community Club of Briarcliff was
on
once housed. (14, page 11)
1939
By this year, according to the 1939
history of Briarcliff Manor, the library
that served Briarcliff in 1939, since it
inherited the library funds of the
library of the Briarcliff Community
Club, technically is a continuation of
the library of the Briarcliff
Community Club. (14, page 11)
1939
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
During this year, The Briar Hills
Country Club was one of the places
Briar Hills
to play golf in the Village of Briarcliff
Country Club Manor. (14, pages 11 and 13)
During this year, people in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor still played
Briarcliff
golf on the golf course at the
Lodge
Briarcliff Lodge. (14, page 13)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, camping had log
Briarcliff
been participated in within the
Natural
Village, although most of it was done
History
by outsiders. (14, page 13)
By this year, according to the 1939
history of Briarcliff Manor, there
were two national camps of the Girl
Scouts located out beyond the
Camp Edith Preston Herbert house. Camp
Macy: Girl
Andree, the principle camp of the
Scout
national organization, and Camp
Training
Edith Macy for Girl Scout Leaders.
School
(14, page 13)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, the “White School”
that served Briarcliff as a
Public
schoolhouse was still being used as a
Schools:
firehouse in Hawthorne after it had
Grade and
been moved there in 1896. (14,
High School page 13)
Public
According to the 1939 history of
Schools:
Briarcliff Manor, the old Grade
Grade and
School building, built in 1909, was
High School still standing in 1939. (14, page 13)
Public
According to the 1939 history of
Schools:
Briarcliff Manor, the old Grade
Grade and
School building had 350 students by
High School 1939. (14, page 13)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, there had been only
one woman president up to 1939 of
Briarcliff
the Briarcliff Board of Education:
Board of
Mrs. Susan D. Ransom. (14, page
Education
14)
1939
Briarcliff
Board of
Education
1939
Dysart
House
1939
Briarcliff
Junior
College
1939
Briarcliff
Junior
College
1939
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1939
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1939
Briarcliff
Publications
1939
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, Willet J. Nodine
gave many years of active interest in
school matters, as Clerk of the
Briarcliff Manor Board of Education,
and before him, his father, Ira
Nodine, was a trustee of the
Briarcliff Board of Education. (14,
page 14)
As of this year, the Dysart house
was the resident of Mrs. Arthur Ware
on Pleasantville Road. (1, page 73)
(14, page 14)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, during this year,
Miss Doris L. Flick was serving as the
president of Briarcliff Junior College.
(14, page 15)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, during this year,
Briarcliff Junior College had the
popular tradition of the May Day
“Souving” (from Souvenir) when
classes pass honors to each other.
(14, pages 15)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, The Briarcliff Manor
Free Library was still located in the
old High School building. (14, page
15)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, The Briarcliff Manor
Free Library received an efficiency
rating of 92.84 percent from the
Library Division of the N. Y. State
Education Dept. (14, page 15)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, recently at that time
the “Briarcliff Weekly was begun,
with William Rayburn as its editor,
and was well started on its useful
way. (14, page 17)
As of this year, the ivy which
Washington Irving, a frequent
worshipper at St. Mary’s Episcopal
Church, had planted still covered the
stone Gothic edifice of this church.
(14, page 17)
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
As of this year, the All Saints
Episcopal Church still stood the way
All Saints
it was expanded in 1910, a beautiful
Episcopal
stone edifice, Gothic in design. (14,
Church
page 17)
By this year, the Sing Sing Heights
Chapel (which had begun a Sunday
School in 1889 that led to the
creation of The Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Congregational Church) was called
Congregatio the Ossining Heights Methodist
n-al Church Church. (14, page 19)
By this year, Father James F. Kelly
of The Church of Saint Theresa of
Church of
the Infant Jesus had given as a gift
Saint
the statue of St. Theresa on the
Theresa of
Church grounds as a gift to his
the Infant
beloved Parish. (2, page 42) (14,
Jesus
pages 19-20)
According to the 1939 history of
Briarcliff Manor, the grave of the
Famous
“Old Leather Man” in Sparta
Scarborough Cemetery, as of 1939, was still
Residents
unmarked. (14, page 20)
During this year, Arthur W. Johnson,
Sr., who had been on The Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor Police Department since
Manor Police 1926, became the new chief of the
Department police department. (17, page 50)
By this year, Dr. and Mrs. Matthew
Howell Reaser lived in a house on
Noel Drive in Chilmark Park, in the
Village of Ossining. Dr. Reaser was
the founder of the Edgewood Park
School, which had moved to Briarcliff
Reaser
by 1936. (1, page 73) (8, pages 61
Residence
and 64)
Edgewood
During this year, according to the
Park School 1939 Edgewood Park Class
(Edgewood
Yearbook, the students at Edgewood
Park,
Park School made several trips to
Incorporated the New World’s fair in Queens, New
)
York. (8, page 65)
1939
1939
1939(?)
1939(?)
1939(?)
During this year, the Golf Club of the
Edgewood Park School was
photographed on the top of the hill
at the Briarcliff Lodge that looked
down on Dalmeny Road. Athletics
were popular at the Edgewood Park
Edgewood
School at this time. Sports included
Park School badminton, tennis, horseback riding,
(Edgewood
skiing, field hockey, and ice-skating.
Park,
The riding club used the stables at
Incorporated The Sleepy Hollow Country Club. (8,
)
page 67)
By this year, the former Library of
the Briarcliff Lodge was being used
Edgewood
as a meeting place for the
Park School Kindergarten Club at the Edgewood
(Edgewood
Park School. This Library room
Park,
would later become the president’s
Incorporated office for The King’s College. (8,
)
page 69)
During this year, much of the history
of the St. Mary's Episcopal Church
was portrayed vividly in the movie
celebrating the 100th anniversary of
St. Mary's
the Church, also celebrated during
Episcopal
this same year, and called "The Birth
Church
of St. Mary's." (2, page 36)
Possibly during this year, the funds
to carry on the work of the Briarcliff
Community Committee (then called
the Briarcliff Community Christmas
Briarcliff
Cheer Fund) were first raised by
Community holding an annual dance. (2, page
Committee
82)
Before World War II, The
Confraternity Confraternity of Christian Doctrine
of Christian (CCD) was established in the parish
Doctrine
of the Church of Saint Theresa of the
(CCD)
Infant Jesus. (1, page 166)
1939 May
The Women's Guild of The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church is
organized under the guidance of Dr.
Edmund Wylie. Its first President
was Mrs. E. G. Van Valey. Its
mission, according to the book Our
Village: Briarcliff Manor: 1902 To
1952 , "is to give the opportunity to
the Women of the Church to make
Christ known to the world through
fellowship and benevolence, to work
together on various projects within
the Church, and in the national and
foreign missions of the Presbyterian
Church." The Guild has been active
in such widely diversified projects as
raising funds for new hymnals and
choir gowns, and helping to spread
some measure of cheer to people in
hospitals and charitable homes
through the Sunshine Committee.
Through its various money raising
efforts, financial support has been
Women's
given to war relief organizations, the
Guild of the Red Cross, and, recently, a
Scarborough contribution to cover part of the
Presbyterian expense of a resident nurse in East
Church
Harlem. (2, page 44)
June 10thSeptember
1939 25th
Briarcliff
Lodge
1939-1941
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1939-1944
Steele
Family
1939-1945
1939-1952
During the last summer the Briarcliff
Lodge was open as a hotel, in 1939,
John W. Greene managing director,
and Carter L. Gardner, resident
manager, oversaw the hotel
operations. Also, the most famous
resort ever built in the Hudson
valley, the Catskill Mountain House,
closed its doors for good following
the 1942 season a few years after
this. The Briarcliff Lodge
Advertisement from this last summer
season read: “EDGEWOOD PARK:
The Home of: BRIARCLIFF LODGE:
Open June 10th to September 25:th
A charming resort, catering to a
select clientele. One hour’s run from
the World’s Fair Grounds. Delicious
Meals. Golf, Swimming, Tennis,
Riding, miles of beautiful walks.
Special rates for families whose
daughters have attended or are
attending Edgewood park School.
For complete information
write…BRIARCLIFF LODGE: Briarcliff
Manor, N. Y.: Telephone—Briarcliff
1640.” (8, page 63)
During this period, Harold L. Lewis
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
233)
During this period, after he stopped
managing the Briarcliff Lodge,
Chauncey Depew Steele went on to
manage the Copley Plaza Hotel in
Boston. (8, page 42)
Sleepy
Chef LaCroix returned to Briarcliff to
Hollow
work at the Sleepy Hollow Country
Country Club Club during this period. (1, page 42)
During this period, Mrs. George
Women's
Boldt has been serving as the
Guild of the continuing chairman of the Sunshine
Scarborough Committee of the Women's Guild of
Presbyterian The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church
Church. (2, page 44)
1939-1963
Arthur W. Johnson, Sr. serves as
Police Chief of The Briarcliff Manor
Police Department during this period
(25 years). It was also during his
tenure as Chief that The Briarcliff
Manor Police Department became
Briarcliff
famous for its well-enforced speed
Manor Police limits. (1, page 62) (2, pages 31 and
Department 74) (15, page 84)
Date
(Year):
1940s:
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
1940s
KemeysAiles House
1940s
Barnesby
House
1940s
Haymont
Estate
1940s
Village
Government
1940s
Briarcliff
Manor
Police
Department
1940s
Briarcliff
Manor
Police
Department
1940s
Briarcliff
Artists:
Claire Hertz
Description of Event:
During this period, the Kemeys-Ailes
house in Scarborough was the home
of Nina Baekeland Roll, her husband,
Phillips Wyman, and their children
from former marriages. (1, page
102)
During this decade, the Barnesby
House is given to The Scarborough
School and serves as the girls
dormitory building under the new
name of Marie Fayant Hall. (1, page
111)
During this decade, the Fuller estate
(the Haymont mansion) was
occupied by Bernard Van Leer and
his Holland Classical Circus. (1, page
122)
During this decade, the village
government of Briarcliff Manor was
made up of mostly members of a few
families who had lived in the village
since the turn of the century, yet
several worked for the village for
many years. (1, page 191)
During this decade, the Briarcliff
police force was mostly occupied
with accidents and traffic violations
on the three major arteries that
traverse the Village of Briarcliff
Manor. (1, page 207)
During this decade, an employee of
the Edgewood Park School killed a
fellow employee. The Briarcliff
Manor Police Department was able to
solve this case. (1, page 207)
During this decade, Hjalmer Hertz,
the president of the Singer Sewing
Machine and Diehl Manufacturing
Company, bought land high on the
hill from the Becker family, and built
his stone house, which commands
the finest view in Scarborough. His
wife, Claire Hertz, was a sculptor and
schoolteacher. (1, page 216)
1940s
During this decade, the 1820 house
originally constructed by Joseph
Whitson, uncle of John Whitson, one
of the house’s former residents, was
torn down. This house was located
at the corner of Pleasantville and
South State Roads, where the parish
house of the Congregational Church
is today, and this area was known as
Joseph
Whitson’s Corners. The house was
Whitson
also at one time the popular
House
Crossways Teahouse, a post office
("Crossways and a private residence. (15, page
")
17)
During this decade, the Village of
Briarcliff Manor did not thrive during
World War II, because, like the rest
of the nation many young men and
women left to serve in the armed
forces. The contribution of more
than 340 persons from a population
of 1,830 was notable. Nine of the
World War young men would new return. (15,
II
page 78)
1940s
Joy Ozzello recounts her memories
and thoughts about Briarcliff in the
1940s: “I remember…Spending all
day at the pool all summer, bringing
lunch…Good old Doc
Cunningham…Firemen’s bazaars
where Barclay’s Bank is now, and
before that where the A&P is
today…Rides on fire trucks for a
dime…Victory gardens and
September fairs to display the
produce…The circus that was held to
raise money for the first ambulance
on the parish house grounds of the
Congregational Church. (It was a
big decision to go ahead as planned
even though President Roosevelt was
being buried that day.) The famous
Van Leer horses that were donated
for the circus and all the local
talent…Air raid drills…Memorial Day
parades followed by a race to see
who would be first in the pool, rain
or shine, hot or cold…” (15, page 94)
1940s
1940s
Briarcliff
1940s
the 1940sthe 1950s
pre-1940(?)
1940s
Briarcliff
Joy Ozzello continues to recount her
memories of Briarcliff in the 1940s:
“Variety shows—especially the Fire
Department Ladies Auxiliary’s
kitchen band…Riding stables located
where Thalle Construction is
now…Girl Scouts housed in the
building next to St. Theresa’s Church
and then in the store where Country
Casuals is now…Doc Kennard’s Drug
Store (Briarcliff Manor Pharmacy),
Julius the barber, Christopher’s
(Weldon’s), Noller’s, Whittenberg’s
(Pete’s), Mrs. Black’s (Briar Rose),
and the post office (Kipp’s). The old
firehouse and its many
parties…Pappy Henderson picking up
the mail at the railroad station in a
pick-up truck…Briarcliff High School’s
rivalry with Chappaqua…Sleigh riding
on the golf course…Sunday afternoon
baseball games at the park…The
Allen fire on South State Road in sub
zero temperatures…How many
generations had Mrs. Duncombe for
kindergarten…Chilmark Farms…And
especially everyone knowing and
caring for everyone else.” (15, pages
94-95)
Roads and All throughout this period, the Village
Transportati of Briarcliff Manor was known as a
on
famous "speed trap." (1, page 132)
During this period, Frederick Ungar,
who was later a publisher and
Briarcliff
resident of the Scarborough region
Publishers: of the Village of Briarcliff Manor, was
Frederick
a publisher-translator in Austria. (1,
Ungar
page 220)
the early
1940s
the early
1940s
the early
1940s
During this period, change continued
at The Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining, in the nature of the
Congregation as well as the conduct
of services. Samuel Puner,
Congregation president in the 1960s,
remembers how things were in this
early 1940s period, when he first
joined the Congregation of some fifty
or sixty families. The woman sat on
one side during services; the men
sat on the other side. The men’s
side was crowded. Weekly meetings
of the Congregation, to pass on all
expenditures, were big social
occasions, and after they broke up,
the men played poker. Twenty-five
cents out of every pot was given to
the Congregation. The women sat
apart and chatted or played other
card games. The tradition of daily
minyans was held to. When a
minyan failed to gather, somebody
just walked up Main Street in
Ossining and asked people to close
their shops for half an hour to make
Congregatio one up. Not one member of the
n Sons of
Congregation lived in Briarcliff
Israel of
Manor, and Puner was for years the
Ossining
old commuter. (1, page 167)
During this period, Samuel Puner,
who would later serve as The
Congregatio Congregation Sons of Israel of
n Sons of
Ossining president during the 1960s,
Israel of
first joined the Congregation’s some
Ossining
fifty or sixty families. (1, page 167)
During this period, M. Coburn
Whitmore, later a resident of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor and a
famous artist who made pictures and
illustrations of beautiful women for
Briarcliff
magazine covers and in stories,
Artists: M. came to work at the Charles Copper
Coburn
Studios in New York City. (1, page
Whitmore
211)
ca. 1940(?)
Briarcliff
Publishers:
Frederick
Ungar
1940
Manahan
Family
1940
Manahan
Family
1940
1940
1940(?)
1940-1967
ca. 1940(?)1988
Briarcliff
Population
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
Around this year, Frederick Ungar,
who was later a publisher and
resident of the Scarborough region
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor, and
was at this time a publishertranslator in Austria, fled the Nazis
and left Austria to come to America
and established a publishing
company in New York City. (1, page
220)
Patrick Manahan, superintendent of
the village water department, dies.
(1, pages 62-63)
Irving Manahan, the son of Patrick
Manahan, succeeds his father as the
superintendent of the village water
department when his father dies in
1940. (1, pages 62-63)
By this year, the population in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor was 1,830.
(1, page 146)
During this year, Father Kelly
reported that there were 134
families with 141 children on the
parish roles. (1, page 166)
During this year, George Thomas
("Tommy") Fountain (later a
lieutenant in the U.S. Army during
Fountain
World War II) begins his first year at
Family
law school. (1, page 139)
Irving Manahan serves as the
Department superintendent of the village water
of Public
department during this period. (1,
Works
page 63)
During this period, Frederick Ungar,
a publisher and Briarcliff resident, for
over nearly fifty years runs his
publishing company in New York
City, and he published some two
thousand titles on subjects ranging
from history and philosophy to
science-fiction criticism. He
translated some two thousand
Briarcliff
books, among them Thomas Mann’s
Publishers: Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man and
Frederick
Erich Fromm’s Marx’s Concept of
Ungar
Man . (1, page 220)
pre-1941(?)
before early
1941
early 1941
1941
1941
1941
1941
1941
During this period before his World
War II service in the U.S. Coast
Guard as a lieutenant, Burton
Benjamin, writer, producer and
director, and later Briarcliff resident,
worked as a reporter for the
Newspaper Enterprise Association.
Burton Benjamin had started his
Briarcliff
career as a journalist while still at
Writers:
school in Cleveland, and at the
Burton
University of Michigan. (1, pages 218Benjamin
219)
At this time, Paul Barr Zuydhoek,
before his induction into the U.S.
Army early in 1941 during World War
II, he was organist and choir director
Zuydhoek
of Christ Church in South Amboy,
Family
New Jersey. (1, page 139)
At this time, Paul Barr Zuydhoek is
inducted in the U.S. Army. Following
this, Paul Barr Zuydhoek received his
World War basic training at Fort Bragg, North
II
Carolina. (1, page 139)
The Briarcliff Community Christmas
Cheer Fund changes its name to the
Briarcliff Community Committee in
Briarcliff
order to extend the committee's
Community usefulness beyond the Christmas
Committee season. (2, page 82)
The Public Works Department of the
Department Village of Briarcliff Manor was not
of Public
formally established until this year.
Works
(1, page 63)
During this year, after the death of
Don Odell Shelton, Shelton's house,
on the north corner of Elm Road
Shelton
where it turns west, is acquired by
House
Briarcliff College. (1, page 78)
During this year, Roger Nestor
Wallach, a distinguished resident of
Wallach
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, dies.
Family
(1, page 121)
During this year, Dr. Robert Wyckoff
Searle published the second of three
Searle
books that he would write, entitled:
Family
Author of Liberty . (1, page 170)
1941
1941
1941
1941(?)
During this year, The King’s College
purchased a c. 1846 estate in New
Castle, Delaware, known as
Lexington, and moved its entire
King's
campus to this estate. (1, page 172)
College
(8, page 71)
During this year, the Street
Commissioner and Water
Department officials became part of
Department the Public Works Department of the
of Public
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
Works
234)
The present (ca. 1952) Recreation
Building is acquired during this year,
allowing suitable provision to
become possible in a pronounced
manner for the activities of Boy and
Girl Scouts, Cubs, Briar Patch and
other organizations. This building
was formerly The Briarcliff Riding
Academy and is located at the corner
of Route 9A and old Route 100. This
building is in constant use in these
ways and indicates the hope for a
larger and better-placed Recreation
Recreation center some time in the future. (2,
Committee page 87) (15, page 85)
During this year, some Briarcliff
residents worked in defense
industries outside the community.
Others worked in a small plant on
the Vanderlip estate in Scarborough.
John Vanderlip, Scarborough School
class of 1933, his classmate Charles
Wagner of Irvington and Fred Baker,
a shop work instructor in a New York
City school, turned a hobby and one
or two small machines into a
constructive war effort. They first
set up shop in the basement of an
Irvington drugstore that belonged to
Wagner's father. There they
received their first contract, which
took several months to fill, to
produce two thousand aircraft
World War control cable terminals. (1, page
II
134)
early
1941 December
Vincent
Family
1941 December
World War
II
December
1941 6th
Vincent
Family
During this time, Tom Vincent moved
to Briarcliff Manor. His recollection
of this time is as follows: “Our family
moved here in early-December
1941. I was nine. Westchester
house-hunting with Ike Hotaling put
us in contact with Henry Ingham,
former Briarcliff mayor and home
builder. The minute Mom saw him,
we were hooked. “he looks and acts
just like Will Rogers,” she said. “He
must be trustworthy.” He was. We
bought the only house left on the
street and never looked back.” (17,
page 31)
At this time, Lieutenant-Colonel
Hazelton, a resident of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, reentered the U.S.
Army with the rank of major and
served as resident representative at
the Ford River Rouge Aviation Plant.
(1, page 138)
On this date, Tom Vincent recalls an
airplane crash in Briarcliff Manor: “It
was exciting from the beginning. On
Saturday, December 6, a Piper Cub
“landed” in telephone wires east of
the Taconic trying to reach the open
field next to the parkway. The pilot
made a couple of low passes so we
had time to get close and see it all.
The wires stopped him—aircraft
carrier style. He climbed down
unhurt and used our phone to get
help.” (17, page 31)
December
1941 7th
postDecember
1941 7th
1941-1942
1941(?)1942
On this date, Tom Vincent recalls the
moment when his family heard the
news that Pearl harbor had been
bombed, which began America’s
entry into World War II, as he
states: “The next morning [after
December 6th] as we left for church,
Alice Ann Marquardt ran across our
lawn and said, “The Japanese have
attacked Pearl harbor and my aunt
and uncle live in the Philippines.
We’re very worried.” I had no idea
what Pearl Harbor was, or where it
was, but looked at my parents and
said, “Boy, this is really an exciting
World War town.” How right I was.” (17, page
II
31)
After the attacks on Pearl Hardbor on
December 7th, 1941, Paul Barr
Zuydhoek was sent to Hawaii and
later(?) returned for officer training
to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he was
World War commissioned a second lieutenant.
II
(1, page 139)
During this period, William W. Bevier
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
During this period, during World War
II, Julia C. Stimson served as
chairman of the Nursing Council on
Defense until, in 1942, she was
recalled to active duty in the Army
Nurse Corps and assigned to
World War recruiting more nurses from all over
II
the country. (1, page 133)
1941-1945
World War
II
Approximately 365 men from the
Village of Briarcliff Manor enlisted to
fight in World War II. Out of that
number, eleven were killed in the
war: W. Sherman Burns, Jr., Arthur
J. Quinn, Jr., Charles Henry Matthes,
Paul H. Hazelton, George Thomas
("Tommy") Fountain, Benjamin Carl
Dunn, John F. Schrade, III, Percy
Meredith Hall, Jr., Paul Barr
Zuydhoek, Daniel Fletcher Currier,
and Edward White, Jr. (These last
two servicemen listed were not listed
or mentioned in the "Communique,"
but were listed in the Ossining
Historical Society's Memorial Booklet
as casualties of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor). (1, pages 128 and
137-140) (2, page 79)
1941-1945
1941-1945
The village police helps to round up
farm animals: "Our police had a
chance to play cowboy when Mrs.
Alico of Tuttle Road called on April
5th and reported that a pony and a
horse were gamboling on the Briar
Hills Golf Course. Fred Borho, Ray
Wolf and Everett Garvey drove to the
Course armed with ropes and
halters. The animals, however, went
quietly to jail for one night. Owner
James Moroney of Pleasantville
blamed the wanderings of his pets
on a touch of spring fever. On April
6th four streets broke loose from
their pasture on Todd Lane. Mrs.
Preston Herbert found them lunching
on the Herbert lawn [the Reuben
Whitson house]. After looking twice
at her ration books and the
thousands of red points [for meat]
on the hoof, she called the Police
Department and Patrolmen Borho
and Garvey again responded with
lassoes. It took four hours of hard
work to finally corral the steers. At
times it was rather doubtful as to
who was chasing who, and some treeBriarcliff
climbing brought cheers from
Manor
passing motorists on the Taconic
Police
Parkway. But the job was completed
Department and former Mayor Henry Ingham has
The village police help to round up
farm animals, as there was a "Cow
hunt on August 17th-a Jersey
belonging to the Whiting Estate
broke away and police helped in the
Briarcliff
two-day search. Cow finally found in
Manor
with the Lukacovic herd of cows
Police
[Long Hill and Aspinwall roads]." (1,
Department pages 131-132)
1941-1945
During this period, aside from duties
associated with civilian defense, few
extraordinary events were noted on
the Briarcliff police blotter during the
war years. There were a few breakins and car thefts by miscreants from
out of town, especially juvenilles
escaped from Children's Village in
Dobbs Ferry and other houses of
correction. Many of the most
frequent violations of the law had to
do with Traffic Violations. Jude
Charles Robinson reported in
"Communique" on the Police Justice
Court: "By reason of the extensive
parkways in the Village, and its size
geographically, most of the cases are
those of Traffic Violations. In the
general run of such cases, there is
little of spice of diversion...although
some of the alibis offered are
amusing. The stock one has been
the necessity to speedily transport a
passenger who has suddenly become
Briarcliff
ill." In addition, the speed limit was
Manor
40 miles an hour on parkway
Police
straightaways during the war. (1,
Department pages 131-132)
1941-1945
World War
II
Marion Dinwiddie was made a
lieutenant in the American Red
Cross, and with Florence fed troops
from Albany: "The bakeries would
open and make bread and the shops
would open...so we'd get stuff to
feed them" in the YMCA building in
Tarrytown. Florence: "One of those
years we had terrible ice storms and
the Post Road had ruts just so far
apart and if you got in a rut with one
wheel you had to get out and dig
yourself out...at forty-five below zero
(sic ). We slide down Holbrook Road
very often." At the war's end the
Hudson Unit of the Red Cross
covered Camp Shanks, "right across
the river, back of Piermont." Marion:
"The troop ships coming back would
dock at half past five and the rest at
half past six...so it meant you had to
be at Sheffield [dairy] in Yonkers at
two o'clock in the morning to get in
the milk and the ice...so we started
at one." Marion wished she had a
picture of a time she "stopped at a
place in Dobbs Ferry where the head
of the Canteen was and she [the
head of the Canteen] and her
husband had been making great big
milk cans of soup-puree Mongole,
pea soup and tomato soup put
1941-1945
World War
II
1941-1945
World War
II
During World War II, the miltary
combatants of Briarcliff received
many honors and decorations. Of
the combatants who survived the
war, air medals were awarded: to
Lieutenant Edmund Quincy, Jr., pilot
of a B-24 Liberator in the 13th
A.A.F.'s "Lone Rangers" in the
Southwest Pacific; to Lieutenant
John H. Lewis, who was also
awarded the Distinguished Flying
Cross for air raids over Germany in
his Flying Fortress "Peck's Bad Boy";
to Captain Lawrence Durrell, for
fighter missions with General C. L.
Chennault's "Flying Tigers" over
China; to Major John Hall, for
"service in air raids over Germany
and occupied territory." Bronze
Stars were awarded to LieutenantCommander Fred C. Meyers,
sergeants Mervin L. Potts, Charles
Bouton and R.J. Daggett, and
corporals Robert E. Johnson and
Edward A. Winter. Purple Hearts
were awarded to Captain Durrell,
Staff Sergeant Herbert George,
Sergeant Daggett, Corporal David
Doyle and Corporal S. V. Mendrick.
Private Sanford Duncombe was
awarded the African Star, given by
the King of England to members of
During World War II, four writers
who lived in Briarcliff served as war
correspondents. Carroll B. Colby of
Pine Road and Albert Q. Maisel of
Sleepy Hollow Road were residents
for many years. John Hersey lived in
Briarcliff as a boy, and E. J. Khan,
Jr., lived in Scarborough. (1, page
136)
1941-1945
1941-1945
1941-1945
1941-1945
During World War II, John Hersey
was a correspondent for Life
magazine. His parents, Roscoe M.
and Grace Baird Hersey, lived first
on Poplar and then on Valentine
Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, and although John's
residence was in New York City
during the war years, he returned to
Briarcliff to visit and several times
spoke before local audiences. Mrs.
Hersey was then, and for many
years thereafter(?), village librarian.
John Hersey's first two books
published during the war(?) were
Men on Bataan and Into the Valley ,
and were both about Marines in the
World War Pacific during World War II. (1, page
II
137)
During World War II, Judge Charles
P. Robinson of the Briarcliff Police
Buckhout
Court lived in the Luthany house,
House
formerly called the Buckhout house.
(Luthany)
(1, page 124)
During this period, when writer and
Briarcliff resident Jack Kahn (E. J.
Briarcliff
Kahn, Jr.) was serving in the U. S.
Writers:
Army during World War II, he
Jack Kahn
published books of war reporting,
(E. J. Kahn, including The Army Life and G.I.
Jr.)
Jungle . (1, page 217)
During the war years of World War
II, so many men in The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department were called
to serve in the armed forces that
there was no enough men at home
to man the fire trucks. Albany had
to pass special legislation to allow
sixteen-year-old students to be
released from school to answer
alarms. The older men provided the
Briarcliff
leadership and guidance to the
Manor Fire young boys who helped protect the
Department Village. (15, page 82)
1941-1945
World War
II
1941-1945
World War
II
1941-1945
King's
College
1941(?)1945(?)
World War
II
1941(?)1945(?)
World War
II
According to Eileen Weber’s account
of Briarcliff during World War II, she
stated: “World War II hit us hard.
We followed the footsteps of each
serviceman; we shared the joys and
the sorrows with each family. It was
so personal. The dresses of one
wedding in which I was bridesmaid
made many appearances. Weddings
were put together in a day or tow if
someone had an expected leave and
was about to be shipped to another
base or overseas. A great majority
took the Red Course First Aid
Instructors Course. I was attached
to the emergency unit set up at
Edgewood Park School. Other
became air raid wardens, or airplane
watchers at Maryknoll. Victory
gardens meant Briarcliff was knee
deep in string beans! We had
rationing books for meat, butter and
gasoline. I remember stating, “I
can’t decide if I miss men or butter
more.” But when I had a baked
potato, I knew it was butter!” (15,
page 90)
During World War II, Marion
Dinwiddie headed the Red Cross
chapter in Briarcliff ManorScarborough. (17, page 22)
During World War II, the enrollment
at The King’s College decreased. (8,
page 71)
During World War II, Phillips Wyman,
who lived with his wife Mrs. Wyman
in the Kemeys-Ailes house in
Scarborough, served as a lieutenant
in the Air Force. (1, page 102)
During World War II, the third
brother of Lieutenant Percy Meredith
Hall, Jr., who lived on River Road in
Scarborough, within the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, Lieutenant Franklin
Hall, served in the U.S. Army Air
Force. (1, page 139)
1941(?)1945(?)
1941(?)1945(?)
1941(?)1945(?)
1941(?)1945(?)
1941(?)1945(?)
1941(?)1945(?)
1941(?)1945(?)
During World War II, Orill Fountain,
the brother of Lieutenant George
Thomas ("Tommy") Fountain and the
son of Petty Officer First Class
George O. Fountain, who lived on
State Road in the Village of Briarcliff
World War Manor, serves in the U.S. Navy. (1,
II
page 139)
Sometime during World War II, the
brother of Sergeant Benjamin C.
Dunn, Vincent J. Dunn, (both
reisdents of North State Road in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor) served in
World War the Seabees as a seaman first class.
II
(1, page 140)
During World War II, the Reverend
William E. Arnold (who later became
the Rector of All Saints Episcopal
All Saints
Church in 1952) was a chaplain in
Episcopal
the United States Army. (1, page
Church
179)
During World War II, Mrs. Clara
Tead, the President of Briarcliff
Junior College from 1942-1961, also
served as director of the women’s
branch in the office of the Chief of
Tead Family Ordinance. (1, page 181)
During World War II, John K.
Koelsch, a resident of the Village of
World War Briarcliff Manor, was an ensign in the
II
U.S. Navy. (1, page 189)
During World War II, a Briarcliff
Manor Democrat, the writer Albert Q.
Village
Maisel, worked on the Committee to
Government Reelect Roosevelt. (1, page 193)
During this period, Burton Benjamin,
Briarcliff
writer, producer and director, and
Writers:
Briarcliff resident, serves in the U.S.
Burton
Coast Guard as a lieutenant during
Benjamin
World War II. (1, pages 218-219)
1941(?)1945(?)
Briarcliff
Publishers:
John Farrar
1941-1949
Village
Government
1941-1952
Briarcliff
Community
Committee
1941-1954
King's
College
1941-1967
Department
of Public
Works
During this period, during World War
II, John Farrar of the publishing firm
of Farrar & Rinehart (later Farrar,
Straus & Rinehart, etc.) lived in
Scarborough. He was the author of
twelve works, including Portraits , a
book of poems, Nerves , a play, and
The Magic Sea Shell , a play for
children. He had worked at the Yale
University Press and the publishing
firm of Noble & Noble. (1, page 220)
Charles H. Schuman serves as the
Mayor for the Briarcliff Manor Village
Government. In addition to these
eight years as the Mayor of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, Charles H.
Schuman had 29 more years of
Village service, including 17 years as
Village Trustee, and 12 as President
of the Municipal Board, for a total of
37 years of Village service. (2, pages
24 and 75)
During this period, the Briarcliff
Community Committee has
sponsored: Annual Community Carol
Sing, Christmas outdoor decorating
contest, Children's Hallowe'en
program, the Mobile X-Ray Unit and
a wartime bulletin called
Communique. (2, page 82)
During this fourteen-year period, the
King’s College’s campus was located
at the c. 1846 estate in New Castle,
Delaware, known as Lexington. (8,
page 71)
During this period, after the Street
Commissioner and Water
Department officials became part of
the Public Works Department of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor in 1941,
Irving Manahan serves as the head
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor’s
Public Works Department. (1, page
234)
1941-1967
1942
1942
1942
1942
During this period, for almost twentyfive years, the former Briarcliff
Riding Academy building at the
corner of Route 9A and old Route
100, which the village acquired in
1941, housed the Department of
Parks and Recreation, the
Recreation Department of Public Works, and
Center
public library. (15, page 85)
The Church Flag of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church, which is
located in its sanctuary, is presented
to the Church by the Todd family of
Mr. George A. Todd, Jr., in memory
Briarcliff
of the large share he had had in the
Congregatio spiritual progress of the Church. (2,
n-al Church page 41)
Miss Doris Flick retires as the
president of Briarcliff Junior College.
Also at this time, Briarcliff Junior
College had barely survived at this
Briarcliff
point, with an enrollment of only 42
Junior
students in 1942. (1, page 148) (2,
College
page 55)
During this year, Twenieth Century
Authors , a book edited by Stanley
and Haycroft Kunitz and published in
New York, states that the author
Owen Johnson, who used William J.
Burns as the real-life model for his
stories he wrote of "Detective
McKenna," also wrote the popular
Hickey books, about boys at the
Lawrenceville preparatory school,
and Stover at Yale , "which attacked
the solemn mumbo-jumbo of senior
societies and the intellectual
incuriosity of the average
undergraduates [at Yale] in no
Briarcliff
uncertain terms." (1, pages 119 and
Arts
231)
During this year, Milton Bennett was
the third baseman and leading hitter
of the 1942 Briarcliff baseball team.
Milton Bennet would be the humor
columnist for the "Communique,"
Communiqu during world War II, under the alias
e
of "Cliff Briar." (1, page 132)
1942
1942
1942
1942
February
1942 2nd
1942 February
By this year, both the population and
the square milage of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor had more than
quadrupled since the Village was
founded in 1902, but several of the
original residents were still key
figures in the government. For
example, Alfred Pearson, who had
come from Scotland as a boy to work
for Walter Law, was village clerk. In
addition, Fire Commissioner Isaac
Hotaling had been one of the first
village trustees. Also, Irving
Manahan, commissioner of pulbic
works, was the son of Patrick
Manahan, and the first
Briarcliff
superintendent of the Village Water
Population Department. (1, page 143)
During this year, the library of
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Junior College had a
Junior
maximum of 5,500 volumes. (1,
College
page 181)
By this year, an eight-page
newsletter, entitled Communiqué:
Briarcliff Village Service News, was
funded and prepared by residents of
Briarcliff Manor to give local news to
Communiqu villagers in the Armed Forces. (17,
e
page 31)
During this year, Briarcliff Junior
College begins to expand on Elm
Road with classroom and dorm
space, and Howard Johnson, an ice
Briarcliff
cream tycoon, was a trustee of this
Junior
college at this time as well. (17,
College
page 31)
Mrs. Ordway Tead, A.B., L.L.D.,
Smith College, assumes the
Briarcliff
presidency of Briarcliff Junior
Junior
College. (1, pages 71 and 148) (2,
College
page 55)
At this time, Lieutenant George
Thomas ("Tommy') Fountain enlists
in the U.S. Army, and at this same
World War time, had completed his second year
II
at law school. (1, page 139)
1942 July
World War
II
1942 August
Burns
Family
At this time, Major Hazelton is
promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and
soon thereafter transferred to St.
Louis and named area supervisor of
the U.S. Army Air Corps Materiel
Command. (1, page 138)
According to an issue of the
Communique , published on this
date, Harry Addis, writing in the
Communique section called the
"Cheering Section," states that "Few
forget the fine play of Bunny in the
infield, smooth play and a fine arm,
while his brother was always one of
the best hitters." This statement
relates to the three sons of Sherman
Burns, the son of the Elder Burnses.
Sherman's three sons were W.
Sherman, Jr. (nicknamed Bunny),
Ashley J. and Bruce. Bunny and
Bruce played football and baseball on
Briarcliff High School teams, the
"Bears," or B.B.C. Bunny was
named on the Westchester County
Class C all star football team. Bruce
and Bunny played with the B.B.C.
baseball team for several summers.
(1, pages 120 and 231)
World War
II
At this time, there was a gradual but
steady increase in the production of
aircraft control cable terminals from
the John Vanderlip and Charles
Wagner factory for the American war
effort that their shop was moved to
larger quarters in the garage of Navy
Lieutenant Dudley Schoales (John
Vanderlip's brother-in-law) on River
Road in Scarborough, and then, less
than a year later, to the building on
the corner of the Post Road and
Scarborough Station Road, behind
the Vanderlip garage. (1, page 134)
1942 August
1942 September
1942 November
At this time, Second Lieutenant W.
Sherman Burns, Jr., a resident of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, enlists in
the Naval Air Corps, and received his
World War commission and wings in Pensacola,
II
Florida. (1, pages 137-138)
At this time, on the first page of the
first issue of the "Communique" from
November 1942, Mayor Charles
Schuman wrote seven paragraphs
entitled "Where You Are," which one
GI reader justly termed a poem:
"You could feel the quiver coming
down through the halyard from the
flag snapping in the breeze. With
the leaves gone it is visible now
around the park from every
direction, and it is brand new. We
couldn't fly a torn flag, worn every
day since Pearl Harbor; no more
than you could where you are. The
river could be seen from Edgewood
Park and I was thinking, does it
smell salty at Flood tide and are they
fishing off the dock? It does, and
they were, and it will be flowing out
to sea again and nothing Hitler or
Hirohito can do will stop it, no more
than the rivers where you are. A full
stop sign was all that stopped me at
Albany Post Road. Not a car in sight
at two-thirty Sunday afternoon.
That looks a little like keeping out of
traffic courts (35 mile speed limit
now) and saving gasoline and rubber
Communiqu for where you are." (1, pages 129e
130)
1942 November
1942 December
December
1942 18th
The poem from Mayor Schuman in
the first issue of the "Communique"
mentioned above continues: "The
sun streamed in through the Patrick
Manahan Memorial window as alone
I slipped quietly into your pew, Tom
or Dick. It didn't need the organ or
choir or Priest for one to be thankful
that your Church stands untouched
with the same message this
Thanksgiving Sunday as you may
have heard from your Chaplain
under the trees or some place where
you are. Down the street, this
morning the choir in another church
finished up its anthem with "God
Make Us Free." That's what it's all
about, isn't it, Harry? Whether we
sing it or pray it or think it. And in
this fight for freedom we won't let
you down, Bill. It takes a little
longer to kindle a flame for more
than a hundred million folks than for
a few million of the pick of our
manpower. But we are catching up
and those--! are cathing--! from you
and one day you'll be catching a boat
Communiqu or a train or a plane back home from
e
where you are." (1, page 130)
At this time, the second of two
servicemen whose names are not
listed or mentioned in
"Communique" and that are listed in
the Ossining Historical Society's
Memorial Booklet as casualties from
Briarcliff Manor, was Corporal
Edward White Jr., of the 26th
Marines, 5th Division, who enlisted in
the U.S. Marines at this time
(December 1942). He was born on
Oak Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, and his parents were among
the founders of Saint Theresa's
World War Church, also located in the Village of
II
Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 140)
On this date, Milton Bennet is
inducted as the humor columnist for
Communiqu the "Communique," under the alias
e
of "Cliff Briar." (1, page 132)
(?)-1942
1942-1943
1942-1944
Sometime before and up to
December 26th, 1942, future
Sergeant Benjamin C. Dunn worked
as a mechanic in his father's garage
on Saw Mill River Road until he
entered the U.S. Coast Guard on
December 26th, 1942. After
completing his basic training in
Virginia, he was selected to take a
course at an army mechanics' school
in North Carolina, where he received
his sergeant's rating. He was sent to
(?)Camp Hahn, California, and put in
December World War charge of a fleet of army trucks. (1,
26th (1942) II
page 140)
Congregatio During this period, Rabbi Brown
n Sons of
serves as the fifth Rabbi of the
Israel of
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining
Ossining. (1, page 235)
During this period, Paul E. Schuman
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
1942-1944
November
(1942)January
(1944)
During this period, Albert Dawson of
Valentine Road, president of the
Briarcliff Hook and Ladder, first had
the idea for "Communique," when he
got the grant from the Briarcliff
Community Fund to get it started in
November of 1942, and got the
money to organize the staff, and
Albert Dawson also wrote editorials,
and did the makeup for the
"Communique" until, in January
1944, he enlisted as a lieutenant in
the Naval Reserve, leaving the
management of the newsletter to
Elsie Kossow, who from the start had
prepared the "Service News" and
helped with the typing. Harry Addis
was treasurer as well as sports
reporter. Mrs. Albert Dawson wrote
the social notes, George Baxter
wrote "Town Topics," and cartoons
were contributed by Hope Stanke, Al
Nolan, Ed Kelly (proprietor of Tiny
Tavern), Kay Courreges, Carroll
Colby, and, from Camp Davis, North
Carolina, Private First Class Frank
Hewitt. But, as Dawson said, "The
Communiqu entire village is the real staff." (1,
e
page 129)
1942-1945
1942-1947
1942-1951
November
(1942)September
(1945)
The war effort from November 1942
to September 1945 is recorded in
"Communique: Briarcliff Manor
Service News." This monthly
newsletter was mailed to all villagers
in the armed forces and paid for by
civilian subscriptions. Each eightpage issue had an editorial; a report
on a special event or an overseas
station; news of the Fire and Police
departments, of Civilian Defense, of
the schools, and of the American
Legion. Full reports on Briarcliff High
School athletic teams and events,
including play-by-play accounts of
particular games, were contributed
by Harry Addis, notes, "Altarations,"
and "Stork Club"; "Manorisms," a
column of humor (broad) signed
"Cliff Briar"; "Service News,"
excerpts from letters from service
people, with editorial comments;
"Honor Roll," the names, ranks,
numbers, and addresses of service
people (two pages); cartoons, and a
sprinkling of jokes and appropriate
verses. Its tone was affectionate,
humorous and fervently supportive,
and responses to it were
enthusiastic. Some recipients
Communiqu reported that their buddies from
e
other parts of the country enjoyed
Rev. Wayne A. Nicholas serves as
the fifth Minister of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church (including
Chaplaincy, U.S. Navy, three and
one-half years, when Interim
Briarcliff
Ministers Rev. Robert B. Pattison and
Congregatio Rev. James A. Link served) during
n-al Church this period. (2, page 41)
During this period of the first ten
years of her leadership as president
of Briarcliff Junior College, Mrs. Clara
M. Tead saw the steady increase in
Briarcliff
the number of students enrolled at
Junior
Briarcliff Junior College. (15, page
College
44)
1942-1952
Briarcliff
Junior
College
1942-1960
Briarcliff
Junior
College
1942-1961
Briarcliff
Junior
College
Within this ten year period, Briarcliff
Junior College made steady progress
in its academic scope and standing.
(2, page 55)
During this period, when Mrs. Clara
M. Tead was president of Briarcliff
Junior College and together with her
husband, who served as Chairman of
the Board of Directors, reorganized
and developed the educational
program and directed the progress of
the college until her retirement in
1960. (15, page 44)
During this period, under the
energetic direction of President Clara
Tead, Briarcliff Junior College grew
and prospered. Mrs. Tead was well
qualified for her job, as in New York
City she had been the executive
secretary of the Consumers’ League,
executive director of the Women’s
City Club, dean of Catherine Gibbs
School, and also dean of Finch Junior
College from 1935-1942. (1, pages
181)
Briarcliff
Junior
College
During this period, President Mrs.
Clara Tead and Dr. Ordway Tead, her
distinguished husband, lived on the
campus of Briarcliff Junior College in
the stucco house, which became the
college library after Mrs. Tead retired
in 1961. Dir. Tead also taught social
science at the college and served as
chairman of the Board of Trustees.
He was also professor of industrial
relations at Columbia University,
editor of books on economics for the
McGraw-Hill Book Company and
Harper & Brothers, chairman of the
Board of Higher Education for New
York City, a member of the
President’s Commission on Higher
Education, and the author of many
books, including Character Building
and Higher Education and Trustees,
Teachers, Students—Their Role in
Higher Education . (1, pages 181)
1942-1961
1942-1961
Briarcliff
Junior
College
1942-1961
Briarcliff
Junior
College
During this period, President Mrs.
Clara Tead and Dr. Ordway Tead, her
distinguished husband, enlisted for
Briarcliff Junior College a lively and
accomplished group of
trustees—men and women,
neighbors, friends and colleagues.
Among them were Carl Carmer,
author; Norman Cousins, author and
editor; Barrett Clark, author (and
neighbor); and Thomas K. Finletter,
lawyer and diplomat. Three noted
educators and authors, Esther
McDonald Lloyd-Jones, Eduard
Lindeman and Lyman Bryson, were
on the board, along with the artist
William Zorach, whose monumental
sculpture of a nude female figure,
“Spirit of the Dance,” commissioned
for Radio City Music Hall in the
1930s, had been a subject of
controversy. (1, pages 181)
During this period, under President
Mrs. Clara Tead, Helen (Mrs. Robert)
Searle, who taught theater arts there
for many years, said of Briarcliff
Junior College “It was a vivid and
exciting place to work.” Also, Eileen
O’Connor Weber told a Citizen
Register reporter that Clara Tead
“was goodlooking, vibrant and
darkhaired with a twinkle. She just
sparked up the whole town.” (1,
pages 182)
Briarcliff
Junior
College
During this period, under President
Mrs. Clara Tead, the college was
sometimes denigrated as merely a
residence for debutantes between
dates with men from nearby Ivy
League colleges. Some students did
make their debuts at New York social
ceremonies, but many did not. In
addition a few of these students kept
their own saddle horses at nearby
stables. There were also many
scholarships and a variety of foreign
students at this time at Briarcliff
Junior College. (1, pages 182)
1942-1961
1943
Recreation
Center
1943
Recreation
Committee
1943
Briarcliff
Arts
The Public Works building is
purchased. The Recreation Center of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor is
opened there. (2, page 9)
The interests of The Recreation
Committee begin in this year during
World War II, when there was a
special need for them, covering a
wide scope including supervised
summer programs for children; also
lessons in swimming, tennis, golf,
archery and other games of skill.
Movies, sings, square dances, arts
and crafts are an important part of
the program. Most of this activity
takes place in the Law Memorial Park
and adds much to its community
value. (2, page 87)
During this year, Louise Randall
Dean (later Pierson) publishes her
autobiography, Roughly Speaking
(Simon & Schuster, New York,
1943). Mrs. Pierson was one of
many that had been attracted to the
fine reputation and progessive policy
of The Scarborough School. She and
her first husband, Rodney Dean,
then an officer of the National City
Bank, moved to Ossining(?) in order
to send their children to the school.
(1, pages 94 and 230)
1943
Beechwood
Players
1943
Beechwood
Players
Mrs. Louise Pierson, in her
autobiography, Roughly Speaking
(Simon & Schuster, New York,
1943), wrote of the Beechwood
Players: "There again the
intelligentsia were at odds with the
bourgeois-capitalist world. The
Players gave six plays a year, with
three-night runs. The had started
with three one-act plays but had
graduated to full-length dramas.
During the confusion resulting from
the changeover from short plays to
long ones, the intelligentsia....got
the upper hand. Mr. Tom Cleland,
an artist who designed covers for
"slick" magazines, had put on a
Chinese play. he adapted it, painted
all the scenery, designed the
costumes, and played the principal
part. Artistically it was a gorgeous
thing. The trouble was nobody came
to see it but Mr. Barrett Clark,
dramatic editor of Drama
Magazine....Mr. Cleland stubbornly
maintianed that it was Art. Mr.
Louise Westerman, whose firm
illustrated the Sears Roebuck
catalogue, said if nobody came to
see it, it wasn't art." (1, pages 96-97
and 231)
Mrs. Pierson continues: "At this
point, the Players achieved real
distinction by giving a first
performance of Lulu Vollmer's SunUp. Miss Vollmer was then an
unknown ticket taker in a southern
movie house, who had sent her
manuscript to the committee in the
crazy hope that they might produce
it. This play pleased the simpleminded bankers and brokers and got
under the wire as "folk-drama" with
the intelligentsia. More, it was
bought by a Broadway producer and
had a long run...." (1, pages 97 and
231)
1943
Beechwood
Players
1943
World War
II
1943
World War
II
Mrs. Pierson continues: "We put on a
dank thing called Black Waters, in
which Rose Hobert played the lead.
the hero, who had to carry her in
dripping after a suicide attempt,
sprained his back....We had counted
on a dash of incest in the play to put
it over, but it was to the word
"bastard" that it owed its success.
When the word "bastard" rang
through the auditorium, Mrs. Walter
B. Mahony (the Walter B. Mahonys
lived on Scarborough Road, and
Walter B. Mahony, Jr., was an editor
of The Reader's Digest), Nicholas
Murray Butler's sister, got up and
stalked out. We were horror-struck.
Should the play be abandoned?
"No," said Mr. Westerman firmly,
"The play is made. If we are smart
we'll hire a couple of other
Confederate soldiers to stamp out
overy night when the word 'bastard'
is said." It wasn't necessary. The
aisles were jammed." (1, pages 97
and 231)
During this year, in the third War
Loan Drive, Briarcliff and
Scarborough collected subscriptions
in the amount of $74,075.00. In the
Red Cross Fund Drive of the same
year, Briarcliff chairman, the
Reverend R. B. Pattison, collected
$2,700.00, an average of $700.00
per home, and Scarborough
chairman W. S. Kies raised
$5,000.00. (1, pages 130-131)
During this year, The Blood Bank,
also a Red Cross activity, had Mrs.
Julian Street, Jr. (Narcissa Vaderlip)
as chairman for Scarborough,
assisted by Lieutenant Marion
Dinwiddie of the Hudson River Motor
Corps, who had charge of
transportation of donors. (1, page
131)
1943
1943
1943
1943
1943
1943
During this year, when troops were
on maneuvers in the vicinity of
Briarcliff, the Canteen, chaired by
Mrs. Gerald May, fed 232 soldiers, a
per capita cost of 25 cents, in the
World War record time of sixteen minutes. (1,
II
page 131)
During this year, Albert Q. Maisel,
who lived on Sleepy Hollow Road in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, went
to the Pacific as a war
corresspondent and wrote an article
World War entitled "The Wounded Come Back."
II
(1, page 136)
During this year, Dr. Robert Wyckoff
Searle published the third and last of
three books that he would write,
Searle
entitled: Tell It to the Padre . (1,
Family
page 170)
All Saints
During this year, there was a fire in
Episcopal
the basement of the All Saints
Church
Episcopal Church. (1, page 178)
During this year, funds for a parish
hall for All Saints Episcopal Church
were solicited and Mr. Deacy, the
architect who enlarged the church in
1910, drew up plans. Although
fieldstone was out of the question
financially, Mr. Deacy was able to
harmonize modern design and
All Saints
materials with the church’s functional
Episcopal
and architectural needs. (15, page
Church
68)
During this year, New York State
allowed 16-year-old volunteers to
join The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department, and nine in Briarcliff
Briarcliff
join, including Joe McHenry, Pete
Manor Fire Stafford, and bill Sharman. (17,
Department page 32)
1943
World War
II
1943 January
World War
II
Tom Vincent recall’s life in Briarcliff
Manor during this year during World
War II: “As the war went on, decent
liquor was hard to find. My dad’s
chemical background led our acrossthe-street neighbor, Bob Kennedy, to
consult with him about making their
won. My Mom was against it, but
they put together a still in Kennedy’s
basement and started making gin for
their martinis. It was a cause
célèbre with my Mom that
Kennedy—always with the practical
jokes—called her one night
pretending to be Police Chief Arthur
Johnson, Sr., who lived down the
street. He spoke about the “rumors”
and “strange odors” coming from the
end of Ingham Road and wondered if
she could give him more information.
She freaked out and called a summit
meeting, whereupon Kennedy
confessed. She didn’t speak to him
for a month. My Dad said the gin
was okay—if you held your nose.”
(17, page 32)
By this time, sixty-eight tons of
salvaged material, fifteen tons over
Briarcliff's quota, were turned in.
Mrs. George Baxter was chairman of
Salvage. William Noller, at his
Pleasantville Road Grocery store,
collected waste fat from community
housewives and turned their profits
over to the local fire company to
cover handling costs of the
servicemen's cigarette fund. In
"Communique's" "Manorisms" it was
reported that: "A feminine caller
recently asked Bill Noller for an
appointment for reducing exercises.
Never again will Bill advertise: Get
rid of your surplus fat at Noller's."
(1, page 131)
1943 January
World War
II
Briarcliff
Manor
Office of
JanuaryCivilian
1943 April(1943) Protection
JanuaryWorld War
1943 June (1943) II
During this time, John F. Schrade,
III, entered service in the U.S. Navy
at the age of nineteen during World
War II. He was the son of Mr. and
Mrs. John Schrade, Jr., of Crest
Drive, the eldest of six brothers and
sisters and a graduate of Briarcliff
High School. (1, page 138)
During this period, after the
organizing of The Briarcliff Manor
Office of Civilian Protection by Mayor
Charles Schuman and Dr. Amos
Baker by January of 1943, Theodore
Gilman Law, grandson of Walter W.
Law, took over as deputy director
and served until April of 1943, when
he was commissioned lieutenant in
the navy. (1, page 130)
During this six-month period,
Briarcliff Red Cross volunteers,
working in The Briarcliff
Congregational Church, made the Tin
Can Salvage Honor Roll with twentyfive hundred pounds of tin cans
collected. (1, page 131) (17, page
32)
1943 April
Briarcliff
Manor
Office of
Civilian
Protection
the early
World War
1943 part of June II
At this time, Theodore Gilman Law
was succeeded as the deputy
director of The Briarcliff Manor Office
of Civilian Protection by Oscar Barber
of Central Drive, the director of
administration at Edgewood Park
School. There were sixty-eight airraid wardens under the direction of
Brooks Bradbury; fourteen auxiliary
police to turn our for alerts and
blackouts; "Willie" Bevier's Fire
Department; the Department of
Public Works demolition and roadrepair crew; the medical corps under
Dr. Baker; messengers and war
council workers. A staff of twenty
women under Mrs. Kingsland Rood
ran the Defense Office. Principal
Otto Huddle was school coordinator,
and John Rode was assistant deputy
for Scarborough. As wardens and
other defense personnel were lost to
the armed forces, their places were
taken by volunteers from high
school, Edgewood Park, and Briarcliff
Junior College. The airplane-spotting
post on the tower of Maryknoll
Seminary in Ossining was manned
by volunteers around the clock. (1,
page 130)
At this time, Second Lieutenant
Charles H. Matthes, a resident of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, was
stationed with the United States Air
Force in England, and was later
reported missing in action following
an attack on Hanover, Germany, on
July 26th, 1943. (1, page 138)
1943 June
1943 June
In this month's issue of the
"Communique," published at this
time, Mayor Schuman of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor at this time wrote:
"Boys, you should see the Victory
Gardens! I'll bet about now the
plough horses are more tired and
discouraged than Hitler and
Mussolini!...Believe it or not, fellows,
the gals are right out there digging
like a Yank in a fox hole, and do they
make the dirt and the weeds fly. Did
you ever hear of a canned radish or
a preserved scallion? Neither did I,
but from what I observe a lot of
vegetables and fruits are going into
glass jars for tomorrow or next week
Communiqu or for when you get back from where
e
you are!" (1, pages 134 and 231)
At this time, Second Lieutenant W.
Sherman Burns, Jr., transfers to the
Marine Air Corps, and following his
marriage, in Briarcliff, to Elsie
World War Dineson of Ossining, reported to
II
California. (1, pages 137-138)
1943 July 23rd
1943 July 26th
World War
II
Second Lieutenant W. Sherman
Burns, Jr., U.S. Marine Aviation
Corps, is killed when his plane
crashed during a routine training
flight over the Mojave Desert in
California. His bride of only four
weeks, the former Elsie Dineson, of
Ossining, was with him in California
at the time of the accident. Second
Lieutenant W. Sherman Burns, Jr.,
was a resident of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, and besides his
parents, Mr. and Mrs. W. Sherman
Burns, and his widow, Burns left two
brothers, Captain Ashley J. Burns,
U.S. Marine Corps, and Aviation
Cadet Bruce Burns, U.S. Army Air
Corps. He was a grandson of the
celebrated detective William J.
Burns. W. Sherman Burns, Jr., was
the son of Sherman Burns, who was
the son of the elder Burnses who
lived at the Shadowbrook estate
mansion in Scarborough next to the
Waldheim estate mansion of James
Speyers. In his column "Cheering
Section," Harry Addis wrote of the
death of "Bunny" Burns: "I am sure
his tragic passing has been the same
shock to you as it has to me. All
who ever knew him on the field of
sports knew him for the fine
World War
II
Second Lieutenant Charles H.
Matthes, who was a navigator for the
U.S. Army Air Forces, is lost in the
North Sea fighting in World War II.
He was reported missing in action
following an attack on Hanover,
Germany (assumed killed in action).
Second Lieutenant Charles Matthes
got an air medal "for service in raids
over Germany " and "for exceptional
meritorious achievement." (1, page
138) (2, page 79)
1943 July 30th
1943 August
1943 August
On this date, the Silver Star was
awarded postumously to First
Lieutenant Paul Zuydhoek, a resident
of Poplar Road in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, for gallantry in
World War action on July 30th, 1943. (1, page
II
139)
At this time, the police of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor collected
$1,080.00 in fines. Briarcliff
collected much money in fines for
traffic violations on Briarcliff roads.
Month after month it was reported in
the service newsletter that one
hundred or more summonses had
been issued by Briarcliff police
officers enforcing speed bans. In
"Manorisms," his column of humor in
"Communique," "Cliff Briar" appealed
to Bill Boyle, the head of rationing
for the village: "Please don't
confiscate the gasoline ration books
of any of the younger set found
'working a woo' on Long Hill Road or
any other depots of deviltry. You will
Briarcliff
recall, Bill, that when we were in our
Manor
tingling teens this was considered
Police
VERY essential driving." (1, page
Department 132)
In the Augst 1943 issue of the
"Communique," Milton Bennet, a.k.a.
"Cliff Briar," wrote: "Every time I
think of old Briarcliff I get the
"wonder-ifs"…if a fire is still a village
reunion…if 2 A.M. "over-the-fence
and into the pool" escapades
continue-if Ike Hotaling still tries out
his real estate sales talks on Julius,
the barber-if the swimming pool is
still the first place where old wolves
notice when a girl changes from an
adolescent into a doll-if the old gang
still tip-toe into Tiny Tavern and
Communiqu Briar Oakes and tipsy out again." (1,
e
page 132)
1943 August
World War
II
1943 August 1st
World War
II
At this time, Mr. and Mrs. Charles
Matthes received word that their son
Second Lieutenant Charles H.
Matthes had been missing in action
since July 26th. (1, page 138)
Lieutenant-Colonel Paul H. Hazelton
of the U.S. Army Air Forces is killed
during World War II. LieutenantColonel Paul Hazelton, U.S. Army Air
Force, was honored with a marble
tablet hung in St. Louis City Hall
commemorating him and nine others
killed in a glider demonstration flight
at Lambert-St. Louis Airfield in
August 1943. It was said that
techniques developed during
investigations following the crash
resulted in the saving of hundreds of
lives. (1, page 136) (2, page 79)
1943 October
World War
II
At this time, the first of two
servicemen whose names are not
listed or mentioned in
"Communique" and that are listed in
the Ossining Historical Society's
Memorial Booklet as casualties from
Briarcliff Manor, was U.S. Navy
Lieutenant Daniel Fletcher Currier, of
Scarborough, who was listed as
missing in action(?), then confirmed
as dead on this date (October 1943).
Edward Currier was first private
secretary and later assistant to Frank
Vanderlip throughout Vanderlip's
tenure at the National City Bank. He
is frequently mentioned in
Vanderlip's autobiography From
Farmboy to Financier and, like so
many of Vanderlip's associates, lived
in Scarbororugh. It is likely that
Lieutenant Currier was Edward
Currier's son and likely also that he
no longer actually lived in
Scarbororugh during World War II,
and so would not have been included
on the lists or in the news of
"Communique." A story is told that
he was a naval officer who dove
under his ship to save a sailor, and
was never found. (1, page 140)
1943 December
1943 Christmas
1943-1944
During this time, Mayor Schuman
(the bard of Briarcliff) wrote in his
December 1943 "On Parade,"
published at this time, about Colonel
Hazelton: "There is a tall hemlock, a
blue spruce and a giant spreading
oak in the yard of the home on
Parkway Drive….Parade! The curtain
goes up for Scarborough Players, we
thrilled at the stage setting.
Lumber, canvas, paint-Paul had a
good pair of hands and spent hours
and hours that the "Play must go
on." They were going up, Paul in the
last left hand rear seat of that giant
new glider. There will be safer
transport because of that test flight
of Paul Hazelton's and his brother
officers. You may come flying home
World War in one, non-stop from Berlin to
II
Tokyo!" (1, page 138)
At this tme, Mayor Schuman wrote in
the 1943 Christmas issue of the
"Communique," published on this
date, that: "The barberry bushes
loaded with red berries against a
dark green background of
rhododendrons mad a Christmas-like
picture before the home on North
State Road. Parade! A figure
dribbling the ball down the floor of a
shot-no, he's passing to Squee
[Garvey]-to Harry-there it goes,
clean basket. Team work that does
it. On a bomber it's the same only
more so, and a lot of kids here and
yonder go on playing basketball
because of that bomber trip taken by
Charlie Matthes and his buddies."
Harry Addis also listed Charles
Communiqu Matthes on his all-star basketball
e
team. (1, page 138)
Congregatio During this period, Rabbi Baum
n Sons of
serves as the sixth Rabbi of the
Israel of
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining
Ossining. (1, page 235)
1943 and
1944
September
In September 1943 and again in
1944, village fairs were held, as
Althea May reported in
"Communique:" "at the "Crossways"that very beautiful spot, quite level,
with great elm trees spreading their
branches in a natural canopy…for
three hours the folk of Briarcliff
brought their Victory Garden
vegetables, their expertly canned
fruits, jams and jellies, delicious
looking cakes and pies, and the
beautiful flowers to display them on
long tables arranged for the
occassion. Just beyond...could be
seen the cages containing the ducks
and fowl supervised by Mr. Charles
Matthes...In the show ring at the
southwest corner near the
Congregational Church...the Pet
show took place....Promptly at noon
the judges started their journey
down past the loaded tables, tasting,
examining and judging." (The place
where these village fairs were held,
Joseph
The "Crossways" Tea House was
Whitson
located on Pleasantville Road and
House
South State Road and was originally
("Crossways the Joseph Whitson house). (1,
")
pages 134-135)
Althea May's report in the
"Communique" on the September
1943 and 1944 village fairs
mentioned above continues: "Shortly
after three o'clock the appearance of
a high-wheeled Tally-ho, painted
yellow and decorated with cornstalks
and garden vegetables, drawn by
two jet black Frisian Stallions and
followed by a parade of beautiful
horses, provided a dramatic climax
to an already wonderful day. Mr.
Van Leer, owner of the Van Leer
stables in Briarcliff and the Holland
Classical Cirscus, had very
generously offered his trained
animals for exhibition...Several of
these Lippizaners are very valuable
and known to be the only ones of
their breed in this country. The
afternoon's performance was finally
concluded by Mr. Van Leer himself,
who rode one of the Lippizaners
which in turn did the Conga and the
waltz. As a special event, several
Fair Exhibitors were awarded rides
through the Village in the Tally-ho
Joseph
and several of the boys and girls
Whitson
were given rides on the pony around
House
the ring. These winners were
1943 and
("Crossways selected from numbers of entries
1944
September ")
listed and were picked by the
Briarcliff
During this period, John Rode serves
Manor
as the assistant deputy for
Office of
Scarborough until June of 1944,
April (1943)- Civilian
when he received his commission in
1943-1944 June (1944) Protection
the navy. (1, page 130)
During this period, Major John O.
Hall, the brother of Lieutenant Percy
Meredith Hall, Jr., who lived on River
Road in Scarborough, within the
June (1943)Village of Briarcliff Manor, was a
post-V-J
World War prisoner of war in Germany. (1, page
1943-1945 Day (1945) II
139)
In order to benefit the Armed Forces
Women's
of World War II, The Women's
Society of
Society of the Congregational Church
the
enters into the Village Variety Show
Congregatio and won the "Mayor's Cup." (2, page
1944
n-al Church 44)
1944
1944
1944
1944
1944
1944
Briarcliff Junior College buys the
Briarcliff
Shelton House, across Elm Road, for
Junior
added dormitory space. (1, page
College
182) (2, page 55)
With 100% as the basis, the highest
Briarcliff
efficiency markings was 98.3% in
Manor Free this year, when the library stood
Library
17th in its class of 65. (2, page 69)
Since this year, a Variety Show
consisting of competitive skits,
produced annually by Village
organizations has provided the funds
for the activities of the Briarcliff
Community Committee. This show is
Briarcliff
an enjoyable community event as
Community well as a financial success. (2, page
Committee 82)
During this year, the Briarcliff quota
for salvaged waste paper was 66,000
pounds; collection figures totaled
101,670 pounds, collected by
Briarcliff Red Cross volunteers
working in The Briarcliff
Congregational Church. In ten
Westchester communities, only
World War Bronxville did better. (1, page 131)
II
(17, page 32)
During this year, Albert Q. Maisel,
who lived on Sleepy Hollow Road in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, took
part in the D-Day invasion of
Normandy, crossing the English
Channel on an L.S.T. with the
invasion forces to evacuate the
wounded from the beach-heads.
About this experience he wrote an
article entitled: "Blood, Sweat and
Plasma," but Maisel's best-known
contribution to the literature of World
World War War II is Miracles of Military
II
Medicine . (1, page 136)
During this year, the Venerable
George F. Bratt foresaw that the
All Saints
church population of All Saints
Episcopal
Episcopal Church would increase. (1,
Church
page 179)
1944
1944
early 1944
During this year, toward the end of
World War II, since it appeared by
this point that the church population
of All Saints Episcopal Church would
soon increase, a .6-acre additional
property surrounding the church to
the north and east was purchased
from the Town of Ossining in
anticipation of future needs. Funds
for this purchase were provided by
Mr. James C. Cooley, and Mrs.
Frederick M. Hilton, widow of a
former vestryman, who lived in the
house called Treetops, across
Scarborough Road from the church.
They both presented this property to
All Saints Episcopal Church as a
All Saints
Memorial to Mr. Frederick W. Stelle.
Episcopal
(1, pages 178-179) (2, page 38)
Church
(15, page 68)
During this year, Briarcliff resident
John Hersey wrote much of A Bell for
Adano at his home on Valentine
Road. This novel would later win the
Briarcliff
Pulitzer Prize. John Hersey was the
Writers:
son of Briarcliff librarian Grace
John Hersey Hersey. (17, page 32)
At this time, John Hersey, who
visited the Village of Briarcliff Manor
often to see his parents that lived on
Poplar, then Valentine Road,
publishes his first novel, A Bell for
Adano , about Italy under the allied
Briarcliff
military occupation. This novel was
Writers:
very well received and widely read.
John Hersey (1, page 137)
1944 January
1944 January
January
1944 10th
World War
II
By this time, the shop of John
Vanderlip and Charles Wagner, which
was making aircraft control cable
terminals for the American war
effort, was turning out more than
two thousand terminals a week. It
was equipped with three Logan
Turret lathes, two bench lathes
adapted to turret lathe work, two
drill presses, a Universal tool and
cutter grinder, and a high-precision
threading machine. Wagner left to
join the navy, but Vanderlip and
Baker soon increased the shop's
personnel to five daytime employees
and a swing shift of three Sing Sing
prison guards, who worked six hours
every night. (1, page 134)
In this month's issue of the
"Communique," published at this
time, John Rode wrote that "Making
aircraft control cables is mighty fussy
work…Most of the terminals…find
their way into bombers, anywhere
from 200 to 400 going into a single
plane….We in Briarcliff like to think,
and we hope you'll feel the same
way, that every time a bomber is
seen winging overhead, you can feel
that part of it at least may have
Communiqu originated in Scarborough." (1,
e
pages 134 and 231)
The registration of the curriculum by
the State Education Department of
the University of the State of New
Briarcliff
York was effected for Briarcliff Junior
Junior
College on this date. (1, page 181)
College
(2, page 55)
1944 March
World War
II
1944 May
World War
II
At this time, the Briarcliff committee
working on the Fourth War Loan
Drive subscribed $75,525.00.
"Martha Stafford of the Junior Class
was top salesman and was given a
medal for her contribution by
Lieutenant-Commander Jack
Dempsey of the U.S. Coast Guard.
On the last day of the drive the
Defense Stamp Committee
sponsored a Treasure Hunt to dig up
stamp books and get them turned in
for bonds. The staff contributed two
bonds to the school [drive] in honor
of Lieutenant Charles Matthes, '32
and Lieutenant Sherman W. Burns,
Jr., '39. (1, page 131)
At this time, in the year ending in
May of 1944, 151 Red Cross
volunteers workeed 8,776 hours.
They made 80,000 surgical
dressings, as Well as hospital and
war-relief garments. Their
workrooms in the Congregational
Church were "open and humming
with activity" two full days and one
evening a week. In order to release
doctors and trained nurses for
service with the armed forces,
volunteers took Red Cross courses to
equip themselves to work in
Grasslands, Mount Kisco and
Ossining hospitals. The Red Cross
Home Service dealt with any
nonmilitary problems of service
perople and their families, providing
information about furloughs,
discharges, clemency, financial
assistance and benefits, and
obtaining information through the
International Red Cross in
Switzerland concerning service
people and civilians in war-affected
areas. The Briarcliff Home Service
Committee was made up of Amos
Baker, Mrs. Norman Babcock and
Mrs. Barrett Clark. On the
Scarborough committee were Mrs.
John McPherson and Mrs. Percy
1944 May 15th
Briarcliff
Junior
College
1944 May 22nd
World War
II
1944 May 31st
World War
II
1944 June 6th
World War
II
post-June
1944 6th
World War
II
1944 July
World War
II
before
1944 August
World War
II
On this date, Briarcliff Junior College
gets its accredation by the Middle
States Association of Colleges and
Secondary Schools. (1, page 181)
(2, page 55)
Lieutenant Percy Meredith Hall, Jr., a
Marine Corps fighter pilot serving in
the U.S. Armed Forces, is killed in
action fighting during World War II.
(1, page 139) (2, page 80)
John F. Schrade, III, a Seaman, First
Class, of the U.S. Navy, and an
aerial turret gunner, is killed in
service by a plane explosion when
his airplane crashed at Creed's
Airfield, Norfolk, Virginia, during
World War II. (1, page 138) (2, page
79)
On this date, First Lieutenant Paul
Barr Zuydhoek, a resident of Poplar
Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, won the Bronze Star for
heroic action on June 6th, 1944. (1,
page 139)
After the D-Day invasion on June
6th, 1944, Second Lieutenant Paul
Barr Zuydhoek receives his First
Lieutenancy in the field in France. (1,
page 139)
At this time, Lieutenant Percy
Meredith Hall, Jr., a U.S. Marine
Corps fighter pilot serving in the
South Pacific during World War II,
was reported missing in action.
Lieutenant Hall was the son of Mr.
and Mrs. Percy Meredith Hall of River
Road, Scarborough. (1, page 139)
Before going overseas in August
1944, Sergeant Benjamin C. Dunn, a
resident of North State Road in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, was
transferred to the Infantry in the
U.S. Army. (1, page 140)
1944 August
World War
II
At this time, in his "Cheering
Section" for August 1944, published
on this date, Harry Addis had
written: "Have two from Tom
Fountain written from a foxhole in
Normandy where he reports the
going plenty rough and that all the
teeth-chattering is not from the cold.
We have seen Tom play a lot of
baseball, basketball and football, and
have played a bit with him and have
always found that he did O.K. when
the going was rough. Always a
pepper pot and a holler guy, Tom
would fight like hell to come from
behind. His only weakness outside
of swinging at bad balls seemed to
be his temper, but if that's all he
loses before we see him again, it is
alright with us." (1, page 139)
1944 September
World War
II
September
1944 17th
World War
II
Some 365 villagers from a
population of 1,830 were in the
armed forces, ninety-six
commissioned and seventy
noncommissioned officers. Some
fourteen women volunteered, half of
them for service in the navy, others
in the Army Signal Corps and Nurse
Corps. The percentages of residents
in the services and of officers among
them were well above the national
average. More than half served
overseas, many in far-flung theaters
of war-Africa, India, China, Burma,
Norway, the Aleutians and the South
Pacific, and Europe. Many families
had more than one member in the
armed forces: the Fountains, the
Burnses, the Winters, the Figarts and
the Todds-had three; the "Service
News" Honor Roll for September
1944 lists four named Fitzgerald,
four named Hutta and four named
Mruz. The civilian war effort was
also energetic: a Briarcliff Office of
Civilian Protection, with 470 active
personnel; the Red Cross chapters in
Briarcliff and Scarborough; the War
Bond, War Fund, Red Cross Fund,
Blood Bank, U.S.O. Fund and
Salvage drives, commercial war
work, and victory gardening. In all
Lieutenant George Thomas
("Tommy") Fountain, a member of
the U.S. Army Infantry Division, as a
member of the 26th Infantry in
General Hodge's First Army at the
time of his death, is killed in Aachen,
Germany, while fighting in World
War II. His parents were Petty
Officer First Class George O.
Fountain and Mrs. Fountain of State
Road, and he had a wife and young
son and two brothers, Orill, who
served in the Navy, and Jack, who
was a student in the Briarcliff High
School at the time. (1, page 139) (2,
page 80)
September
1944 25th
1944 November
1944-1945
World War
II
First Lieutenant Paul Barr Zuydhoek,
a veteran of many major campaigns
in the European theater and a
member of the First Army Field
Artillery of the U.S. Army, is killed in
action in Germany while fighting in
World War II. First Lieutenant
Zuydhoek was a resident of Poplar
Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, and was survived by his
father, a sister, Mrs. Holbert Allison,
and two brothers, Ernest and
William. Paul Zuydhoek was a gifted
musician, a pianist and organist. He
attended the Curtis Institute in
Philadelphia as a scholarship student
and won the Bok Memorial
Scholarship to study in Italy. (1,
page 139) (2, page 80)
At this time, Harry Addis led off his
"Cheering Section" in the November
1944 issue of the "Communique,"
published on this date, describing
both Tom Fountain and Paul
Zuydhoek, who had served and died
during World War II: "It would be
impossible for us to convey...how
much of a shock it was to receive the
news that Tom Fountain and Paul
Zuydhoek had been killed in
Germany or how much it saddened
the entire village. Paul, who played
both baseball and basketball at
B.H.S. in the late twenties, and Tom,
who was a three letter man during
the thirties, were both temamates of
a great many of you boys. We all
feel sure that both Tom and Paul
went down fighting in the same
Communiqu spirited manner which we remember
e
so well." (1, pages 139-140)
Congregatio During this period, Rabbi Samuel
n Sons of
Gopin serves as the seventh Rabbi of
Israel of
the Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining
Ossining. (1, page 235)
1944-1945
1944-1946
1944(?)1974(?)
ca. 1945
July (1944)March 27th World War
(1945)
II
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
Briarcliff
Musicians:
Tom Glazer
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1945
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1945
Women's
Society of
the
Congregatio
n-al Church
1945
Village
Government
1945
Briarcliff Girl
Scout
Council
During this period, Sergeant Arthur
J. Quinn, Jr., a resident of South
State Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, serves oversees in the U.S.
Army in both the Italian and French
campaigns during World War II. (1,
page 140)
During this period, LeRoy Buck
Johnson serves as the chief of The
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department. (1,
page 233)
During this period, folksinger and
composer Tom Glazer, known as one
of the country’s foremost balladeers,
lived in the Scarborough region of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, for
almost thirty years. With his wife,
Miriam (Mimi), he raised two sons in
a house on Long Hill Road. (1, page
223)
By around this year, the need for
enlargement of the Briarcliff school
building for the Grade and High
School became evident. (2, page 52)
The "St. Mary's Church, Beechwood"
(the St. Mary's Episcopal Church), is
re-incorporated during this year as
"St. Mary's Church of Scarborough,"
after the St. Mary's Church of
Scarborough, Enlgand. Its
architecture was in large part
inspired by that same ancient English
Church. (2, page 36)
In order to benefit the Armed Forces
of World War II, The Women's
Society of the Congregational Church
enters into the Village Variety Show
again and won the "Mayor's Cup" for
the second consecutive year (the last
time they won was in 1944). (2,
page 44)
The bell in the tower that once
topped the Municipal Building tolled
at the end of World War II. (1, page
62)
The Gril Scout Troop 28 of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor marches in
the 1945 Briarcliff Manor Memorial
Day Parade. (1, page 77)
1945
1945
1945
1945
1945
Durng this year, Edward Harden sold
Brandywine, the estate on Sleepy
Hollow Road, to Centro Laboratory, a
manfacturer of battleship paint.
Miramont
(The sale price was $25,000.00).
Court
Centro then applied for a varience in
(Spiegelthe zoning law to permit the
mirror, Berg- reconversion of the estate to a
mountain) research laboratory. (1, page 143)
League of
Women
During this year, the budget of The
Voters of
League of Women Voters of Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor, always comparatively small,
Manor
was $385.00. (1, page 161)
During this year, John K. Koelsch
was one of three members of the
Koelsch family (who were residents
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor) who
Communiqu were listed on the “Communique”
e
Honor Roll. (1, page 189)
By this year, The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department felt the need for an
ambulance. The then world famous
Van Leer Circus used to spend the
winter months in the Fuller Estate
barns which stood at the corner of
Chappaqua Road and Route 9A. The
owner of the circus, Mr. Van Leer,
offered a performance of the circus,
Briarcliff
the proceeds of which would go to
Manor Fire fund the new ambulance. (15, page
Department 82)
By this year, eleven Briarcliff men
had lost their lives in World War II:
Lt. W. Sherman Burns, Lt. (USN)
Daniel Fletcher Currier, Sgt.
Benjamin C. Dunn, Lt. George T.
Fountain, Lt. Percy Meredith Hall, Jr.,
Col. Paul Hazelton, Lt. Charles H.
Matthes, Sgt. Arthur J. Quinn, Jr.,
Seaman John F. Schrade III, Cpl.
World War Edward White, Jr., Lt. Paul Barr
II
Zuydhoek. (17, page 33)
1945 January
1945 February
At this time, Carroll B. Colby, who
lived on Pine Road in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, was an airplane pilot
but "the highest rating in [his] log
book was for 130 h.p." until January
1945, on an inspection trip to the
Bell Plant in Marietta, Georgia, when
he took the controls of a Boeing B-29
Superfortress. "The Major asked me
if I would like to log a little 8800 h.p.
time....When again able to speak
coherently, I said that I certainly
would...and he walked off and left
me with the blamed thing with the
copilot sitting across the aisle
reading a copy of Popular Science
(free plug). The plane handles as
easily as a light plane. It gives...the
impression of flying the Briarcliff
World War High School by moving a dinner
II
plate back and forth." (1, page 136)
In this month's issue of the
"Communique," published on this
date, this note appeared: "Two best
sellers involving Briarcliff people
have made the bright lights of
Broadway. As previously reported,
John Hersey's play, "A Bell for
Adano" starring Frederick March is a
smash hit at the Cortland Theatre.
"Roughly Speaking," a picture based
on the book of the same name has
just recently opened at the
Hollywood Theatre and stars
Rosalind Russell and Jack Carson.
This very humorous comedy was
written by Mrs. Harold Pierson and
depicts the hectic life of the author
and her family, much of which took
place in Ossining, Scarborough and
Briarcliff. Mrs. Pierson's husband is
Communiqu a brother of Mr. Paul Pierson of
e
Poplar Road." (1, page 137)
February
1945 13th
1945 March 6th
World War
II
World War
II
World War
1945 March 27th II
On this date, Sergeant Benjamin C.
Dunn was killed in action on the
island of Luzon in the Phillipines
during World War II. Sergeant
Benjamin C. Dunn was awarded the
Purple Heart postumously. Sergeant
Dunn was born in Briarcliff, the son
of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Dunn of
North State Road. He attended
Briarcliff High School and then
worked as a mechanic in his father's
garage on Saw Mill River Road.
Sergeant Dunn was survived by his
parents, his wife, the former Gladys
Crisfield of Ossining, four sisters, and
one brother, Vincent J. Dunn, a
seaman first class in the Seabees.
(1, page 140)
on this date, Corporal Edward White,
Jr., of the 26th Marines, 5th Division,
was killed in action while fighting in
World War II. He was born on Oak
Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, and his parents were among
the founders of Saint Theresa's
Church, also located in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 140)
Sergent Arthur J. Quinn, Jr., a
member of the U.S. Army, 180th
Infantry, 45th Division, of General
Patch's Seventh Army, is killed in
action in Germany while fighting in
World War II. Sergeant Quinn was
the son of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Quinn
of South State Road, and was a big
participant in all sports when he
went to Briarcliff High School from
1932-1936. He was also a member
of the Westchester Fireman's
Association and a lieutenant in the
Briarcliff Fire Company, in which he
served as secretary. At the time of
his death, he had recently been
promoted in the field from private
first class to sergeant. (1, page 140)
(2, page 80)
1945 April
1945 April
Shortly before V-E Day (a.k.a.
"Victory in Europe"), Van Leer's
Classical Circus performed again, for
the benefit of the Briarcliff
Ambulance Fund, under the auspices
of the three fire companies. An
enthusiastic audience of more than
fourteen hundred adults and children
crowded the section roped off at The
Crossways. George Baxter,
accompanied by the audience, sang
the national anthem, Mayor
Schuman spoke about the need for
an ambulance in the village, and a
variety of acts followed: "Miss Lucille
and her High School horse 'Jimmy'";
Van Leer's famous Lippizaners and
Frisians; "a tumbling act by ten of
Briarcliff High's super athletes under
the direction of coach Bill Bowers;
clever sight (sic ) of hand tricks by
the 'Magic Arnolds'; a comical lion
act of the 7th and 8th grade
students dressed as lions; a
horizonal bar and trapeze act from
New York...; 'Frankie' [Sinatra]
impersonated by Jack Fountain with
Joseph
bow tie, swooning girls and all,
Whitson
rendered several hit tunes....Father
House
Kelly read a prayer and gave a
("Crossways eulogy for our late President
")
[Roosevelt], followed by the firing of
At this time, the performance of the
Van Leer Circus was a success, and
Briarcliff
the ambulance for The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department was ordered.
Department (15, page 82)
1945 May
1945 July
1945 August
At this time, Carroll B. Colby, who
lived on Pine Road in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, was writing a series
of stories on aviation in the sub-Artic
and on the work of the Air Transport
Command in Newfoundland, for
Popular Science magazine. From
Newfoundland he wrote to
"Communique" in May of 1945: "I
flew over most of the country, rode
in everything from dogsleds to crash
boats and met a mighty grand bunch
of Americans doing a magnificent job
World War under, at times, almost impossible
II
conditions." (1, page 136)
At this time, the Zoning Board
denied the application of Centro
requesting a varience in the zoning
law to permit the reconversion of the
estate to a research laboratory,
citing legal reasons and
Miramont
recommended that changes in the
Court
zoning laws be made by the Briarcliff
(SpiegelBoard of Trustees so that such a
mirror, Berg- reconversion would be possible. (1,
mountain) page 143)
The true identity of "Cliff Briar," a
humor columnist for the
"Communique," was not revealed
until this time, which was when the
last issue of the "Communique" was
published, in a cartoon by Carroll
Colby. He was Milton Bennett, third
baseman and leading hitter of the
1942 Briarcliff baseball team. Milton
Bennett wrote for the "Communique"
while stationed in England, in France
Communiqu and in the South Pacific. (1, page
e
132)
1945 August
1945 August 3rd
post-V-J
1945 Day
At this time, George Baxter reported
in the August issue of the
"Communique" published on this
date, on two meetings of the Board
of Trustees concerning the
application of the Centro company
for a varience in the zoning law of
the area of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, that attracted so many
residents they filled the Fire
Department room in the Municipal
Building: "Mayor Schuman opened
one of the meetings by calling it a
family gathering and it turned out to
be just that, with a few squabbles,
personal remarks and a lot of
speeches....Father Kelly...urged
Briarcliff to expand and provide more
homes for the young married couples
(each to have six or seven children),
and Miss Katherine
Courreges...spoke of the need for
Miramont
new low-priced homes for returning
Court
servicemen as well as necessary
(Spiegelemployment, in which Centro
mirror, Berg- Laboratory might figure to some
mountain) extent." (1, pages 143 and 145)
On this date, after the general
meeting was adjourned, the Board of
Trustees of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor passed and amendment to the
zoning laws allowing "the use of a
plot of five acres or more for
Institutions devoted to Research,
providing the application is approved
in each individual case by the Zoning
Board of Appeals." Centro
Laboratory then moved out-perhaps
Miramont
because there was no longer much
Court
demand for battleship paint-and the
(SpiegelSpiegelberg-Barksdale mansion
mirror, Berg- became the Brandywine Nursing
mountain) Home. (1, page 145)
At this time, the death of Lieutenant
Percy Meredith Hall, Jr., a resident of
River Road, in Scarborough, within
World War the Village of Briarcliff Manor, is
II
confirmed. (1, page 139)
1945 September
September
1945 1st
post-1945
post-1945
post-1945
post-1945
At this time, in the last issue of the
"Communique," pulbished on this
date, the Honor Roll of this issue of
the "Communique" still listed Second
World War Lieutenant Charles H. Matthes as
II
missing in action. (1, page 138)
Village
On this date, the Briarcliff Village
Events
Hayride took place. (1, page 144)
The Chilmark Club, originally for
residents only, became a
Chilmark
membership club after World War II.
Club
(1, page 57)
After World War II was over, Bernard
Van Leer and his Holland Classical
Circus left the Haymont mansion and
moved away. J. Henry Ingham, who
had been the mayor of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor from 1936 to 1941,
bought and worked the Fuller farm.
Mr. Ingham owned the gasoline and
oil concessions of a string of service
Haymont
stations on the Taconic Parkway. (1,
Estate
page 122)
In the years after World War II and
long after the need for gas rationing,
the speed limit in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor was still 40 miles an
Roads and hour on parkway straightaways, and
Transportati remained exceptionally low. (1, page
on
132)
During this time, David Bogdanoff,
working with the construction
company of his father, Morris
Bogdanoff, builder of apartment
houses in Manhattan and the Bronx,
was the first to build in Tarrytown
after the war (World War II, post
1945). Tarrytown Village authorities
were anxious at this time to keep
prices down, and with their
assistance the Bogdanoffs and David
Swope were able to build 149 singlefamily houses that sold for
$14,000.00 to a high of $22,000.00.
After the Crest, between Benedict
and Union Avenues, was developed,
they could find no land in Tarrytown
Briarcliff
where they could do this over again.
Real Estate (1, page 145)
post-1945
Briarcliff
Real Estate
post-1945
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
post-1945
Searle
Family
post-1945
Briarcliff
Architects:
Reiman
Family
post-1945
Briarcliff
Real Estate
During this time, the Vanderlip
family's Scarborough Properties
resumed the development in the
vicinity of River Road and
Revolutionary Road, which had
started first during the 1920s and
then during the depressed 1930s
(after the death of Frank Vanderlip in
1937) under the direction of the
corporation's vice-president Harry
Benedict. (1, pages 100 and 146)
After World War II was over, building
began in earnest in Briarcliff Manor,
and the attendance at The Church of
Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus’
masses grew steadily. (1, page 166)
In the period after World War II, Dr.
Robert Wyckoff Searle was one of
Scarborough’s most distinguished
residents. He believed that religion
should be above differences in race
or creed. He was also an energetic
advocate of better understanding
between religious groups. (1, page
169)
During this period, both Don and
Ginger (Gwen) Reiman, who would
later become architects and Briarcliff
residents, both gradate from the
Columbia School of Architecture
shortly after World War II, after
which they worked in partnership
with architect Arthur Malsin from
offices in New York City for many
years until he and Ginger established
their own architecture firm. (1, page
216)
During this time, in the aftermath of
World War II, there was a great
surge to the suburbs. With improved
highways and trains it was no longer
unreasonable to commute between
Briarcliff Manor and New York. The
building boom began almost
immediately after the war ended.
(15, page 78)
post-1945
King's
College
post1945(?)
Briarcliff
Writers:
Burton
Benjamin
post1945(?)
Briarcliff
Writers:
Carroll B.
Colby
Following the end of World War II,
enrollment increased at The King’s
College. (8, page 71)
During this period after his World
War II service in the U.S. Coast
Guard as a lieutenant, Burton
Benjamin, writer, producer and
director, and later Briarcliff resident,
went back to work once again as a
reporter for the Newspaper
Enterprise Association. (1, pages 218219)
At this time, Carroll B. Colby, writer
and illustrator, and later Briarcliff
resident, after working as a war
correspondent, he went on to
research and write more than a
hundred books. (1, page 219)
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
Every spring for years after World
War II, the First Provsional Regiment
was given lunch at Saint Mary's
Church: "They came to us the
nearest Sunday to Decoration Day
and they went to the plot they had in
Sleely Hollow Cemetary which
William Rockefeller gave them...and
them they came to Saint Mary's
Church and we furnished lunch and
that lunch had to be chicken salad,
apple pie a la mode and coffee and
rolls. Once we tried to give them
cold cuts and it wasn't popular at all
and we didn't dare change. The
Beckers and Florence and I made all
the chicken salad for the regiment in
this house the night before. We had
a huge ice box...and the day after
the most horrible thing was all the
chicken soup you had. We cut up
innumerable chickens until suddenly
we had a bright idea-we said why
not make chicken salad out of turkey
because you can cut up six turkeys
much better than you can three
dozen chickens." (1, pages 133-134)
post-1945
every
Spring
1945-1947
1945-1948
1945(?)1948
1945-1950
1945-1959
1945(?)-the
1960s
Public
Schools,
John A. Nicholson serves as the ninth
Grade and principle of the Briarcliff school
High School during this period. (2, page 53)
Cornelius B. Boocock serves as the
eighth Headmaster of The
Scarboroug Scarborough School during this
h School
period. (2, page 58)
During this period, Julia C. Stimson
lived on Horsechesnut Road in
Briarcliff Manor after World War II
until her death in 1948. She was the
first woman to hold an officer's rank
in the Army Nurse Corps. She was
also a graduate of Vassar College
and the New York Hospital School of
Nursing(?), and was the
superintendent of nurses at Harlem
Hospital in New York(?) and director
Stimson
of the School of Nursing in St.
Family
Louis(?). (1, pages 132-133)
Congregatio During this period, Rabbi Mortimer
n Sons of
Rubin serves as the eighth Rabbi of
Israel of
the Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining
Ossining. (1, page 235)
During this period of the post-World
War II era, Briarcliff was well
protected from fire, as the Village
Briarcliff
had updated their water system, and
Manor Fire the fire department purchased up-toDepartment date equipment. (15, page 82)
During this period, after Centro
Laboratory failed to get a varience in
the zoning law that would permit the
reconversion of the BrandywineBarksdale estate into a research
laboratory, no other office and
research facilities were established in
residential zones until the 1960s,
except by special permit, as in the
case of Leland Rosemond's Otarion
Listener and later the Combined
Briarcliff
Book Exhibit in the Kingsland house
Real Estate on Route 9. (1, page 145)
1945-1965
Briarcliff
Artists: M.
Coburn
Whitmore
19451965(?)
World War
II
(?)-1946
Searle
Family
pre-1946
1946
During this period, M. Coburn
Whitmore, an artist born in Dayton,
Ohio, and was well known for his
pictures and illustrations of beautiful
women on magazine covers and in
stories, lived in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 211)
During this period, E. J. Kahn, Jr.,
lived in Scarbororugh in the Village
of Briarcliff Manor for more than
twenty years after World War II. E.
J. Kahn, Jr., was one of four writers
from Briarcliff who worked as war
corresspondents during World War
II. (1, page 136)
Dr. Robert Wyckoff Searle is the
founder of The Protestant Council of
the city of New York and serves as
the director of community relations
of this organization until 1946. (1,
page 170)
During this period at the start of his
career, shortly after the great wave
of “big-city” folksinging began,
folksinger and composer Tom Glazer,
known as one of the country’s
Briarcliff
foremost balladeers, performed often
Musicians: with Burl Ives, Leadbelly, Josh White
Tom Glazer and others. (1, page 223)
Briarcliff
The Briarcliff Manor Post Number
Manor Post 1054, Inc. American Legion begins to
Number
support the local Boy Scouts of the
1054, Inc.
Village of Briarcliff Manor with their
American
leadershp and monies during this
Legion
year. (2, page 78)
1946
1946
1946
1946
During this year, the open primary
system of the Briarcliff Manor Village
Government is formalized by a
provision in New York State law as
"The People's Caucus Party," and
yearly solicits all interested persons
to run for village office, including as
trustees, an unpaid post. Any
resident of the incorporated village
who is a U.S. citizen, at least
eighteen years of age and attends a
meeting of the caucus is a member
of the caucus and may seek
nomination. The village, like
Scarsdale, Rye and Pleasantville, set
up and has maintained the tradition
of unpaid elected officials, which has
provided a long line of dedicated,
hardworking public servants. (1,
Village
page 59) (15, page 88) (17, page
Government 33)
Until this year, there was no liquor
store in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor. During this year (1946),
Henry Law's son, Theodore Gilman
Law, the last of the Law family to be
active in the village, gave special
permission to David Taddeo to open
his Briarcliff Wines & Liquors in part
Briarcliff
of the big garage on Pleasantville
Wines
Road. (1, page 67)
During this year, John Hersey
completes his most important work
of nonfiction, Hiroshima , a report
written the year after a United States
Briarcliff
Air Force plane dropped the first
Writers:
atom bomb on that Japanese city in
John Hersey 1945. (1, page 137)
During this year, George V. Comfort,
a New York City realtor, had bought
the 40-acre Titlar farm at Long Hill
Titlar
Road East and Sleepy Hollow Road.
(Comfort)
(The price was around $30,000.00).
Farmhouse (1, page 146)
1946
1946
1946
1946
During this year, Dr. Robert Wyckoff
Searle stops being the director of
community relations for The
Protestant Council of the City of New
York, and became the executive
director of The Home Advisory and
Service Council of New York,
associated with The Home Term
Court. That court handled cases
caused by family conflicts that had
previously been heard in a criminal
court and aimed to resolve the
conflicts rather than punish the
offenders. It was Dr. Searle’s idea
to recruit volunteers, particularly
mature women, to counsel the
troubled families. The volunteers,
who underwent intensive training,
worked in the same building with the
court and provided a day nursery, a
marriage-counseling service, a
training school for social workers and
probation officers and a clinic for
alcoholics, the only one in the
country operated as an adjunct to a
court. The Home Term Court was
reorganized (?) as the family
offenses part of Family Court in New
York City, which The Home Advisory
Searle
Council continued to serve. (1, page
Family
170)
During this, year, Burton Benjamin,
Briarcliff
writer, producer and director, and
Writers:
later Briarcliff resident, joined RKOBurton
Pathe as a writer-producer-director.
Benjamin
(1, page 219)
During this year, folksinger and
composer Tom Glazer, known as one
of the country’s foremost balladeers,
released a record album containing
the first vocal recordings in this
Briarcliff
country of “Greensleeves” and “The
Musicians: Twelve Days of Christmas.” (1, page
Tom Glazer 223)
Briarcliff
During this year, Arthur W. Johnson,
Manor
Jr., joined The Briarcliff Manor Police
Police
Department after the Army. (17,
Department page 50)
1946
Reaser
Residence
1946
Edgewood
Park School
(Edgewood
Park,
Incorporate
d)
1946
Edgewood
Park School
(Edgewood
Park,
Incorporate
d)
1946
Edgewood
Park School
(Edgewood
Park,
Incorporate
d)
By this year, Dr. and Mrs. Matthew
Howell Reaser were still living in
their house on Noel Drive in
Chilmark Park, in the Village of
Ossining. They would later live on
Lodge Road in Briarcliff Manor until
Dr. Reaser’s death in 1948. (8, page
64)
During this year, the Merchandising
Club of the Edgewood Park School
was photographed in front of the
columned portico that was adjacent
to the outdoor pergola at the south
end of the Briarcliff Lodge. The
King’s College would later enclose
this section. (8, page 67)
By this year, the Edgewood Park
School had still maintained the
Briarcliff Lodge’s interior (such as its
Main Lobby) as the hotel did before,
as hotel furnishings and $25,000.00
worth of paintings and etchings
remained in the Lodge with the
Edgewood Park School. (8, page 68)
By this year, there were classes held
for members of The Medical
Assistants Association at the
Edgewood Park School. The
members of this association took
rigorous course and were highly
sought after by doctors. They
received practical training at the
nearby Grasslands Hospital. (8, page
70)
October
1946 18th-20th
October
1946 24th
post-1946
During this period, The Briarcliff
Congregational Church celebrates its
fiftieth anniversary of its founding.
The clerk's list at this time, included
in Robert B. Pattison's "The History
of the Briarcliff Congregational
Church. Prepared for the
Observance of the Fiftieth
Anniversary of the Church-October
18 to 20, 1946," shows that twentythree denominations were
represented, including "four Lutheran
groups...Protestant Episcopal, Parish
Church of Scotland, Free Church of
Scotland, Friends (Quakers), German
Evangelical, German Dutch
Reformed, Unitarian, Finnish
Briarcliff
Evangelical, Swiss Reformed, Cavalry
Congregatio Evangelical, Disciples of Christ and a
n-al Church Jew." (1, pages 43 and 230)
Father Kelly of The Chruch of St.
Theresa of the Infant Jesus, dies,
much repected both within and
without his Parish here. Before his
death, two shrines were installed on
the lawn of the Church with the
statue of St. Theresa and Our Lady,
which he had designed and donated
(they were carved by a leading
Italian sculptor), as his personal gift
to his beloved Parish. They were
surrounded by flowering trees and
shrubs donated and maintained by
the Fitzgerald family. Reverend
Albert A. Pinckney became the new
pastor during this same year,
Church of
assisted by Reverend Robert B.
Saint
Loftus. Previously Assistant Pastors
Theresa of were Fathers Fitzgerald, Torpey and
the Infant
Schwalbenberg. (1, page 79) (2,
Jesus
page 42) (15, page 73)
During the first early years of his
liquor store, which was the first in
Briarcliff Manor Dave Taddeo noted
Briarcliff
that the sales were 10% wine and 90
Wines
spirits. (17, pages 33-34)
1946-1947
1946-1948
1946(?)-ca.
1952(?)(ongoing?)
1946-1959
1946-1967
1946-1989
During this time, Theodore Gilman
Law sold The Briar Hills Country Club
because of financial reverses
(probably unrelated to caddying
Briar Hall
fees), and the club was reorganized
Golf and
and became The Briar Hall Golf and
Country
Country Club. (1, page 81) (17, page
Club, Inc.
24)
During this period, William A. Magee
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
During this period and continuing to
the present(?), the Briarcliff Manor
Post Number 1054, Inc. American
Legion, has sent a boy to the
American Legion Boy's State every
year, and made Citizenship Awards
Briarcliff
yearly to a High School Senior boy
Manor Post and girl. The Post feels that its main
Number
job in the community is to see the
1054, Inc.
youth, our furture leaders, receive all
American
the help which we can give them in
Legion
good citizenship. (2, page 78)
Church of
During this period, the Reverend
Saint
Albert A. Pinckney serves as the
Theresa of second pastor of The Church of Saint
the Infant
Theresa of the Infant Jesus. (1, page
Jesus
235)
During this period and until his death
in 1967, Dr. Robert Wyckoff Searle
was the executive director of the
Home Advisory and Service Council
of New York, a social service
auxiliary to the Home Term Court.
Also during this time, he helped to
organize the local branch of the
Mental Hygiene Association, and
Searle
served as the first president of its
Family
board. (1, page 169)
During this period, Chief Arthur
Johnson, Jr. serves the Village of
Briarcliff Manor in its police
department. He was later honored
Briarcliff
for this service at a ceremony in
Manor
1989 for individuals who gave more
Police
than twenty-five years' service to the
Department village. (1, page 191)
the late
1940s
the late
1940s
the late
1940s-the
1950s
During this period, Jack Kahn (E. J.
Kahn, Jr.), his wife, actress Virginia
Rice, and their young son moved to
Scarborough from New York City.
Through their friends Julian and
Narcissa (Vanderlip) Street, the
Kahns learned that Charlotte
Vanderlip had moved to Virginia with
her second husband, Henry
Schufeldt, and would like to rent
them the house, sometimes called
Beechtwig, in the corner of the
Beechwood wall on Scarborough
Station Road (John Vanderlip’s
wartime factory, remodeled). Kahn’s
father, the architect Ely Jacques
Kahn, designed a house for the
young family, and while it was being
built on Holbrook Road, across from
the Chilmark Gatehouse, they lived
at Beechtwig. In addition, Ely
Jacques Kahn (Senior) also designed
the house at the west corner of
Briarcliff
Ridgecrest and Long Hill Roads for
Writers:
Red Barber, a pioneer in play-byJack Kahn
play sports broadcasting, who was
(E. J. Kahn, known as “the voice of the Brooklyn
Jr.)
Dodgers.” (1, pages 217-218)
During this period, the Village of
Briarcliff Manor was discovered as a
Public
commuting suburb, and, as a result,
Schools,
its combined grade and high school
Grade and building began to become very
High School crowded. (15, page 50)
During this period, Sherman Burns,
Sr., was the president of The Sleepy
Hollow Country Club, guiding the
club through the crucial years when
it became a family club rather than a
Burns
"gentleman's club," as it had first
Family
been established. (1, page 120)
ca. 1947
1947
1947
1947
The nursery school in Briarcliff Manor
has always played an important role
in village life, as over the years, it
received financial support from the
Christmas Jingle Ball, a popular
yearly event at the then (ca. 1947)
briar hall Country Club. Also,
members of the high school band
played at nursery school
graduations, with diploma-holding
graduates in cap and gown. As
Kathy Schutte notes, the Nursery
School Fair at this time was a big
village affair. One year, she and her
husband, Bud organized the fair on a
Wizard of Oz theme. Disney
supplied the costumes actually worn
in the film. “Bud’s school fairs,” says
Briarcliff
Tom Vincent, “were better than most
Nursery
children’s events you have to pay to
School, Inc. attend.” (17, page 34)
Briarcliff
The Briarcliff Manor Post Number
Manor Post 1054, Inc. American Legion begins to
Number
support the local Cub Scouts of the
1054, Inc.
Village of Briarcliff Manor with their
American
leadership and monies during this
Legion
year. (2, page 78)
Originally twenty boys gathered in
four dens during this year once the
Cub Scouts of Briarcliff Manor was
founded. The mission of this group
"is to teach the younger boys to
have self-reliance, to build worthy
character, and to become good
Briarcliff
citizens of their community." (2,
Cub Scouts page 84)
Briar Hall
The Briar Hall Golf and Country Club,
Golf and
Inc., listed 200 members on its 25th
Country
birthday held during this year. (2,
Club, Inc.
page 91)
1947
Briarcliff
Publishers:
William
Jovanovich
1947
Briarcliff
Musicians:
Katherine
Moran
Douglas
1947
1947
1947 February
During this year, William Jovanovich,
who was later a Briarcliff resident,
joined the publishing firm of
Harcourt Brace as editor of general
and educational books. William
Jovanovich was also born in
Louisville, Colorado, of Yugoslavian
descent, and graduated from the
University of Colorado and attended
Harvard and Columbia. (1, page
220)
During this year, Katherine Moran
Douglas, a farmhouse operatic
soprano and Briarcliff resident for
over thirty years, moved from
Briarcliff to the old “Captain Aitchison
house” on Broadway in Ossining,
close to her grandmother’s former
home. (1, page 223)
Due to wartime production during
World War II, the new ambulance
order by The Briarcliff Manor fire
Department after the successful April
Briarcliff
1945 Van Leer’s Circus performance
Manor Fire fundraiser was no delivered until this
Department year. (15, page 82)
During this year, William Jelley III, a
businessman, was appointed to
manage the finances, to hire and
appoint, and to report to the Board
of Trustees of The King’s College.
His role was important in bringing
the school to Briarcliff, as Percy
Crawford was president in name only
King's
and taught a single freshman class
College
each week. (8, pages 76-77)
During this year, the Briarcliff
American Legion Post Number 1054,
Inc., sponsors the local Cub Scouts
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor,
which were organized on this date.
George O. Fountain, one of the
members of the Briarcliff Manor Post
Number 1054, Inc., is elected as the
first Chairman of the Cub Scouts of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor. This
Briarcliff
meeting was held in the rooms of the
Cub Scouts Fire Department. (2, page 84)
Briarcliff
Nursery
1947 August 21st School, Inc.
post-1947
Briarcliff
Writers:
John Hersey
19471952(?)
Briarcliff
Nursery
School, Inc.
1947-1956
1947-1957
Scarboroug
h
Presbyterian
Church
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
The Briarcliff Nursury School,
Incorporated, is established on this
date under the direction of Dr. and
Mrs. Charles Churchill, and with Mrs.
John Akin being elected its first
President. This organization's
purpose was to provide pre-school
children with a co-ordinated training
with others of their age. Originally,
at this time, the nursery school had
twenty-one three- and four-year olds
that came to the nursery school.
The nursery school was also
originally headquarted in the
Briarcliff Lodge. (1, page 156) (2,
page 57) (15, pages 45-46) (17,
page 34)
During this period, John Hersey,
Pulitzer Prize winning writer and
Briarcliff resident, devoted himself
mainly to fiction in his writings, but
also taught at Yale for more than
twenty years. (1, page 217)
During this period, after a short stay
in the rooms of the 1940s recreation
building (now (ca. 1990) Thalle
Construction Corporation), The
Briarclff Nursery School,
Incorporated moved to the old Law
mansion. (1, page 156) (2, page 57)
(15, page 45)
Rev. Robert P. Montgomery serves
as the fifth minister of The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church
during this period. Also during this
period at The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church, he started the
School for Skeptics, which became
known nationwide. Montgomery
later left The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church to undertake
special work at Princeton University,
where he was appointed director of
the Westminster Foundation. (1,
page 54) (2, page 39)
Edward A. Moyer serves as the tenth
principle for the Briarcliff school
during this period. (1, page 234) (2,
page 53)
1947-1958
1947-1959
1948
1948
During this period, the first
ambulance ordered in 1945 for The
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department
Manor Fire serves the Village of Briarcliff Manor.
Department (15, page 82)
Rev. Richard K. Beebe serves as the
Briarcliff
sixth Minister of The Briarcliff
Congregatio Congregational Church during this
n-al Church period. (1, page 235) (2, page 41)
During this year, Julia C. Stimson,
who lived on Horsechestnut Road in
Briarcliff Manor from 1945(?) until
1948, was elevated to colonel in the
Stimson
Army Nurse Corps, after her
Family
retirement. (1, page 133)
During this year, the Reverend
Robert F. Bratt was appointed
archdeacon of the New York Diocese,
and the Reverend Constant
All Saints
Southworth became the thirteenth
Episcopal
Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church.
Church
(1, page 179)
1948
Village
Government
1948
Village
Government
February
1948 17th
Reaser
Family
1948-1950
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1948-1951
Scarboroug
h School
During this year, Jonathan Bingham,
a son of a Connecticut senator, while
he was living with his wife, June, and
their children were living in
Scarborough, Bingham ran for the
state senate of New York on the
Democratic ticket. He influenced
another Briarcliff Democrat, the
writer Albert Q. Maisel, who had
worked on the Committee to Reelect
Roosevelt during World War II, to
run for the State Assembly for the
State of New York. At this time,
Maisel was covering the investigation
of the Veterans’ Administration by a
group of U.S. senators. Concerned
as always with the social
consequences of the public
malfeasance he scrutinized, Maisel
was persuaded that he might work
effectively for reform in the state
assembly. The Progressive Labor
Party endorsed his candidacy. In the
end, neither Bingham nor Maisel
were elected. However, Bingham,
some years later, represented
another constituency in the United
States Congress. (1, page 193)
During this year, a Briarcliff Manor
Democrat, the writer Albert Q.
Maisel, covered the investigation of
the Veterans’ Administration by a
group of U.S. senators. (1, page
193)
On this date, Dr. Matthew Howell
Reaser, the founder of the Edgewood
Park School, dies at his home on
Lodge Road in Briarcliff Manor at the
age of 85. (8, page 64)
During this period, L. John Sestrom
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
233)
Philip L. Garland serves as the nineth
Headmaster of The Scarborough
School during this period. (2, page
58)
1948-1952
ca. 1949
1949
1949
Rev. Constant W. Southworth serves
All Saints
as the thirteenth Rector of the All
Episcopal
Saints Episcopal Church during this
Church
period. (2, page 38)
Lillian Manahan, who had lived in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor for 54
years (1949-2002) wrote about the
Ladies Auxiliary of the Briarcliff Fire
Company around this time: “I was
active in the Ladies Auxiliary, which
Ladies
was the social part of Briarcliff. We
Auxiliary of went to dances, clambakes, and
the Briarcliff picnics … and had a wonderful
Fire
basketball team that played in other
Company
communities.” (17, pages 29-30)
During this year, on the ground that
consisted of the additional property
to the north and east of the All
Saints Episcopal Church that was
presented in 1945 to this church, a
new Parish Hall was designed and
erected by William Deacy, who had
previously designed the 1910
addition to the All Saints Episcopal
Church, after the required
$25,000.00 was raised for the
All Saints
construction of the new Parish Hall
Episcopal
for the church. (1, page 179) (2,
Church
page 38)
During this year, more space was
needed in the High School on
Pleasantvill Road, which forced The
Briarcliff Manor Free Library to
search for a new home. It was also
at this time that the Village Board of
Trustees of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor came to the rescue by
providing two pleasant rooms in the
Recreation Building on Route 100
(now Thalle Construction Co.) to
Briarcliff
serve as the new home of the
Manor Free Briarcliff Manor Free Library. (2,
Library
page 69) (15, page 63)
1949
1949
1949
1949
1949
1949-1951
1949-1952
During this year, a tremendous need
for new residential buildings in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor
immediately attracted developers,
one of whom was the late David
Swope, of Ossining, who during this
year (1949) built sixteen ranch- and
Cape-Cod-style houses on Dalmeny
Road, next to the six houses Walter
Law had built for his workers just
before the incorporation of the
Village. After this real estate
project, he later(?) aquired the
Jacques Halle mansion and
surrounding acres on Tappan Hill,
originally part of the four hundredacre Benedict estate, and built
houses all across the crest of the hill.
The mansion became an elegant
restaurant. (1, page 145)
Briarcliff
Real Estate
Public
Schools,
During this year, Briarcliff High
Grade and School held a Senior Prom. (15, page
High School 94)
During this year, J. Henry Ingham
Village
was elected mayor of the Village of
Government Briarcliff Manor. (17, page 34)
During this year, Tom Vincent moves
Vincent
into his house in Briarcliff Manor for
Family
the first time. (17, page 82)
By this year, The King’s College was
King's
approved as a degree-granting
College
institution. (8, page 71)
J. Henry Ingham serves once again
as the Mayor for the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government during this
period. J. Henry Ingham also served
11 years as a Village Trustee, for a
total of 17 years of Village service
Village
when his second term as Mayor was
Government up in 1951. (2, pages 24 and 75)
The Eagle Award, the highest honor
a Boy Socut can receive, has been
attained by at least one Boy Scout of
Briarcliff
the Briarcliff Boy Scouts during this
Boy Scouts past four-year period. (2, page 84)
1949-1952
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1949-2002
Manahan
Family
1949-2002
Vincent
Family
There is delayed building activities in
Briarcliff, creating a feeling of
complacency on the part of many
residents who preferred to have the
Village remained quiet, unhurried
and unexpanded. However, homes
still sprung up all over the Village.
The book Our Village: Briarcliff
Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To 1952 , called
for an expansion of municipal
services (which in the past had been
sufficient) such as: an adequate
shopping area with convenient
parking (as every passing day made
the need for ths more urgent and the
available land and facilities more
costly); a "Home" for the library,
free from traffic dangers and where
its books can be safe; to acquire
suitable land for the future Briarcliff
Municipal and Community Building,
since the village offices then had
spread into other buildings from their
present space (as such a building
could provide a house for the village
offices, provide for the police court
room and lock up, allow additional
recreational facilities and possibly
include the Library); The Law
Memorial Park needed a marker to
indicate it is named after Walter
Law; and finally, an appropriate War
During this period, Lillian Manahan
had lived in Briarcliff Manor for 54
years, and was very involved in The
Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Fire
Department in Briarcliff. (17, page
29)
During this year, Tom Vincent has
lived in the same house in Briarcliff
Manor. (17, page 82)
Date
(Year):
1950s:
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
1950s
Helmsley
Family
1950s
Beechwood
Players
1950s
Haymont
Estate
Description of Event:
Dudley Nevison Schoales (a former
president of the club known as the
North River Association) remembers
that Harry Helmsley, the real estate
magnate, who in the 1950s lived
with his wife, Eve, at the top of
Ridgecrest Road, was for some time
denied admission to the club,
explaining that Helmsley was not
popular because he contributed little
to local charities and other
community affairs. (1, pages 82 and
230)
During this period, the Beechwood
Players put on several plays by G. B.
Shaw and Tennessee Williams.
During this decade of the 1950s, the
especially put on several plays, as
they were joined by the Brandywine
Players, so called because they first
performed The Glass Menagerie at
Brandywine (the Spiegelberg, then
Barksdale estate) on Sleepy Hollow
Road. They were John and Mary
Douglas Dirks, Barrett Clark, Jr.,
Betty Myers and Lou Gallo. (1, page
96)
During this decade, Robert and
Pauline Morin operated a riding
stable call the Walk, Trot and Canter
Club, on the Fuller property of the
Haymont mansion. (1, page 123)
1950s
Hillside
During this decade, Hillside (Admiral
Worden's birthplace) became the
residence of Mr. and Mrs. Leland E.
Rosemond. The stately pillared
house on the corner of Route 9 and
Scarborough Road, had been the
Warren Rogers residence and, when
Frank Vanderlip owned it, a
dormitory, first for young Morgan
Stanley bond salesmen and later for
Scarborough School boarding
students. The land between the
house and the corner of Scarborough
Road was an open field circled by a
track for the Rosemonds' riding
horses. Mr. Rosemond also served
on the President's Commission on
Employment of the Handicapped and
was active in rehabilitation of the
handicapped in Westchester County.
(1, pages 124-125)
1950s
1950s
Briarcliff
Steve McQueeny tells what Briarcliff
Manor was like in the 1950s: "A
decade of change, but a lot of fun!
Trains ran right through the middle
of Briarcliff then on the one-track
line of the Putnam Division. They
stopped at what is now the library,
or at the freight station on the spur
track across from the passenger
station. It was a lazy line. Mrs.
Duncombe would take her
kindergarten class out to see the last
of the big steam engines. The
enginneer would let the children put
pennies on the track and see them
flattened by the weight of the big
engine. They were powered by
steam...then by diesel...then not at
all...The village was smaller then.
Barclay's bank was the first of the
"new" buildings, the post office was
in Kipp's. (I wonder if the pony
express sheild is still under the wood
facade?)...At noon you could get a
wedge at Joe's [Weldon], a comic
book from Pete's and sit on the
sidewalk to have lunch-some things
never change!!!...The coaches, Bill
"Bongo" Bowers and Bob "Bullet"
O'Keefe were special guys. The cops
were tough, but you knew them all.
They all lived in town. Cheif Johnson
1950s
1950s
1950s
1950s
1950s
During this decade, the "world," in
the persons of unwary motorists
passing through Briarcliff, learned to
fear Police Chief Arthur Johnson.
Under his direction all speed limits,
as low as 35 to 40 miles per hour on
Routes 9 and 9A, were strictly
enforced. As Ed Dorsey put it, "He
really held the line!" As a boy,
Dorsey lived in Yonkers, but his
father worked at the Briar Hills
Country Club as caddymaster and
starter. Ed worked as a caddy there
during summer vacations. Cheif
Johnson called all the caddies
together and forbade them to go into
the village center. If they were
found straying beyond the borders of
the golf course they would be liable
to arrest. But somehow young
Briarcliff
Dorsey got to know the community
Manor Police well enough to decide he wanted to
Department live there. (1, page 150)
During this decade, the increase in
population caused the growing
Saint
congregation of Saint Theresa's to
Theresa's
feel the need for a school. (1, page
School
157)
League of
During this decade, The League of
Women
Women Voters of Briarcliff Manor
Voters of
experienced a slow but steady
Briarcliff
increase in paid membership to their
Manor
organization. (1, page 161)
Jack Kahn (E. J. Kahn, Jr.), writer
and Briarcliff resident, remembers
that during this decade, that “one of
Briarcliff
the things that made the BriarcliffWriters:
Scarborough-Ossining area special in
Jack Kahn
the Fifties was its capacity for
(E. J. Kahn, creating and nurturing friendships.”
Jr.)
(1, page 218)
During this decade, the Briarcliff
Manor community was leavened by a
variety of young families who came
to Briarcliff, as well as by young
writers and artists or by retired
Briarcliff
people living on small fixed incomes.
Population
(1, page 226)
1950s
1950s
Chilmark
Park
During this time, Marvin and Helen
Ross (Briarcliff residents for 52
years, 1951-2002) said that
Chilmark Park had many rules:
“There were no fences, no signs
[permitted] on lawns. If lawns were
not mowed or flowerbeds not
weeded, you’d get a notice to do so.”
Also, as Mary Lou Morrissy and Joan
Karbon Nechis wrote, “Those were
halcyon days…we swam, played
tennis and bridge, held parties,
dinner dances, and clambakes.” (17,
page 28)
King's
College
Moving to the Briarcliff Lodge
continued The King’s College’s
tradition of residing in historic
buildings, as school brochures from
this time were titled, tongue-incheek, “A Moving Story.” In addition
to preserving the historic buildings of
the Briarcliff Lodge resort, the King’s
College maintained the general
landscape design of the campus
including architectural elements such
as Walter law’s Japanese Lanterns.
Also, The King’s College preserved
architectural ornamentation and
detailing in the Lodge, such as the
Tilted Fireplace Mantel in the Lobby,
and the building remained much as
Walter Law had built it. Many of its
original furnishings remained as well.
(8, pages 73, 78 and 83)
1950s(?)
the early
1950s
the early
1950s
Around this time, David Swope
bought the Speyer estate (The
Waldheim Estate) and sold lots to E.
J. Kahn, Jr., New Yorker magazine
staff writer, architects Don and Gwen
Reiman, CBS New producer Burton
Benjamin and others. In one of the
existing houses of the estate, at 94
Holbrook Road, David Swope's
brother John, a photographer, and
his wife, Dorothy Maguire, actress of
stage and screen, lived for a while.
That house was later sold to Bonnie
Cashin, dress designer. The Ginnells
raised Labrador retrievers and
Waldheim
pheasants on the property. (1, page
Estate
146)
During this time, Richard Doty
developed Hall Road at Sleepy
Hollow Road, building seven houses
Briarcliff
that sold for around $20,000.00
Real Estate each. (1, page 146)
According to Steve McQueeny, "In
the early 1950s everyone was in one
school-it was a good feeling as a
child to know personally the football
"stars" and "big kids." This existed
until, according to Steve McQueeny,
"Todd came along in the mid-1950s."
Steve McQueeny also states that,
"Mt. Pleasant put more students
through Briarliff High School than
Public
Briarcliff. You got to know kids from
Schools,
North White Plains, Valhalla and
Grade and
Hawthorne." (1, page 149) (15, page
High School 95)
the early
1950s
the early
1950s
the early
1950s
the early
1950s(?)
During this time, one of the items on
The League of Women Voters of
Briarcliff Manor's national agenda
was a study of individual liberty,
"toward an evaluation of Federal
loyalty-security programs with
recognition of the needs for
safeguarding national security and
individual liberty." This study
reflected the widespread concern
League of
about the Communist threat
Women
exemplified by United States Senator
Voters of
Joseph McCarthy's investigation of
Briarcliff
"unAmerican activities." (1, page
Manor
162)
At this time, parishioners gave more
than an acre of land in two parcels
across Kidderminster Way to the All
Saints Episcopal Church, including
Hubert Rogers and Harold Rose (who
lived in Edith Law Brockelman’s
Mount Vernon on Scarborough
Road). This provided one and oneAll Saints
half acres for possible expansion of
Episcopal
facilities. (1, page 179) (15, page
Church
69)
The Sunday School of the Briarcliff
Congregational Church, which from
its earliest days had been
fundamental in training children in
the knowledge and love of Christ and
the teachings of the Holy Scriptures,
and as the school grew classes had
been held in any available space.
However, by the early 1950s, the
congregation realized that they
Briarcliff
needed larger school quarters and
Congregatio began plans for a second building.
n-al Church (15, page 72)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , the Joseph Whitson's House,
Joseph
also known as "The Crossways" was
Whitson
pulled down probably around this
House
time period, after it had been
("Crossways occupied by John H. Whitson. (2,
")
page 13)
the early
1950s
Briarcliff
Writers:
Alice (Mrs.
Martin Low)
the early
1950s to
the late
1970s
Briarcliff
Architects:
H. Burke
Weigel
During this period, Alice (Mrs. Martin
Low), an author, comes to live with
her family on Sleepy Hollow Road.
(1, page 219)
During this period, H. Burke Weigel,
his wife, Mary Laura, and their
children lived on Scarborough Road.
Weigel was an architectural
coordinator fro the Untied Nations,
and then worked in Pakistan
supervising military installations for
the Pakistani government. Later he
had his own firm in Stony Brook,
New York, where he designed many
buildings on the state university
campus. He designed seminaries in
Albany, New York, Boynton Beach,
Florida, and, locally, Saint Theresa’s
Church in Briarcliff (not including the
addition). The Weigels were active
in the community, he as head of the
Briarcliff Civic Association (now the
Friends of Briarcliff), she in the
Junior League of Tarrytown, and
both, in many fund-raising
campaigns. (1, page 216)
the early
1950s-the
late 1970s
the early
1950s-ca.
1990
During this period, H. Burke Weigel,
the architect, lived on the corner of
Scarborough Road and Becker Lane
with his family. The house H. Burke
Weigel lived in with his family he
described as “stripped-down General
Grant—too large for American
carpenter, too plain and
unembellished for Victorian,” with a
veranda across the front and curving
around to one side and long windows
on the first floor with working
shutters, which they restored and
painted yellow. Mary Laura Weigel
remembers, “the driveway was
impossible in winter, the house was
difficult to heat, but nothing
diminished our fondness for it…. Our
neighbors—to the north, the
Dinwiddies, across the road, the
Briarcliff
Spaights, and way up on the hill to
Architects: the south, Hjalmar and Claire
H. Burke
Hertz—all of them very special and
Weigel
interesting people.” (1, page 216)
During this period, Alice (Mrs. Martin
Low), an author, has continued to
live with her family on Sleepy Hollow
Road since the early 1950s. She is
the author of some seventeen books
for children and young adults, of
poems and lyrics in books and on
records, of film scripts and folk-tale
adaptations for textbooks. She has
compiled several anthologies and
Briarcliff
book lists. “Each book,” she has
Writers:
written, “is an exploration, both
Alice (Mrs. difficult and exhilarating.” (1, page
Martin Low) 219)
the 1950s
and 1960s
the
1950s(?)
and
1960s(?)
1950s1960s
1950s1960s
1950s1960s
During these decades, regular art
exhibits held at Scarborough School
were initiated by a memorial fund for
Foresta Hodgson Wood, an alumna
who was killed in an ariplane
accident. Among these was an
exhibititon of sculpture in the Italian
garden at Beechwood, which
included works by such well-known
artists as Jose de Creeft, Jason Seley
Scarborough and Richard Stankiewicz. (1, page
School
151)
During this period, art exhibits were
regularly mounted in Village schools
and in the Briarcliff Manor Free
Library. A series of exhibits was
organized by the Todd School PTA
Special Projects Committee, which
included Myril (Mrs. Jack) Adler, Alice
(Mrs. Martin) Low, and Hannah (Mrs.
Alan) Berman. Subjects of these
exhibits were animals in art,
chlildren in art, colonial America, the
UN and many others. In most cases
the works exhibited were
reproductions from museums and
private collections. An exhibition of
the artwork of French children from
Briarcliff
nine to seventeen years of age was
Manor Free arranged in cooperation with the
Library
French Embassy. (1, page 151)
During these two decades, as the
Venerable George F. Bratt had
All Saints
foreseen in 1944, the church
Episcopal
population of All Saints Episcopal
Church
Church did increase. (1, page 179)
Scarborough During this period, The Scarborough
Presbyterian Presbyterian Church was remodeled
Church
and expanded. (17, page 19)
During these two decades, although
new chairs, carpets, and some light
fixtures were installed in the 1950s
and 1960s, the historic fabric of the
Briarcliff Lodge building remained for
King's
the most part as Walter Law had
College
constructed it. (8, page 83)
1950s-1978
Barnesby
House
1950
Briarcliff
Boy Scouts
1950
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1950
U.S. Census
1950
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1950
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Ossining
During this thirty-year period, the
Barnesby House serves as the
residence of the headmasters of The
Scarborough School. (1, page 111)
Four local Senior Boys Scouts of the
Briarcliff Boy Scouts attended the
Jamboree at Valley Forge, Pa. (2,
page 84)
By this year, the need to expand the
Briarcliff school for the Grade and
High School students was so
insistent that some of the High
School rooms had to be taken over
to accommodate some of the pupils
of the first six grades from the grade
school. (1, page 153) (2, page 52)
The 1950 U.S. Census showed that
the Village of Briarcliff Manor had
2,465 residents. (2, page 9)
By this year, as the Village of
Briarcliff Manor grew, so did its
school population, and by this year,
grades 1 through 12 no longer fit
comfortably into the combined
buildings (built in 1909 and 1928) on
Pleasantville Road. (1, page 153)
During this year, Rabbi Mortimer
Rubin, who was a graduate of the
Jewish Theological Seminary,
favored breaking away from
Orthodoxy and joining the
Conservative movement. The Board
of trustees voted for the change and
submitted it to the Congregation for
approval. The whole Congregation
turned out in a very emotional
meeting. There were people in
tears, and people screaming.
Ultimately the Orthodox group
marched out of the meeting and the
vote was taken, and the
Congregation voted in favor of the
Conservative movement’s ideology,
which followed the practice of having
services read in both English and
Hebrew. (1, pages 167-168)
1950
1950
1950
1950
during a
threemonth
1950 period(?)
January
1950 29th
post-1950
During this year, Myril Adler, a
Briarcliff
resident of the Village of Briarcliff
Artists:
Manor, exhibited her work in Paris
Adler Family and in Merano, Italy. (1, page 212)
During this year, Arthur Spear, Jr.,
an editor with the Yonkers publishing
Briarcliff
company, the World Book Company,
Publishers: comes to live on Tulip Road in the
Arthur
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
Spear, Jr.
220)
By this year, the population in the
Briarcliff
Village of Briarcliff Manor was 2,494.
Population
(15, page 78)
By this year, there were 260
King's
students enrolled at The King’s
College
College. (8, page 71)
League of
During a three-month period during
Women
this year, the paid membership of
Voters of
The League of Women Voters of
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor jumped from 100 to
Manor
141. (1, page 161)
On this date, the new Parish Hall of
the All Saints Episcopal Church was
completed and dedicated by the Rt.
All Saints
Rev. Horace W. B. Donegan, the
Episcopal
then-present Bishop of New York. (1,
Church
page 179) (2, page 38)
For some years after 1950, Dr.
Robert Wyckoff Searle was a guest
lecturer at many colleges, and
taught philosophy of religion at
Briarcliff College. He also preached
from time to time in churches of
sixteen different denominations, was
a founder of The National Conference
of Christians and Jews and a
delegate to many religious
conferences. Furthermore, he also
Searle
wrote numerous articles. (1, page
Family
170)
1950-1951
1950-1952
1950-1952
1950-(to
June 15th,
1952)
1950-1954
A provisional charter was granted to
The Briarcliff Nursery School, under
the new title of "The Briarcliff
Nursery School, Inc." Its teaching
staff consisted of two regular
teachers and one substitute teacher,
together with students from the
Briarcliff Junior College, whose
curriculum calls for the nursery
school type of training. The original
Briarcliff
membership of The Briarcliff Nursery
Nursery
School, Inc. was twenty-one. (2,
School, Inc. page 57)
During this period, in the 1950s,
there was still land available in
Briarcliff and the Village was pleased
to cooperate with developers. The
Bogdanoffs bought land above North
State Road east of Route 9A around
what had been the "Rock Tee" of the
Briarcliff Golf Links. They built the
eighty-four houses known as the
Crossroads, keeping prices down to
levels the returning veterans could
meet, beginning at $16,000.00 and
climbing to $25,000.00 toward the
end of their work their in 1952.
They did so, David Bogdanoff has
said, "Not because we were social
benefactors but because we wanted
to sell the houses. The fact that in
the course of that these lovely young
Briarcliff
families moved in was just an added
Real Estate bonus." (1, page 145)
During this period, Everett D. D. Bell
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
The Village of Briarcliff Manor
records 30 of its men (as of June
15th, 1952) as having enlisted to
Korean War fight in the Korean War. (2, page 79)
Congregatio During this period, Rabbi David
n Sons of
Prince serves as the ninth Rabbi of
Israel of
the Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining
Ossining. (1, page 235)
1950-1960
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1950-1981
Rodgers
Family
1950-ca.
1990
Briarcliff
Publishers:
Arthur
Spear, Jr.
According to the account of Steve
McQueeny of Briarcliff during the
1950s, he states: “Houses were
being built everywhere. Between
1950 and 1960 new houses went up
at the rate of one or two per week.
This was quite a change for a village
that had a static population for
decades.” But, McQueeny
remembered, there was still “A
feeling of home…despite all that
building the village remained very
small, very manageable. It seemed
you knew everyone, even the
newcomers.” (1, pages 146-147)
(15, page 95)
During this period, Charles Rodgers,
Jr., who would later become the
chairman of the caucus party of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor in 1972,
was also a marketing expert and
lived in the village until his death in
1981. He was very active in the
affairs of the community and of Saint
Theresa's Church. George Kennard,
mayor of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor from 1977 to 1983, called him
"the conscience of our village." (1,
page 191)
During this period, Arthur Spear, Jr.,
a former editor with the Yonkers
publishing company, the World Book
Company, has continued to live on
Tulip Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor. He was the editor of the
World Book Company in Yonkers for
many years before that company
was taken over by the publishing
firm of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
under the direction of William
Jovanovich, another longtime
Briarcliff resident. (1, page 220)
1950-1990
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Ossining
1951
Women's
Society of
the
Congregatio
n-al Church
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1951
Briarcliff
Community
Center, Inc.
1951
Briarcliff
Boy Scouts
1951
Recreation
Committee
1951
Since 1950, and continuing to the
present (ca. 1990), The
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining (now Briarcliff Manor), since
they voted on following the practices
of the Conservative movement in
Judaism in 1950, read the services
for the Congregation in both English
and Hebrew. (1, page 168)
In this year, The Women's Society of
the Congregational Church allies
itself with the Briarcliff Junior
College, from which has come a full
International Scholarship, The
Women's Society became
responsible for a Korean young
woman, Ok Yul Kim, who has well
justified the choice by making the
Dean's list continually. (2, page 44)
Ependitures for this year for The
Briarcliff Manor Free Library were
$1,875.86. (2, page 68)
During this year, The Briarcliff
Community Center, Inc. corporation
funds were finally disbursed and the
balance was turned over to The
Briarcliff Manor Free Library. (Note:
There is no connection between The
Briarcliff Community Center, Inc.,
and the present-day (ca. 1952)
Briarcliff Community Committee). (2,
page 81)
During this year, 22 Boy Scouts from
the Briarcliff Boy Scouts were at the
Boy Scout Adirondack Camps. (2,
page 84)
The Village Board of the Briarcliff
Manor Village Government dedicates
to park purposes two parcels of land,
approximately 90 acres, separately
located. (2, page 87)
1951
1951
1951
1951
1951
When the Kahns moved into their
new house on Holbrook Road in
1951, John Cheever (a writer), his
wife, Mary, and their two small
children moved out of New York City
Briarcliff
to Charlotte Schufeldt’s Beechtwig,
Writers:
located in the Scarborough region of
John
the Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1,
Cheever
page 218)
By this year, the enrollment of
Briarcliff
students attending Briarcliff Junior
Junior
College had grown to 220 students.
College
(15, page 44)
During this year, David Bogdanoff
finishes his eight-four new houses
that he built at “The
Crossroads”—above north State
Road and east of Route 9. The land
was originally part of the Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Lodge’s golf course. (1, page 145)
Real Estate (17, page 35)
During this year, when Dudley
Darling built his house in Briarcliff
Manor, he noted: “a very interesting
procedure for returning veterans to
buy land. First, you looked at a map
that showed all vacant land in
Briarcliff (lots!), then selected an
area and offered a bid, printed in a
local paper and offered at public
auction. Since no one else bid, the
land was ours--$1,500 for 3.5 acres
on Long Hill Road. Later, we added
one more acre through the same
procedure, for $500. After building
our house [in 1951] we moved to
Dudley
Briarcliff and, for the next 40 years,
Darling
thoroughly enjoyed our life here.”
House
(17, page 35)
During this year, John A. Riegel was
Village
elected mayor of the Village of
Government Briarcliff Manor. (17, page 35)
May(?)1951 July(?)
1951 May 11th
1951 June
1951 July
During this period of three months,
Lieutenant John K. Koelsch, a
helicopter pilot for the Navy during
the Korean War and a former
resident of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, was held as a P.O.W. in a
North Korean prison camp. (1, page
Korean War 189)
Beginning on this date, the State
Board of Regents authorized Briarcliff
Junior College to grant the degree of
Briarcliff
Associate of Arts and Associate in
Junior
Applied Science. (1, page 181) (2,
College
page 55)
An entirely new classroom-and-office
Briarcliff
wing is dedicated on this date at
Junior
Briarcliff Junior College. (1, page
College
182) (2, page 55)
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
By this date, two more parks were in
the process of creation, as two
parcels of "in rem" land were set
aside for this purpose in the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, 37 acres between
Pine Road and Sleepy Hollow Road
and 57 acres between Long Hill Road
and the Pocantico River. It was then
thought that these properties
possessed a choice variety of terrain
suitable for nature trails and a wildlife sancutary, with plenty of space
for picnic grounds and games,
thought to afford permanent benefits
for all ages. (2, pages 66-67)
1951 July
1951 July 2nd
1951 July 3rd
1951 September
The Briarcliff Civic Association is
organized, with 55 initial members
and with Ernest Leins, Jr. as its first
President. The main objective of this
organization is "to promote an
interest and participation in local
affairs for the betterment of the
community;" and with this in mind,
this organization's meetings discuss
the various activities of the Village,
aided by guest speakers both local
and from other towns. In addition,
particular attention is given to Village
interests, planning and zoning,
parking and traffic, recreation,
school and the library. Also, all
Briarcliff
residents of the Village of Briarcliff
Civic
Manor are welcome to join this
Association village organization. (2, page 86)
The first Diesel engine arrives at the
Briarcliff Manor Train Station. (2,
Rail Roads
page 20)
On this date, Lieutenant John K.
Koelsch, who was a navy helicopter
pilot, dies in a prison camp in North
Korea after three months of
captivity. He was the son of Mr. and
Mrs. Henry Koelsch, who lived at
Brae View on central Drive, and he
had attended The Scarborough
School, Westminster School in
London, and was also a graduate of
Princeton. He was awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor
posthumously, the first helicopter
pilot ever to receive that medal. (1,
Korean War page 189)
On this date, the school district
which includes the Village of Briarcliff
Manor voted favorably to purchase
land north and east of Ingham Road
for $22,125.00, there to erect a
Public
Primary School allowing also for a
Schools,
sufficient increase in the play field
Grade and
for the Briarcliff school. (1, page
High School 153) (2, page 52)
An address list of Village and School
district families was compiled for the
Village of Briarcliff Manor by the
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Civic Association. This list
Civic
is available to all local organizations.
1951 November Association (2, page 86)
In 1951, Thomas C. Schuller begins
his service as the tenth Headmaster
1951of The Scarborough School. This
present
Scarborough continues to the present time (ca.
(1952)
School
1952). (2, page 58)
During this season, Troop 18 of the
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Boy Scouts enrolled 57
1951-1952
Boy Scouts boys. (2, page 83)
During this period, the enrollment
advances to 220 students at Briarcliff
Junior College, the highest yet in its
history up to that point. These
students came from all parts of the
United States and from Europe,
Central and South America, and
Asia. The physical plant also showed
improvement, and new courses were
Briarcliff
also added to the fully-accredited
Junior
curriculum as well. (1, pages 1481951-1952
College
149) (2, page 55)
During this year, a long-range
development is in the process of
being planned along athletic, social,
and educational lines for the 90
acres of the two parcels of land
dedicated in 1951 by the Village
Recreation Board for park purposes. (2, page
1951-1952
Committee 87)
Probably indicating the increased
burden of the position, The Briarcliff
Manor Board of Education had three
presidents during this twelve-month
period: Robert C. Heim, Nicholas B.
Marden, and Henry O. Letiecq (who
August
Briarcliff
was named president of the Briarcliff
(1951)-July Board of
Manor Board of Education in July of
1951-1952 (1952)
Education
1952). (2, page 60)
John A. Riegel serves as the Mayor
for the Biarcliff Manor Village
Village
Government during this period. (1,
1951-1955
Government page 233) (2, page 24)
1951-ca.
1961
1951-1965
1951-1991
1951-2002
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
During this period, John Cheever (a
Briarcliff
writer), his wife, Mary, and their two
Writers:
small children lived at Charlotte
John
Schufeldt’s Beechtwig for almost ten
Cheever
productive years. (1, page 218)
In 1951, the Reverend Leland Boyd
Henry, D.D., is elected as the
seventh Rector of the St. Mary's
Episcopal Church, and serves in this
St. Mary's
positoon until he was forced to
Episcopal
resign on doctor's orders in 1965. (1,
Church
page 175) (2, page 38)
During this period, Dudley Darling
Dudley
and her family lived in their house on
Darling
Long Hill Road in Briarcliff Manor.
House
(17, page 35)
During this period, Marvin and Helen
Ross were residents for 52 years in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, as
residents of Chilmark Park. (17, page
Ross Family 28)
As of ca. 1952, the "Elms" estate
mansion is the oldest known house
located within the village limits of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor. (2,
Elms
page 16)
Around this year, the Crossroads real
estate development of David
Bogdanoff was completed.
Bogdanoff then moved farther north
in the Town of Ossining and
developed the neighborhood called
Briarcliff
Torbank around Saint Paul's on the
Real Estate Hill. (1, page 145)
ca. 1952
Second
Washburn
House
ca. 1952
Briarcliff
Junior
College
ca. 1952
Historic
Homes
Around this year, another of the
Washburn homes was being used as
the Guest House at the Camp Edith
Macy Girl Scout School and its barn
was being used as their
administrative office. Also around
this time, the remains of the old
Washburn mill foundation were still
discernable in the grass plot near the
retaining wall. This mill used to be
located at the south end of what in
ca. 1952 was called Lake
Kinderaugen (Children's Eye), which
used to be this mill's millpond. Also
around 1952, there were still two
millstones located on the lawn of the
ca. 1952 residence of Mr. Christian
Goetz. (2, page 16)
Around this time, part of the
adjoining 159 acres of land of "The
Elms" estate was part of the Briarcliff
Junior College. (2, page 16)
According to the book: Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N. Y.: 1902 To
1952 , there was (ca. 1952) still an
old crumbing cellar wall, located in
the woods of the ancient Nodine
farm beyond Dogwood Lane, which
has been possibly dated to be
Revolutionary, and was located on
the very oldtime road through the
woods to the Nodine farmhouse on
Hardscrabble Road, according to old
maps. This site had sixteen large
and flat "table rocks" so placed over
the perennial brook in order that
wagons could pass safely over on
their way. (2, page 17)
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , the longest road in the Village
of Briarcliff Manor ca. 1952 was
Pleasantville Road, from Round Hill
Road (the easterly line of the Village)
to the Ossining reservoir at the
northern edge of Briarcliff Manor, a
distance of exactly three miles
including the portion through the
business section. Scarborough Road
from Dalmeny to the Post Road is
Roads and
second longest, two miles. The
Transportati shortest road is Pine Court, 175 feet
on
long. (2, page 18)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , the former "Whitson's"
Station, the first train station
building built in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, as of ca. 1952 had
been moved to Millwood and was
then called the Millwood station. (1,
Rail Roads
page 39) (2, page 20)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , this book tells of how the
roads in the Village of Briarcliff
Roads and
Manor were often over-crowded and
Transportati five service stations were busy with
on
gas and repairs. (2, pages 20-21)
Around this year, the Village of
Briarcliff Manor covered five and onehalf square miles, or 3,520 acres,
Briarcliff
with a population of a total of 2,465
Population
persons. (2, page 23)
As of this date, (ca. 1952), much of
the barn, formerly Barn D of the
Briarcliff Farms, remained then as it
was when the Briarcliff Farms was in
Briarcliff
operation during the 1890s-1908. (2,
Farms
page 32)
As of this date, (ca. 1952), the
former Dairy building of the Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Farms was the garage of the
Farms
Briarcliff Laundry. (2, page 32)
ca. 1952
Briarcliff
Farms
ca. 1952
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
ca. 1952
Miss Knox's
School
ca. 1952
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
ca. 1952
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
ca. 1952
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
ca. 1952
Edgewood
Park School
(Edgewood
Park,
Incorporate
d)
As of this date, (ca. 1952), the
Briarcliff Farms remain in operation
in Pine Plains, New York, under the
same name, Briarcliff Farms. (2,
page 35)
As of this date, the ivy which
Washington Irving brought and
planted at the St. Mary's Episcopal
Church was still covering this
Church's exterior. (2, page 36)
As of this date (ca. 1952), the Miss
Knox's School continued to operate
in its new location in Cooperstown,
New York, under Miss Knox's name.
(2, page 46)
As of ca. 1952, the former "White
School" which served the Village of
Briarcliff Manor area still served as
the fire house for the community of
Hawthorne. (2, page 49)
As of ca. 1952, the Village of
Briarcliff Manor's school district,
District #2, was still using the old
Grade School Building on
Pleasantville Road, originally built in
1909 with the High School added in
1928. (2, pages 50 and 52)
As of ca. 1952, the Village of
Briarcliff Manor's school district,
District #2, was still using the old
High School Building on Pleasantville
Road, originally built in 1928 as an
addition to the original Grade School
Building originally built in 1928. (2,
pages 51-52)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , the School seal of Edgewood
Park School (Edgewood Park,
Incorporated) consisted of three
elements all placed on a Shield of
Valor: The Book indicating
intellectual learning; the Distaff held
high by a firm arm revealing a firm
grasp on womanly enterprises,
industry, skills; and the three dots
meaning the three daughters of Dr.
Reaser through whom his scholastic
vision is continued. (2, page 57)
ca. 1952
Scarborough
School
ca. 1952
Scarborough
School
ca. 1952
Scarborough
School
ca. 1952
Scarborough
School
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , the School seal of The
Scarborough School is a copy of the
13th century seal of the borough of
Scarborough, England, after which
the local community of Scarborough
was named. (2, page 58)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952 The
Scarborough School had given both
boys and girls, from the Nursery
School through the High School
ages, devoted, unflagging attention
to the individual student. To
develope a sense of responsibility as
self-respecting members of their
community. Therefore, small classes
are the rule where the physical,
social and intellectual potentialities
of each pupil can best be developed
by means of sympathetic, personal
relationship between teacher and
student. A beautiful campus
overlooking the Hudson, with acres
of woodland, lawns and streams,
tennis courts, playing fields and
swimming pool provide an ideal and
natural setting for these objectives.
(2, page 58)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952 The
Scarborough School was also a
pioneer in visual education. In
addition, student self-government
was also encouraged. Furthermore,
The Scarborough School Parents
Association was very active in the
well-being of this institution. (2,
page 58)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952 a great
majority of the graduates of The
Scarborough School had been
accepted by the best American
colleges. (2, page 58)
ca. 1952
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the public
schools in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor are in Union Free School
District #2, Towns of Ossining and
Mt. Pleasant. The School District
extends beyond the borders of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor and the
Town of Ossining to the east, but
Public
does not include part of the Village in
Schools,
the Scarborough area, which is in
Grade and
the Ossining school system. (2, page
High School 60)
ca. 1952
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the School
District of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor was still governed by a Board
of Education of five members, who
operate under the New York State
Education Law and the regulations of
the Commissioner of Education in
Albany. School Board members are
elected by the voters of their district
at their Annual Meeting in May, for
three-year terms. The Annual
Meeting also approves the budget
and considers other District
business. The Board of Education
elects its own President at its
organization meeting in July of each
year. Regular School Board
meetings are held once a month, and
are open to the public. (2, page 60)
Briarcliff
Board of
Education
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, Scarborough
still possessed one of America's most
alluring views from the top of
Ridgecrest Road, exhibiting scenery
which recalls the estimate of
Washington Irving, "After all my
wanderings, I return to it (the
Hudson River) with a heartfelt
preference over all the other rivers
of the world." Before the observer
stretches supurb river beauty, with
fascinating rock-formations of the
Palisades as a background. (2, pages
Scarborough 61-62)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor Post Office remains the only
Manor Post United States post office with this
Office
name. (2, page 64)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, it was
estimated that the yearly average
attendance of those who find
recreation within the five acres of
The Law Memorial Park is
approximately 44,000. Appropriately
styled "The Briarcliff Country Club for
all Reidents," there is a more
suitable title: The Law Memorial
Park. It was a gift from Mr. Walter
W. Law for the benefit of all. At this
Park there are no dues, no
assessments, except for a slight
charge for an identification tag in
order to use this "Club." The Village
of Briarcliff Manor's budget provided
$6,000.00 for the yearly
Briarcliff
maintenance of the grounds,
Park and
including tennis courts, putting green
Pool
and the pool. (2, page 66)
ca. 1952
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
ca. 1952
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
ca. 1952
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the Pool of The
Law Memorial Park was an attraction
annually for some 20,000 bathers,
the season running from June to
September. (2, page 66)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the little lake
adjacent to The Law Memorial Park
had goldfish and ducks swimming in
it, and occasionally, a heron or a
swan. During the winter season
when The Law Memorial Park's Pool
was closed, children skated on the
ice of this lake when it froze over.
(2, page 66)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the Park
Foreman of The Law Memorial Park
was "Doc" Cunningham (2, page 66)
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the standards
of the Briarcliff Manor Free Library
were fixed by the Library Extension
Division of the University of the
State of New York, to which annual
reports are made. Book stock of the
Library consists of approximately
8,000 volumes, of which 1,000 were
in storage due to lack of shelf or rack
space. Many people over the years
have also volunteered at the Library,
then (ca. 1952) known as the
"Friends of the Library," doing desk
work, preparing exhibits, typing,
arranging flowers, making posters,
etc. Furthermore, one of the
valuable assets of the library is the
Union Catalogue of which it is a
member. This co-operative system
by which all books in all member
libraries of Westchester County are
available to any individual in any
community through application at
the local library, which is a
tremendous service to all Village
cardholders. A central office is
maintained in Room 809, County
Office Building, White Plains. (2,
page 69) (15, page 63)
Briarcliff
Arts
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, this book
mentioned a list, which it said was
probably incomplete, which named
forty-one authors of Briarcliff Manor
residence; their total output was 181
volumes by ca. 1952. (2, page 71)
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , Walter William Law, the future
founder of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, was ever the avid reader and
thinker. Many living in Briarcliff
Manor as of ca. 1952 remembered
his large, well-furnished library in his
manorial home on Scarborough
Law Family Road. (2, page 72)
Around this year, Isaac C. Hotaling
retires as Village Trustee of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor after 26
Village
years (from 1926-1952). (2, page
Government 74)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , a school folder of The
Scarborough School from ca. 1952
stated that: "In 1913, Mr. and Mrs.
Frank Vanderlip established a
country school for the boys and girls
of the community. Their aim was to
provide, through the use of sound
educational concepts, and a rich,
varied program of activities, an
opportunity for the school children of
the neighborhood to become
Scarborough balanced, well-rounded scholars." (2,
School
page 75)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, there was
placed a historic highway marker on
Route 9 in Scarborough in the Village
of Briarcliff Manor, which reads:
"Birthplace of John L. Worden, 18181897, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy.
Commanded the "Monitor" against
Famous
the "Merrimac," Hampton Roads,
Scarborough Virginia, March 9, 1862." (2, pages
Residents
75-76)
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, William H.
Aspinwall, a famous resident of
Scarborough, had had his name
memorialized in the Village of
Roads and
Briarcliff Manor, when the Village
Transportati named Aspinwall Road after him. (2,
on
page 76)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, one of the
caves where the "Leather Man"
resided during his 1860-1889
Famous
wanderings, was still extant, and
Scarborough was on the property of Mr. George E.
Residents
Dyke, Kitchawan Road. (2, page 76)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the leather
pack that the "Leather Man" took
with him during his 1860-1889
Famous
wanderings, was on display at the
Scarborough Connecticut Historical Society in
Residents
Hartford, Connecticut. (2, page 76)
ca. 1952
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Number
1054, Inc.
American
Legion
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Number
1054, Inc.
American
Legion
ca. 1952
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Number
1054, Inc.
American
Legion
ca. 1952
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the Preamble
of the Constitution of the Briarcliff
Manor Post Number 1054, Inc.
American Legion read: "For God and
Country we associate ourselves
together for the following purposes:
To uphold and defend the
Constitution of the United States of
America; to maintain Law and Order;
to foster and perpetuate a onehundred percent Americanism; to
preserve the memories and incidents
of our associations in the great
Wars; to inculcate a sense of
individual obligation to the
Community, State and Nation; to
combat the autocracy of both the
classes and the masses; to make
right the master of might; to
promote peace and good-will on
earth; to safeguard and transmit to
posterity the principles of Justice,
Freedom and Democracy; to
consecrate and sanctify our
comradeship by our devotion to
mutual helpfulness." (2, page 78)
As of ca. 1952, there were fifty-two
members of the Briarcliff Manor Post
Number 1054, Inc. American Legion.
(2, page 78)
As of ca. 1952, of the thirty residents
in the Armed Forces fighting in the
Korean War, two of them were past
Commanders of the Briarcliff Manor
Post Number 1054, Inc. American
Legion, William Perry and Bruce
Burns; and one Veteran of the
Korean conflict was in this Briarcliff
American Legion Post as of ca. 1952.
(2, page 78)
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
ca. 1952
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, there were
many residents of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor still living who
remembered gratefully the activities
run by the Briarcliff Community
Center, Inc. They remembered that
it held singing-parties, Christmas
activities, lectures, tournaments,
band, and community dances. Boy
Scout troops met there for
instruction and the newspaper was
issued from its property. That paper
was called "Community Notes," "in
Briarcliff
the interest of the Briarcliff
Community Community Club, every other
Center, Inc. Friday." (2, page 81) (14, page 11)
Around this time (ca. 1952), the
topics under discussion at present
then at the Briarcliff Community
Committee were: a War Memorial,
Briarcliff
Community Chest, Historical
Community Committee, and improved
Committee Recreational Facilities. (2, page 82)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the various
activities of the Briarcliff Branch of
the American Red Cross have been
centered in the needs of the Armed
Forces of the United States, though
their activities had not been limited
to this area alone. This village
organization renders its services in
Blood Banks, Home Nursing First Aid
classes, Civil Defense-Disaster Unit,
Veterans' Hospitals and Life-saving
programs at the Village pool. This
village organization has also
Briarcliff
extended its efforts through the
Branch of
County when so required. In
the
addition, The Junior Red Cross
American
deserves special mention. (2, pages
Red Cross
82-83)
ca. 1952
Recreation
Committee
ca. 1952
Briarcliff
Manor
Planning
Board
Around this time, the Recreation
Committee of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor was appointed by the Village
Trustees to advise and assist the
Park and Recreation Commissioner in
planning programs and
recommending improvements
calculated to meet the recreational
needs of both children and adults.
Also around this time, with continued
watchfulness, this Committee of
interested residents assures the
maintenance and continuance of
impressive recreational facilities and
programs. (2, page 87)
The Planning Board of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor was still appointed
by the Village Trustees. It had five
members, two had to be officials of
the Village. The Village Law of the
State of New York (the same law
under which this board was first
established on April 29th, 1929)
defines its functions, powers and
duties, obtaining the following: "To
examine existing conditions and plan
for future growth, protection and
development; to take over the study
of any chnages in the official map
and report such to the Trustees for
their action; to condition the
issuance of building permits by the
adequacy of street improvement; to
regulate the subdivision of land
within the Village as authorized by
the Trustees. This sets up the
procedure which governs the
approval of plats for such
subdivisions. The Planning Board
also possesses certain advisory
functions, under the Board of
Trustees, and, in its continuing study
of the ever-changing conditions
within the Village, concerns itself
with the Building Zone Ordinance as
to private property, and recommends
possible changes in that Ordinance.
ca. 1952
Camp Edith
Macy: Girl
Scout
Training
School
ca. 1952
Camp Edith
Macy: Girl
Scout
Training
School
ca. 1952(?)
Women's
Society of
the
Congregatio
n-al Church
ca. 1952(?)
Briarcliff
Junior
College
ca. 1952
every May
30th
Village
Events
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, the Girl Scout
leaders, having observed the wildlife
sanctuary of the Camp Edith Macy:
Girl Scout Training School, had listed
51 kinds of trees, 15 kinds of ferns,
87 birds-species, and over 200
varieties of flowers. (2, page 89)
Around this year, Camp Andree was
adjacently situated to the Camp
Edith Macy: Girl Scout Training
School, and was operated by the G.
S. Council of Greater New York, Inc.,
though owned by the G. S. of the
U.S.A. This camp of 140 acres was
busily used by approximately 1,000
girl scouts during the year. The lake
of this camp, called Kinderaugen,
was named for the laughing blue
eyes of children. (2, page 89)
Recently (ca. 1952(?)), as an
essential part of their activities, The
Women's Society of the
Congregational Church formed The
Evening Sewing Group of the
Friendly Service Committee. (2, page
44)
Around this year, the heating plant
at the Briarcliff Junior College was
modernized, and a new access
driveway and parking facilities
constructed. (2, page 55)
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, special
national gatherings assembled at the
War Memorial Monument every May
30th, and crosses there honored
those of the Briarcliff Community
who had died for their country. The
Scouts gave a Pledge of Allegiance at
every meeting, and the churches of
the village advocated the use of
force when Justice, Freedom and
Honor were at stake. (2, page 78)
ca. 1952
every May
30th
Village
Events
1952
Village
Government
1952
Village
Government
1952
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1952
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1952
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, all the Village
residents at that time had seen Mrs.
William H. Coleman, the formerly
long-time chairman of the Briarclifff
Branch of the American Red Cross
with a justifiable pride taking her
place, in uniform, in Memorial Day
Services every May 30th. (2, page
82)
The budget after the first fifty years
of the operation of the Briarcliff
Manor Village Government is
$156,265.00, with a tax rate of
$14.93 per $1,000.00 of assessed
valuation, and assessed valuation of
$10,466,570.00. (2, page 23)
At this time, bonds of indebtness for
less than $50,000.00 are
outstanding at this present time (ca.
1952). (2, page 23)
The new residences (ca. 1952)
located in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor average a value of
$16,000.00. (2, page 24)
By this date, the Vllage of Briarcliff
Manor has a fully-equipped Fire
Department, consisting of three
separate companies with a total
active membership of 158 and five
pieces of automotive fire fighting
equipment. (2, page 29)
The present (ca. 1952) Fire
Department Officers are: Fred H.
Kossow, Chief; George F. Sullivan,
First Assistant Chief; William H.
Bowers, Second Assistant Chief;
Joseph Reilly, Foreman, Scarborough
Fire Company; Joseph Leighton,
Captain, Hook and Ladder Company;
James Finne, Foreman, Engine
Company. (2, page 31)
1952
1952
1952
1952
1952
1952
By this date, the Ladies Auxiliary of
the Briarcliff Fire Company had
eighty-five members. Its present
Ladies
officers (ca. 1952) are: President,
Auxiliary of Mrs. Emil Brown; Secretary, Mrs.
the Briarcliff John Winter; Treasurer, Mrs. Irving
Fire
Manahan; Financial Secretary, Mrs.
Company
Robert Murdock. (2, page 31)
The roster today (ca. 1952) of the
Briarcliff Manor Police Department is:
Chief, Arthur W. Johnson; Patrolmen,
Harry Addis, Fred Borho, Edward
Brosnan, C. Everett Garvey, Arthur
W. Johnson, Jr., Gilbert Johnson,
Raymond Wolf, George Wolf
(Previous Cheifs were Edward
Cashman and Allan O. Keator).
Members of the Briarcliff Manor
Police Department who have
answered the invisible command
are: Edward Cashman, Chief; Allan
O. Keator, Cheif; Floyd Bernard,
Lieutenant; Charles A. Johnson, Jr.,
Gerow Birdsall, Joseph Henning,
Daniel O'Connor. Eight of these
officers served as patrolmen with a
Chief, and these officers had two
Briarcliff
radio cars and a motorcycle, and
Manor Police also had 33 auxiliary policemen. (2,
Department page 31)
The present (ca. 1952) Officers of
the All Saints Episcopal Church were:
Wardens: David Williams and David
Figart; Vestrymen: Nicholas B.
Marden, William W. Stelle, Frederic
All Saints
Wilson, Stanley MacKenzie, Ralph
Episcopal
Mulligan and Maurice Kinsey. (2,
Church
pages 38-39)
All Saints
The present (ca. 1952) membership
Episcopal
of the All Saints Church is 250. (2,
Church
page 39)
Scarborough
Presbyterian
Church
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
The present (ca. 1952) membership
of The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church is 320. (2, page 39)
The present (ca. 1952) membership
of The Briarcliff Congregational
Church is 447. (2, page 41)
1952
1952
1952
1952
1952
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
The Guild, St. Mary's Episcopal
Church are: President, Mrs. Charles
Baldwin; 1st Vice-President, Mrs.
Lawrence D. Redway; 3rd VicePresident, Mrs. William Fanning;
Corresponding Secretary, Miss Edna
Hall; Recording Secretary, Mrs.
Russell Hoit; Treasurer, Mrs.
Pierpont V. Davis; Supply Officer,
Mrs. Robert Day; Assistant Supply
Officer, Mrs. Henry Meyer; United
Thank-Offering Chairman, Mrs.
Carolyn B. Kendrich. (2, page 42)
Guild, St.
Mary's
Episcopal
Church
All Saints
Episcopal
The present (ca. 1952) membership
Church: The of the All Saints Episcopal Church:
Guild
The Guild is 72. (2, page 42)
The present (ca. 1952) Officers of
the All Saints Episcopal Church: The
Guild are: Afternoon Group,
President, Mrs. William P. Boyle; VicePresident, Miss Mary Wells;
Secretary, Mrs. Frederic Wilson;
Treasurer, Mrs. George Askew;
Corresponding Secretary, Mrs.
Nicholas B. Marden; Evening Group,
President, Mrs. Benjamin Miller; ViceAll Saints
President, Mrs. David Underhill;
Episcopal
Secretary, Mrs. Cameron Brown;
Church: The Treasurer, Mrs. Arlene Rose. (2,
Guild
pages 42 and 44)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
the Women's Guild of the
Scarborough Presbyterian Church
are: President, Mrs. Lee Rosemund;
1st Vice President, Mrs. Edwin
Walton; 2nd Vice-President, Mrs.
Women's
John Francis; Recording Secretary,
Guild of the Mrs. George Comfort; Corresponding
Scarborough Secretary, Mrs. Roland Maycock;
Presbyterian Treasurer, Mrs. Hilton Campbell. (2,
Church
page 44)
Women's
Society of
The present (ca. 1952) membership
the
of The Women's Society of the
Congregatio Congregational Church is about 160.
n-al Church (2, page 44)
1952
1952
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
The Women's Society of the
Congregational Church are:
President, Mrs. Vernon Mills; First
Vice-President, Mrs. Archie Minshall;
Second Vice-President, Mrs. Henry
Letiecq; Third Vice-President, Mrs.
Women's
Ernest Leins; Corresponding
Society of
Secretary, Mrs. George Bryan;
the
Recording Secretary, Mrs. Alfred
Congregatio Jones; Treasurer, Mrs. Carroll Colby.
n-al Church (2, page 45)
Saint
The present (ca. 1952) membership
Theresa's
of the Saint Theresa's Guild of
Guild of
Briarcliff Manor of the Church of
Briarcliff
Saint Thersea of the Infant Jesus is
Manor
over 60. (2, page 45)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
the Saint Theresa's Guild of Briarcliff
Manor of the Church of Saint Thersea
of the Infant Jesus are: Mrs. Gerald
Donahue, President; Mrs. Gordon
Darkenwald, Vice-President; Mrs.
Frank Sichel, Treasurer; and Mrs.
Thomas Cheighton, Secretary. The
Reverend Robert B. Loftus is now
moderator and the Reverend Albert
Pinckney is Pastor. (2, page 45)
1952
Saint
Theresa's
Guild of
Briarcliff
Manor
Holy Name
Society of
Saint
Theresa's
Church
1952
Holy Name
Society of
Saint
Theresa's
Church
The present (ca. 1952) membership
of the Holy Name Society of Saint
Theresa's Church is 60. (2, page 45)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
The Holy Name Society of Saint
Theresa's Church are: Dr. Francis A.
Williams as president, Dr. Thomas
Hershey is vice-president, Mr. John
Goldsborough, secretary, and Mr.
Vincent DiGiacinto, treasurer. (2,
page 45)
1952
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
The present (ca. 1952) total
enrollment of the Briarcliff school is
553 (Kindergarten to Eighth Grade,
329; High School, 224). (2, page 52)
1952
1952
1952
1952
1952
1952
1952
1952
Public
Schools,
The senior class of Briarcliff High
Grade and
School numbers 50 graduates. (2,
High School page 52)
During this year, Briarcliff Junior
College was selected by the U.S.
Army Map Service as the only Junior
College in the country to give
Briarcliff
professional training in cartography
Junior
and map-making techniques. (1,
College
page 181) (2, page 55)
Briarcliff
Junior
College
Edgewood
Park School
(Edgewood
Park,
Incorporate
d)
By this year, a unique distinction of
the Briarcliff Junior College was the
wide geographical representation of
its students: girls from all sections of
the U.S. and Hawaii; and
registrations from Germany,
England, France, Switzerland, India,
China, Japan, Panama, Peru,
Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Korea and
the Dominican Republic. (2, page 55)
The Edgewood Park, Inc., school has
300 students presently (ca. 1952)
enrolled at the school, from 48
states and 25 countries. (1, page 74)
(2, page 56)
The present (ca. 1952) membership
of The Briarcliff Nursery School, Inc.,
is thirty. This nursery school had
developed into a well-established
group also by this year (ca. 1952),
Briarcliff
and one of its prime intentions back
Nursery
then was the construction of
School, Inc. permanent quarters. (2, page 57)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
The Briarcliff Nursery School, Inc.,
are: President, John L. Brouwer; VicePresident, Mrs. John J. Kneisel;
Recording Secretary, Mrs. Walter
Briarcliff
Cragg; Corresponding Secretary,
Nursery
Mrs. James J. McCaffrey; Treasurer,
School, Inc. Robert D. Beals. (2, page 57)
The present (ca. 1952) enrollment at
Scarborough The Scarborough School is 161. (2,
School
page 58)
1952
Briarcliff
Board of
Education
1952
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
1952
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
1952
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
1952
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
1952
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
The Briarcliff Board of Education are:
President, Henry O. Letiecq; Clerk,
Donald J. Corneille; Treasurer, Mrs.
Mabel Schwartz; other members of
the board: Nicholas B. Marden,
Theodore B. Maslin, Fritz C. Heynen,
Mrs. Geraldine O. Evans. The
Attendance officer-supervisor is Mrs.
Ruth Garvey; Census-taker, Mrs.
Richard Purdy; School Physician, Dr.
August De Augustinis. (2, page 60)
The Briarcliff Manor Post Office
moves to its present (ca. 1952)
location on Pleasantville Road. (2,
page 64)
By this year, 630 families and some
400 R.F.D. boxes are served by The
Briarcliff Manor Post Office. That
represents forty years of increasing
R.D. service; but furthermore,
according to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor: 1902 To 1952 , with
the development of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, there will soon be at
least 100 more families so served.
Thus 730 families will be benefited in
this way by the personal attention of
Edward E. Dunn, the competent R.D.
mailman. (2, page 64)
Edward E. Dunn serves as the R.D.
mailman for The Briarcliff Manor Post
Office. (2, page 64)
At present (ca. 1952), there are four
outgoing and four incoming mails
with a daily total, first class only, of
approximately 10,000 pieces go
through The Briarcliff Manor Post
Office. As for daily second class
matter, "too numerous to mention,"
is the Post Office's description of it.
(2, pages 64-65)
At present (ca. 1952), the assistants
to Mrs. Lilian O'Connor, the
Postmaster of the Briarcliff Manor
Post Office, are: Mrs. Marion
Waterbury, Mrs. Edna Wolf, and Mrs.
Gladys Borho. (2, page 65)
1952
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1952
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1952
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Number
1054, Inc.
American
Legion
1952
Briarcliff
Community
Committee
The 1952 appropriation voted for the
Briarcliff Free Library by the Village
Trustees of Briarcliff Manor is
$1,800.00. Other sources of present
(ca. 1952) yearly income are fines,
occasional cash gifts, $100.00 from
the State, interest from the Alfred S.
Bookwalter Memorial Fund of
$250.00, and book gifts. (2, page
68)
The Board of Trustees of the
Briarcliff Free Library (ca. 1952) was
as follows: William E. Bell, President;
Mrs. Milton Bennett, Vice-President;
Mrs. Arnold Grinager, Secretary;
Andrew J. Vosler, Treasurer. Other
members are: Mrs. Richard F. Leete,
Fritz C. Heynen, Mrs. Norman
Babcock, Theodore Malsin, Miss Edith
Lehner, Mrs. George F. Douglass,
Mrs. John Manthorp, John Hoxie, Dr.
Amos T. Baker, Mrs. Hollister
Marquardt, Mrs. Robert Day. (2,
page 69)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
the Briarcliff Manor Post Number
1054, Inc. American Legion are:
Commander, Percy Knight, Jr.; Vice
Commanders: Vicent J. Di Giacinto,
George Jacobson, Peter Holtz; with
Harold A. Simpson leading the
Finance position, and John A. De
Angelis as Adjutant. (2, page 78)
During this year, the Briarcliff
Community Committee had a
representative from every school,
church and organization of the
Village and the list at present (ca.
1952) totals thirty-five. The purpose
of the Committee as stated in the bylaws is "to promote the general
welfare of the community." This
Committee is unique in that its
membership represents a complete
cross-section of the Village. Many
village activities are sponsored,
contributions are made, and village
affairs are discussed. (2, page 82)
1952
1952
1952
1952
1952
1952
During this year, the Briarcliff
Community Committee inaugurated
a Community Calendar, which was
established to avoid conflicting
village events, a new Armed Forces
list was compiled, a scholarship for
the Briarcliff High School was
sponsored for a child of United
Briarcliff
Nations personnel and many
Community contributions were made. (2, page
Committee 82)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
the Briarcliff Community Committee
are: Chairman, Mrs. George O.
Fountain; Vice-Chairman, Thomas
Briarcliff
Schuller; Treasurer, Theodore R.
Community Malsin; Secretary, George H.
Committee Douglass. (2, page 82)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
the Briarcliff Branch of the American
Red Cross, in addition to the regular
Board of Directors; Chairman, Mrs.
Ernest Leins, Jr.; 1st Vice-Chairman,
Briarcliff
Mrs. Millard Prewitt; Second ViceBranch of
Chairman, Mrs. Alexander M. Hunter;
the
Secretary, Mrs. Richard K. Beebe;
American
Treasurer, Mr. Charles H. Schuman.
Red Cross
(2, page 83)
Scarborough The present (ca. 1952) enrollment of
Branch of
the Scarborough Branch of the
the
American Red Cross is 30 members,
American
with five of their members having 35
Red Cross
year service pins. (2, page 83)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
Scarborough the Scarborough Branch of the
Branch of
American Red Cross are: President,
the
Mrs. Philip Shannon; Secretary, Mrs.
American
Roland S. Homet; Treasurer, Mrs.
Red Cross
John A. Riegel. (2, page 83)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
the Briarcliff Boy Scouts are:
Chairman Troop Committee, Robert
D. Potter; Scoutmaster, Robert
O'Keefe; Institutional Representative
of the American Legion, on the
Executive Committee of the
Briarcliff
Washington Irving Council, E. Reed
Boy Scouts Beal. (2, page 84)
1952
As of this year (ca. 1952), there are
Briarcliff Girl five troops, including two Brownie
Scout
troops of the Briarcliff Girl Scout
Council
Council. (2, page 84)
The present (ca. 1952) enrollment in
Briarcliff
the Briarcliff Cub Scouts was 60 boys
Cub Scouts and ten dens. (2, page 84)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
the Briarcliff Cub Scouts are:
Chairman, Ernest Leins, Jr.;
Secretary, A. B. Baker, Jr.;
Briarcliff
Treasurer, Gordon Darkenwald. (2,
Cub Scouts page 84)
The present (ca. 1952) membership
of The League of Women Voters of
Briarcliff Manor numbers 150,
continuing to carry on with the
purpose "to promote political
responsibility through informed and
active participation of citizens in
government." Besides its year-round
voters service, it works for the
understanding of the structure of
government, local, state, and
League of
national, and for understanding of
Women
current issues. Any one who
Voters of
supports the principles and policies
Briarcliff
of the League is eligible to join it. (2,
Manor
pages 85-86)
The present (ca. 1952) officers of
The League of Women Voters of
Briarcliff Manor are: President, Mrs.
H. Ray Sweetman; Vice-President,
League of
Mrs. Frank R. Stich; Secretary, Mrs.
Women
Robert A. Weinman; Corresponding
Voters of
Secretary, Mrs. John Alico;
Briarcliff
Treasurer, Mrs. Tom Glazer. (2, page
Manor
86)
1952
The present (ca. 1952) membership
of the Briarcliff Civic Association
numbers 225 members. In addition,
all residents of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor are welcome to join this
village organization. (2, page 86)
1952
1952
1952
1952
Briarcliff
Civic
Association
1952
Briarcliff
Civic
Association
1952
Briarcliff
ParentTeacher
Association
1952
Briarcliff
Manor
Planning
Board
1952
Recreation
Committee
The present (ca. 1952) Officers of
the Briarcliff Civic Association are:
President, Frank E. Church; VicePresident, Warrington Byard;
Secretary, William F. Mattes, Jr.;
Treasurer, Lloyd Baggett. (2, page
86)
The present (ca. 1925) membership
of the Briarcliff Parent-Teacher
Association numbers around 400
members. The aim of the Parentteacher Association can be generally
stated as "To promote the welfare of
the children." (2, page 86)
The present (ca. 1952) members of
the Briarcliff Manor Planning Board
are: Stanley W. MacKenzie,
Chairman; Robert C. Plumb, Hollister
W. Marquardt, Henry Letiecq, W.
Philip Churchill. (2, page 88)
During this year, the officers of the
Recreation Committee of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor were: Recreation
Commissioner, Robert C. Plumb;
Advisory Board: William Bowers,
Chairman; Mrs. Nicholas Marden,
Mrs. Robert Potter, Miss Helen
Probasco, Harry Addis, Charles
Ghiazza, John Nicol, Rev. Richard K.
Beebe, Rev. Robert Loftus. (2, page
87)
1952
Briarcliff
Natural
History
1952
Briarcliff
Lodge
1952
Briarcliff
Rose
1952
Dysart
House
As of ca. 1952, there were 105
species of birds identified in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, with
Jackson Road having 45 species
alone, and the then-abandoned railroad trackage to the south having
36. Camp Edith Macy had checked
87 kinds of birds with 34 of them
nesting there. The Park pool has its
ducks, a heron, and once a swan.
Camp Edith Macy also has identified
200 varieties of local wildflowers in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor and 15
different species of ferns. There are
also 77 known species of trees in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, and 20
species of shrubs in the Village as
well. Furthermore, in the waters of
the Hudson River, and the Village's
lakes and streams, there were
bluegill, pickerel and perch fishes,
catfish, bass, eels and trout. (2,
pages 90-91).
As of ca. 1952, there were still
people alive in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor who had played on the former
The Briarcliff Lodge golf links with
nine holes on its golf course. (2,
page 91)
Even though the Briarcliff Farms
Greenhouse has since been taken
down, the Briarcliff Rose, as of ca.
1952, was grown all over the United
States and was considered among
the best pink roses to be grown in
greenhouses. (2, page 93)
The Dysart House, formerly the
Misses Tewksbury School for boys
and girls, and after that the Mrs.
Frances Schraff Marshall's Day and
Boarding School for little girls, was,
as of ca. 1952, the residence of Mr.
John Nichol. (2, page 46)
1952
Briarcliff
Natural
History
1952
Briarcliff
Natural
History
1952
Village
Events
As of ca. 1952, the territory of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor was very
extensive. It was five and one-half
square miles, an area which is equal
to 3,520 acres. It provides a variety
in elevation, from its lowest point at
river level to the top of Edgewood
Park School hill, 500 feet above sea
level. Its topography is as
diversified as meadows and hills, wet
marshes and dry places, steam beds
and long slopes. (2, page 90).
As of ca. 1952, it was not unusual to
see woodchucks, grey and red
squirrels, turtles, chipmunks, and
snakes. The presence of the "woodpussy," was detected perhaps too
often. The racoon was not a rare
animal in Briarcliff, including that
jack-in-the-box who made his home
in the waterpipe at the corner of
Morningside Drive. The red fox
came near the Village's roadways
and the opossum, a night-prowler,
was seen in the daytime. Wild deer
were visible from home windows at
times, and sometimes by dozens in
the fields. In addition, there were
also several different kinds of flowers
in the Village limits, and many moths
and butterflies were observed,
including many beautiful night-flying
moths and daytime-butterflies. (2,
page 90).
As of ca. 1952, there was the annual
"Flower Show" and the "Country
Fair" celebrated in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor. (2, page 90)
1952
Briarcliff
Natural
History
1952
Briarcliff
Water
Briar Hall
Golf and
Country
Club, Inc.
1952
Briarcliff
Natural
History
1952
As of ca. 1952, there was a highgrade limestone (Dolomite) and a
low-grade granite that were
abundant rocks in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor. Gneiss and mica
schist are everywhere, mongrel sorts
of rocks, much used for building.
Not far from Scarborough copper and
silver were onced mined; long ago
abandoned. There were also several
large boulders on the hillsides of the
Village, with their many smooth
stones, their features explained by
the Ice Age glaciers that deposited
them thousands of years ago. (2,
page 91).
As of ca. 1952, Briarcliff Manor had
as pure water as is found anywhere.
Even in times of drought, the Village
never failed to have plenty, thanks
to the deep full-flowing wells, some
260 feet under ground. Table water
was once sold from the Village's
deep wells; "no medical theory about
it, just Purity and Safety," said the
advertisement. (2, page 91).
As of ca. 1952, The Briar Hills Golf
Club continued as The Briar Hall Golf
and Country Club, Inc., with 150
acres and 18 holes. (2, page 91)
By 1952, the two new parks for the
Village of Briarcliff Manor that were
developed starting in July of 1951,
were still in development, however,
for younger people that liked hikes,
there was a path beyond Tuttle
Road, through the meadows and old
apple orchard, towards the Pocantico
Lakes; there was also a woodsy
section east of Pleasantville Road;
and finally along the Old Chappaqua
Road, where this road led a person
through natural scenery every step
of the way. (2, page 93)
1952
1952
1952
1952
During this year, the Reverend
Constant Southworth resigned as the
Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church,
and the Reverend William E. Arnold
became the new Rector of All Saints
Episcopal Church. Reverend Arnold
had been a vicar in Massachusetts,
All Saints
and a chaplain in the United States
Episcopal
Army during World War II. (1, page
Church
179)
During this year, Myril Adler, a
resident of the Village of Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor, once again exhibited her
Artists: The work in Paris and in Merano, Italy.
Adler Family (1, page 212)
During this year, Don and Ginger
(Gwen) Reiman stared to build their
house on Scarborough Road, where
they raised their three children.
Both of them were architects, and
locally, Don Reiman designed the
residences, among others, of the
Burton Benjamins on Holbrook Road
and the Jerome Harrises on Sleepy
Hollow Road, as well as many
Briarcliff
additions and conversions. Mr.
Architects: Reiman was also the architect of the
Reiman
Archville Fire Company, and of the
Family
Ossining public library. (1, page 216)
Idamae Oakley serves as the Clerk
for the Briarcliff Manor Village
Village
Government during this year. (1,
Government page 233) (2, page 24)
1952
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1952
Austell
Family
By this year, the building boom in
Briarcliff reached its height when 103
building permits for single-family
homes were issued. (15, page 78)
Rhett Austell wrote that during this
year, “the low price of Bogdanoff’s
Crossroads houses” were a major
reason his family moved to Briarcliff
Manor in 1952. (17, page 36)
1952
1952
1952
1952
Audrey O’Brien notes “The village
[Briarcliff Manor] was perfect when
we came to The Crossroads in
1952…We all came with small
children…most of the men had been
in the service, and we became one
wonderful large family. We all
planted trees and gardens and many
of us enlarged our homes….had
many parties on holidays, watched
over each other’s children, settled
O'Brien
squabbles, and spent all summer at
Family
the pool.” (17, page 36)
During the 1952 year and ending on
this date, there were issued 116
building permits, 89 of them for new
January 1sthomes, and 20 of them for home
February
Briarcliff
garages and alterations. (2, page
29th
Real Estate 24)
As of this date, membership in the
Briarcliff Branch of the American Red
Cross numbered 432 families, being
Briarcliff
80% of the Briarlciff families and
Branch of
contributing more than $3,000.00 for
the
the cause of the Briarcliff Branch of
American
the American Red Cross. (2, page
March
Red Cross
83)
The School District which serves the
Village of Briarcliff Manor voted, on
this date, 430 to 276, the sum of
$525,000.00 to build a school of
eight rooms for kindergarden
through grade 6 (the nucleus of Todd
School as we know it today),
permitting a future addition of up to
20 rooms, with Mr. Edward F.
O'Dwyer as the architect who
Public
designed this newly-proposed school
Schools,
building for the Village of Briarcliff
Grade and
Manor. (1, page 153) (2, page 52)
March 12th High School (15, page 50)
Upon the Trustees' request, on this
date during the Village of Briarcliff
Manor's fiftieth anniversary year of
incorporation, Briarcliff Free Library
Inc. was granted a provisional
Charter by the New York State Board
of Regents. Also, as of this date,
Briarcliff
The Briarcliff Manor Free Library had
Manor Free eight thousand books. (2, page 69)
1952 March 18th Library
(15, page 63)
On this date, The Briarcliff Manor
Briarcliff
free Library received its Absolute
Manor Free Charter from the New York State
1952 April 25th
Library
Board of Regents. (15, page 63)
As of this date, the total legnth of all
the roads within the limits of the
Village of Briarlciff Manor are 30
miles with 64 roads officially
accepted. Also, by this date, 12
roads, one-fifth of this total, are
named after trees, eleven are named
Roads and
for local citizens, and eight streets
Transportati are named after honored veterans.
1952 July
on
(2, pages 18 and 20)
1952 July
1952 July 1st
(up to
August
1952 19th)
1952 Fall
There are eight roads in Briarcliff
Manor which are named after
Veteran casualties: Hazelton Circle
(In the "Crossroads" section)
Lieutenant-Colonel Paul H. Hazelton.
Army Air Forces. Killed August 1st,
1943; Matthes Road ("Crossroads"
section) 2nd Lieutenant Charles H.
Matthes. Army Air Forces, Lost,
North Sea, July 26th, 1943; Schrade
Road ("Crossroads" section) John F.
Schrade, III. Seaman, First Class;
Turret gunner. Killed by plane
explosion, Creed's Airfield, Norfolk,
Va., May 31st, 1944; Frame Road
(Long Hill section, near Tuttle Road)
Private Howard Frame. Killed, World
War I; Hall Road (Sleepy Hollow
Development Corporation, Briarcliff
Manor). Lieutenant Percy Meredith
Hall, Jr., Marine Division. Killed May
22nd, 1944; Fountain Road (South of
intersection of Pine Road and
Dalmeny Road) Lieutenant George
Thomas Fountain. Infantry Division.
Killed at Aachen, Germany,
September 17th, 1944; Zuydoek
Road (Connects Maple and Oak
Roads) First Lieutenant Paul B.
Roads and
Zuydhoek, Field Artillery. Killed in
Transportati Germany, September 25th, 1944;
on
Quinn Road (East of intersection of
As of this date, the registrations,
adult and juvenile, at the Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Free Library totaled 503. There are
Manor Free yearly revisions of the registration
Library
lists. (2, page 69)
Up to this date, 1,159 tags have
been issued to residents and to
students enrolled in the Village
schools for use of the Briarcliff Manor
Pool. Among the Pool's chief events
Briarcliff
are the annual swimming and diving
Park and
contests by young people with prizes
Pool
for the winners. (2, page 66)
Briarcliff Girl Two more Girl Scout troops were
Scout
planned to be added by this time. (2,
Council
page 84)
1952 September
1952 October
October
1952 10th-12th
November
1952 21st
The Scarborough School begins its
Scarborough 40th schoolyear in its history. (2,
School
page 58)
During this time, Helen Menzies
Searle, the wife of Dr. Robert
Wyckoff Searle, wrote and produced
the play, Highlights from Fifty Years
in the Manor , presented at the 50 th
Anniversary (Semi-Centennial)
Celebration in October of 1952. Like
her husband, Dr. Searle, Mrs. Searle
was an outstanding member of the
community. She was tall with a
graceful carriage and very handsome
into her eighties, when she died (?).
She also taught drama at Briarcliff
College for many years. It was she
who helped define the difference
between Scarborough and Briarcliff
Briarcliff
with the often-quoted remarks,
Manor Semi- “Scarborough is a state of mind,”
Centennial and “I reside in Briarcliff Manor; I
Celebration live in Scarborough.” (1, page 170)
The 50th Anniversary of the
Incorporation of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor is celebrated. The
mayor of the Village of Briarlciff
Manor at the time (ca. 1952), Mayor
John A. Riegel, declared "October
10th, 11th, and 12th, 1952, for the
observance and celebration of the
Semi-Centennial of the Village of
Briarlciff Manor, and on behalf of the
Board of Trustees and the 50th
Anniversary Committee extend
official greetings to all residents
urging them to participate in this
celebration, and a cordial invitation
Briarcliff
to all former residents to return to
Manor Semi- the Village during the celebration
Centennial thereby adding significance thereto."
Celebration (1, page 148) (2, page 5)
This date marked the fiftieth
Briarcliff
anniversary (the Semi-Cenntenial) of
Manor Semi- the incorporation of the Village of
Centennial Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 148) (2,
Celebration page 5)
November
1952 21st
For the Briarcliff Manor SemiCentennial Celebration done for the
fiftieth anniversary of the
incorporation of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, The Historical
Committee of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor had prepared and published a
ninety-five-page history, Our
Village: Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., 19021952 : "To promote a larger and
better Briarcliff Manor; to cause
every resident of today to feel the
importance of our Village of
tomorrow." Hundreds of hours had
been devoted to research, sorting
material, selecting pictures and
writing the history. Members of the
committee were Robert Heim, Mrs.
Roscoe Hersey, Fritz Heynen, Lyman
McBride, Robert B. Pattison (author
Briarcliff
of a history published in 1939),
Manor Semi- Alfred Pearson, Charles Schuman,
Centennial Fred Sergenian and R. Everett
Celebration Whitson. (1, page 148)
November
1952 21st
1952present (ca.
1952)
ca. 19521953(?)
For the Briarcliff Semi-Centennial
history, fifteen writers contributed:
Edward Andrews, on the
Scarborough School; Lillian Ellis, on
Edgewood Park School; Robert Heim,
on the public schools; Percy Knight,
Jr., on the American Legion; Stanely
Mackenzie, on the Planning Board;
and Mrs. Hersey, on the public
library. E. J. Kahn, Jr., contributed
"Early Days," about Native
Americans of the region and about
Philipsburgh Manor. Marc Rose
wrote "Briarcliff Cultural." The
Reverend Pattison wrote "Old
Houses," "Early Schools," "For God
and Country," "Notable People,"
"Briarcliff Out-of-Doors" and other
articles. Alfred Pearson wrote about
Walter W. Law, a sketch of the
Village in 1902, and articles about
Briarcliff Farms, the Village
Government and Village growth.
Finally, Mrs. Ordway Tead sketched
the history of Briarcliff Junior
College. The book ends with "The
Future Briarcliff Manor: A Vision," by
Charles Schuman, an address to
Briarcliff
readers: "At this dawn of a new half
Manor Semi- century! Ask yourself...: 'Briarcliff!
Centennial What has it already done for me?
Celebration What will it continue to do for me?'
Joseph Y. Leighton serves as
Treasurer for the Briarcliff Manor
Village
Village Government during this
Government period. (2, page 24)
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
According to the book Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: 1902 To
1952 , as of ca. 1952, this book
hinted that perhaps within a year's
time (by 1953(?)) that the Briarcliff
Manor Post Office will be located in a
much enlarged and modern building,
where the Briarcliff Manor Post Office
name will be displayed. (2, page 64)
1952-1953
Briarcliff Girl
Scout
Council
1952-1953
Briarcliff
ParentTeacher
Association
1952-1954
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1952(?)1964(?)
Briarcliff
Junior
College
1952-1966
Village
Government
1952-1970
Village
Government
1952-1981
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1953
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
The officers for the Briarcliff Girl
Scout Council during this period
were: Commissioner, Mrs. Paul
Schuman; Deputy Commissioner,
Mrs. John McGaily; Treasurer, Mrs.
Edwin Marston, Secretary, Mrs.
George Douglass. (2, page 84)
The officers for the Briarcliff Manor
Parent-Teacher Association during
this period were: President, Ralph F.
Lewis; First Vice-President, Mrs.
Joseph C. Hanning; Second VicePresident, Mrs. Fred W. Tisdell;
Corresponding Secretary, Mrs.
Richard Purdy; Recording Secretary,
Mrs. E. H. Bakken; Treasurer, Frank
E. Church. (2, page 86)
During this period, Fred H. Kossow
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
233)
During this twelve-year period,
Kenneth Skelton served as the dean
of Briarcliff Junior College. (1, page
183)
Max Vogel, serves nearly fifteen
years as an exceptionally
conscientious and exacting engineer
and building inspector for the
Briarcliff Manor Village Government.
(1, pages 59 and 61)
Paul Schuman serves as Clerk for the
Briarcliff Manor Village Government
during this period. (1, page 233) (2,
page 24)
During this period, the Reverend
William E. Arnold serves as the
fourteenth Rector of All Saints
Episcopal Church. (1, page 179)
The New Grade School building (the
Todd School building) is built as the
Elementary School building serving
the children of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor. (2, page 51)
1953
1953
1953
1953
1953
1953
During this year, the wife of Joseph
Woyden, who would later put up the
“God Answers Prayers” sign on Route
9A, is hit by a car and told that she
would not live. Joseph Woyden
would later put up the “God Answers
"God
Prayers” sign on Route 9A after he
Answers
prayed that his wife would survive
Prayers"
and she did. (1, page 164) (17, page
Sign
36)
Edgewood
During this year, the Edgewood Park
Park School School moved away from Briarcliff
(Edgewood Manor and closed. The school had
Park,
operated as a hotel during the
Incorporate summer months before it officially
d)
closed. (1, page 172) (15, page 45)
Until this year, there were two other
All Saints
Episcopal churches that competed
Episcopal
with All Saints Episcopal Church. (1,
Church
page 179)
During this year, one of the plays
that Sol Stein, author, publisher and
Briarcliff resident, produced,
Napoleon (also known as The
Illegitimist ), a verse drama, won the
Dramatists’ Alliance prize as “the
best full length play of 1953,” and
Briarcliff
was performed at the ANTA Theater
Writers Sol in New York and also in California.
Stein
(1, pages 204 and 220)
During this year, William Jovanovich
(editor of general and educational
books, and later president of the
publishing firm Harcourt Brace) and
Briarcliff
his wife, Martha, came to Briarcliff to
Publishers: live, on Horsechestnut Road and
William
later in large new house on Birch
Jovanovich Road. (1, page 220)
Public
During this year, when Todd School
Schools,
first opened, another two rooms
Grade and
were added to this building. (1, page
High School 153) (15, page 50)
1953
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
1953
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1953
Edgewood
Park School
(Edgewood
Park,
Incorporate
d)
Edgewood
Park School
(Edgewood
Park,
Incorporate
d)
1953 November
Hospitals
1953
During this year, The Crossways, the
former property of Joseph Whitson at
the intersection of Pleasantville and
South State Roads, was purchased
by The Briarcliff Congregational
Church as part of the site of their
new parish house building. (15, page
72)
During this year, after the
completion and opening of Todd
School, the old 1909/1928 Grade
and High School building becomes
the new “middle” school, and also
continues as the high school. (17,
page 19)
During this year, the directors of the
Edgewood Park School posed for a
group photograph in front of the Oak
Room fireplace mantel at the
Briarcliff Lodge. This room had been
used as Edgewood Park School’s
Library. (8, page 69)
During this year, the students of the
Class of 1953, the second-to-last
class to graduate from the Edgewood
Park School, posed for a group
photograph in the Main Lobby of the
Briarcliff Lodge. (8, page 70)
During this time, the cornerstone of
the new hospital building was laid for
the New York Infirmary for Women
and Children. Also, as women
doctors became accepted elsewhere,
the Infirmary was oblidged to
employ men doctors and "Women
and Children" was dropped from the
name(?), and later(?), by merger, it
became the New York
Infirmary/Beekman Downtown
Hospital. (1, page 91)
1953-1954
1953-1955
1953-1968
Briarcliff
Lodge
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
During this period, for more than a
year, the Briarcliff Lodge and its
buildings, formerly used by
Edgewood Park School (Edgewood
Park, Incorporated), stood empty for
more than a year while the Village
considered prospective buyers. An
offer was made to buy the land by a
hotel chain and another by The
King’s College, a private four-year
coeducational Christian liberal arts
college offering programs of study
leading to baccalaureate and
associate degrees. There was some
controversy in the community about
the sale. Some villagers deplored
the occupation of some forty acres of
prime real estate by a tax-free
institution. Others feared that a
hotel on Scarborough Road would
spoil the atmosphere of peace and
privacy. In the end, the latter
viewpoint prevailed, leading to The
King’s College buying the lands of
the former Edgewood Park School
(Edgewood Park, Incorporated). (1,
page 172)
During this period, Mrs. Arthur Spear
was the president of The League of
Women Voters of Briarcliff Manor. (1,
page 162)
During this period, Marietta (Mrs.
William) Zuydhoek served as director
of The Briarcliff Nursery School. At
this time sixty-five children came to
the nursery school five mornings a
week. Additional sessions held
Briarcliff
during the afternoon were added
Nursery
gradually to the nursery school's
School, Inc. schedule. (1, page 156)
1953-ca.
1988
Briarcliff
Publishers:
William
Jovanovich
ca. the mid1950s
King's
College
the mid1950s
Rosemond
Family
the mid1950s
Briarcliff
Real Estate
During this period, when William
Jovanovich, the editor of general and
educational books and later the
present of the publishing firm of
Harcourt Brace, lived in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, among the friends
that the Jovanovich family made in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor was
William Brown, part owner with Al
Schlechting, the butcher, of Noller’s
grocery store. Brown told
Jovanovich that he was going to
night school because he felt
dissatisfied with his future in the
grocery business. Mr. Jovanovich
found him a job in warehousing with
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, and
Brown sold his share of Noller’s and
left the East Coast to continue that
work in California. The grocery store
layer became The Gala Buffet, the
headquarters, and the chocolate
works, of the Dumas family’s
catering business. (1, page 220)
Around this time, the second, third,
and fourth floors of Briarcliff Lodge
served as the women’s dorms for
The King’s College. (8, page 84)
During this time, Mr. Leland E.
Rosemond was a distinguished
audiologist who manufactured his
"Otarion Listener," which he had
developed, that was the first
eyeglass hearing aid, in the former
Bernarr McFadden School (later the
Tetko site), a short way down Route
9 toward Ossining Village. (1, pages
124-125)
During this time, Elias Heller built
seventeen brick houses between
Pleasantville and Old Briarcliff Roads.
(1, page 146)
ca. 1954
1954
1954
1954
King's
College
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
"God
Answers
Prayers"
Sign
A few years after The King’s
College’s enrollment had increased
to 260 students by 1950, the
surrounding lands around its campus
in New Castle, Delaware, were
acquired by the Tidewater Associated
Oil Company for purposes of building
an oil refinery. With this news came
another enrollment decrease, and
The King’s College once again was
forced to find a new home. (8, page
71)
During this year, The League of
Women Voters of Briarcliff Manor,
who played a part in Village life
beyond their invaluable voters'
services, and made use of a range of
members' talents, during this year,
under the direction of Mrs. Jerome
Schulman, some members
contributed a song-and-dance act to
the Village Variety Show, an annual
event sponsored by the Briarcliff
Civic Association to raise money for
various causes. The score and lyrics
of that number have been lost, but
the League records include the lyrics,
by Maxine Randall, sung to the tune
of "You Can Bet That He's Doin' It for
Some Doll," from Guys and Dolls . (1,
page 162)
The “God Answers Prayers” sign is
first erected by Joseph Woyden on
Route 9A. (1, page 164)
During this year, Carroll Colby was
elected trustee, running on his own
Scribe Party ticket, after losing the
Village
caucus nomination by a narrow
Government margin. (1, page 192)
1954
1954
1954
1954
During this year, seven years after
he joined the publishing firm of
Harcourt Brace in 1947 as their
editor of general and educational
books, at the age of thirty-four,
William Jovanovich, a Briarcliff
Briarcliff
resident, becomes president of
Publishers: Harcourt Brace. At this time, it was
William
an $8 million company. (1, page
Jovanovich 220)
During this year, the property
immediately adjacent on South State
Road, owned by the James Finne
family, was added to provide
adequate parking for the proposed
Briarcliff
new parish house building for The
Congregatio Briarcliff Congregational Church. (15,
n-al Church page 72)
Congregatio During this year, Rabbi Bernard
n Sons of
Gelbart became the spiritual leader
Israel of
of The Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining
Ossining. (15, page 75)
Cold War phobias led to this instance
at a League of Women’s Voter’s
meeting in the home of Arthur and
Stella Spear on Tulip Road during
this year: An evening workshop on
the Bill of Rights held at the Tulip
Road home of Mr. Arthur Spear, and
Mrs. Stella Spear (1953-1955
League president), was interrupted
by the sudden appearance at the
front door of an official of the
Briarcliff American Legion with a
stalwart companion. These
Legionnaires hoped to protect
Briarcliff, and the nation, by breaking
League of
up what they took to be a meeting of
Women
a Communist cell. Stella Spear
Voters of
graciously invited them to join the
Briarcliff
discussion, but they declined. (1,
Manor
page 162) (17, page 36)
1954 August
1954 Fall
1954 September
At this time, Theodore Law, who held
the mortgage on Briarcliff Lodge,
foreclosed on the Edgewood Park
School, which defaulted on interest
Edgewood
payments by upward of 60 days,
Park School Edgewood Park came up with the
(Edgewood money after being delivered notice,
Park,
but a court ruling upheld Law’s right
Incorporate to foreclose. The school never
d)
reopened. (8, page 61)
All Saints
During this period, the All Saints
Episcopal
Episcopal Church celebrates its
Church
Centenary. (2, page 39)
After the Edgewood Park School
closed and left the Briarcliff Lodge
building, debate quickly ensued
within the Village of Briarcliff Manor
regarding the future of the campus,
as at this time, a group headed by
Frank Moroze and Emanuel Shapiro
agreed to purchase the 30-acre
property from the Edgecliff Realty
Corporation. They planned to spend
as much as $500,000.00 to improve
the property. However, Village
residents protested a plan for a
hotel, as twenty-seven residents
challenged a zoning variance
granting permission to operate a
hotel on the Lodge grounds. The
residents’ lawsuit was eventually
rejected, based on the fact that the
Lodge was originally used as a hotel
and likely could only operate
profitably as such. However, Moroze
and Shapiro withdrew their interest
because of the delay in the zoning
process. Thus came the definitive
Briarcliff
end of the hostelry business in
Lodge
Briarcliff. (8, page 61)
December
1954 13th
September
(1954)(Summer)
1954-1955 (1955)
1954-1956
1954-1973
According to A History of All Saints
Church Briar Cliff published on this
date, the Reverend George F. Bratt,
past priest-in-charge of All Saints
Episcopal Church from 1935 to 1948,
said that when he was the priest-incharge, sometimes, only angels
All Saints
attended the early services at All
Episcopal
Saints Episcopal Church. (1, pages
Church
178 and 232)
During this period, the Briarcliff
Lodge building sat empty until the
Briarcliff
summer of 1955, when it was bough
Lodge
by The King’s College. (8, page 61)
During this period, George F.
Briarcliff
Sullivan serves as the chief of The
Manor Fire Briarcliff Manor Fire Department. (1,
Department page 233)
During this period, Rabbi Bernard
Gelbart serves as the tenth Rabbi of
the Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining (the Congregation became
The Congregation Sons of Israel of
Briarcliff Manor when it moved to the
Congregatio Village of Briarcliff Manor in 1960).
n Sons of
It was during his tenure that the
Israel of
Congregation once again outgrew its
Briarcliff
quarters. (1, page 235) (15, page
Manor
75)
1954-1990
(?)-1955
This sign, which reads: “God
Answers Prayers” has stood for this
past thirty-five year period by the
roadside just over the Village line,
reminding travelers on Route 9A of
the power of faith and letting
villagers know that they are home
again. This landmark, which inspired
curiosity as well as faith sine it was
erected in 1954, has caused many
people to drop by to ask about it,
including Sam McGarrity, an
associate editor of Guideposts
magazine. When he knocked on the
door of the big white farmhouse on
the little hill behind the sign: “Joseph
Woyden, a man of 80, looking
dapper in a tweed sports jacket,
seemed pleased that I had come to
ask. Soon he ushered me inside a
spacious study, where he brought
out a tray of tea and cinnamon
biscuits. As I leaned back in a huge
Queen Anne chair, Mr. Woyden told
me how he had run away from home
at age sixteen and had worked his
way up in life from a hotel mail clerk
to owner of a flour brokerage
"God
business. His business took him
Answers
down sixty-five thousand miles of
Prayers"
highway each year…and…whenever
Sign
there was a road emergency…he
Sometime before 1955, after it was
located for a time in the Law
mansion in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, The Briarcliff Nursery School
was moved into the Bernarr
McFadden School, in the region of
Scarborough. By 1952, the semicenntenial book of the history of
Briarcliff Manor: Our Village:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. 1902 to 1952 ,
states that The Briarcliff Nursery
School was located in this building at
this point. This building was then
called the Kingsland-Farr House,
Briarcliff
located on Route 9 (after 1988,
Nursery
called the Tetko site). (1, page 156)
School, Inc. (2, page 57)
ca. 1955
ca. 1955
Around this year, The King’s College
purchased the Braeview mansion to
serve as the president’s home. This
mansion is located on Central Drive
Historic
and was built by George McNeir, an
Homes built associate of Walter Law and the
from 1902- director and secretary of W. & J.
1910
Sloane. (8, pages 71 and 87)
Around this year, The King’s College,
as part of the expansion of its
King's
facilities, purchased off-campus
College
faculty housing. (8, page 71)
ca. 1955
King's
College
ca. 1955
King's
College
Around this year, The King’s College
converted the Mirror Room in the
Briarcliff Lodge building into a
cafeteria, although it still continued
to host parties on the scale of the
earlier hotel days. In addition, by
around this time, there was a Library
in use in the former dining room
space at the southern end of Lodge.
Just beyond its windows at the rear
of the building was an open-air
pergola. Also by around this time,
the Ballroom at the Lodge hosted
Sunday chapel services and classes.
Furthermore, the former amusement
building on the Briarcliff Lodge hotel
property was first used by The King’s
College as its science building and
the famous outdoor swimming pool
became a pond (the Lodge Pond),
and the swimming pool building and
diving board were demolished. (8,
pages 71, 82-83 and 86)
The King’s College apparently kept
the moose head of the Briarcliff
Lodge when they moved in during
this year, and this moose head
outside the Lobby of the Lodge was
an icon of the Lodge building. The
moose head was not only a place to
meet but also a part of freshman
initiation. New students had to kiss
it at some point. A visiting college
soccer team stole the moose head
one year. (8, pages 71 and 85)
ca. 1955
1955
1955
1955
1955
By around this year, when The King’s
College had moved to its campus in
Briarcliff manor, the college started
to use Harmony Hall, previously a
Briarcliff farms building for its
employees during the early 1900s,
King's
as classrooms and staff housing. (8,
College
page 90)
During this year, the Briarlciff Manor
Council for the Briarcliff Girl Scouts
gave up its charter and joined the
Northern Westchester Girl Scout
Council, Inc. The girls in this troop
Briarcliff Girl developed new skills, leadership
Scout
qualities, and responsibility. (1, page
Council
77) (17, page 22)
During this year, The King’s College,
a four-year Christian institution,
bought the 52 acres of land of the
former Edgewood Park School
(Edgewood Park, Incorporated) for
$380,000.00 and moved into one of
the finest Christian college campuses
King's
in the country. (1, page 172) (8,
College
page 71) (17, page 37)
During this year, the enrollment of
King's
The King’s College was 285 students.
College
(1, page 173)
During this year, a new dormitory for
Briarcliff Junior College, Howard
Johnson Hall, was built, and that
same year, Howard Johnson, the ice
cream and restaurant tycoon, had
Briarcliff
joined the Board of trustees at
Junior
Briarcliff Junior College as a result.
College
(1, page 182)
1955
Briarcliff
Artists:
Adler Family
1955
Briarcliff
Writers:
Burton
Benjamin
1955
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
1955
Village
Government
1955
Briarcliff
Real Estate
During this year, Jack and Myril
Adler, with their young son David,
came to the Village of Briarcliff
Manor to live in one of the houses
built in 1949 on Dalmeny Road. Jack
Adler, a psychotherapist for children
and families, had come to
Westchester to work at the
Hawthorne Cedar-Knolls School for
emotionally distributed children,
where Myril also worked as art
director. Myril Adler had also studied
at Brooklyn Museum School and the
Art Students’ League. (1, page 212)
During this year, Burton Benjamin
(writer, producer and director), his
wife, Aline, and their two daughters
came to live on Holbrook Road in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, pages
218-219)
During this year, work began on the
new parish house building for The
Briarcliff Congregation-al Church.
(15, page 72)
During this year, Alexander M.
Hunter was elected mayor of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (17, page
37)
During this year, seven new homes
were finished on Hall Road built by
the developer Richard Doty. Price:
$20,000.00. (17, page 37)
1955-1957
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1955-1957
Briarcliff
Real Estate
David Bogdanoff returns to Briarcliff
to build the two sections of the Briar
Hill apartments, some eighty oneand two-bedroom units on land next
to the Crossroads on North State
Road. The Village planning board,
fearful of overloading the schools,
were against it, but Bogdanoff
convinced them that this housing
would not attract families with
children. He developed land at the
top of Long Hill Road East; and
Cedar Drive East, and West, and
adjoining roads were laid out. He
built a few houses, the other fiftyodd in the area was left for Yonkersbased developer Emmanuel Steindl
of Crestmont Homes. Costs more
than doubled, from $30,000.00 to
some of these houses going for
$60,000.00. (1, pages 145-146)
When David Bogdanoff developed
the land that became the Crossroads
development in Briarcliff Manor
during this period, he said the
buyers were rich, but Boganoff said,
not as rich as those of the 1980s,
and he disliked building for them.
Since he first went into construction,
Bogdanoff had "a continuity of
work," so that his workers could get
regular work, and when this relied on
meeting to discuss the plan of "a
lady's kitchen," the job was not
efficient. Conditions for building in
Briarcliff-land, community opinion
and facilities-were never again like
that of the Crossroads. Looking for a
more needy area, a big project took
him further north, and he later lived
with his family in Briarcliff, in one of
his own Cedar Drive houses. (1,
pages 145-146)
1955-1957
1955-1959
1955-1960
1955-ca.
1990
1955-1990
During this period, according to the
1977 history of Briarcliff Manor, A
Village Between Two Rivers, since
1955, several stained glass windows
have been added to complete the All
Saints Episcopal Church’s window
All Saints
memorials. All of these were
Episcopal
designed and made by the Connick
Church
Studios in Boston. (15, page 69)
During this period, Alexander M.
Hunter serves as the Mayor of the
Village
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
Government 233)
During this period, under the
auspices of the Macy family, the
lands of the Chilmark estate was
extensively developed, and during
this time, when new housing was
built on the property, the residents
formally created the Chilmark Club,
using the pool, squash and tennis
courts, and clubhouse that had been
Chilmark
part of the Macy estate. (1, page
Club
146) (17, page 28)
During this over thirty-five year
period, Burton Benjamin (writer,
producer and director), his wife,
Aline, and their two daughters lived
on Holbrook Road in the Village of
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor and were neighbors
Writers:
and close friends of the Kahns, the
Burton
Cheevers and the Reimans. (1,
Benjamin
pages 218-219)
During this period, after 1955, The
Briarcliff Nursery School owned and
moved in to their own building on
two-an-a-half well-equipped acres on
Morningside Drive in the Town of
Briarcliff
Ossining, where they still (ca. 1990)
Nursery
operate the nursery school. (1, page
School, Inc. 156) (15, page 46)
ca. 1956
1956
1956
1956
Around this year, in addition to Percy
Crawford being on the Board of
Trustees of The King’s College, there
was also Charles Hans Evans, a
teacher who later served as interim
president, Alex Dunlap, and Dave
King's
Wright were also on this governing
College
board at this time. (8, page 76)
During this year, the Briarcliff Manor
Garden Club, of the Federated
Garden Clubs of New York State, was
formed in Lee Clark's Schrade Road
living room. The first project was
landscaping the "rock pile" around
the new Todd School. Club members
have planted and maintained shrub
and flower borders and tubs all over
the Village. They provide weekly
flower arrangements for the library,
garden-therapy sessions at the
Sleepy Hollow Adult Home (adjacent
to Brandywine Nursing Home),
decorations for Village holidays, and
the Christmas tree at Phelps
Memorial Hospital in North
Tarrytown. This club also won a
cash award from Westchester
magazine for landscaping the new
post office on Pleasantville Road.
They raise funds with a fall luncheon
and a spring plant sale, and offer a
student scholarship for higher
Briarcliff
education. In addition, this club's
Manor
symbol is the Briarcliff Rose. (1,
Garden Club page 151)
During this year, when the initial
mortgage of the Saint Theresa's
Church was paid off, a new fundraising campaign was begun to raise
Saint
money for a religious school for Saint
Theresa's
Theresa's growing congregation. (1,
School
page 157)
League of
Women
By this year, the budget of The
Voters of
League of Women Voters of Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor had increased to $1,315.00.
Manor
(1, page 161)
1956
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1956
Briarcliff
Junior
College
1956
Village
Government
1956
Village
Government
1956
Village
Government
1956
Briarcliff
Artists:
Adler Family
During this year, St. Mary’s Episcopal
Church was completely restored and
the walls of all the buildings
repainted and waterproofed. (1,
page 176)
During this year, President Clara
Tead of Briarcliff Junior College hired
Peter Fazzolare as the college’s first
business manager. (1, page 183)
By this year, candidates for positions
in the Briarcliff Manor Village
Government were allowed to address
the caucus, but questions had to be
submitted eight days before the
meeting. (1, page 191)
During this year, Carroll Colby was
again elected trustee, running on his
own Scribe Party ticket, after losing
the caucus nomination by a narrow
margin. (1, page 192)
During this year, Martin Low, of
Sleepy Hollow Road, ran for a
position on the County Democratic
Committee in another district, got six
votes, and was elected. (1, page
193)
Within a year of moving to the
Village of Briarcliff Manor in 1955, by
1956, Myril Adler was teaching
groups of children and adults in her
printmaking studio. (1, page 212)
1956
1956
1956
During this year, Henry and Flora
Krinsky opened a bookstore in one of
the smallest of shops in the
northwest block of the Chilmark
shopping center on Pleasantville
Road, just inside the village line of
Briarcliff Manor. In the first years, in
order to meet expenses, Flora, a
professional accountant, did outside
accounting jobs and Henry did some
picture-framing and carpentry. It
seemed doubtful that the business
would survive competition with the
Avalon book and record shop in
Ossining village and Fox &
Sutherland, the big
book/stationary/toy store in Mount
Kisco. The Krinskys named their
shop Books ‘N Things, although they
had few things for sale other than
books. The community soon
responded to the Krinskys’ prompt
service and encyclopedic knowledge
Books 'N
of literature, and the business
Things
steadily expanded. (1, page 221)
During this year, three years after
Todd School officially opened for the
first time, it had to be doubled in
size: nine new classrooms in the
three "finger" wings, the gym and
the library wings were also added.
Also, during this same year, as the
elementary school population moved
up it became clear that the high
school buildings would soon be
overcrowded. At the time they
served not only Briarcliff residents in
grades 7 through 12 but also, on a
tuition basis, high school students
from unincorporated areas of the
Public
Town of Mt. Pleasant, including
Schools,
Hawthorne, Valhalla and North White
Grade and
Plains. (1, page 153) (15, pages 50High School 51)
Public
During this year, forecasts indicated
Schools,
the need for junior-senior high
Grade and
school space within seven years.
High School (15, page 51)
During this time, on the adjacent
Hickory, Locust and Willow Roads in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, the
Syracuse brothers built fifty-seven
houses. When all the houses were
sold, for around $50,000.00 each,
the company bookkeeper pocketed
the profits and flew off to Florida.
Fortunately, insurance covered the
Briarcliff
Syracuse losses, and the thief was
1956
Real Estate caught. (1, page 146) (17, page 37)
On this date, the Phelps Memorial
Hospital in North Tarrytown was
opened, and Walter Lathrop Johnson,
who had previously started and led
the drive to build this hospital,
Johnson
became chairman of its board. (1,
1956 January 7th Family
page 121)
In an article published in the Citizen
Register on this date, the outcome of
another attempt to change the name
of the Scarborough post office and
train station to a name affiliated with
Briarcliff was reported: “Norman R.
Abrams, assistant postmaster
general, has confirmed an order
dated January 11 that the
Scarborough Post Office, which was
established in 1864, will continue as
an independent Class II post office
and will not be discontinued or
established as a branch of
Briarcliff…With residents holding a
mass meeting in the Scarborough
School, a storm of protest arose.
Residents of the section wrote letters
to legislators and to the postal
department…and the committee
submitted a lengthy study of the
volume of mail handled and the
January
Scarborough service given by the Scarborough
1956 13th
Post Office office.” (15, page 15)
1956 Spring
1956 May 7th
1956 October
1956-1957
1956-1958
During this time, funds were made
available for the master plan of The
League of Women Voters of Briarcliff
Manor. One of the several items on
the League's local agenda had been
a study of the future needs of the
rapidly expanding Village-schools, a
library building, a new municipal
building, improved roads, parking,
sewers and water supplies. A
master plan was therefore
recommended to create public
interest in these needs and save
money for taxpayers by planned
League of
financing of development. League
Women
members distributed questionnaires
Voters of
and held many meetings to present
Briarcliff
and discuss such a plan. (1, page
Manor
161)
On this date, John Cheever, writer
and Briarcliff resident, wrote to
friend about a experience he had
while being a volunteer in the
Scarborough Engine Company:
“There was a back-porch fire in
Briarcliff
Briarcliff last night. It’s the kind of
Writers:
fire that I like to help extinguish. I
John
rode on the engine and nearly fell
Cheever
off.” (1, page 218)
At this time, The League of Women
Voters of Briarcliff Manor, after
having worked on the county level
toward the establishment of
permanent personal registration, a
League of
simplification of voting procedures,
Women
created P. P. R., as they called it,
Voters of
and this was approved for
Briarcliff
Westchester by the Board of
Manor
Supervisors. (1, page 162)
During this period, the priceless
Bolton windows of St. Mary’s
St. Mary's
Episcopal Church were removed,
Episcopal
section-by-section, releaded and
Church
restored. (1, page 176)
During this period, William H. Bowers
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
1956-1963
1956-ca.
1990
1956-ca.
1990
the late
1950s
ca. 1957
During this period, Mrs. William
Briarcliff
Osborne served as the fourth
Manor Free director of The Briarcliff Manor Free
Library
Library. (1, page 234)
Since 1956, and continuing up to ca.
1990, Caroline (Mrs. Martin) Parker,
a long time village resident, has
been County Democratic Committee
Village
Woman for the 27th district. (1,
Government page 193)
During this more than thirty-year
period, Myril Adler has continued to
Briarcliff
teach groups of children and adults
Artists:
in her printmaking studio. (1, page
Adler Family 212)
During this time, when the Putnam
Division of the New York Central
Railroad was discontinued, the
railroad station became the fifth
home of the Briarcliff Manor Free
Library, following almost a year of
Briarcliff
negotitation with the railroad and an
Manor Free energetic fund-raising drive. (1, page
Library
150)
Around this time, the percentage of
accepted students at Briarcliff Junior
Briarcliff
College that were considered
Junior
“Waspish,” or wealthy, was 90
College
percent. (1, page 184)
1957
1957
1957
During this year, the State Education
Department disclosed a new master
plan calling for the reorganization of
all small districts. Briarcliff was
slated for merger with Pleasantville,
Armonk, Bear Ridge and Middle
Patent. The state could not force a
merger, but building aid would be
denied to districts that refused to
reorganize as stipulated. While a
citizens' study group of more than a
hundred residents investigated
alternatives for the future of the
district, as subcommittees discussed
the financial and educational
implicationsof merger with a
numberof surrounding districts and
compared each with the option of
"going it alone." After months of
work, the citizens' group then
recommended a merger with
Pleasantville as the most logical,
educationally advantageous, and
economically practical course.
Fortunately, by this time three of the
other districts merged to form Byram
Hills solving the geographic problem.
Public
Meanwhile, the Pleasantville Road
Schools,
buildings were still filling up and the
Grade and
Todd School was overcrowded again.
High School (1, page 153) (15, page 51)
During this year, the St. Mary’s
Episcopal Church is further restored
St. Mary's
and the walls of all the buildings
Episcopal
continued to be repainted and
Church
waterproofed. (1, page 176)
During this year, the “Junior” was
dropped from the name of Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Junior College, which was called from
Junior
then on “Briarcliff College.” (1, page
College
182)
1957
Briarcliff
Writers:
John
Cheever
1957
Briarcliff
Writers:
Burton
Benjamin
1957
Briarcliff
Writers Sol
Stein
During this year, The Wapshot
Chronicle , by John Cheever, a writer
and Briarcliff resident, won the
National Book Award for 1957. John
Cheever, in the back bedroom of his
house, Beechtwig—for some weeks
in the company of a littler of
Labrador retrievers—had finished
writing this book, which was his first
novel. In The Wapshot Chronicle ,
Moses Wapshot climbs at night to his
beloved Melissa’s room over the
“chaos of wet roofs” of “the towers
and battlements,” of Clear Haven,
his Cousin Justina’s castle. After the
novel was published, Cheever wrote
to Mrs. Vanderlip to express his
gratitude for the privilege and the
many pleasures of living on the
Beechwood estate and assured her
that Cousin Justina and Clear Haven,
roofs and all, were entirely fictional.
Mrs. Vanderlip, gracious as always,
responded that while she had some
understanding of the use of facts in
fiction, she did recognize the roofs of
her house in his description, and was
astonished that he should imagine
she would not know them. However,
since John Cheever was overcome by
vertigo if he so much as mounted a
stepladder, it is unlikely that he had
During this year, Burton Benjamin,
writer, producer and director, and
Briarcliff resident, joined CBS and
became executive producer of
documentary broadcast series such
as “Twentieth Century” and “World
War II” and later he served as vicepresident, director of news, and
supervisor of the development of
“CBS Sunday Morning.” (1, page
219)
During this year, Sol Stein, an
author, publisher and Briarcliff
resident, produced a second play, A
Shadow of My Enemy , which was
performed on Broadway that same
year. (1, pages 204 and 220)
1957
Briarcliff
Musicians:
Polivnik
Family
1957
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1957
King's
College
1957 February
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
February
1957 6th
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
During this year, Sidney Polivnik
came to the Briarcliff schools to
direct the instrumental program,
including the band, and he initiated
the study of stringed instruments.
He was an influential teacher and
soon became chairman of the music
department of the Briarcliff schools.
Looking back on his years of
teaching, he remembers that
“everything seemed to be centered
in the schools”; there were
community nights when the whole
village appeared to be involved. (1,
page 224)
During this year, a new Sunday
School wing was completed for the
All Saints Episcopal Church. (15,
page 69)
By this year, the Briarcliff Lodge
building on the new Briarcliff Manor
campus of The King’s College
received updated electrical and
heating systems. (8, page 71)
During this year, the new parish
house building of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church is completed
and dedicated. (1, page 153) (15,
page 72)
On this date, on Sunday morning,
the congregation of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church held a
mortgage burning ceremony
following the regular worship
services to celebrate that the
mortgage on the “new parish house”
was paid off. (15, page 72)
1957 October
1957-1958
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
King's
College
During this year, The League of
Women Voters of Briarcliff Manor
held a membership tea event where
their members sung lyrics by Maxine
Randall to to tune of "You Can Bet
That He's Doin' It for Some Doll,"
from Guys and Dolls : "When a busy
mom can debate with aplomb certain
measures still pending in Albany it's
a cinch that this knowledge isn't
something she got in college. You
can bet that she's gettin' it from the
League. When our spouses grouse
that the meals at our house when
we're busy are not what they call
cuisine We can't blame the poor
sinners. They're sick of those T.V.
dinners but they're sports 'cause
we're doing it for the League."
These were the same lyrics which
were sung at the 1954 Village
Variety Show, where it was used as
a song-and-dance number by the
League. (1, pages 162-163 and 231)
During this period, a new
gymnasium, Squire Hall, was
constructed for The King’s College.
(8, page 71)
1957-1963
Scarborough
Presbyterian
Church
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1957-1965
Briarcliff
College
1957-1967
Village
Government
1957-1980
Images Art
Gallery
1957-1963
Roger A. Huber serves as the sixth
minister of The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church during this
period. Also during Mr. Huber's
pastorate, a fund driven was
undetaken to remodel the Church
House of The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church. New
classrooms, kitchen, minster's study,
and office were built and the
Fellowship Hall remodeled. This was
the first building program to be
accomplished by church members
without assistance from the Shepard
family because all the other physical
properties of their church had been
given by the Shepard family at one
time or another. Mr. Huber later left
The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church to accept a call from the
Riverdale, New York, Presbyterian
Church. (1, pages 54 and 235) (15,
pages 70-71)
During this period, Forbes B. Morris
serves as the eleventh principle
(superintendent) of the Briarcliff
Schools. (1, page 234)
During this period, Harper
Woodward, a director of Eastern
Airlines and other corporations,
serves as a trustee for Briarcliff
College on their Board of Trustees.
(1, page 183)
Anthony Turiano works with Max
Vogal, the then-serving engineer and
building inspector for the Briarcliff
Manor Village Government. (1, page
61)
During this twenty-three-year
period, before they opened Images
Art Gallery on 1157 Pleasantville
Road in 1980, Marie and Leonard
Alpert had lived in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 214)
1957-1985
1957-ca.
1990
1958
1958
Briarcliff
Writers:
Burton
Benjamin
During this period, Burton Benjamin,
a Briarcliff resident, works as a
writer, producer and director at
different times for CBS for twentynine years before he retired in 1985.
(1, page 219)
The Village of Briarcliff Manor has
been the home for many years of
dedicated music teachers, one being
Audrey (Mrs. David) Graham, who
had majored in music at Brooklyn
College and studied at Julliard and
other schools, and during this thirtythree year period she taught piano in
Briarcliff, mostly to Briarcliff
children—over the years hundreds of
them—and also some adults. A
number of her students, including
Barbara Mort, Marina Belicka, Carol
Hess and Jean Crandall, have gone
on to serious careers in music.
Audrey has also devoted a great deal
Briarcliff
of energy and talent to organizing
Musicians:
and maintaining the Ossining Choral
Audrey
Society, which has often performed
(Mrs. David) in the Pace University Village Center.
Graham
(1, page 223)
During ths year, the Briarcliff Manor
Briarcliff
Free Library finally found its home in
Manor Free the former railroad station in Law
Library
Park. (1, page 76)
During this year, development
started just south of Chappaqua
Road on Fuller and Whitson Roads in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, with
Briarcliff
zoning for half-acre lots. (1, page
Real Estate 146)
1958
1958
1958
1958
1958
1958(?)
During this year, John Cheever,
writer and Briarcliff resident,
published his book, entitled: The
Housebreaker of Shady Hill , a book
in which he had written all its stories
(as well as many stories included in
other collections) at times in one of
the rooms off the large living room in
his house, Beechtwig (where John
Vanderlip had manufactured aircraft
Briarcliff
control terminals), and at other
Writers:
times in a rented room over the
John
office of the Scarborough Properties
Cheever
down near the station. (1, page 218)
During this year, a master plan was
drawn up for the Village of Briarcliff
Manor to govern the zoning for
parcels of real estate land in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor and to give
order to the development that was
Briarcliff
already in full swing. (1, page 206)
Real Estate (15, page 78)
During this year, the second grade
had moved to rented rooms in the
new (1957) parish house of The
Briarcliff Congregational Church, due
Public
to overcrowding in the Pleasantville
Schools,
Road building. They were bussed
Grade and
back to Todd for lunch, gym, and
High School special programs. (15, page 55)
During this year, the first ambulance
of the Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department was sold to a group in
Briarcliff
Ossining who were just forming the
Manor Fire first volunteer ambulance corps of
Department Ossining. (15, page 82)
Briarcliff
During this year, Briarcliff Little
Sports
League started. (17, page 37)
Probably during this year, a
humorous postcard was produced
from a map compiled and designed
by Mary Louise Johnston, Briarcliff
College class of 1958, of the Briarcliff
Briarcliff
College cartography department. (1,
College
page 183)
1958 May 29th
Rail Roads
1958 June
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
1958 September
1958-1959
1958-1960
On this date, the last passenger train
on the Putnam Division ran past the
train station that would later become
the final home for the library for
Briarcliff Manor. (8, page 73)
During this time, a League of Women
Voters of Briarcliff Manor workshop
reported on zoning changes
proposed by the master plan:
amended residential zoning to limit
rapid growth; amended office and
laboratory zoning whereby
regulations would be written into the
ordinance but specific locations
would not be designated on the
zoning map. This "Floating Zone
Ordinance" was intended to attract
businesses to Briarcliff to help
balance the tax structure. (1, pages
161-162)
At this time, it was arranged to
purchase the railroad station on
Library (then Station) Road from the
New York Central Railroad, beginning
the process of getting the Library its
fifth and last most recent home. The
Briarcliff
station and the surrounding acre was
Manor Free purchased for $10,000.00. (8, page
Library
73) (15, page 66)
During this period, William Sharman,
a long-time resident of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, both designed and
supervised the conversion of the
railroad station into The Briarcliff
Manor Free Library. When this
railroad station was converted to the
library, village residents praised the
Briarcliff
purchase, saving the village the cost
Architects: of constructing a "flimsy and
William
modern" building. (1, page 215) (8,
Sharman
page 128)
During this period, Joseph Y.
Briarcliff
Leighton serves as the chief of The
Manor Fire Briarcliff Manor Fire Department. (1,
Department page 233)
1958-1964
1958-1969
1958-1977
1958-ca.
1990
pre-1959
During this six-year period, the
second grade of the Briarcliff
Public
elementary school had their classes
Schools,
in the parish house of The Briarcliff
Grade and
Congregational Church. (15, page
High School 55)
During this ten-year period, Jack
Kahn (E. J. Kahn, Jr.), writer and
Briarcliff
Briarcliff resident, served as the
Writers:
chairman for the Board of Trustees
Jack Kahn
for The Scarborough School. In
(E. J. Kahn, addition, his three sons attended The
Jr.)
Scarborough School. (1, page 218)
During this period, according to the
1977 history of Briarcliff Manor, A
Village Between two Rivers, since the
Briarcliff Manor Public Library’s last
move to its fifth home in 1958, it has
grown not only in the number of
Briarcliff
patrons and book and periodical
Manor Free holdings, but in services as well. (15,
Library
page 66)
During this period, Robert Burns
Patterson, son of the well-known
painter Howard Ashman Patterson,
and who studied at the Pratt
Institute in Brooklyn, works (ca.
1990) as a television director and
Briarcliff
producer, mostly of commercials,
Artists:
had lived with his family in the
Patterson
Village of Briarcliff Manor for these
Family
past thirty-two years. (1, page 213)
During this time, as the Jewish
community in Ossining continued to
grow, the Waller Avenue facilities in
Ossining became inadequate. The
decision to build a new synagogue
was not unanimous; older members
had grown attached to the
synagogue they had built and were
opposed to leaving it. There were
Congregatio many meetings and discussions
n Sons of
before compromises were reached,
Israel of
and eventually everyone joined in
Ossining
the enterprise. (1, page 168)
1959
1959
1959
1959
1959
During this year, the stone house of
Dr. Arthur O'Connor, the same one
built for Dr. Rufus P. Johnston on the
site of the former Miss Knox School,
is sold to Cognitronics, a company
that made learning devices, and then
Dr. Rufus P. sold again around 1964 to Frank B.
Johnston
Hall and Company, an insurance
House
firm. (1, pages 73 and 147)
During this year, the additional
building that was constructed in
1916 for the younger children that
Scarborough went to The Scarborough School
School
burns down. (1, page 93)
During this year, a development plan
was adopted for The Scarborough
School that included the construction
of a new primary school, new science
facilities, expansion of the library
Scarborough and the creation of an organization
School
for alumni. (1, page 94)
During this year, on some of the land
of the 40-acre Titlar farm bought by
George V. Comfort and which he had
put up for sale, Arthur Radice
developed Butternut Road and Alder
Drive, just west of Elm Road. He
built thrity houses, which sold for
$37,000.00 to $42,000.00. The cost
of the development, putting the
roads through and so forth, as Mrs.
Florence Radice remembers, was so
Briarcliff
high that it was not profitable. (1,
Real Estate page 146)
Until this year, according to Steve
McQueeny, "There were no dials on
the phones," and before this, "The
operator got your number and
Briarcliff
Pleasantville was a long distance call.
Utilities
(1, page 149)
1959
During this year, the Association for
Mentally Ill Children of Westchester,
known as AMIC and a pioneer in
Association special education that sponsored the
for Mentally day treatment center The Clear View
Ill Children School, which would later, in 1980,
of
buy the former The Scarborough
Westchester School buildings, was incorporated.
(AMIC)
(1, page 158)
During this year, eight acres of the
Mead Farm on Pleasantville Road
were purchased (for $35,000.00)
and the cornerstone of the new
synagogue was also laid during this
year. The Mead property had been
the estate of relatives of W. W. Fuller
of Haymont, the estate on nearby
Chappaqua Road, and included a fine
old mansion in such disrepair that to
salvage it would have been too
Congregatio costly. Also in the same year, the
n Sons of
Waller Avenue synagogue was sold
Israel of
to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. (1,
Ossining
page 168)
During this year, there were some
103 acres of parkland in the Village
of Briarcliff Manor: Law Park, 7 acres
given by the Law family; Pocantico
Park, 57 acres beside Pocantico Lake
on the border of the Town of Mount
Pleasant; Pine Road Park, between
Pine and long Hill East, then 37
Briarcliff
acres; and Scarborough Park, 6
Park and
acres adjacent to the Scarborough
Pool
railroad station. (1, page 208)
During this year, the recreation
budget was $19,000.00, and
planning of programs and activities
Recreation was left to volunteers and part-time
Center
help. (1, page 208)
1959
Village
During this year, Robert C. Plumb is
Government elected mayor. (17, page 38)
1959
1959
1959
1959
Molinelli
Family
1959
King's
College
1959(?)
January
1959 20th
Recreation
Committee
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
During this year, Michael Molinelli
and his parents and siblings moved
to Briarcliff Manor to live there for
the first time. When he was asked in
2002 What about changes in the
village? he described his move to
Briarcliff: “In 1959, my parents, John
and Rae, children of Italian
immigrants, moved to Briarcliff
Manor. They were native New
Yorkers who, for a few years, lived in
exile in New Jersey, where I was
born. When I was two months old,
they wrapped me in a blanket, piled
the other kids in the back of the
battleship-sized Buick and crossed
the then new Tappan Zee Bridge
back to their native state.” (17,
pages 80-82)
By this year, after two years of
construction, Squire Hall, the new
gymnasium of The King’s College,
was completed. (8, page 71)
Most likely during this year, a group
of residents of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, led by Myril (Mrs. Jack) Adler
with coach Bill Bowers, Marilyn (Mrs.
Joseph) Bowler and Trustee George
Dillon solicited a study of village
recreation services by the
Westchester Country Recreation
Commission. The commission’s
report recommended a full-time,
year-round recreation supervisor for
the Briarcliff school district to correct
the lack of program continuity and
planning and as plain good business
practice. The village trustees
responded by appointing a
Recreation Commission of seven
(volunteer) residents with a rotating
chairmanship. (1, pages 208-209)
On this date, The Briarcliff Manor
Free Library opened in the old
Briarcliff railroad station. Interior
renovations were designed by village
resident William Sharman. (8, page
73)
September
1959 20th
1959-1961
1959-1965
1959-1965
post-1950s
September
(1959)-(?)
(1965)
On this date, the first service of what
Faith
would become Faith Lutheran
Lutheran
Brethren Church was held in a quaint
Brethren
white chapel on Central Avenue in
Church
Scarsdale. (15, page 75)
During this period, Robert C. Plumb
Village
serves as the Mayor of the Village of
Government Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 233)
Church of
During this period, the Messenger
Saint
James Roberts serves as the third
Theresa of
pastor of The Church of Saint
the Infant
Theresa of the Infant Jesus. (1, page
Jesus
235)
During this period, from September
1959 until 1965, when the
congregation moved to Briarcliff
Faith
Manor, The Faith Lutheran Brethren
Lutheran
had met and held services in a small
Brethren
rented chapel on Central Avenue in
Church
Scarsdale. (1, page 170)
Changes in both the number and
income level of Briarcliff residents
Briarcliff
were gradual after this decade. (1,
Population
page 207)
Date
(Year):
1960s:
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
1960s
Village
Government
1960s
KemeysAiles House
1960s
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1960s
1960s
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Ossining
Description of Event:
The bell in the tower that was
located atop the Municipal Building,
was removed to a pedestal in front
of the new firehouse, at 1111
Pleasantville Road. (1, page 62)
During this period, the Kemeys-Ailes
house was converted to a nursing
home, and there Mrs. Vanderlip
spent the last months of her long,
illustrious life. (1, pages 102-103)
During this decade, Baltic Estates
developed Hawthorne Place and
Balsam Road off Long Hill Road, east
of Tuttle Road, building about twentytwo houses. Baltic also extended
Quinn Road and built seven houses
on it. (1, page 146)
During this decade, the Board of
Education made many trips to
Albany to find a solution to the
increased crowding of the
Pleasantville Road buildings. They
could not merge because
Pleasantville did not want to, and
they could not build a new high
school because they would not be
elligible for state building aid. A few
other districts were in the same
predicament, and the state
legislature finally passed a revision
of the aid formula that would allow
the district to receive aid for a new
secondary school if it could
demonstrate that the site and
buildings would be "of substantial
use" in an eventually merged
district. (1, page 153) (15, page 55)
During this period, Samuel Puner
was the president of The
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining. (1, page 167)
1960s
During this decade, just as postwar
prosperity and population growth
had started to crowded the Briarcliff
public schools in the 1950s, this also
resulted in an unprecedented growth
in college enrollments in the 1960s
at Briarcliff College, and Housing
Authority loans at interest rates as
low as 3 percent were readily
Briarcliff
available for college building. (1,
College
page 182)
During this decade, the 15th and
27th districts became Democratic in
terms of actual party enrollments,
making the Village of Briarcliff Manor
as a whole about half and half,
Village
Democrats and Republicans. (1,
Government page 193)
During this decade, there were more
changes brought to All Saints
Episcopal Church. For example, the
original flesche (little tower) was
replaced with an anodized aluminum
All Saints
flesche of the same design and
Episcopal
proportion as the original. (15, page
Church
69)
1960s
During this decade, additional space
for both the fire department and the
Briarcliff
Village offices of Briarcliff Manor was
Manor Fire needed and one new complex was
Department erected to house both. (15, page 82)
1960s
1960s
the early
1960s
Holly Hill
(The Mrs.
Vincent
Astor
Estate)
the early
1960s
King's
College
Around this time, Hubert Rogers
died, and was survived by his wife
for a year or two. When Mrs. Rogers
died, in her nineties, Nelson
Rockefeller called Mrs. Vincent Astor
to tell her the Rogerses' son did not
want to live in Scarborough and
Weskora was for sale. Mrs. Astor's
country estate at the time was in
Rhinebeck, inconveniently distant
from the city. "You couldn't invite
people out there just for lunch." She
went to go see Weskora, within days
contracted to buy it, and renamed it
Holly Hill after McGowen's now wellknown holly trees. Mrs. Astor
altered the named but not the
handsome house, except for one
large window and an indoor
swimming pool in a low wing on the
courtyard, not visible from the
outside. She feels that Delano, the
architect, would not have been
offended by these changes. (1,
pages 116-117)
At this time, the Village of Briarcliff
Manor replaced the original Briarcliff
Lodge water tower with a new one
for The King’s College campus. (8,
page 80)
1960s1970s
Briarcliff
Archeology
Archeologists during this period,
most notably the late Louis Brennan
of Ossining, investigated three sites
in Scarborough: at Kemey's Cove
and on the Route 9 property now
owned by Tetko (on land east of the
present-day Arcadian Shopping
Center), and on the River Road
property of Dr. Carl Towbin. At
these sites in the "middens," heaps
of oyster shells, some carbon-dated
at more than five thousand years
(ca. 3,010 B.C.E. from ca. 1990),
stone tools were found: knives,
scrapers, spear points, and, at
Kemey's Cove, bolas, stones
wrapped in hide slings and probably
used to bring down water birds.
Most of the tools discovered dated
from the Archaic Period (8,00010,000 B.C.E), and were preserved
from the destructive acidity of the
soil by the lime content of the shells.
Meanwhile, the later sites, especially
the ones in the more cultiviated
uplands, are mostly obliterated. (1,
page 5) (17, page 2)
1960s1970s
BriarcliffOssining
League of
Women
Voters
1960s1970s
Briarcliff
Population
During this period, there were four
women who were active members of
the board of The Briarcliff-Ossining
League of Women Voters that went
to work in local government. One,
Natalie (Mrs. David) Makintosh, was
chairman of the Environmental
Advisory Council of the Town of
Ossining, then a director of
community development and then
assistant to the Ossining village
manager. Sandra (Mrs. Steven)
Galef was co-president with Natalie
Mackintosh of the Briarcliff-Ossining
League in the 1970s, announced in
May of 1989 that she would run for a
sixth term as representative of the
Town of Ossining on the County
Board of Legislators. She was then
minority leader of the board, working
"full-time...to correct problems of
high taxes, effects of drug use and
lack of affordable housing" that were
attacking the quality of life in
Westchester. Patricia Knapp, League
president from 1983 to 1985, served
as a truetee of Briarcliff Village.
Florence (Mrs. Martin) Dexter
became chairman of the
Conservation Advisory Council of
Briarcliff Village. All of these women
agreed that their League work was
During these two decades, the
transfer of families in or out,
“practically unheard of” in the 1930s
and 1940s that Eileen Weber wrote
about, were very common. (1, page
207)
1960s1970s
Molinelli
Family
When he was asked in 2002 What
about changes in the village? Michael
Molinelli described his memories of
living in Briarcliff Manor during these
two decades: “So let me take you
back to a time when Pete’s was Joe’s
and Joe’s was Pete’s (the deli and
stationary stores, respectively).
There were fewer houses and more
fields. During the 60’s and 70’s
most homeowners did their own yard
work. Some raised chickens and
small livestock in their backyard. No
one walked their dogs; they just let
them out. For many of the families
back then, a TV remote was a pair of
pliers kept on top of the set because
the dial knob was broken off. Kids
would walk barefoot in the woods.
The New York Central overpass at
Scarborough Station had floorboards
that bounced as you ran across
them; we could see the trains
passing below. The tracks of the
Putnam railroad, behind the current
library, were overgrown and rusting.
And if you didn’t want to go to
Ossining to see first-run movies at
the Victoria, you could wait for the
ones they showed on the side of the
High School on summer nights.” (17,
pages 81-82)
1960s1970s
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
When he was asked in 2002 What
about changes in the village? Michael
Molinelli continued to describe his
memories of living in Briarcliff Manor
during these two decades: “Some of
my fondest memories center on Law
Memorial Park and the pool, which
my Dad wryly called “the country
club.” He was a WWII veteran, so
we never missed a Memorial Day
Parade. Its highlight always was
Briarcliff’s unique white fire trucks.
Later in Law Memorial Park, I
listened to clergy from different
houses of worship and met kids I
might not normally meet, since I
went to St. Theresa’s school
(Actually I was in the first first
grade, when the school was at the
Congregational Church.) The
ceremony would close with a 21-gun
salute and the bigger boys would
pounce on the discharged shells.
Following the Memorial Day service,
the pool would open for the summer,
and kids would rush to be first in the
pool. One summer, I marched in the
parade with my Little League team,
with a bathing suit under my
uniform. I disrobed as I rushed to
the pool, and that year, I was the
first in the water.” (17, pages 81-82)
1960s1970s
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
When he was asked in 2002 What
about changes in the village? Michael
Molinelli continued to describe his
memories of living in Briarcliff Manor
during these two decades: “During
the summer, life focused around the
pool. There was no bathhouse; we
would use the bathrooms in the old
high school, which stood where Atria
is now. Mornings were spent at the
recreation program, where we
learned to swim, and played kickball
and knock-hockey. As we grew
older, our independence was defined
by being allowed to ride our bikes to
the program and going to the village
to get a roast beef wedge and soda
from Joe Weldon’s. Being a camp
leader was the first job for all my
brothers and sisters and me. We
worked all summer just to wear the
plastic pool tag.” (17, pages 81-82)
1960s1970s
Village
Events
pre-1960
Briarcliff
College
ca. 1960
Haymont
Estate
1960
Johnson
Family
When he was asked in 2002 What
about changes in the village? Michael
Molinelli continued to describe his
memories of living in Briarcliff Manor
during these two decades: “The
annual Family Fun Day was held on a
Saturday in late August to signal the
end of summer. In the morning,
there would be pool races; in the
afternoon, field events. One year,
our family placed third in the over-all
competition behind the O’Hagens
and the O’Briens. It wasn’t because
we were athletic—we weren’t. There
were just so many of us Molinellis
that we simply racked up enough
points. My parents would dominate
the egg toss for a few years and o
well in couples’ softball—played by
teams of husbands and wives
holding hands as they played. One
would wear the glove, the other
would throw the ball. One would bat
and both would run. Dad, who
played sandlot ball, and Mom, who
was a tomboy in her day, played
well—even though Dad was a righty
and Mom was a lefty. In the
evening, cooks from King’s College
would prepare a barbecue chicken
dinner, with corn-on-the cob and
lemonade. Families would sit on
Before her retirement as President of
Briarcliff College in 1960, President
Clara Tead chose as her successor
Charles Adkins, then vice-president
for development and public relations
at Wheaton College in
Massachusetts. (1, page 182)
Around this year, Robert Morin sold
the Fuller property that had the
Haymont mansion and went into real
estate. (1, page 123)
During this year, when he was eightysix years old, Walter Lathrop
Johnson was instrumental in raising
$2 million for the new wing of the
Phelps Memorial Hospital in North
Tarrytown. (1, page 121)
1960
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1960
Briarcliff
Population
1960
1960
1960
By this year, when Burns Place was
developed in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, more than fifty comparatively
substantial houses were built, which
began by selling for $60,000.00 to
$70,000.00. (1, page 146)
By this year, the population in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor had
increased to 5,105. (1, page 146)
During this year, after the
establishment of the "floating zone"
for office and laboratory use of land
parcels of ten or more acres within
the village limits of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, several businesses
built facilities in the Village. The first
of these was Philips Laboratories, a
division of North American Philips
Corporation. This land sale was so
vigorously contested by neighbors on
Scarborough Road, especially Hubert
Rogers, owner of the large property
opposite the Philips site, that
building was delayed for almost a
year. Rogers, who was around
ninety years old at the time, soon
died. The Philips property was
elegantly landscaped and carefully
maintained around buildings that
were scarely visible from the road.
The result was that Briarcliff Manor
got its first corporate facility: Philips
Philips
Laboratories, on Scarborough Road.
Laboratories (1, page 147) (17, page 39)
Congregatio
n Sons of
By this year, The Congregation Sons
Israel of
of Israel of Briarcliff Manor had 150
Briarcliff
families in their Congregation. (1,
Manor
page 169)
During this year, evangelist and
youth leader Dr. Percy B. Crawford,
who led The King’s College for
King's
twenty-two years as its first
College
president, dies. (1, page 172)
1960
1960
1960
1960
1960
1960
1960
1960
In Briarcliff Manor, The King’s
College grew and prospered, as
during this year, the State Board of
Regents accredited it when the
King's
college received its charter. (1, page
College
172) (8, page 78)
During this year, an addition to the
parish house was built, containing a
sacristy, a room and facilities for the
kindergarten and other church school
classes, vestment cupboards and
rest rooms. In the windows of the
addition are four stained-glass
medallions from the V. Everit Macy
mansion, given by the Ossining
St. Mary's
Historical Society. The architect of
Episcopal
this addition was Paul L. Wood of
Church
Scarborough. (1, page 176)
During this year, the library of
Briarcliff College had increased in the
number of books in its library to a
Briarcliff
maximum of 20,000 volumes. (1,
College
page 181)
During this year, Mrs. Clara Tead
Briarcliff
retires as President of Briarcliff
College
College (1, page 182)
During this year, student enrollment
Briarcliff
at Briarcliff College was just over
College
three hundred. (1, page 183)
During this year, Edward J. Mortola
becomes the president of Pace
University and was later responsible
for opening up Pace’s campus in
Pace
Pleasantville in Westchester County.
University
(1, page 187)
During this year, The Briarcliff Board
of Education began preliminary talks
with the Pleasantville Board, and by
this same year, reported to its
Public
residents that it was “marking time”
Schools,
on any building program, in part
Grade and
since Todd had become overcrowded
High School again. (15, page 55)
Congregatio During this year, construction of the
n Sons of
new house of worship for the
Israel of
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor on Pleasantville Road
Manor
was completed. (15, page 75)
1960 May 21st
During this decade, Baltic Estates
developed Hawthorne Place and
Balsam Road off Long Hill Road, east
of Tuttle Road, building about twentytwo houses. Baltic also extended
Briarcliff
Quinn Road and built seven houses
Real Estate on it. (1, page 146) (17, page 40)
During this year, Charles Atkins
Briarcliff
officially becomes the new president
College
of Briarcliff College. (17, page 39)
During this year, the Briarcliff
Swimming and Diving Team
organized by Martha Mook, Dave
Painter, and Lowell Harper. This
team became a member of the
Briarcliff
Northern Westchester Swimming
Sports
Conference. (17, page 39)
During this year, the American
Airlines' modern offices, on Route 9
across from Saint Mary's Church,
was built. The building was later(?)
Briarcliff
sold to NBC Television for a
Real Estate computer facility. (1, page 147)
According to an article published in
the “Ossining Citizen Register” on
this date, “3-Day Program
Concluded: New Synagogue-Center
Dedicated By Congregation Sons of
Israel,” and basically, the new
synagogue and school of The
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Congregatio Briarcliff Manor (as the synagogue
n Sons of
was now located in the Village of
Israel of
Briarcliff Manor, and not Ossining)
Ossining
was dedicated. (1, page 168)
the early
1960 Fall
During this time, just before the high
holy days, for the second time in the
history of the Congregation, the
Congregatio Torah was carried in a candle-light
n Sons of
procession up Croton Avenue and
Israel of
around the corner to the sanctuary
Ossining
on Pleasantville Road. (1, page 168)
1960
1960
1960
1960(?)
Sleepy
Hollow
Country
1960 August 16th Club
1960-1961
Briarcliff
College
1960-1963
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
1960-1971
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
1960-1985
Burns
Family
1960ca.1990
King's
College
1960-1962
1961
Briarcliff
Manor
Garden Club
An article that appeared on this date
in The New York Herald Tribune
reported that at the Sleepy Hollow
Country Club's Golf Course: "The
holes have names! Headless
Horseman, Icabod's Elbow and
Haunted Bridge." (1, pages 81 and
230)
During this period, Kay McKemy
teaches English composition at
Briarcliff College. (1, page 182)
During this period, Edward R.
Fitzgerald serves as the chief of The
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department. (1,
page 233)
During this period, Everald Strom
serves as the first minister of The
Faith Lutheran Brethren Church. (1,
page 235)
During this period, Stuart E. Rapp
serves as the seventh Minister for
The Briarcliff Congregational Church.
(1, page 235)
In 1960, after the Village of Briarcliff
Manor adopted a "floating zone
ordinance" to permit office and
laboratory use of land parcels of ten
or more acres, the Burns agency
established headquarters at 320 Old
Briarcliff Road, where they remained
until the plant and the land were sold
in 1985 to Great Lakes Carbon
Corporation. (1, pages 120 and 147)
Ever since the State Board of
Regents accredited them in 1960,
The King’s College has granted
degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor
of Science, Associate in Arts and
Associate in Applied Science. (1,
page 172)
By this year, the Briarcliff Manor
Garden Club, with seventy-three
members, this club had earned a
voice in all civic improvement and
landscaping problems and, as a news
report put it, could not be mistaken
for "tea drinking sissies." (1, page
151)
1961
1961
1961
1961
1961
1961
1961
Clear View
School
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
During this year, the AMIC
conducted the first classes of The
Clear View School in the country for
severly emotionally disturbed
children. Their first school they used
was a rambling wood-frame building
in Pelham Manor of which no one
approved except parents who
wanted to keep their children at
home to avoid the forced
confinement of state hospitals. (1,
page 158)
During this year, Mrs. Louis Brennan,
who lived in Ossining, was the
president of The League of Women
Voters of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
161)
By this year, the paid membership of
The League of Women Voters of
Briarcliff Manor had increased to 190
members. (1, page 161)
By this year, the budget of The
League of Women Voters of Briarcliff
Manor had increased to $2,235.00.
(1, page 161)
During this year, as set forth in the
development plan for The
Scarborough School, (adopted in
Scarborough 1959) a new primary school was
School
constructed. (15, page 47)
During this year, the seventy
members of The Briarcliff Manor
Garden Club carried out
beautification projects around the
Briarcliff
Village of Briarcliff manor, including
Manor
weekly flower arrangements at the
Garden Club library. (17, page 40)
During this year, Howard Holmes
Village
was elected mayor of The Village of
Government Briarcliff Manor. (17, page 40)
According to an article for the
Gannett Westchester Newspapers
that was published on this date,
Katherine Moran Douglas, a famous
operatic soprano and future Briarcliff
resident, discussed with a reporter
from this newspaper about a chance
meeting in the spring of 1903 (when
her name was Katherine Moran,
before her marriage to James
Forsythe Douglas) that brought her
to the attention of Heinrich Conreid
of the Metropolitan Opera Company.
“The majority of artists were then
imported from Europe,” Katherine
(“Kitty”) Douglas told the reporter,
“and Mr. Conreid was about to leave
for his annual trip when a family
friend, who was a director at the
opera, invited my parents and me to
luncheon in his honor. Before the
Briarcliff
afternoon was over, I had auditioned
Musicians:
successfully for the Metropolitan, a
Katherine
possibility farthest from my thoughts
Moran
that morning!” (1, pages 222-223
1961 March 11th Douglas
and 232)
During this period, Howard Holmes
Village
serves as the Mayor of the Village of
1961-1963
Government Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 233)
By around this time, though tuition
students left the Briarcliff high
School when Westlake and Valhalla
high schools were constructed, the
Briarcliff school district’s own
resident population was rapidly filling
up the Pleasantville Road buildings.
The walls of Todd were bulging
again, even without the second
grade, but the Todd problem could
be solved. Since the merger would
not physically affect Todd, state
building aid was available for Todd,
Public
and an addition was built of nine
Schools,
more classrooms, and the art room
Grade and
and music suite. (1, page 153) (15,
ca. 1962
High School page 55)
1962
1962
1962
1962
1962
1962
During this year, four acres were
purchased between Dalmeny Road
and Central Drive by The Church of
Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus for
their school. This site included the
Saint
remains of the Briarcliff Farms Barn
Theresa's
A, converted into a house, which
School
became the convent. (1, page 157)
During this year, Briarcliff College
bought the former residence of the
Roger Wallach family, next door to
Shelton House, for the thenPresident of Briarcliff College,
Briarcliff
Charles Adkins and his family to live
College
in. (1, page 182)
During this year, a new dormitory
Briarcliff
called Hillside House was built for
College
Briarcliff College. (1, page 182)
During this year, Diane Newman,
wife, of Charles Newman, starts to
Books 'N
work at Books ‘N Things bookstore.
Things
(1, page 221)
During this year, as set forth in the
development plan for The
Scarborough School, (adopted in
1959) completely new science
Scarborough facilities were constructed. (15, page
School
47)
During this year, as strong
opposition to the merger of the
Briarcliff and Pleasantville school
districts began to develop in both
communities, the state again
intervened with a revised school aid
plan enacted into legislation that
Public
made merger financially unattractive
Schools,
to Pleasantville, at least in the
Grade and
immediate future. (1, page 153) (15,
High School page 55)
1962 March
King's
College
1962 May
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
At this time, Dr. Robert A. Cook was
named president of The King's
College. Previously he served as
vice president of Scripture Press
Foundation and president of Youth
for Christ International. Dr. Cook
launched The King's Hour radio
program, which would eventually
broadcast on over 65 stations daily.
Under Cook's leadership of the
college, he continued several campus
improvements, as the library was
expanded, a new dormitory and new
science building were built, and
additional properties were acquired.
(15, page 45) (8, pages 71 and 77)
At this time, stained glass medallions
bearing the arms of the Diocese of
New York and of St. Mary’s Church,
as a memorial to Dr. (the Reverend)
Charles W. Baldwin (who served as
the sixth Rector of St. Mary’s
Episcopal Church from 1914 to
1951), were dedicated. (15, page
67)
1962 July
Slater
Family
1962 July
Slater
Family
Marilyn Slater’s account of her
family’s first twenty years (19621982) living in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor also states that: “In July of
1962, when we took possession of
this house [at 72 Poplar Road] “with
considerable potential,” the grass
was knee deep, dark green wallpaper
with violet flowers adorned the walls
of the small living and dining rooms
and a baby grand piano, legs
removed and covered with a
tarpaulin, lay on the side lawn. My
dad told us later that when he first
saw our home he had to go out onto
the porch till his stomach stopped
turning. The piano in the grass had
been abandoned by the previous
owner. Neighbors, disturbed by such
wanton waste, covered it against the
rain and later traded their indoor
upright for it. Out outdoor baby
grand was a benefit for all of us.” (1,
page 199)
Marilyn Slater’s account of her
family’s first twenty years (19621982) living in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor also states: “That summer
[July, 1962] we spent every spare
moment scraping, painting,
wallpapering and refurbishing. We
made some mistakes. One morning,
called to their room, we found our
boys covered with long strips of
wallpaper which we had put up with
the wrong kind of paste.” (1, page
199)
1962 Fall
October
1962 18th
1962-1964
1962-1965
Marilyn Slater’s account of her
family’s first twenty years (19621982) living in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor also states: “By fall [of 1962]
we thought the basic work of making
our eyesore a home was
accomplished. One Saturday
afternoon we refilled the hot water
heating system, which had been
drained for repair, and as the water
level rose slowly in the pipes a
chorus of “Dad, there’s water
pouring through the ceiling!” came
from all corners of the house. The
system had not been drained when
the oil burner was turned off. The
water had frozen, expanded and
Slater
burst all the radiators!” (1, pages
Family
199-200)
In an article from the Citizen
Register published on this date, it
reports: “It was the Vanderlip touch
and taste and love of the beautiful
that transformed the house,
although Mrs. Vanderlip says ‘We
were young and foolish then.’” The
sunroom and library, both added by
the Vanderlips, were designed by
William Welles Bosworth, who,
according to the same Citizen
Register article, also designed
Scarborough School and restored the
Palace of Versailles and the Rheims
Cathedral. There are seventeen
Beechwood rooms and halls on the main floor.
Estate
(15, pages 12-13)
During this period, Walter L. Erickson
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
During this period, Peter Fazzolare,
who had been hired by President
Clara Tead of Briarcliff Junior College
as its first business manager,
continued to manage prudently the
college’s increasingly complex
Briarcliff
finances over this building period. (1,
College
page 183)
1962-1977
1962-1982
March
(1962)-(?)
1977
King's
College
Slater
Family
1963
Haymont
Estate
League of
Women
Voters of
Briarcliff
Manor
1963
Briarcliff
College
1963
Pace
University
1963
Since March of 1962 and up until the
1977 publication of the 1977 history
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor, A
Village Between Two Rivers, the
president of The King’s College had
been Dr. Robert Cook. (15, page 45)
During this period, the Slater family
lived in the Village of Briarcliff Manor
at 72 Poplar Road. (1, page 199)
Durng this year, Giovanni Susech, a
native of Trieste, Italy, opened a
restaurant in the Fuller mansion (the
Haymont mansion), by that time
missing the two lateral wings. Even
without the wings, the restaurant
rooms, the lobby and the terrace (for
summer luncheons) were spacious
and handsome. The a la carte
Continental cuisine menu was as
extensive as that of any hotel dinng
room in the city. Giovanni named
his restaurant the Maison Lafitte,
perhaps as a souvenir of his many
years of service(?) on the high seas,
starting at the age of fourteen(?), as
bartender and cook on oceangoing
ships and liners. Mr. Susech had
also worked(?) in the bars and
kitchens of several New York City
hotels. (1, page 123)
During this year, The League of
Women Voters of Briarcliff Manor
was reorganized as The BriarcliffOssining League of Women Voters.
(1, page 161)
Beginning in this year with a $3.6
million building loan, Briarcliff
College expanded rapidly. (1, page
182)
During this year, under the
presidency of Edward J. Mortola,
Pace University recognized the
potential student market in the
suburbs and opened a 175-acre
campus in Pleasantville on the
former Choate-Coggeshall estate. (1,
page 187)
1963
1963
1963
1963
1963
1963
During this year, Books ‘N Things
moves from its first location at the
northwest block of the Chilmark
shopping center on Pleasantville
Road, to the other side of this
Books 'N
shopping center into a larger space.
Things
(1, page 221)
During this period, Mrs. Robert
Briarcliff
Widenhorn served as the fifth
Manor Free director of The Briarcliff Manor Free
Library
Library. (1, page 234)
By this year, the railroad that used
to run through the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, the Putnam Division of the
New York Central Rail Road, was
abandoned north of Elmsford. (15,
Rail Roads
page 21)
During this year, as set forth in the
development plan for The
Scarborough School, (adopted in
Scarborough 1959) the library of this school was
School
expanded. (15, page 47)
During this year, Emile H. Munier
Village
was elected the mayor of the Village
Government of Briarcliff Manor. (17, page 40)
During this year, the last section of
track on the Putnam Division that
went past the Briarcliff train station
Rail Roads
was removed. (8, page 73)
1963 and
several
years after
1963 and
several
years after
1963-1965
Beginning in 1963 and for several
years after, exhibits of twenty-five to
thirty selected prints by well-known
printmakers were mounted monthly
in the Briarcliff Library. Sponsored
and hosted by the Friends of the
Library, the exhibitions were
arranaged by Myril Adler in
cooperation with the Pratt Graphic
Art Center, an extension of the Pratt
Institute in Brooklyn. At a time
when limited-edition prints-etchings,
lithographs, serigraphs and woodcutsas distinct from paintings, sculpture
and drawings, were not yet generally
understood and appreciated, these
exhibitions offered an acquaintance
with the whole range of graphics,
Briarcliff
including every kind of traditional
Manor Free and experimental medium. (1, page
Library
151)
In 1963 and for several years after,
besides the work of many individual
artists, who attended their openings
and talked about their work, there
were exhibitions at The Briarcliff
Manor Free Library of "100 Years of
Printing Processes," "Prints from
Around the World," and "A
Celebration of the 700th Anniversary
of Dante's Birth," featuring Jack
Zajac's mezzotint etching
illustrations for the deluxe edition of
The Anti-Purgatorio printed in Italy
for the Racolin Press of Mr. and Mrs.
Alexander Racolin of Old Briarcliff
Road. Some of the artists whose
work was shown in more than five
years of regular exhibits were
famous, and others received honors
Briarcliff
and awards. Most of the prints
Manor Free shown were for sale, for $12 and up.
Library
(1, pages 151-152)
During this period, Harry L. Addis
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Police Manor Police Department. (1, page
Department 233)
1963-1967
Village
Government
1963-1974
Scarborough
Presbyterian
Church
the mid1960s
Briarcliff
Farms
ca. 1964
Dr. Rufus P.
Johnston
House
ca. 1964
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
ca. 1964(?)
Briarcliff
College
During this period, Emile H. Munier
serves as the Mayor of the Village of
Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 233)
During this period, Adam W. Craig
serves as the seventh minister for
The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church. (1, page 235)
By this time, the former office of the
Briarcliff Realty Company and
Briarcliff Farms dairy was once again
redesigned and rebuilt when it
became the offices of the
International Union of Operating
Engineers. (8, page 16)
At about this time, Cognitronics
moves to Connecticut and sells its
building (formerly owned by Dr.
Arthur O'Connor and the former site
of the Miss Knox School) to Frank B.
Hall, Incorporated. (1, pages 71 and
73)
Around this year, at the high school
level, overcrowding in the Briarcliff
High School, as well as inadequate
facilities, made any teaching and
curriculum improvements more
difficult. As a result, as a temporary
measure, four portable classrooms
were rented and placed on the
square of concrete between the two
school buildings, but even this was
not enough. “Overlapping” sessions
had to be introduced, and bus and
lunch arrangements became a
nightmare. (15, page 55)
Probably around this year, the
faculty members at Briarcliff College,
most of them full-time numbered
around sixty. (1, page 183)
1964
During this year, the Macy chain, as
the group of newspapers was
commonly called, and which had
grown to include nine dailies and five
weeklies, is sold to the Gannet
Company. This Macy chain had
grown out of the Macy Westchester
Newspapers, later the Westchester
Rockland Newspapers, whose
founding was helped by both
Valentine E. Macy , Jr., and his
brother, J. Noel. They helped to
found this newspaper chain with the
avowed intention of perpetuating the
social and civic programs their
parents had helped to establish. J.
Noel, while he was an undergraduate
at Harvard, had worked on the
Lampoon , and he was later a
reporter for the Yonkers Statesman .
Macy Family (1, page 56)
1964
1964
1964
During this year, as the Village of
Briarcliff Manor grew, the municipal
building became inadequate, so the
village offices and the growing fire
department were moved into a new
building at 1111 Pleasantville Road.
Offices in the old municipal building
at 1133 Pleasantville Road were
rented, and the ground floor housed
Whigg's, purveyors of clothing,
principally for young women. After
Briarcliff College closed, Whigg's
moved away and the space was used
by a coffee shop, called the Yellow
Brick Road, and later by succession
of restaurants, most recently the
Patio restaurant. The village fathers
were reluctant to allow a restaurant
into the old municipal building
because of the limited parking
facilities along Pleasantville Road
(then as now). The owners of the
Yellow Brick Road helped to make
their case at the hearing that would
determine their fate by handing out
ice cream cones to villagers at the
proceedings. They got their license.
Briarcliff
This new municipal building was also
Manor Fire officially dedicated in 1964. (1, page
Department 147) (17, page 40)
During this year, a second new
dormitory called Valley House was
Briarcliff
built for Briarcliff College. (1, page
College
182)
During this year, the New York State
Board of Regents amended the
charter of Briarcliff College to offer
four-year courses leading to the
Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of
Science degrees. Eight major
courses of study were offered,
including children development,
geography-cartography, history,
Briarcliff
urban studies and English. (1, page
College
183)
1964
Briarcliff
College
1964
Briarcliff
College
1964
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1964
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1964
Briarcliff
Manor Police
Department
1964
Roads and
Transportati
on
1964
King's
College
1964(?)
Briarcliff
College
During this year, The Center for
Hudson Valley Archeology and Prehistory, under the direction of Louis
Brennan, was opened at Briarcliff
College. (1, page 183)
During this year, student enrollment
at Briarcliff College had increased to
over five hundred. (1, page 183)
During this year, after six years in
the parish house of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church, the second
grade moved out of the parish house
and back to Todd. (15, page 55)
By this year, the new municipal
building, which was built to house
the fire department and Village
offices of Briarcliff Manor, let The
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department
move into it after it was competed
during this same year. (15, page 82)
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Police Department moved into its
new headquarters at the new
municipal building at 1111
Pleasantville Road in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor. (17, page 40)
During this year, there were limited
parking facilities along Pleasantville
Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor. (17, page 40)
During this year, The King’s College
purchased the Tarry Hill Swim and
tennis Club on Cedar Lane in
Ossining for use as a dormitory. A
shuttle bus brought students to and
from the main campus. (8, page 88)
Most likely during this year,
Burnham Carter, Jr., a Princeton
graduate with advanced degrees in
English literature, came to Briarcliff
College from the English Department
of Purdue University to supervise the
enlarged curriculum at Briarcliff
College. (1, page 183)
Most likely during this year, Kenneth
Skelton, who had served as the dean
of Briarcliff Junior College for the
past twelve years, from 1952(?) to
1964(?), retired as dean of Briarcliff
College to become the director of a
Briarcliff
new liberal arts program at New
1964(?)
College
Paltz. (1, page 183)
At this time, The Briarcliff Manor
Free Library made an application for
Briarcliff
a change of name to the Board of
Manor Free Regents of the New York State
1964 March
Library
University. (15, page 66)
On this date, a Provisional Charter
was granted to The Briarcliff Manor
Briarcliff
Free Library, whose name was
Manor Free officially changed to the Briarcliff
1964 March 20th Library
Manor Public Library. (15, page 66)
At this time, there was an exhibit of
Briarcliff
art by Fritz Eichenberg at the
Manor Free Briarcliff Manor Free Library. (1,
1964 April
Library
page 151)
During this time, the newly
converted library, now with a thirty
Briarcliff
thousand-volume capacity, was
1964 Fall
College
dedicated. (1, page 183)
During this period, Helen Barolini
Briarcliff
served as the sixth director of The
Manor Free Briarcliff Manor Free Library. (1,
1964-1965
Library
page 234)
During this period, Vincent J.
Briarcliff
Pancovic serves as the chief of The
Manor Fire Briarcliff Manor Fire Department. (1,
1964-1966
Department page 233)
Faith
During this period, Silas Bergstad
Lutheran
serves as the second minister of The
Brethren
Faith Lutheran Brethren Church. (1,
1964-1967
Church
page 235)
Public
During this period, Hollis L. Desoe
Schools,
serves as the twelfth principle
Grade and
(superintendent) of the Briarcliff
1964-1968
High School Schools. (1, page 234)
1965
1965
1965
1965
During this year, the Board of
Education appointed a site
committee composed of local
architects, engineers and real estate
agents. Because of the topography,
size, ease of development and
accessability, the committee
recommended acquisition of a
portion of the Choate estate on
Pleasantville Road, at the eastern
edge of the Village as the only
Public
suitable property available that
Schools,
would meet the state's new
Grade and
requirement for building aid. (1,
High School pages 153-154) (15, page 58)
During this year, the religious school
for the Saint Theresa's Church for
kindergarden through eighth grade,
Saint
opened in the parish house of the
Theresa's
Congregational Church. (1, page
School
157)
During this year, when The Faith
Faith
Lutheran Brethren Church was first
Lutheran
chartered, it had a membership of 28
Brethren
adults and 22 children. (1, pages
Church
170 and 172)
During this year, several new
buildings were built and added to
Briarcliff College’s campus: the fine
arts and humanities building, with an
art gallery and studios as well as
classrooms and faculty offices; the
Woodward Science Building, with
laboratories, an auditorium and a
day nursery; and the three-story
dining hall with sit-down meal
facilities for six hundred. Gray
Taylor, of the firm of Sherwood, Mills
and Smith, was the architect in
charge of all this building, including
the two new dormitory houses,
Briarcliff
Hillside House and Valley House. (1,
College
pages 182-183)
1965
Briarcliff
College
1965
Bowers
Family
Briarcliff
Musicians:
Lucy (Mrs.
Arthur)
Blachman
1965
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1965
During this year, Harper Woodward,
a director of Eastern Airlines and
other corporations and who had been
a trustee for Briarcliff College on
their Board of Trustees since 1957,
became chairman of this Broad of
Trustees. (1, page 183)
According to the 1977 75 th
Anniversary history of the Briarcliff
Manor and Scarborough areas, A
Village Between Two Rivers , during
this year (1965), the village stopped
to repay Coach Bill Bowers and to
honor him with "Bill Bowers Day."
Mr. Bowers “for more than forty
years…served his village—as teacher,
coach, fireman, and special friend."
Hundreds of former students from as
far away as Hawaii and residents
gathered for a parade that was held
during this same year to honor their
beloved former coach and counselor,
which was followed by a picnic, a
presentation of “This Is Your Life, Bill
Bowers,” and a dance. “The day
culminated,” the caption in this
history adds, in a nostalgic reunion
“with the presentation by a grateful
community of an automobile and
boat to the man who gave so much
of himself to the village he loved.”
Mr. Bowers gave them lessons in
living that would last a lifetime. (1,
page 195) (15, page 96) (17, page
41)
During this year, Lucy (Mrs. Arthur)
Blachman, a concert pianist and
piano teacher, came to live in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
223)
During this period, Mrs. Bryden M.
Dow served as the seventh director
of The Briarcliff Manor Free Library.
(1, page 234)
1965(?)
1965 Spring
Briarcliff
College
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
1965-1966
Briarcliff
Manor Police
Department
1965-1967
Briarcliff
Manor Police
Department
1965-1968
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1965-1969
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
Most likely during this year,
President Charles Adkins recruited as
trustees for Briarcliff College’s Board
of Trustees Charles Shain, president
of Connecticut College and William
Dietel, who had been professor of
humanities at Amherst and was from
1967 to 1970 principal of the Emma
Willard School in Troy, New York, to
represent the academic community
on the increasingly business-oriented
board of Briarcliff College. (1, pages
182-183)
During this year, the congregation of
The Faith Lutheran Brethren Church
came to Briarcliff Manor, when they
bought (for $15,000.00) two acres
on Pleasantville Road, adjacent, on
the side toward Briarcliff Village, to
the houses that had been the
Baroness De Luze’s Luthany. This
church had moved from its original
location in Scarsdale, New York,
when the church building in
Scarsdale was sold. (1, pages 170
and 235) (15, page 75)
During this period, C. Everett Garvey
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Police Department. (1, page
233)
During this period, Ronald Trainham,
the police Lieutenant of The Briarcliff
Manor Police Department who was
chosen as Chief Arthur Johnson, Jr.’s
successor in January of 1990, serves
in the United States Army, and then
studied Criminal Justice at
Westchester Community College. (1,
page 208)
During this period, Bettie Diver
served as the eighth director of The
Briarcliff Manor Free Library. (1,
page 234)
During this period, Stuart Zabriskie
serves as the eighth elected Rector
of Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church. (1,
page 235)
1965-1969
1965-1970
1965-1989
During these previous five years
before The King’s College purchased
it for use as a men’s dormitory in
April of 1970, the Manor House,
which had been Walter law’s home,
"Manor
was owned by Catholics of Latin
House"
America, which trained volunteers to
(Walter W. help the poor in Latin America. (8,
Law House) page 87)
Church of
During this period, the Messenger
Saint
John Harrington serves as the fourth
Theresa of
pastor of The Church of Saint
the Infant
Theresa of the Infant Jesus. (1, page
Jesus
235)
During this twenty-year period, The
Faith Lutheran Brethren Church was
Faith
the center of a friendly, very active
Lutheran
community of families and single,
Brethren
which grew tremendously over this
Church
period. (1, page 172)
1965-ca.
1990
1966
1966
During this period, since she first
came to live in Briarcliff in 1965,
Lucy (Mrs. Arthur) Blachman, a
concert pianist and piano teacher,
came to live in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor. When her children were very
young she cut down on concert work
and did some teaching. When she
resumed an active playing career,
she also taught more, and trained
intensively in Suzuki teaching, a
modality for beginners of all ages in
piano studies. After years of
teaching in numerous places, Lucy
Blachman has chosen to devote most
of her teaching time to her Briarcliff
studio, where she gives lessons and
holds classes for all ages and levels.
She shays, “Teaching young people
who may make a life in music is a
pleasure, but opening the world of
music and good playing to a lifetime
of enhanced pleasure for the
amateur is an even greater joy.” In
addition, the Blachmans’ three sons
Briarcliff
received their early music education
Musicians:
in Briarcliff. Two of them, Eric, who
Lucy (Mrs.
plays the saxophone and clarinet,
Arthur)
and Neil, a violinist, have made
Blachman
music their careers. (1, page 223)
Anthony Turiano succeeds Max Vogel
Village
as village engineer and building
Government inspector. (1, page 61)
Until shortly before her death during
this year (1966) at the age of eightseven, Mrs. Vanderlip commuted to
the city regularly to attend to the
business of the New York
Vanderlip
Infirmary/Beekman Downtown
Family
Hospital. (1, page 91)
1966
1966
1966
1966
1966
1966
1966
During this year, after being located
in the parish house of the Briarcliff
Congregational Church during the
past year, the religious school of
Saint Theresa's Church moved into
their new building, located on
Saint
Dalmeny Road, which was designed
Theresa's
by the architect Burke Weigel. (1,
School
page 157)
During this year, Edward Ghiazza
was appointed the first full-time
Recreation director of recreation for the Village
Center
of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 209)
During this year, the firehouse of the
Briarclifff
Archville Fire Company is built, which
Architects: was designed by the architect and
Reiman
Briarcliff resident, Don Reiman. (1,
Family
page 216)
By this year, the railroad bed of the
Putnam Division of the New York
Central Rail Road that ran through
the Village of Briarcliff Manor became
the site of the new Route 100. (15,
Rail Roads
page 21)
During this year, Max Vogel is
appoint the first village manager of
Village
The Village of Briarcliff Manor. (17,
Government page 41)
During this year, Don Papa, the new
Recreation Director, does everything
from mowing the community lawn to
sweeping the tennis courts—and
introduces new programs to keep the
Recreation youth of Briarcliff happy and
Department involved. (17, page 41)
During this year, The King’s College
made one of several alterations to
the Briarcliff Lodge building,
including the constriction of a small
King's
library wing off the south end of the
College
original dining room. (8, page 79)
1966 January
During this time, a public
referendum authorized the Briarcliff
school district to buy fifty earmarked
acres of the property of the former
Choate estate. With the advice of its
lawyers, the Board decided to
proceed with its purchase offer, and
to condemn the land if necessary.
But while this referendum was taking
Public
place, Pace University bought the
Schools,
whole Choate estate. The Board of
Grade and
Education then took this case to
High School court. (1, page 154) (15, page 58)
1966 June 12th
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
1966 July 1st
Vietnam
War
1966-1967
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
On this date, Charles Winters drew
up plans for the new church and
groundbreaking ceremonies were
held on the same date for The Faith
Lutheran Brethren Church. It was an
enormous task for the congregation,
which was only twelve families at
this time. There were few builders in
the group who, along with many
willing volunteers, would spend the
better portion of the following year
working on their church. At the
groundbreaking ceremony for this
church, Tom Sandnes, Dr. Robert
Cook (past president of King’s
College), Pastor Bergstad, Fred
Kossow (deputy mayor of Briarcliff
Manor at the time), and Astor Stave.
(1, pages 170-171) (15, page 75)
On this date, Randall Breward Purdy,
a resident of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, enlists in the United States
Marines to fight in the Vietnam War.
(1, page 190)
During this two–year period, from
Charles Winters’ architectural
drawing board to the completion of
the new church, the Faith Lutheran
Brethren Church’s congregation met
in the American Legion Hall in
Valhalla. (15, page 75)
1966-1967
1966-1968
1966-1968
1966-1968
1966-1973
1966(?)1973(?)
1966-1984
During this period, the original
twelve families of The Faith Lutheran
Brethren Church were able to build
June 12th
Faith
their new church on Pleasantville
(1966)Lutheran
Road in less than a year, as there
October 8th Brethren
were many builders among them. (1,
(1967)
Church
page 170)
Max Vogel is appointed the first
village manager for the Briarcliff
Manor Village Government in 1966,
and serves in this position until he
Village
retired in 1968. (1, pages 59, 61,
Government and 233) (17, page 41).
During this period, Donald F. Kolb
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
During this period, the Gress-miles
organ for the All Saints Episcopal
Church was designed, built, and
installed in the church. (15, page 69)
During the Vietnam War, three men
from the Village of Briarcliff Manor
were killed: Corporal Kenneth L
Hirst, Jr., Corporal Randall Breward
Vietnam
Purdy, and First Lieutenant Jonathan
War
Shine. (1, page 190)
During the Vietnam War, the brother
of First Lieutenant Jonathan Shine
and the third son of Mr. and Mrs.
George Shine (who were residents of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor),
Alexander Shine (and also a resident
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor)
served in the Vietnam War and was
Vietnam
also wounded during this conflict. (1,
War
page 190)
During this period, Joseph P.
Briarcliff
McHenry serves as the chief of The
Manor Police Briarcliff Manor Police Department.
Department (1, page 233)
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1967
Since 1966, parents of the 120
students who go to the Saint
Theresa's School, on Dalmeny Road
(in 1989) have held countless fund
raisers. Parents also volunteered in
Saint
the lunch program, cooking and
Theresa's
serving food daily, to save on labor
School
costs. (1, page 157)
During this time, the Rosemond's
residence (the birthplace of Admiral
Worden, formerly called Hillside, and
which was later demolished in 1990)
was rezoned for Roy Anthony's
Marketing Innovation Company. (1,
Hillside
page 147)
BriarcliffDuring this time, The BriarcliffOssining
Ossining League of Women Voters
League of
had an all-time high record of 200
Women
members in their organization. (1,
Voters
page 163)
During this period, a Dr. Shapiro was
murdered on his way home from the
Scarborough train station. The
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor Police Department
Manor Police was never able to solve this case. (1,
Department page 207)
During this year, the Briarcliff school
district's Board of Education wins a
favorable decision when its ensuing
lawsuit against Pace University was
settled after taking their case to
court in the Appellate Division when
Public
Pace University bought all of the
Schools,
Choate estate. In the end, Pace
Grade and
University sold Briarcliff thirty-five
High School acres. (1, page 154) (15, page 58)
Searle
During this year, Dr. Robert Wyckoff
Family
Searle dies. (1, page 169)
1967
Briarcliff
College
1967
Recreation
Center
1966-1989
the late
1960s
the late
1960s
the late
1960s
1967
By this year, the freshman
enrollment at Briarcliff College had
reached a high of 260. (1, page 186)
During this year, a large pumphouse on Buckhout Road was
converted into the new recreation
building. (15, page 85)
1967
1967
1967
1967(?)
1967(?)
During this year, Fred Kossow, who
was one of the first Eagle Scouts of
The Briarcliff Boy Scouts, is elected
Village
Mayor of Briarcliff Manor. (17, page
Government 26)
During this year, Anthony Turiano is
Village
the first Building Inspector. (17,
Government page 41)
During this year, The King’s College
continued the constriction of a small
library wing off the south end of the
King's
original dining room of the Briarcliff
College
Lodge building. (8, page 79)
During this year, a fourth large new
dormitory was built for the campus
Briarcliff
of Briarcliff College. (1, pages 183College
184)
Mostly likely during this year, as the
education boom was at its peak,
there were great changes that were
brewing, as the civil-rights
movement, the women’s movement
and organized opposition to the war
in Vietnam aroused college students
all over the country. As a result, the
ideals of gentility and service of the
young ladies of Mrs. Dow’s and Mrs.
Tead’s schools were no longer
embraced by many Briarcliff College
students. Fraternity parties and
debutante balls were also out of
style at the college at this time, and
Briarcliff College women, with the
men they saw at Yale, Columbia and
elsewhere, were talking about
Briarcliff
political issues and action. (1, page
College
184)
1967(?)
1967(?)
Briarcliff
College
Mostly likely during this year, after
the retirement of Helen Searle,
Charles Newman, a young graduate
student in experimental drama, had
been hired to assist Professor Mary
Douglas Dirks in theater arts. Under
his direction drama students
presented a lively revue climaxed
with a mock-solemn reading from
the college handbook, such passages
as “a student…is expected to behave
in a manner appropriate to a young
lady, at all times.” As she read, the
young actress led the cast up the
aisle and appeared to be tearing
pages from the handbook and
throwing them around the
auditorium. Administrators of
Briarcliff College and some students,
especially those who had worked on
the handbook, were offended. (1,
page 184)
Briarcliff
College
Mostly likely during this year, a
group of students at Briarcliff College
marched around the campus holding
lighted candles and signs protesting
the war in Vietnam and the invasion
of Cambodia. A few of their teachers
joined them. However, Briarcliff
College’s trustees of the college’s
Board of trustees, like many college
administrators at the time, were
thoroughly alarmed. As a result,
differences of opinion among them
seemed irreconcilable, and president
Adkins and some trustees resigned,
and James E. Stewart, head of an
engineering firm in Pittsburgh, took
on the difficult job of interim
president. (1, page 184)
February
1967 5th
On this date, after the devastating
floods in Florence of the previous
autumn, an exhibition and sale called
"Art for Art's Sake," to benefit the
Committee to Rescue Italian Art, was
held in the Parish House of the
Briarcliff Congregational Church.
The project was organized by Myril
Adler with Marilyn (Mrs. Jospeh)
Bowler and Shirley (Mrs. Murray)
Neitlich. They had planned a local
show of about fifty works by artists
in and around Briarcliff, but the
generous response of the whole
community and of many artists more
than tripled their expectations. The
exhibtion included one hundred and
sixty works of art, drawings,
paintings, sculpture, ceramics and
prints of all kinds, contributed by
almost a hundred artists from all
over the metropolitan area. Briarcliff
artists who contributed work were
Myril Adler, Hannah Berman, Jospeh
Bowler, Perf Coxeter, Janet Gleeson,
Jacqueline Hammer, Katherine
McCormack, Rayna Schwartz,
Patricia Sloan, Jean Stark and Walter
Yovanish. The Congregational
Briarcliff
Church contributed the use of the
Congregatio parish house and janitorial services,
n-al Church and the mayor and Village Board
February
1967 5th
On this date, after the devastating
floods in Florence of the previous
autumn, several people from the
Village of Briarcliff Manor helped out
to create the exhibition and sale
called "Art for Art's Sake," to benefit
the Committee to Rescue Italian Art,
was held in the Parish House of the
Briarcliff Congregational Church.
Artist Alan E. Cober of Ossining
provided a striking drawing of the
Florence Duomo for the posters,
which were paid for and distributed
by volunteers. Robert Crandall of
Briarcliff paid the premium of the
insurance arranged by the William
Yates office. Rhett Austell of Time,
Inc. and Thomas McLaughlin of the
Combined Book Exhibit contributed
art books at a discount. Matting,
framing and hardware were
contributed by James Scalzo of the
Art Shelf. Barbara (Mrs. Edward)
Walker of Ossining designed and
hand-lettered the parchment which
was signed by the two thousand
visitors to the exhibit and sent with a
letter from Mayor Emile Munier of
Briarcliff Manor to the mayor of
Briarcliff
Florence. The works were sold at
Congregatio one-third below gallery prices.
n-al Church Entrance contributions were a dollar
Sunday,
February
1967 5th
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1967 May 12th
Vietnam
War
On this date, there was an exhibit
entitled: "An Exhibition of prints,
drawings & watercolors by Michael
Biddle," which was held in the
Briarcliff Manor Free Library building,
as well as its reception, held on the
same date. (1, page 151)
On this date, Corporal Kenneth L.
Hirst, Jr., was the first Briarcliff
casualty of the Vietnam War when
he was killed in action on this date in
Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam,
while serving in the first Battalion,
9th Regiment of the Untied States
Marines. He was twenty-two and
three days old. (1, page 190)
1967
1967
1967
1967
1967
1967-1968
1967-1969
On this date, Virginia Grinager, in an
article for the Gannett Westchester
Newspapers, also published on this
date, she reported that in the five
hours of the afternoon of February
5th, 1967, when the exhibit and
sale, entitled "Art for Art's Sake,"
was held in the Parish House of the
Briarcliff Congregational Church, that
the exhibition netted $4,024.85 for
the Committee to Rescue Italian Art.
Thomas McLaughlin, director of the
Combined Book Exhibit in
Scarborough, on a business trip to
Italy, served as community-tocommunity ambassidor. He carried
the letter and parchment wrapped in
gold paper to Florence, where he
Briarcliff
was received and entertained with
Congregatio great warmth and ceremony. (1,
May 29th
n-al Church pages 152 and 231)
During this time, the first bachelors’
Briarcliff
degrees were given to 46 women.
June
College
(1, page 183)
By this time, enrollment had climbed
Briarcliff
to 623 at Briarcliff College, including
Fall
College
nearly 240 freshmen. (1, page 183)
Faith
On this date, the first official opening
Lutheran
day service was held for The Faith
Brethren
Lutheran Brethren Church. (1, page
October 8th Church
170)
After he was assigned to the post of
Forward Observer, Corporal Randall
Breward Purdy, a resident of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, was killed
in action near Con Thein, while
December Vietnam
fighting in the Vietnam War. He was
19th
War
twenty-one years old. (1, page 190)
BriarcliffOssining
During this period, the budget for
League of
The Briarcliff-Ossining League of
Women
Women Voters was $3,310.00. (1,
Voters
page 163)
During this period, Fred H. Kossow
Village
serves as the Mayor of the Village of
Government Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 233)
1967-1970
1967-1982
1967(?)1987(?)
1967-1990
1968
During this period, William Dietel,
who had been professor of
humanities at Amherst and would
later become a trustee on the Board
of Trustees for Briarcliff College, was
Briarcliff
principal of the Emma Willard School
College
in Troy, New York. (1, page 183)
During this period, James P. DiMarzo
Department serves as the head of the Village of
of Public
Briarcliff Manor’s Public Works
Works
Department. (1, page 234)
During these last twenty years that
the Marden family (of which Brice
Marden, the famous abstract painter,
was a part of) lived in the house built
Briarcliff
in 1901 for the foreman of Barn E of
Artists:
Walter Law’s’ Briarcliff Farms, their
Brice
house was threatened by a plan to
Marden
widen the Taconic. (1, page 213)
There has been a salaried village
manager since 1967 who works for
Village
the Briarcliff Manor Village
Government Government. (1, page 59)
During this year, some eight of the
twenty acres of the Luthany estate is
purchased by the Village of Briarcliff
Public
Manor to improve the access to the
Schools,
new Briarcliff High School from
Grade and
Pleasantville Road. (1, pages 123
High School and 154)
1968
During this year, the site of the
future Briarcliff High School was
completed with the purchase of an
additional eight acres of an adjoining
property, formerly the estate of the
Baroness De Luze, on Pleasantville
Road, in order to improve access to
the school from Pleasantville Road.
Meanwhile, Briarcliff urged
Pleasantville to reconsider merger
because of the educational and
financial advantages of a larger high
school for both districts. But after an
initial spurt of interest, Pleasantville
Public
again decided not to pursue the
Schools,
discussions, and Briarcliff proceeded
Grade and
with plans for a new high school of
High School its own. (1, page 154) (15, page 58)
During this year, The King’s College
was fully accredited by the Middle
States Association of Schools and
Colleges. The cirriculum of the
college was reformed at this time,
and certitficates were issued in
elementary education, physical
King's
education, and music education. (1,
College
page 172) (8, page 78)
During this year, At Jasper’s House ,
a collection of her short stories for
young adults by Alice (Mrs. Martin
Briarcliff
Low), an author and Briarcliff
Writers:
resident, was one of the New York
Alice (Mrs. Public Library’s One Hundred Best
Martin Low) Books of the Year. (1, page 219)
1968
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1968
1968
1968
1968
1968
During this year, the Gress-miles
organ of the All Saints Episcopal
Church was dedicated. (15, page 69)
After the 1967 school year, when
enrollment at Briarcliff College
Briarcliff
peaked at 623 students, it then
College
began to drop. (17, page 39)
During this year, Lynn McCrum
Village
succeeded Max Vogel as Village
Government Engineer. (17, page 42)
During this year, Mike Markle is
Village
appointed Village Manager. (17,
Government page 42)
1968
1968 May
1968 August
During this year, Pack 6, Briarcliff
manor’s first official Cub Scout
Briarcliff
“Pack,” is formed for boys in grades
Cub Scouts 1-6. (17, page 42)
At this time, after an initial defeat,
the Briarcliff school district voted for
the new Briarcliff High School
Public
building. It was built on the grounds
Schools,
of the former Choate estate on
Grade and
Pleasantville Road. (1, page 154)
High School (15, page 58) (17, page 42)
During this time, construction begins
on Miller Circle on the Briarcliff
King's
campus of The King’s College. (8,
College
page 88)
1968 September
Briarcliff
Nursery
School, Inc.
October
1968 25th
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1968-1970
Village
Government
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
1968-1971
1968-1973
1968-1980
September
(1968)-(?)
(1980)
Briarcliff
Nursery
School, Inc.
At this time, Barbara (Mrs. T) Scopes
succeeds Marietta (Mrs. William)
Zuydhoek as director of The Briarcliff
Nursery School, Incorporated. (1,
page 156) (15, page 46)
On this date, an Absolute Charter
replaced the Provisional Charter of
the Briarcliff Manor Public Library,
shortly after Mr. Charles Farkas took
charge as director of the Library.
(15, page 66)
During this period, John J. Kovach
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
233)
N. Michael Markle is appointed
village manager for the Briarcliff
Manor Village Government in 1968,
and serves in this position until
1971. (1, page 233) (17, page 42)
During this period, John Kilde serves
as the third minister of The Faith
Lutheran Brethren Church. (1, page
235)
During this period, Barbara (Mrs. T.)
Scopes serves as the director for The
Briarcliff Nursery School,
Incorporated. (1, page 156) (15,
page 46)
1968-1990
1969
1969
1969
1969
1969
1969
Since 1968 and up to 1990, Charles
Farkas was still (ca. 1990) serving as
the director of The Briarcliff Manor
Free Library, and was also in his
twenty-second year as the director
Briarcliff
of this library, closing in on Mrs.
Manor Free Roscoe Hersey's record twenty-eight
Library
years in that position. (1, page 151)
By this year, the budget excess of
Briarcliff
Briarcliff College was $3 million
College
dollars. (1, page 186)
During this year, the Hastings center
was founded in Hastings-on-Hudson
(they would move to the former
Tead Library building of Pace in
Briarcliff by 1988). They were
founded as an independent
organization of physicians and
scientists, lawyers and professors,
corporate executives and
government officials, and the center
addresses moral problems raised by
Hastings
advances in biomedical science and
Center
the professions. (1, page 187)
During this year, before he went to
fight in the Vietnam War, Jonathan
Vietnam
Shine graduates nineteenth in his
War
class at West Point. (1, page 190)
During this year, Charles Newman
started to work at Books ‘N Things,
Books 'N
soon after he left Briarcliff College.
Things
(1, page 221)
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Fire department replaced the old
ambulance that was sold to
Briarcliff
Ossining’s volunteer ambulance
Manor Fire group with a new ambulance. (15,
Department page 82)
During this year, Frederick G. Butler
Village
is elected mayor of the Village of
Government Briarcliff Manor. (17, page 42)
Briarcliff
1969 early Spring College
Briarcliff
1969 March 12th College
At this time, following an evening
lecture by Mark Rudd, president of
the Columbia Chapter of Students for
Democratic Action, a group of twelve
Briarcliff College students seized the
college mimeograph machines and
ran off a list of nine demands to
present to the administration. Edie
Cullen, former president of students,
and Susie Huggins, present of the
Briarcliff College chapter of Students
for a Democratic Society, led these
students. The next day, after the
demands were presented to all (or
most) of the students, almost fifty
students took part in a sit-in in the
lobby of Dow Hall. One of the nine
demands was for an immediate
explanation in writing of the contract
terminations of three teachers,
another was that those three
teachers be rehired. Other demands
were for immediate student
evaluation of faculty; equal
representation for students on a
committee dealing with faculty
employment; formation of a
committee of students, faculty and
administration to search for a new
president; immediate student
representation on the educational
policy committee; more scholarships
In this date’s issue of The Gannett
Westchester Newspapers, Edie
Cullen, former president of students
at Briarcliff College, told Citizen
Register (part of Gannett
Westchester Newspapers) reporters
that “We will no longer tolerate rules
that restrict out abilities, our
fantasies and our sexual lives to the
fixed roles of housewives and
mothers…We are ready to act in our
own interests and fight against the
administration and the forces behind
them.” (1, pages 185 and 232)
During this period, the sit-in in Dow
Hall at Briarcliff College went on for
forty-eight hours. A sympathetic
young teacher and his wife spent
nights with the demonstrating
students to advise and support
them. When it was all over the
students hired a crew to clean up the
lobby. No material damage had
March 12th- Briarcliff
been done, except to the rug. (1,
1969 14th
College
page 185)
After the sit-in in Dow Hall at
Briarcliff College was over, the
students were told that their
demands would be considered, but
the end result of the sit-in was
instead to harden the resolve of
disciplinarians in the administration
and deepen the disenchantment of
Briarcliff
many students at Briarcliff College.
1969 March 14th College
(1, page 185)
At this time, students in the Untied
States of America were generally
showing a preference for
coeducational schools, and to remain
competitive as enrollments
decreased, several women’s colleges
began to accept men, so Dr. Leo
Rockas of the English Department at
Briarcliff College and Dean Carter of
Briarcliff College were given the job
of investigating the possibilities of
coeducation at Briarcliff College.
After a careful study, they reported
that although the costs in additional
staff, instructors and security
personnel would be considerable, the
Briarcliff
change might be desirable. (1, page
1969 Summer
College
185)
During this period, Frederick G.
Butler serves as the Mayor of the
Village
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
1969-1971
Government 233)
Public
During this period, Gardner P.
Schools,
Dunnan serves as the thirteenth
Grade and
principle (superintendent) of the
1969-1974
High School Briarcliff Schools. (1, page 234)
1969-1981
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
During this period, William C. Clague
serves as the ninth elected Rector of
Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church. (1,
page 235)
Date
(Year):
1970s:
1970s
1970s
1970s
1970s
1970s
1970s
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
Description of Event:
The removal of old wallpaper in the
dining room of the Luthany (formerly
Buckhout) House during this period
exposed more hand-hewn beams, a
Buckhout
paper contianing news of the War of
House
1812 and the date 1812 inscribed in
(Luthany)
the old plaster. (1, page 14)
BriarcliffDuring this decade, Sandra (Mrs.
Ossining
Steven) Galef was the co-president
League of
of The Briarcliff-Ossining League of
Women
Women Voters with Natalie
Voters
Mackintosh. (1, page 163)
During this decade, the tradition of
daily services continued at The
Congregatio Congregation Sons of Israel of
n Sons of
Briarcliff Manor, but these services
Israel of
became too difficult as more and
Briarcliff
more commuters joined the growing
Manor
Congregation. (1, page 169)
During this decade, the King’s
College owned part of the former
Stroock estate on Cedar Lane in
Ossining, calling it the “Tarryhill
Campus” and busing students back
King's
and forth for various activities. (1,
College
page 172)
During this decade, development of
real estate continued in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, but did not seem yet
Briarcliff
to threaten the rural look of the
Real Estate village. (1, page 194)
Until this decade, on a tuition basis,
the high school students of the
unincorporated areas of the Town of
Mount Pleasant, including
Hawthorne, Valhalla, and North
White Plains, had to go to the
Public
Briarcliff high school building, since
Schools,
there were no high school facilities in
Grade and
these areas until the 1970s. (15,
High School page 51)
1970s
1970s1980s
1970s1980s
1970s and
early 1980s
King's
College
The years when Robert A. Cook were
president of The King’s College were
fondly remembered by alumni but
have also been pointed out as the
beginning of the decline of Briarcliff
Lodge, as deferred maintenance on
the aging buildings had been noted,
and the village board in Briarcliff
Manor also opposed expansion plans
in the 1970s, which made the college
less attractive to prospective
students. Zoning laws limited what
could be built and where, as new
buildings could not be erected near
adjacent properties. (8, page 71)
During these two decades, as more
and more women took regular jobs
in business and the professions, it
became more difficult to schedule
meetings of The Briarcliff-Ossining
League of Women Voters. Most
younger women, with both jobs and
Briarclifffamilies to care for, were too busy,
Ossining
and League work was carried on by a
League of
few energetic retired women. Every
Women
year, there were new members, but
Voters
others dropped out. (1, page 163)
During these two decades, The
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department
Briarcliff
fought several major fires in the
Manor Fire
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
Department 208)
During this period, the international
art dealer Eugene V. Thaw and his
wife, Claire, lived at Edgehill (also
known as “the brick villa”) on Sleepy
Hollow Road adjacent to the grounds
of The Sleepy Hollow Country Club;
and among the works in their
extraordinary private art collection
were two Cézannes, a still life and a
Briarcliff Art portrait of Madame Cézanne, and a
Collections
Delacroix. (1, page 214)
the early
1970s
the early
1970s
the early
1970s
During this time, Theodore and
Majorie Malsin, who lived at Icabod
Farms on Sleepy Hollow Road, gave
money to The Briarcliff Manor Free
Library as a memorial to their son
Donald. The building was repainted
and the interior rearranged to
accommodate a children's room set
apart from the main reading room.
When Marjorie Malsin died(?), Milton
Harrison, her second husband, made
a bequest to The Briarcliff Manor
Free Library in her memory and also
Briarcliff
contributed many fine volumes to
Manor Free the collection of art books. (1, pages
Library
150-151)
During this period, the Rabbinical
Assembly of the Conservative
movement passed a resolution to
grant women right equal to those of
men, to sit with the men and take
part in the services, this change to
be made at the discretion of
individual congregations. The
president at the time called a special
meeting of the Congregation the day
after he heard of the assembly’s
vote. The Congregation voted to
accept the resolution, and all women
achieved full religious rights. The
Congregatio Congregation Sons of Israel was one
n Sons of
of the first of the eight or ten
Israel of
Conservative congregations in
Briarcliff
Westchester County to make this
Manor
change. (1, page 168)
During this period, the 15th and 27th
districts again became Democratic in
terms of actual party enrollments,
making the Village of Briarcliff Manor
as a whole about half and half,
Village
Democrats and Republicans. (1,
Government page 193)
the early
1970s
the early
1970s
Briarcliff
Real Estate
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1970
Briarcliff
College
1970
Briarcliff
College
During this period, the firm of Robert
Martin Associates proposed to build
attached town houses on the east
bank of the Pocantico River, eight on
Ash Road and nine on Jackson Road.
When the Planning Board refused
them a building permit, the
developers took the case to court
and won. But under the watchful
eyes of the village engineers the
buildings were set on piles, and
water problems in the apartments
were minimal in spite of the low
ground. (1, page 194)
During this period, moderatelypriced new housing was already in
short supply. Government housing
subsides were available for old
people who did not require nursinghome care. William Wetzel had
studied the matter and visited such
projects in Newburgh and elsewhere.
He knew the state was interested in
proving the idea feasible and would
do everything possible to make a
Briarcliff project work. But the whole
subject of low-income, governmentsubsidized housing was controversial
in the village, as conservative
residents imagined that the tenants
of this type of housing would be
large welfare-supported families. (1,
page 196)
During this year, Thomas E. Baker,
dean of men at Case Northwestern in
Cleveland, was chosen (without
consulting the students), to be
president of Briarcliff College. (1,
page 185)
As President of Briarcliff College,
Thomas E. Baker kept faculty
meetings to a minimum,
discouraging any discussion of
educational policy. (1, page 185)
1970
Briarcliff
College
1970
Briarcliff
Recycling
During this year, faculty opinion at
Briarcliff College was sharply divided
on a variety of issues, including
coeducation, and when during this
same year, Dr. Rockas f Briarcliff
College became eligible for tenure,
the committee, which included
opponents of coeducation, voted
against granting him tenure.
President Baker was free to
terminate his contract. Dr. Rockas,
backed by a committee of
sympathizers, sued the college for
$100,000.00 as a result. (1, page
185)
During this year, the Village of
Briarcliff Manor began to become a
leader in municipal recycling in the
country, as Barbara Mackintosh, a
fifteen-year-old Briarcliff High School
sophomore, was responsible for the
first push in 1970 toward a recycling
program in the village, since she had
become concerned about the
environment while studying earth
science at school. (1, page 197)
Briarcliff
Recycling
During this year, Briarcliff village
officials set about analyzing the costs
of running a municipal recycling
program. There were no statistics
available from any community that
broke down the costs of recycling in
money and man hours. These costs
in the first four-station system in
Briarcliff were high. (1, page 197)
1970
1970
1970
1970
1970
1970
During this year, Books ‘N Things
had their shop doubled in size. By
this time Books ‘N Things served a
community that extended far beyond
Briarcliff Manor and Ossining, and
was thought to be one of the best, if
the not the very best, of the
bookstores in the county,
comparable to a university
bookstore. When an effusive
customer congratulated Henry
Krinsky on the quality of the store,
supposing he must be happy about
all the good it was doing, he replied,
with scarcely a twinkle, that he
Books 'N
hoped it also did some harm. (1,
Things
page 221)
During this year, the Kemeys-Ailes
house in Scarborough was
demolished and the Kemeys Cove
KemeysCondominiums built on the site. (1,
Ailes House page 103) (17, page 43)
By this year, the population of the
Briarcliff
Village of Briarcliff Manor was 6,521.
Population
(17, page 43)
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Free Library got a facelift, and
volunteers helped establish special
programs for children, delivered
Briarcliff
books to senior citizens, and
Manore Free otherwise helped to control costs to
Library
the Village. (17, page 43)
During this year, the Labor Day
parties began on the Tree Streets in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor. Dan
and Elaine Zucchi wrote that one of
the residents, Ron Fink, an
electrician, would spend a full day
hooking up lights for the parties. He
was, they say, an “ultimate”
neighbor, always available to help on
Village
emergencies and remodeling
Events
projects. (17, page 43)
1970 April
King's
College
1970 April 28th
Haymont
Estate
1970 Fall
Briarcliff
College
During this year, The King’s College
buys the stone house on
Scarborough Road that had been the
residence of Walter Law, for use as a
men’s dormitory. The 30-room
mansion contained a 30-bed men's
dormitory, a staff apartment,
student lounges, and recreation
rooms. (1, page 172) (8, page 87)
An historical sketch published on this
date in the Citizen Register tells the
story of a fire near the stables of the
Haymont mansion when it was
occupied by the Holland Classical
Circus of Bernard Van Leer during
the 1940s. This fire was
extinguished by Briarcliff firemen,
"as the flames were licking the barn
in which were quartered a prize
retinue of 16 world famous Ippanzer
[sic ] horses imported from Holland
and four elephants, the grateful
owner...working with the Briarcliff
Fire Council decided to stage a
circus, the profits to be used for an
ambulance." On the very day of the
circus the tragedy of the death of
president Roosevelt "clouded the
entire country," but "it was decided
that the 'show must go on' and go on
it did, with all the thrills of the finest
traditions: elephants, clowns, hot
dogs, pop corn and the famous
Ippanzer horses. The circus realized
the handsome profit of $2,174.11
and with this as a starter the
ambulance was ordered." (1, page
122)
During this time, Megan Mitchell’s
design for the cover of the fall 1970
issue of the “Caryatid” (the literary
magazine for Briarcliff College) was
published. (1, pages 187 and 232)
1970 Fall
King's
College
1970 September
Briarcliff
College
Briarcliff
1970 October 8th College
At this time, Miller Circle, a 200-bed
women’s dormitory on the Briarcliff
campus of The King’s College, opens
for the first time. This building
honored William A. Miller, a 20-year
member of the Board of Trustees of
the college and its chair for 12 years.
(8, page 88)
During this time, Dean Carter was
dismissed as the dean of Briarcliff
College, without the one-year notice
that was customary for past deans
who had served as the dean of
Briarcliff College. (1, page 185)
According to this date’s issue of
Gannett Westchester Newspapers,
the case of a $100,000.00 lawsuit
against Briarcliff College, President
Baker, and two members of the
tenure committee brought by Dr.
Rockas, listed fifteen causes for
action, including denial of academic
freedom, violation of work law and
employment rights, and charges that
the tenure denial was made in
violation of college rules. (1, pages
185-186 and 232)
After Dr. Rockas brought a lawsuit
against Briarcliff College, President
Baker, and two members of the
tenure committee, several hundred
Briarcliff College students walked off
campus to protest the firing of eight
professors who said they had been
given notice because they supported
Dr. Rockas. Later, at an angry,
crowded meeting called by students,
Dr. Baker said the dismissals were
part of an economy drive. The
students replied that while the
English and Theatre-Arts
departments had been “destroyed,”
the Psychology Department, largest
in the college, headed by Dr. Myrtle
McGraw, and the Physical Education
Department had been expanded. Dr.
McGraw told the students that the
college “must determine what it can
do best [her own Psychology
Department] and we may lose some
students but we will get others,
perhaps more dedicated students.”
“Baby lab!” one students called out
“and physical education—that’s what
you’re giving us!” “Most of the
students,” Betsy Brown reported,
“appeared to support the fired
after
Briarcliff
professors, and they gave a standing
1970 October 8th College
ovation when Dr. Mary
On this date, First Lieutenant
Jonathan Shine, a resident of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, was killed
in action while fighting in the
Vietnam War, as part of the 25th
Infantry Division near Cu Chi. He
was a son of Mr. and Mrs. George
Shine, who were residents of the
October
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
1970 15th
Vietnam War 190)
October
1970 22nd
ca. 1970(?)1971(?)
1970-1971
1970-1972
1970-1974
1970-1976
1970-1990
1971
According to this date’s issue of The
Patent Trader , Dean Carter of
Briarcliff College told Betsy Brown,
reporting for The Patent Trader , that
he was “dedicated to women’s
education—but it’s like the midi [long
alternative to the fashionable miniskirt]: 18-year-old girls won’t buy it.
I am more flexible about it; I’m not
Briarcliff
for coeducation, but for survival.” (1,
College
pages 185 and 232)
Around this period, when one young
instructor was forced to leave Dr.
McGraw’s Psychology Department at
Briarcliff College (her salary was
Hudson
discontinued), she started The
Community Hudson Community School. (1, page
School
187)
Within this span of time of one year,
President Baker of Briarcliff College
had terminated the contracts of
twelve of the faculty at the college,
including the college psychiatrist and
the head of the Language
Department. Two tenured members
of the English Department and the
Briarcliff
dean of students resigned in protest.
College
(1, page 185)
During this period, Donald E. Heinze
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
Church of
During this period, the Reverend
Saint
Bernard J. O’Connor serves as the
Theresa of
fifth pastor of The Church of Saint
the Infant
Theresa of the Infant Jesus. (1, page
Jesus
235)
During this period, Elizabeth Sarich
serves as the village clerk for the
Village
Briarcliff Manor Village Government.
Government (1, page 233)
Briarcliff
During this period, The Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Manor Fire Department continued to
Department grow. (1, page 208)
During this year, Flora Ettlinger
Whiting, one of the Whiting family
Whiting
members who bought the Ashridge
Family
estate in 1910, dies. (1, page 115)
1971
1971
1971
1971
1971
1971(?)
During this year, the opening of a
new Briarcliff High School generated
in many villagers increased interest
and ambition to enhance the position
of the schools as the center of an
expanding community. A large
advisory committee was formed, a
meeting ground for a variety of
Briarcliff residents, "wonderful
people who believed and gave."
Among these were Harold
COED
Mandelbaum, Martin Low, Jerome
(continuing Harris, Jean (Mrs. Lowell) Harper and
education
School Superintendent Gardner
program)
Dunnan. (1, page 155)
During this year, Lynn McCrum was
appointed village manager of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, after this
office was newly established by local
Village
law during this same year. (1, page
Government 191)
During this year, Herbert’s Treasure ,
which was a picture book authored
Briarcliff
by Alice (Mrs. Martin Low), a
Writers:
Briarcliff resident, was a Junior
Alice (Mrs.
Literary Guild selection. (1, page
Martin Low) 219)
During this year, Chester L. Fisher,
Jr., was elected mayor of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor. His two terms as
mayor were notable for the many
changes in the Village, as one of his
most significant acts was to bring in
Lynn McCrum as Village Manager.
McCrum made the Village run
smoothly for many years, said
Village
George Kennard, who followed Fisher
Government as mayor. (17, page 43)
During this year, Boy Scout Troop 18
of Briarcliff Manor renewed its
charter. Since income from
Christmas wreath sales was high
Briarcliff Boy enough, no scout had to pay dues.
Scouts
(17, page 43)
During this year, Martha Shearman,
first wife of Thomas Shearman, the
Shearman
owner of Ashridge, is diagnosed with
Family
cancer. (1, page 195)
1971 Winter
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
February
1971 26th
Briarcliff
Recycling
During this year's winter vacation
and two and a half years after the
Briarcliff school district voted for the
new High School building, the new
High School opens and grades 9
through 12 moved into the new
building on Pleasantville Road. This
move brought long overdue revision
to the high school program, and
when the high school students left,
grade 6 moved out of Todd and into
what was then the Middle School on
Pleasantville Road. (1, page 154)
(15, page 58) (17, page 43)
According to the article by Joyce
Hergenian, entitled “Only 15, But
She Got the Village to Act,”
published on this date’s issue of the
Gannett Westchester Newspapers,
Barbara Mackintosh, who was
responsible for raising awareness on
the issue of starting a recycling
program in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, stated “I immediately new
that I—as an individual—had to do
something about it, but I didn’t know
just what,” she told reporter Joyce
Hergenian. Barbara Mackintosh also
stated that “Then, one day on my
way to school, I thought of a
newspaper recycling program.” That
same day she wrote a letter to the
Briarcliff Board of Trustees
suggesting that the village become
involved in recycling. The board
answered with an invitation to a
meeting, at which the trustees
listened to Barbara’s proposal and
decided it had merit. The Youth
Council, an official village group of
adults and teenagers, agreed to
sponsor the project and selected
Barbara (who was not a council
member) to be coordinator. (1,
pages 197 and 232)
February
1971 26th
Briarcliff
Recycling
1971 July 26th
Briarcliff
Recycling
Gannett Westchester Newspapers
says that Barbara Mackintosh found
a firm that would buy newspapers
for recycling, hired a truck to cart
the papers and helped to direct a
publicity program about the project
(Briarcliff's first recycling program).
Twelve tons of newspapers were
collected on the first weekend and
seventeen on the second. The Youth
Council received $10.00 a ton for the
papers and netted $170.00. Asked
what the council would do with the
money, Barbara said it would be put
toward another program to better
the environment, possibly a watermonitoring kit, which she said
students working under the direction
of the Board of Cooperative Services
could monitor streams in
Westchester to spot pollution.
Barbara’s parents, David and Natalie
Mackintosh, were among the
volunteers who went around picking
up newspapers from people who
couldn’t get them to the truck.
Twelve-year-old Billy Mackintosh
checked out firms that might take
bottles for recycling and wrote a
letter to the village board suggesting
bottle recycling as a possible next
step in the village program. NineAccording to this date’s issue of the
Gannett Westchester Newspapers, it
was hoped that the costs of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor’s recycling
program would be offset by the sale
of materials and savings on dumping
fees at the Croton landfill. (1, pages
198 and 232)
1971 Fall
1971-1977
1971-1978
19711978(?)
1971(?)1986
By this time, Village Administrator
for the Village of Briarcliff Manor, N.
Michael Markl worked out a plan to
lease truck bodies, station these at
one point (behind the new post
office), and hire a private carter to
come in with a truck chassis and
transport the glass to a glassmanufacturing plant in Orangeburg,
Rockland County. Village Public
Works employees would continue to
haul newspapers to a paper plant in
Peekskill, tin cans to a plant in
Elizabeth, New Jersey, and aluminum
Briarcliff
to buyers near home. (1, pages 197Recycling
198)
During this period, Chester L. Fisher,
Village
Jr. serves as the Mayor of the Village
Government of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 233)
During this year, the Vanderlips'
grandson, Dudley Schoales, bought
LaLuna's restaurant, remodeled it,
painted the house purple, and
Vanderlip
opened Dudley's of Sparta. (1, page
Family
98)
During this period, the Vanderlips'
grandson, Dudley Schoales, and his
wife, Cecile, operated the restaurant
Dudley's of Sparta until they sold it
and, in 1978, moved to Connecticut.
LaLuna had already sold the house
before Dudley bought it, but he still
held a small mortgage on it. Ceely
remembers that he would come in
once a month, always around eleven
o'clock in the morning, to collect his
mortgage payment. Dudley would
sign the check with his full name,
Dudley Vanderlip Schoales, and
LaLuna would have a good laugh
over that until Dudley hurried him
and his aromatic cigar out of the
Vanderlip
restaurant before the lunch crowd
Family
came. (1, page 98)
During this period, Martha
Shearman, first wife of Thomas
Shearman, the owner of Ashridge,
Shearman
fights a painful battle with cancer.
Family
(1, page 195)
1971-ca.
1990
1971-1998
1972
1972
1972
1972
1972
Lynn M. McCrum is appointed village
manager for the Briarcliff Manor
Village Government in 1971, and
Village
was still serving in this position as of
Government ca. 1990. (1, page 233)
Public
Schools,
During this period, Rosalie G. Rogers
Grade and
taught in Briarcliff Manor’s public
High School schools. (17, page 75)
During this year, the nephew of Nina
Baekeland Roll, (later Mrs. Wyman,
who lived in the Kemeys-Ailes house
in Scarborough with her husband,
Phillips Wyman) Brooks Baekeland,
killed his beautiful, glamorous
Baekeland
mother, Barbara, in London. (1,
Family
page 102)
Faith
During this year, Mrs. Joan Ruud
Lutheran
started the Little School, a ChristBrethren
centered nursery school to serve the
Church
community. (1, page 170)
During this year, when Charles
Rodgers, Jr. became caucus party
chairman of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, he considered that
candidates were still hand picked and
that it was his job as chairman to
Village
encourage as many people as
Government possible to run. (1, page 191)
During this year, Thomas Shearman
bought the 110-acre Whiting estate
at 508 Scarborough Road, and with
his family took up residence at
Ashridge. Shearman then extended
Law Road and laid out forty building
lots, some of which he sold. Mr.
Shearman also kept the small,
clapboard house at the point where
the street turns west. In simpler
times, it was used as a vacation
Ashridge
cottage by then-president Herbert
Estate
Hoover. (1, page 194) (17, page 44)
Briarcliff
During this year, The Scarborough
Manor Fire
Engine Company was established.
Department (1, page 208)
February
1972 2nd
Becker
Family
According to an audiotape which
recorded the interview of Marion and
Florence Dinwiddie by Bill McClurken
and Bob Davis that was held on this
date, Marion Dinwiddie said that her
first memories of Scarborough after
she moved there in 1888 were of the
Becker backyard: "Grandma Becker
would go down every morning after
breakfast and look over the barnyard
where they had a farmer and Mr.
Becker would have given him certain
things to do, and Mr. Becker always
before he went to New York strolled
around his estates and always
carried a cup of coffee with him and
when he finished the coffee he'd put
the cup down on a stone wall or
under a tree or somehwere and
when Grandma Becker perceived
that her china was getting low she
would take a basket and walk over
her estates and retrieve her cups
and saucers. (1, pages 26 and 229)
February
1972 2nd
Rockefeller
Family
February
1972 5th
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
According to an audiotape which
recorded the interview of Marion and
Florence Dinwiddie by Bill McClurken
and Bob Davis that was held on this
date, Marion Dinwiddie said,
speaking of Saint Mary's Church,
described William Rockefeller in a
very favorable way. He was: "not an
official member but a very much
loved member of the
congregation....He and Mrs.
Rockefeller used to come up every
Sunday except one Sunday in the
year when they went to the Baptist
Church....While he always gave very
generously to everything we were
raising money for, he would give
what he thought was his proper
amount, owing to the fact that he
probably had more money than
anybody else, then he would say, "If
you don't get all you want, ask me
again," and he would make up the
difference. Mrs. Rockefeller was a
wonderful member of the Guild. She
would shop like mad and she could
tell you where you could get all the
bargains in New York, I'll tell you
that!" (1, pages 113, 229 and 231)
According to an audiotape recording
the interview of Marion and Florence
Dinwiddie by Bill McClurken and Bob
Davis, which was recorded on this
date, Marion Dinwiddie remembered
that when the Reverend Berry
Oakley Baldwin, B.D. contracted
tuberculosis (?), his brother, the
Reverend Charles Warren Baldwin,
“who had been in Tiffany’s Studios
and had joined the church as
minister out of devotion to his
brother,” came up and took a great
many of the services while Oakley
(as Marion Dinwiddie called him) was
ill. When Oakley died (?) “the entire
congregation unanimously called for
Charley” to become the next Rector
for St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. (1,
pages 175 and 232)
February
1972 5th
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
February
1972 5th
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
According to an audiotape recording
the interview of Marion and Florence
Dinwiddie by Bill McClurken and Bob
Davis, which was recorded on this
date, Marion Dinwiddie remembered
that the first bell of St. Mary’s
Episcopal Church, which had been
given to the church by Commodore
Perry, hung in a bell tower, and was
replaced, when it cracked, by a new
bell, given by August Belmont. (1,
pages 176 and 232)
During the histories of both St.
Mary’s and All Saints Episcopal
Churches, these two churches have
at times competed for the loyalty of
important parishioners. According to
an audiotape recording the interview
of Marion and Florence Dinwiddie by
Bill McClurken and Bob Davis, which
was recorded on this date, Marion
Dinwiddie recalled that a Miss
Brinkerhoff, troubled by the
unwanted attentions of a young
rector at All Saints Episcopal Church,
went down to St. Mary’s “with the
whole lot” of her friends. (1, pages
179 and 232)
1972 May 2nd
Whiting
Family
Rita Reif describes Mrs. Whiting as "a
slender, dimunitive woman with
sharp hazel eyes and a head for
figures." The daughter of printing
magnate Louis E. Ettlinger, a director
of the Crowell Publishing Company,
publishers of Collier's Weekly ,
Women's Home Companion , and
several other magazines, she was a
moviegoer, Canasta player, stock
market watcher, world traveller,
philanthropist-especially to the Girl
Scouts-and hostess of "formal dinner
parties at which as many as 10 or 12
of the nation's outstanding museum
curators and collectors, including
Henry du Pont, would be gathered."
Her greatest interest was the
collection of American antiques, in
which she was a pioneer. Her friend
Jospeh Butler of the Sleepy Hollow
Restorations (later Historic Hudson
Valley) said of her, "She would
always spot the best thing in a shop
instantly." She furnished the
Cottage with the simpler country
antiques and displayed more formal
pieces in the paneled rooms of the
mansion and the New York
apartment. Joseph Veach Noble,
director of the Museum of the City of
New York, said "All three of [her]
1972 May 2nd
1972 May-June
ca. 1972(?)1973(?)
The New York Times article written
by Rita Reif also claims that in 1972,
a year after Mrs. Whiting's death, the
Parke-Bernet gallery conducted an
auction at Ashridge. The antiques
she had amassed in her lifetime of
collecting brought more than half a
million dollars, considerably more
than the gallery's top estimate. This
"confirmed suspicions that a boom
[was] building for just the sort of
Federal furniture Mrs. Whiting
collected." The Metropolitan
Museum bought fifty major pieces of
furniture and about a hundred and
forty-six decorations. The State
Department of the United States
paid more than $5,000.00 for an
eighteenth-century camelback sofa,
and the Museum of the City of New
York bought twenty-five pieces of
furniture, including ten Duncan
Phyfes, twenty-five period
appointments, and paintings by
George Innes and Childe Hassam.
All the furniture is on display at the
museum in the Whiting Room,
created in Mrs. Whiting's memory, as
Ashridge
specified in her will. (1, pages 115Estate
116 and 231)
At this time, there was an exhibition
of Myril Adler’s (artists and Briarcliff
resident) graphics and collages at
The Hudson River Museum in
Briarcliff
Yonkers, New York. Alex Mogelon
Artists:
wrote the catalogue for this
Adler Family exhibition. (1, page 232)
By this period, most of the teachers
of Briarcliff College that had been
fired in 1970 and 1971 were
teaching elsewhere within a year or
two. Dr. Rockas, for example, went
to Hartford University, where he was
Briarcliff
soon tenured and promoted to a full
College
professorship. (1, pages 186-187)
ca. 1972(?)1973(?)
ca. 1972(?)1973(?)
1972-1974
1972-1980
Even though most of the teachers
who had been fired from Briarcliff
College in 1970 and 1971 had found
employment elsewhere by this
period, because enrollments were
shrinking in most liberal-arts
colleges, the transition for some of
the unemployed teachers was
difficult, to say the least. They
consoled and amused themselves by
composing broadsides, which they
mimeographed and distributed in
quantity around the campus. This
excerpt from one of them is densely
allusive and suitably literary:
Briarcliff Broadside , Vol. III, no 1.,
“The Wilful Wasteland”: “What are
these thorns that prick, what good
can grow Out of this sere cliff? Son
of a gun, You cannot say. I met a
traveler from an antique land Who
saw a vast and trunkless caryatid
(“Caryatid” was the title of the
college literary magazine, adopted
years previously as symbolic of the
place in society of Briarcliff College
women, as female pillars). Stand in
the desert. Come in – The water’s
fine if you like dust baths. I can
show you pain in that handful. Bye
Briarcliff
Cadet Bunting Soon to go a-hunting.
College
Academe’s a winding sheet To wrap
By around this period, The Hudson
Community School, in its second
year of operation, became an openclassroom school for third through
Hudson
sixth grades, in The Briarcliff
Community Congregational Church. (1, page
School
187)
During this period, Thomas V.
Briarcliff
Daggett serves as the chief of The
Manor Fire
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department. (1,
Department page 233)
During this period, Eugene W. Meyer
Briarcliff
serves as the eighth Minister for The
Congregatio Briarcliff Congregational Church. (1,
n-al Church page 235)
1972-ca.
1990
1973
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
Clear View
School
Begun as a school with a three-day
program with a handful of children in
1972, the Little School of The Faith
Lutheran Brethren Church continues
(as of ca. 1990), with more than
eighty children as a two-, three-, and
five-day program. (1, page 170)
Twelve years after The Clear View
School, sponsored by the AMIC, had
started its first classes in 1961, the
school had moved to buildings
rented from the Children's Village in
Dobbs Ferry, and their enrollment
had more than doubled. A nursery
and a summer school had been
added, the upper age limit had been
raised to eighteen years (later
twenty-one), and an after-care
program was started to help school
graduates. Services for the
children's families were expanded to
involve them fully in the therapy
program and to provide a twentyfour-hour crisis intervention system.
(1, page 158)
1973
1973
1973
During this year, the Board of
Trustees of Briarcliff College replaced
President Baker with Josiah Bunting
III, a personable, well-spoken young
army officer and Rhodes scholar,
who had taught at West Point and at
the Naval War College in Newport.
Bunting had published two novels,
one, The Lionheads , drawn from his
experience as an officer in the
Vietnam War. His account of the
West Point cheating scandals in a
national magazine had made
headlines in The New York Times .
President Bunting was also well
covered by the press. He did his
best to put Briarcliff College on the
map by inviting, at considerable
expense, New York City literary
celebrities to the college to take part
in seminars, which were open to the
public and very well attended. Even
though enrollment continued to
decline at Briarcliff College during
President Bunting’s tenure, President
Bunting had hired several excellent
Briarcliff
teachers to replace those who had
College
been fired. (1, page 186)
During this year, Charles Rodgers,
Jr. was given the credit for making
the caucus of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor more democratic, as under his
leadership during this same year,
eight people ran for two open trustee
positions in 1973, eliciting a record
voter turnout, and the first woman
candidate, Anita P. Miller, a liberal
Democrat, was elected trustee,
becoming the first woman to be
elected a trustee of the Village of
Village
Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 191) (17,
Government page 44)
During this year, Stein and Day
Incorporated rented, and later
bought, Hillside (Admiral Worden’s
birthplace), renamed Scarborough
House, from Roy Anthony’s
Hillside
marketing company. (1, page 204)
1973 January
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
Briarcliff
Manor
Seniors'
Association
1973 January
Briarcliff
Manor
Seniors'
Association
1973 July
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
1973 August
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
1973 January
During this time, an extraordinary
ecumenical service was conducted in
The Church of Saint Theresa of the
Infant Jesus. Reporting on the
ceremony, the Parish Bulletin said:
“There is a lot of good will in the
Briarcliff community, and it shows at
a mass where Rabbi Philip
Schnairson of The Congregation
Sons of Israel and the Reverend
William Arnold, rector of All Saints,
acted as lectors, and the Reverend
Eugene Meyer of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church gave the
sermon.” (Father O’Connor was the
celebrant). During this first
ecumenical mass of The Church of
Saint Theresa of the infant Jesus, the
Reverend Eugene Meyer of The
Briarcliff Congregational Church said,
“if we are drawn together and work
together, the dark and cold in
today’s world will dwindle in the light
of God and the warmth of His Spirit.”
(1, page 166)
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Seniors’ Association is established.
(1, page 197)
During this year, The Briarcliff Manor
Seniors’ Association had a mailing
list of ten people when it was first
established at this time. (1, page
197)
At this time, Pastor Paul Kilde, the
first minister in Briarcliff Manor, left
The Faith Lutheran Brethren Church
to teach Greek at the Lutheran
Brethren Seminary in Minnesota. (1,
page 170)
At this time, the Reverend Harold
Peeders, with Mrs. Peeders and their
two sons, began his ministry at The
Faith Lutheran Brethren Church in
Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 170)
1973-1974
1973-1975
1973-1977
1973-1987
During the span of this period, the
congregation of The Faith Lutheran
Brethren Church of Briarcliff Manor,
Faith
again with all-volunteer labor, had
Lutheran
built a personage for the family of
Brethren
the Reverend Harold Peeders, at 40
Church
Burns Place. (1, page 170)
Congregatio During this period, Rabbi Philip
n Sons of
Schnairson serves as the eleventh
Israel of
Rabbi of the Congregation Sons of
Briarcliff
Israel of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
Manor
235)
Faith
During this period, Harold Peeders
Lutheran
serves as the fourth minister of The
Brethren
Faith Lutheran Brethren Church. (1,
Church
page 235)
During this period of over fourteen
years in Scarborough, Sol Stein,
author and founder of the book
publishing company Stein and Day
Incorporated, and Patricia Day, his
wife and partner, published a variety
of works—fiction, non-fiction, and
some poetry (this last more for love
than for profit). This company
Stein and
operated on a comparatively small
Day
annual budget of about $6 million
Incorporated dollars a year. (1, page 204)
1973-1987
1973-the
present (ca.
1990)
1973-the
present (ca.
1990)
1974
During this fourteen-year period, Sol
Stein and Patricia Day not only lived
in the Scarborough region of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, but also
during this same period conducted
their publishing business in the
Scarborough region of the Village.
Stein and Day Incorporated was the
originating publisher of works by (to
name only a few): F. Lee Bailey
famous trial attorney; Elia Kazan,
theater and film director; Jack
Higgins and Oliver Lange, novelists;
and Leslie Fiedler and William
Phillips, literary critics. They were
American publishers of works,
among many others, by J. B.
Priestley, peter Shaffer, Barbara
Woodhouse, and three heads of
state, including Edward Heath, prime
minster of Greta Britain. Their
publication of the Che Guevara
diaries made a four-column headline
on the front page of The New York
Times . Among the bestsellers were
Think: A Biography of the Watsons
and IBM , The Sovereign State of
ITT , and Kazan’s The Arrangement ,
which was number one for thirtyStein and
seven consecutive weeks, the
Day
biggest selling hardcover of its
Incorporated decade. (1, pages 204 and 221)
Lynn M. McCrum is appointed and
serves as a village
Village
administrator/manager. (1, page
Government 233)
Since 1973 and up to the present
(ca. 1990), Ed Dorsey, who formerly
lived in Yonkers when he was young,
is still a resident in the Village of
Briacliff Manor. Dorsey is a
managing director for New York
Telephone, served(?) three years as
village trustee, and three terms as
Dorsey
mayor of Briacliff Manor. (1, page
Family
150)
Village
Lynn M. McCrum is appointed as
Government village manager. (1, page 61)
1974
1974
1974
During this year, president Bunting
of Briarcliff College named Peter
Fazzolare senior vice-president of the
college. Hillside Dormitory was
leased to New York medical College
of Valhalla. Pace University rented
space in two Briarcliff College
dormitories, paying $960.00 for
accommodations for each of 115
Pace students. Bu the budget excess
($3 million in 1969) the Fazzolare
had hoarded over the years was
slowly dissipated, and President
Bunting’s fund raising fro the college
Briarcliff
fell short of what was needed. (1,
College
page 186)
During this year, developer Reynaud
Gheduzzi laid out the segment of
Law Road nearest to Long Hill Road
West and built, on Law Road and
Nichols Place, eleven houses that
Briarcliff
sold for around $100,000.00. (1,
Real Estate page 194)
During this year, Thomas Shearman,
owner of the Ashridge (former
Whiting) estate, sold twenty acres to
Mrs. Vincent Astor that were
Holly Hill
adjacent to her estate, which she
(The Mrs.
had purchased some ten years
Vincent
earlier (in 1964?) from the heirs of
Astor Estate) Hubert Rodgers. (1, page 194)
1974
1974
1974
1974
During this year’s village election,
the conservative opposition by some
residents of Briarcliff Manor to the
idea of making governmentsubsidized moderately-priced
housing available made this election
one of the most hotly contested in
village history. For two places on
the Board of Trustees there were
three candidates—Wetzel and
Stephen McQueeny, who favored the
senior-citizen housing project, and
George Kennard, who had not taken
a position on the subject. At the last
minute, on the very day of the
caucus meeting, Albert Goudvis, who
was opposed to the project,
announced that he would run.
Goudvis and Kennard were elected.
After the election the caucus party
hosted a debate at a public meeting.
The middle school auditorium was
jammed. Wetzel, Robert Marville
and Richard Murray argued in favor
of the housing project, Goudvis
Robert Gale and Ed Scott, a
magazine publisher who lived in the
village at the time, spoke against it.
Once the facts of the matter were
presented and the rumors dispelled,
Village
Wetzel remembered, “Everyone
Government thought it was a wonderful idea. It
During this year, Don Reiman and
his wife, Ginger (Gwen), architects
Briarcliff
and Briarcliff residents, moved their
Architects:
firm to Pleasantville Road in the
Reiman
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (1, page
Family
216)
During this year, the school district
Public
that served the Village of Briarcliff
Schools,
Manor became officially Briarcliff
Grade and
Manor Union Free School District.
High School (15, page 58)
By this year, The Scarborough
Engine Company had a new fire
truck for their soon-to-be-built new
Briarcliff
firehouse (which they later moved
Manor Fire
into by January of 1975). (1, page
Department 208) (15, page 81)
1974
1974 March
1974 June
By this year, the attached housing
development on the east bank of the
Pocantico Rive in the Village of
Briarcliff manor that was proposed
by the firm of Robert Martin
Associates were completed, with
eight of these residences built on
Ash and Jackson Roads in the Tree
Streets. For years, the brook behind
these houses was a magnet for kids
on Briarcliff who “wanted to be like
Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn,” says
Lauren Zucchi-Alfano. “We donned
our rubber boots, got a piece of
Briarcliff
plywood, and tried to ‘sail’ down the
Real Estate river.” (1, page 194) (17, page 44)
At this time, the Board of Trustees of
Briarcliff Manor appointed a
75th
committee of twelve to plan the
Anniversary celebration of the seventy-fifth
of Briarcliff
anniversary of the village. (1, page
Manor
195)
At this time, The Briarcliff ManorScarborough Historical Society was
founded by a committee of twelve
people formed in March of 1974 by
the Board of Trustees of Briarcliff
Manor. This committee that helped
to found the society, which included
Stephen McQueeny, chairman,
Margaret Pearson Finne, Jane
Leibler, Richard J. Newman, Thomas
Vincent, Andrew B. Vosler, Marion
Sader, William and Audrey Sharman,
Edwin C. Walton, Thomas B.
Shearman, and Eileen O’Conner
Weber, had established the historical
society “so that the past of the
Briarcliff
village could be preserved for future
Manorgenerations,” and set about
Scarborough composing a detailed, fully illustrated
Historical
history of the village. (1, page 195)
Society
(12, page 1) (15, page 3)
November
1974 14th
December
1974 26th
1974-1976
Briarcliff
College
According to an article published in
The Wall Street Journal on this date,
spokespersons for Briarcliff College
let it be known that the college had
decided against coeducation
“because…it would cost too much to
set up the new programs needed to
attract men. Then, like many other
women’s colleges [they] watched in
horror as freshman enrollment
tumbled to 71—down from a 1967
high of 260.” (1, pages 186 and 232)
An article from the Saw Mill River
Record written by John Crandall,
entitled: "Buckhout House Housed
No Buckhouts" published on this
date, mentions that The Baroness De
Luze added a porch and a kitchen to
the old house she named Luthany,
and ornamental wrought iron at the
front steps. This article also states
that the house further along the road
toward the Village of Briarcliff Manor
facing F. B. Hall is known to have
Buckhout
been occupied by John Buckhout and
House
his descendants for over a hundred
(Luthany)
years. (1, pages 123-124 and 231)
During this period, Sidney R. Carter
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
1974-1984
COED
(continuing
education
program)
During this ten-year period, Jean
Harper took on the job of directing
COED, the continuing education
program at the Briarlciff High School,
and "put everything…[she] had into
it" for ten years. From an initial
offering of half a dozen, courses
increased to more than fifty,
including special events, seminars,
and lectures, by Burton Benjamins,
Sol Stein and many others in the
neighborhood who had some
particular knowledge and experience
they were willing to share. There
were courses in Chinese, printmaking, painting, calligraphy, piano
and guitar, as well as quilting,
carpentry, cooking, yoga and the
dance. In addition, in the corridor
when Jean Harper was directing this
program, there was always coffee
and hot water for tea in hugh urns,
and often, the sound of music, and
delicoous smells, issuing from Jean
Harper's own Chinese cooking
classes. Enrollement increased from
125, mostly Briarcliff and Mount
Pleasant residents, in the first
semester to 5,000, from all over
Westchester County, before Jean
Harper stopped directing the
program in 1984. (1, pages 155-
1974-1989
During this period, the following
people served as officers and
trustees of The Briarcliff ManorScarborough Historical Society:
William Sharman, Margaret Finne,
Edwin Walton, Jr., Marion Sader, Joy
Ozzello, Edith Bronson, Stephen
McQueeny, Marilyn Olson, Edwin
Scott, Jr., Thomas Shearman, Eileen
O’Connor Weber, Dick Newman, C.
Donald Schuman, Carroll B. Colby,
Audrey Sharman, Joyce Pandolfi,
Debbie Hunter, Steve Broudy, Marian
Smidinger, Janet Byers, Fritz
Heynen, Eileen Collins, Lila Colby,
Grace Fisher, Herbert Mintzer,
Michael Geraci, Barbara Cleveland,
Stanley Goldstein, Barbara Dollard,
Helen Murray, Edwin Payne, Mimi
Donius, Ann Munier, Clara Eldridge,
Arthur K. Myers, Sherline Dunkerton,
Livingston Miller, William Holden,
Richard Banahan, Arthur Kover,
Harriet Olden, Rosemary B. Cook,
Alice Marxreiter, Robert McComsey,
Robert Shaffer, Anthony Stern,
Winifred Wolf, Elsie Smith, Joan
Briarcliff
Levanti, Allen Gowen, Thomas
ManorStauffer, Ellen Heagle, William
Scarborough Ingram, Maureen T. Crowley,
Historical
Barbara Lewis, Siegrun Kane,
Society
Marjorie Paddock, Robert Marville,
1974-1990
During this period, The Briarcliff
Manor-Scarborough Historical
Society grew in membership, and
collected historical documents and
memorabilia, establishing
headquarters first in the Briarcliff
Middle School, then moving to the
second floor of Weber-Tufts,
Incorporated, realtors, on
Pleasantville Road, and then back to
the Pace University Village Center
(the former Middle School), always
with the hope of finding a permanent
home. Among the many programs
the Society has presented are an
annual bus tour of the village, a tour
of historic village houses, a tour of
village churches, and a cruise up the
Hudson River. Fundraisers have
included a square dance in the Saint
Theresa School gymnasium, a formal
Briarcliff
dance at Rosecliff (the former
ManorHarden estate), an antique car
Scarborough exhibit, and day-long trips to Hyde
Historical
Park and Winterthur. (1, pages 195Society
196)
1974-1990
During this period, The Briarcliff
Manor-Scarborough Historical
Society has had ten presidents,
including William Sharman, Edith
Bronson, Audrey Sharman, Joyce
Pandolfi, Eileen Weber, Barbara
Dollard, Arthur K. Myers, Harriet
Briarcliff
Olden, Rosemary Cook and Maureen
ManorCrowley. Many other members have
Scarborough served as officers and on committees
Historical
responsible for the numerous
Society
functions and events. (1, page 196)
ca. 1975
Briarcliff
ParentTeacher
Association
1975
Rockwood
Hall
1975
Pace
University
Sally Solari, a former Middle School
PTA president remembered that ca.
1975 The Briarcliff Parent-Teacher
Association supported its school in
many ways, as she recalled a
memorable incident in the Middle
School gym held around this time:
“The faces I see are those of
apprehensive kids waiting for their
partners from the Margaret Chapman
School for Handicapped Children (at
the time the politically-correct
designation) to arrive. Our students
were awkward with these disabled
children at first—not knowing what
to do or say. As their time together
progressed, however, our Middle
Schoolers became increasingly at
ease. Laughter began to
erupt…encouraging word were heard.
These ‘Special Olympics’ were the
beginning of the PTA’s emphasis on
human relations, and led to a now
mandatory community service
requirement in the High School.”
(17, page 43)
Jeff Canning and Wally Buxton, in
their book: History of the
Tarrytowns , published by Harrison,
New York, during this year, said that
Rockwood Hall in William
Rockefeller's time is described by
Tarrytown historians as "unparalleled
in Westchester for magnificence." (1,
pages 112 and 231)
During this year, Pace University
purchased the financially troubled
College of White Plains, retaining the
faculty and preserving the college’s
identity. The White Plains campus
then became the site of Pace’s new
law school. (1, page 187)
1975
1975
1975 January
1975 Fall
ca. 1975(?)1976(?)
1975-1978
During this year, The Recreation
Department of Briarcliff Manor finally
gets a home of its own in the old
pump house that used to provide
Briarcliff’s good-tasting water.
Additional staff at this time included
Annette Mustich, the first full-time
Recreation leader, who ran the
Recreation
summer camps in Briarcliff. (17,
Center
page 44)
During this year, Joan and Keith
Austin
Austin first moved to Briarcliff Manor
Family
to live. (18, page 1)
At this time, The Scarborough Engine
Briarcliff
Company moved into the newly built
Manor Fire
fire station on Scarborough Road. (1,
Department page 208)
At this time, the gravestone in the
Sparta Cemetery, with the cannon
shot still embedded in it that was
fired during the Revolutionary War
Sparta
by the British man-of-war HMS
Burying
Vulture, ceased to remain intact.
Grounds
(15, page 10)
After three years headquartered in
The Briarcliff Congregational Church,
The Hudson Community School
moved to the Asbury Methodist
Church in Croton. The teachers who
were trained in this school all started
Hudson
schools of their own elsewhere,
Community including one in Chappaqua. (1, page
School
187)
During this period, Burton Benjamin,
writer, producer and director, and
Briarcliff resident, worked closely
with Walter Cronkite as executive
producer of the “CBS Evening News.”
Burton Benjamin’s many awards
Briarcliff
include eight Emmys, a Champion
Writers:
Media Award, and the American Bar
Burton
Association Silver Gavel Award. (1,
Benjamin
page 219)
1975-1979
1975-1985
1975-ca.
1990
1975-1990
1976
1976
1976
1976
1976
During this period, Rabbi Elliott
Rosen serves as the twelfth Rabbi of
The Congregation Sons of Israel of
Congregatio Briarcliff Manor. Under his guidance
n Sons of
the religious school and membership
Israel of
of The Congregation Sons of Israel of
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor was expanded. (1,
Manor
page 235) (15, page 75)
Public
During this period, Barry Farnham
Schools,
serves as the fourteenth principle
Grade and
(superintendent) of the Briarcliff
High School Schools. (1, page 234)
During this period, Robert W. Hare
Scarborough was still (ca. 1990) serving as the
Presbyterian eighth minister for The Scarborough
Church
Presbyterian Church. (1, page 235)
During this period, the Reverend
Church of
Robert T. Dunn, called to The Church
Saint
of Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus
Theresa of
in 1975 to be their sixth pastor, was
the Infant
still serving as its pastor in 1990. (1,
Jesus
page 166)
Church of
Saint
During this year, The Church of Saint
Theresa of
Theresa of the Infant Jesus
the Infant
celebrates its Golden Anniversary.
Jesus
(1, page 166)
Public
Schools,
During this year, the Lynn deBeer
Grade and
Memorial Playground at Todd School
High School was set up. (15, page 59)
During this year, there was a fulldress assembly for the seventy-fifth
Briarcliff
anniversary of the incorporation of
Manor Fire
the Village of Briarcliff Manor. (15,
Department page 64)
During this year, the Village of
Briarcliff Manor celebrated with the
Village
rest of the nation the bicentennial
Events
year. (15, page 79)
During this year, the culmination of
Briarcliff
the bicentennial celebrations in
Park and the Briarcliff was the dedication of
Pool
Scarborough Park. (15, page 79)
1976
1976
1976-1978
1976-1981
the late
1970s-the
early 1980s
(?)-1977
(?)-1977
During this year, Brian Fee, a long
time parishioner of The Church of
Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus,
starts a parish basketball program to
compete in Westchester’s CYO
Church of
League. Parents, local businesses,
Saint
and other “angels” fund the program
Theresa of
that will win many trophies and,
the Infant
later, include an all-girls league. (17,
Jesus
page 44)
During this year, soccer, a relatively
new popular sport in America comes
to Briarcliff, thanks to Carl Hanson
and Ozden Firat. Hansen had played
the game in Norway; Firat, in
Turkey, where he might have
become a professional if he had no
decided to finish medical school first.
In addition, Briarcliff’s Youth Soccer
joins the newly formed American
Briarcliff
Youth Soccer Organization during
Sports
this year as well. (17, pages 44-45)
During this period, James Gaffney
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
During this period, Lynn M. McCrum
serves as the village clerk for the
Village
Briarcliff Manor Village Government.
Government (1, page 233)
During this period, as school
enrollment shrank and costs
Public
spiraled, the Junior High School that
Schools,
served the Village of Briarcliff Manor
Grade and
was moved into the High School
High School building. (1, page 154)
Until 1977, the William Kingsland
William
house was used as the headquarters
Kingsland
of Thomas J. McLaughlin’s Combined
House
Book Exhibit. (1, page 206)
During this period, the writer and
Briarcliff
illustrator Carroll B. Colby lives on
Writers:
Pine Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Carroll B.
Manor until his death in 1977. (1,
Colby
page 219)
ca. 1977
Briarcliff
College
ca. 1977
Briarcliff
College
ca. 1977
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
Around this year, mergers with
Bennett College in Millbrook, New
York, with new York university and
with Pace University, were all
considered for Briarcliff College, but
Bennett closed, and agreements
were not arrived at with N.Y.U. or
with Pace. (1, page 186)
Around this year, for lack of funds,
Dr. Rockas, formerly of the Briarcliff
College English Department, had to
drop his lawsuit against the college,
former President Baker, and two
members of the tenure committee.
(1, page 186)
Around this year, according to the
1977 history of Briarcliff Manor, A
Village Between Two Rivers, one of
the newer windows in the All Saints
Episcopal Church is a memorial to
Harry Addis, former Police Chief of
Briarcliff Manor and All Saints
Episcopal Church member. (15, page
69)
ca. 1977
ca. 1977
By around this time, the Briarcliff
Congregational Church had amassed
a collection of memorial stained
glass windows given to honor
friends, family and neighbors. Of
particular interest are the Tiffany
stained glass windows, which are
unique in the area for their beauty,
dignity and charm. One was
donated in memory of William
DeNyse Nichols, first president of the
Village. The students of the Knox
School for Girls to honor its founder,
Mary Alice Knox, presented another
window. A war memorial window
depicting St. George and the Dragon
honors the dead servicemen of the
Spanish –American War. Other
windows commemorate the parents,
infant son and infant granddaughter
of Mr. Law. One window, given by
the Law children, shows a view of
the Hudson from the Law mansion
and is inscribed in part, “To the
Glory of God and in loving memory
of Walter William Law…and his wife,
Georgianna Ransom Law”—a fitting
Briarcliff
tribute to a man who gave so
Congregatio unstintingly to his community and
n-al Church his church. (15, page 72)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, by around this year, the
original home of Alfred H. Pearson at
Alfred H.
1326 Pleasantville Road had been
Pearson
until recently the home of his
Home (1326 daughter and Briarcliff Village
Pleasantville Historian, Margaret Finne. (15, pages
Road)
76-77)
ca. 1977
1970s
Briarcliff
Kathleen Schutte, when she was
twenty-two, shows in here account
from ca. 1977 that the feeling that is
Briarcliff has endured and passed to
a newer generation. She states: “My
impressions of Briarcliff will not differ
greatly from those who have lived
here longer. Yes, the faces and
places have changed somewhat but
the general feeling has not. Briarcliff
has always been “home” to
me—every square inch of it. I have
never been disappointed with it or
tired of it, nor have I ever wanted it
to be anything greater—for then it
would not be Briarcliff. It would not
be the small, scenic town that long
ago started as a farming community
where friendship and a desire to
work together made it flourish.
Today, though it is even more
beautiful and prosperous, it still
retains that small-town family spirit
that I have grown to cherish.” (15,
page 97)
ca. 1977
ca. 1977
1977
1970s
Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
75th
Anniversary
of Briarcliff
Manor
Kathleen Schutte continues her
account of 1970s Briarcliff, saying: “I
feel that at one time or another we
have all really counted in this
community and have been
recognized for who we are. We have
shared the excitement of Family Fun
Days, the anticipation of Memorial
Day Parades, the opening of the
pool, the summer nigh movies, the
thrill of the season’s first football
game, the crisp winter days skating
in the park, the fairs, the school
plays, the concerts, the variety
shows. The list is endless. It is the
constant mingling of family, friends,
and generations that makes this
town so special. I think back to an
old phrase which says “you are what
you experience.” My years in
Briarcliff have instilled in me a great
sense for friendship, family love,
patterns and tradition. In the days
to come I will look back to these
values and gain strength from them.
Briarcliff will always remain a
frequent stopping ground for me to
recapture old memories and the best
of times.” (15, page 97)
Around this year, the Library Board
of The Briarcliff Manor Free Library
was: Thelma Carter, President; Ed
Zimmerman, Robert Jordan,
Katherine Feeks, and Marion Sader.
(15, page 99)
A Village Between Two Rivers was
published to mark the 75th
anniversary of Briarcliff Manor. (1,
page vii)
1977
1977
Frank E. Sanchis, in his book
American Architecture: Westchester
County, New York , describes The
Scarborough Presbyterian Church as
follows: "Panels of carefully laid
small-scale fieldstone (on the
exterior walls) are contained by
borders of smooth-finish granite and
Indiana limestone. Italian
Renaissance details are appended to
a straightforward, traditional plan
featuring a square tower...at the
front center of a simple, gableroofed nave. Of particular
interest...are the cupola and the
arched entryway set into the tower,
with a finely carved relief sculpture
in the Tympanum....The
interior...contains an exceptional,
coffered-wood ceiling over the entire
nave. The wood is finished in a
natural, dark tone and contrasts with
the delicate plaster treatment of the
balance of the interior. The nave
terminates in a semi-circular chancel
lighted by a skylight and containing
Scarborough an unusual, built-in wood seat along
Presbyterian the entire perimeter." (1, pages 52Church
53 and 230)
As of this year, there were more
than a thousand living alumni/ae of
Scarborough The Scarborough School. (1, page
School
94)
1977
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1977
Clear View
School
1977
Briarcliff
College
In the book: Briarcliff, A Village
Between Two Rivers , published
during this year (1977), Steve
McQueeny, a long-time Briarcliff
resident, wrote of the 1950s:
"Houses were being built
everywhere…new houses went up at
the rate of one or two per week.
This was quite a change for a village
that had a static population for
decades." Mr. Queeny also
remembered that there was still, "a
feeling of home...despite all that
building the village remained very
small, very manageable. It seemed
you knew everyone, even the
newcomers." (1, pages 146-147 and
231)
During this year, because of its own
growing needs, the Children's Village
asked AMIC to relocate The Clear
View School. (1, page 158)
By this year, the remaining Briarcliff
College students, down to 350 by
this time, enjoyed luxurious halfempty dormitories. Some of these
students were annoyed by young
men who moved in when the
administration granted twenty-fourhour parietals (visiting rights) in an
attempt to pacify militant students.
And they also worried about the
status of their credits if the college
closed. (1, page 186)
1977
Village
Between
Two Rivers
During this year, The Briarcliff ManorScarborough Historical Society’s
book about the history of the
Briarcliff Manor and Scarborough
area, A Village Between Two Rivers ,
was a ninety-nine-page history book,
which is now a collector’s item,
opened with a biography of Walter
W. Law, written by William and
Audrey Sharman (who also wrote the
history of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church for this
history book as well). Next, several
pages of pre-Law history, including
six (with pictures) about
Scarborough, precede detailed
accounts of Law’s Briarcliff Farms
and Briarcliff Lodge. Accounts of the
1908, 1934 and 1935 Briarcliff
automobile road races were written
by Claire McQueeny. Margaret Finne
contributed information about the
Law family enterprises and the
private schools in the village and
Midge Bosak and Helene
Mandelbaum wrote the history of the
Briarcliff Library. (1, page 195) (15,
page 3)
1977
1977
During this year, for the publication
of the 75th Anniversary history book
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor, A
Village Between Two Rivers ,
Stephen McQueeny reviewed seventyfive years of Village Board minutes
for the section on village
government, and Ed Dorsey
compiled the Fire Department’s
colorful history. Cathy Caltagirone,
Karin Mueller and Dick Murray
contributed the histories of the
churches. The list of
acknowledgments ends with thanks
to “Irv Manahan, Arthur Osterhoudt
and Emile Brown for their
outstanding memory of Briarcliff
through the years; and Eileen
O’Connor Weber for being ‘Eileen.’”
The history concluded with “Growing
Up in Briarcliff,” reminiscences
written by Eileen Weber, Donald
Armstrong, Cynthia Purdy, Joy
Ozzello and Steve McQueeny.
(These last have been freely quoted
in Mary Cheever’s 1989 history of
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, The
Changing Landscape). The last
pictures in this book were of Bill
Village
Bowers and the 1965 events held to
Between
honor him for his service to the
Two Rivers
Briarcliff community. (1, page 195)
During this year, Mayor George
Kennard of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor wrote that the compiling of
the 1977 history, A Village between
Briarcliff
Two Rivers , was “a job well done,”
Manorand he thanked The Briarcliff ManorScarborough Scarborough Historical Society on
Historical
behalf of the board and the village.
Society
(1, page 195)
1977
North Hill
Apartments
1977
Briarcliff
Writers:
Carroll B.
Colby
1977
Books 'N
Things
During this year, the construction of
The North Hill Apartments was
completed. These apartments, for
senior citizens on North State Road,
operated very well for the
independent elderly and had not
negative impact on the village.
There would not be anther like it
unless and until housing subsidies
were resumed. Tenants paid 25
percent of their income, whatever it
was, in rent, and the government
paid the remainder. People who had
lived in the village of had relatives
living in the village were preferred on
the list of applicants. (1, page 197)
During this year, Carroll B. Colby,
writer and illustrator, who lived on
Pine Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor, died. Mr. Colby was an
outdoorsman, a coast-to-coast
traveler, and an active participant in
the affairs of the Briarcliff
community. (1, page 219)
During this year, Henry and Flora
Krinsky, who had originally founded
the bookstore Books ‘N Things in
1956, retired, and the business was
bought by Charles Newman, who had
worked for the bookstore since 1969,
and his wife, Diane, who had worked
for the bookstore since 1962. (1,
page 221)
1977
1977
1977
1977
During this year, the Mayor of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor was
George F. Kennard; the Village
Trustees were: Albert C. Goudvis,
Barbara R. Zinke, William A. Wetzel,
Charles B. Strome; the Planning
Board Chairman was Robert Marville;
the Zoning Board Chairman was
Phillip W. Churchill; the Village
Manager was Lynn M. McCrum; the
Assistant Village Manager was
William F. Williams; and the various
Department heads were: James P.
DiMarzo, D.P.W., James Gaffney,
Fire, Joseph P. McHenry, Police,
Donald J. Papa, Recreation, and
Village
Anthony Turiano, Building. (15, page
Government 2)
By this year, the population of the
Briarcliff
Village of Briarcliff Manor had grown
Population
to over 7,000. (15, page 2)
By this year, the land that
encompassed the Village of Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor’s Village limits was over six
Real Estate square miles. (15, page 2)
During this year, the Officers and
Trustees of The Briarcliff ManorScarborough Historical Society were
as follows: Trustees: Carroll B.
Colby, Stanley Goldstein, Stephen
McQueeny, Marilyn Olson, William A.
Sharman, and Eileen O’C. Weber;
Briarcliff
Edith Bronson, President; Margaret
ManorP. Finne, Vice-President; Karen
Scarborough Sharman, Treasurer; Marilyn Olson,
Historical
Secretary; Marion Sader, Recording
Society
Secretary (15, page 3)
1977
Village
Between
Two Rivers
1977
"Manor
House"
(Walter W.
Law House)
1977
Historic
Homes built
from 19021910
During this year, The Briarcliff ManorScarborough Historical Society also
thanked for the effort of putting
together A Village Between Two
Rivers, the history of Briarcliff ManorScarborough: Midge Bosak, the
editor of this book; Joan Ohser, who
designed this book; Margaret Finne,
the historian for this book, and her
family, who generously gave their
time for the creation of this book;
and Steve McQueeny, the managing
editor and who organized much of
the research for this book. In
addition, the Society also thanked
Village Manager Lynn McCrum and
his staff, Louis Engel, Supervisor of
the Town of Ossining, to the
management of Mount Pleasant, and
to the churches and schools of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor for their
cooperation. Furthermore, the
Society also acknowledged the help
of Filed Horne, historian; Patsy
Lovell, the Scarborough artist who
designed the official seal for The
Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough
Historical Society; Peter Guilmette
for his expertise in the publishing
field; Peter Callaghan, the Circulation
Director for the Society; Paulette
Callaghan for typing the text of this
By this year, Walter Law’s manor
house on the north side of
Scarborough Road on the King’s
College property was a dormitory for
The King’s College. Its circular
driveway went by the home of
Edward Scully Sr. and exited by All
Saints Episcopal Church. (15, pages
6-7 and 21)
By this year, George F. Kennard,
then mayor of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor lived in Hillcrest, which was
formerly the home of Henry Law, on
the corner of Scarborough and
Sleepy Hollow Roads. (1, page 65)
(15, page 7)
1977
Historic
Homes built
from 19021910
1977
Historic
Homes built
from 19021910
1977
Briarcliff
Utilities
1977
Ichabod
Farms
1977
Jug Tavern
1977
Sparta
Burying
Grounds
1977
Sparta
By this year, Harold C. Rose lived in
Mt. Vernon, which was formerly the
home of Edith Law Brockelman, at
120 Scarborough Road. (15, page 7)
By this year, Six Gables, which was
formerly the home of Walter W. Law,
Jr., still was standing on the south
side of Scarborough Road. (15, page
7)
By this year, the Con Edison
Company was using the original
building of the Briarcliff Manor Light
and Power Company on Park Road.
(15, pages 7 and 28)
As of this year, what was left of
Jonas Orser’s parcel of land, called
“Ichabod Farm” still had a house that
overlooked the Pocantico River from
the southern edge of the Village
along Sleepy Hollow Road. (15, page
9)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the building at the
intersection of Revolutionary Road
and Rockledge Avenue was called
the “Jug Tavern.” (15, page 9)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers , Josiah Rhodes, one of
the original settlers of Sparta, lied
buried in Sparta Cemetery, located
along Revolutionary Road on the
Briarcliff Manor-Ossining village line.
(15, pages 9-10)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, many of the early
houses of Sparta still lined Liberty
Street and Rockledge Avenue by this
year and provided an interesting
walking tour recalling an era long
since past. (15, page 10)
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the part of the former
Manor of Philipsburg that was in
1977 bounded on the north by
Revolutionary Road, on the south by
the Town of Mount Pleasant line, on
the east by the ridge line running
parallel to Scarborough Road and on
the west by the river is surely one of
the most beautiful residential areas
Scarborough in the country. (15, page 11)
By this year, near the corner of
Scarborough and the Albany Post
Roads stood a large comfortable
house and farm that was occupied as
the offices of Stein and Day,
Publishers. This was the house were
Rear Admiral Worden, who
commanded the Monitor against the
Merrimack in 1862 during the Civil
War, was born in 1818. (15, page
Hillside
12)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, one could see, directly
across the Post Road and behind the
brick wall, the magnificent mansion
of “Beechwood,” the former home of
Frank A. Vanderlip, president of the
Beechwood National City Bank of New York. (15,
Estate
page 12)
By this year, the National City Bank
of New York, which Frank A.
Vanderlip, a Scarborough resident,
had been president of, was by 1977
Vanderlip
called the First National City Bank.
Family
(15, page 12)
By this year, Ashridge, located at
508 Scarborough Road, was the
home of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B.
Shearman. According to the 1977
history of Briarcliff Manor, A Village
Between Two Rivers, the view of the
Hudson from this estate is perhaps
Ashridge
the finest in the entire area. (15,
Estate
page 13)
1977
Woodlea
Estate
1977
George C.
Holden
Homestead
1977
Braeside
1977
Scarborough
Post Office
1977
Scarborough
Post Office
1977
Chilmark (V.
Everit Macy)
Estate
By this year, Woodlea, the 140-room
mansion and former home of Mr. and
Mrs. Elliot F. Shepard, was still
serving as the main clubhouse for
The Sleepy Hollow Country Club and
stood high on a hill directly behind
St. Mary’s Church on the Albany Post
Road. (15, page 13)
By this year, the George C. Holden
Homestead was the home of Ira
Cohen at 534 Scarborough Road.
This house was also the old manse of
The Scarborough Presbyterian
Church for a time, and the former
home of Mrs. C. H. Easton. (15,
pages 14 and 70)
By this year, James E. Peterson
owned Braeside, at 380 Scarborough
Road, which was once willed to St.
Mary’s Church by Marion and
Florence Dinwiddie. (15, page 14)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the building that was the
old location for The Scarborough
Post Office, across from the
Scarborough Railroad Station
building, by 1977 was the office for
Arco Publishing Co. (15, page 15)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, The Scarborough Post
Office, by 1977, was located in the
former Scarborough Railroad Station
building. (15, page 16)
By this year, according to the 1977
history of Briarcliff Manor, A Village
Between Two Rivers, the V. Everit
Macy Estate, called Chilmark (Farms)
still stood on Macy Road. The
gatehouse for the estate was also
still located on the corner of
Scarborough and Holbrook roads.
(15, page 17)
1977
1977
1977
1977
At this time, the house built by
Richard Whitson, brother of Reuben
Whitson, still stood near the north
corner of Todd Lane and Pleasantville
Road, and its address of 857
Richard
Pleasantville Road. At this time it
Whitson
was the home of Richard P. Ossen.
House
(15, pages 17 and 18)
By this year, The Briarcliff
Congregational Church was still
using the parish house that replaced
the house built by Joseph Whitson
Briarcliff
(“The Crossways”) in 1820 that was
Congregatio torn down in the 1940s. (15, page
n-al Church 17)
By this year, the mansion of the
James Speyer estate (“Waldheim”)
on Scarborough Road is replaced by
Waldheim
Philips Laboratories and the mansion
Estate
ceased to exist. (15, page 18)
By this year, the house that was
built on Chappaqua Road in 1830 is
L. Raymond occupied by L. Raymond Aten. (15,
Aten Home page 18)
1977
Washburn
House
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Post
Office
1977
Stillman
Farmhouse
By this year, the pre-revolutionary
home of Joseph Washburn and which
was also at one time the residence of
George A. Todd Jr., a teacher and
principle for almost forty years, was
the Nierenberg residence on
Washburn Road. (15, page 20)
By this year, there was still the
entrance ramp to 9A, which replaced
the old concrete post office building
for The Briarcliff Manor Post Office
that was used until 1927. This old
post office building was apparently
adjacent to the home of Mr. and Mrs.
George Bryan. (15, page 20)
By this year, Stillman Farmhouse
was still standing on the corner of
Central Drive and Pleasantville Road
and still served as the rectory of The
Church of Saint Theresa of the Infant
Jesus. The building had previously
been the personal office of Walter W.
Law. (15, page 20)
1977
Rail Roads
1977
Briarcliff
Farms
1977
Briarcliff
Farms
1977
Elms
1977
1977
1977
1977
By this year, the original station
building of Whitson Station, which
was moved to Millwood, was still
standing and recently at this time
had been the housing for the
Millwood Realty Company. (15, page
21)
By this year, there was the Beech
Hill Stables that occupied the part of
the former Briarcliff Farms at the
corner of Route 117. (15, page 21)
By this year, many of the cottages
that Walter Law had built for his
farm workers on Dalmeny, Old
Briarcliff, South State, Pleasantville,
and Poplar Roads still stood. No two
of these house are alike inside. (15,
page 2)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, The Elms was formerly
the home of Everett, Jesse and
Howard Bishop. Mrs. C. M. Basset
was another long-time resident.
There also used to be wooden
sidewalks near this house as well.
(15, page 23)
By this year, Haymont, the W. W.
Fuller residence on Chappaqua Road,
Haymont
was still being used as the Maison
Estate
LaFitte Restaurant. (15, page 23)
Buckhout
At this time, the Buckhout house,
House
also called Luthany, was the home of
(Luthany)
J. H. Wishod. (15, page 23)
By this year, the former residence of
the foreman of Barn E of Briarcliff
Brice Marden Farms was the residence of Mr. and
House
Mrs. Nicholas Marden. (15, page 24)
By this year, the Briarcliff Dairy
building still stood on Woodside
Briarcliff
Avenue as the home of the Foreign
Farms
Car Service. (15, page 24)
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village between
Two Rivers, the pastures of the
Briarcliff Farms were located along
Dalmeny Road, and the telephone
poles that ran through these
pastures could still be seen in 1977
next to the Richard J. Banahan
Briarcliff
property at 146 Dalmeny Road. (15,
Farms
page 24)
The building that used to be the
original dairy building for the
Briarcliff Farms was by 1977 the
Operating Engineers building at 1360
Pleasantville Road. Its stone
chimney was the original chimney
from when it was the dairy building
Briarcliff
of the Briarcliff Farms. (15, pages 25
Farms
and 27)
By this year, the building that sued
to be used as the well and bottling
Briarcliff
plant for The Briarcliff Table Water
Table Water Company was the home of Mr. and
Company
Mrs. P. Kyriazis. (15, page 27)
By this year, St. Theresa’s school
stood on the spot where the first fire
Briarcliff
department meeting room was. (15,
Farms
page 28)
By this year, the “Briarcliff Rose” had
greatly outranked the parent plant in
beauty, popularity, and sales value.
The “Briarcliff Rose,” which is
considered one of the best pink roses
to be grown in greenhouses, was still
Briarcliff
on the market in 1977. (15, page
Rose
28)
By this year, the building that used
to be The Briarcliff Lodge was still
King's
used by King’s College as their main
College
building. (15, page 29)
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
By this year, the original clubhouse
for the Mount Pleasant (Briarcliff)
Golf “Links” still had the same
number address in the Village,
except the road it was on was by
Number 2
then called Central Drive West, and
Central
it was the home of Mr. and Mrs.
Drive,
William A. Wetzel. This house’s shed
clubhouse of also served temporarily as a location
Mount
for holding Catholic masses during
Pleasant Golf the early 1900s. (15, pages 32, 34
Links
and 72)
By this year, Elderslie, which at one
time was the clubhouse for the
Mount Pleasant (Briarcliff) Golf
“Links” on Pine Road in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, was the home of
Mrs. Alice Melady. (15, pages 32 and
Elderslie
34)
By this year, The Briar Hall Golf and
Briar Hall
Country Club was still using their
Golf and
original clubhouse that was built for
Country
them by the Briarcliff Realty
Club, Inc.
Company in 1920. (15, page 32)
By this year, Mr. and Mrs. James
Gabal owned the ca. 1830-built
house that was formerly the home of
Ward
the Ward Family. (1, page 65) (15,
Homestead page 35)
During this year, the Dysart House in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor was the
Dysart
residence of Mr. and Mrs. John
House
Nichol. (15, page 40)
By this year, the former site of The
School of Practical Agriculture and
Horticulture on Pleasantville Road
was still the property of Frank B. Hall
School of
and Co., Inc. The parapet wall in
Practical
front of Frank B. Hall and Co., Inc. is
Agriculture, all that remains of this school, since
Pocantico
it’s building burned down in 1912.
Lodge
(15, pages 41 and 42)
By this year, the Mrs. Mary E. Dow’s
School main building, built in 1905,
and formerly the main building for
Briarcliff College, was called Dow
Pace
Hall and used by Pace University.
University
(15, pages 42-43)
1977
Briarcliff
College
1977
Briarcliff
College
1977
Briarcliff
Nursery
School, Inc.
1977
Briarcliff
Nursery
School, Inc.
1977
Briarcliff
Nursery
School, Inc.
By this year, before it was sold to
Pace University, Briarcliff College
was fully accredited by the State
Department of Education of New
York and the Middle States
Association of Colleges and
Secondary Schools. (15, page 44)
By this year, the former president’s
house for Briarcliff College served as
the Clara and Ordway Tead Library.
(15, page 44)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, The Briarcliff Nursery
School, Incorporated, was an
educational corporation, incorporated
by the Board of Regents under the
authority of the University of the
State of New York and of the State
Education Department, with a staff
of ten. Also, students of The King’s
College, Department of Education,
assist the teachers, and parents
participate to help keep the tuition
low. Scholarships were also
available. (15, page 46)
By this year, the enrollment of threeand four-year olds at The Briarcliff
Nursery School, Incorporated, had
reached ninety-eight children. (15,
page 46)
During this year, Barbara (Mrs. T.)
Scopes was the director for The
Briarcliff Nursery School,
Incorporated. (1, page 156) (15,
page 46)
1977
1977
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, The Scarborough School
is accredited by the Middle States
Association of Colleges and
Secondary Schools and the New York
State Board of Regents. It held
memberships in such organizations
as the Cum Laude Society, and the
National Association of Independent
Schools. In addition, this school is
also an interracial nonsectarian
college preparatory day school
enrolling boys and girls from prekindergarten through grade 12.
Boys and girls from nursery school
through high school ages have
received devoted individual attention
at this school to develop a sense of
responsibility as self-respecting
members of their community.
Therefore, small classes are the rule
where the physical, social and
intellectual potentialities of each
pupil can best be developed by
means of sympathetic, personal
relationships between teacher and
student. This school also had a
beautiful campus overlooking the
Hudson River, with acres of
Scarborough woodland, lawns and streams, tennis
School
courts, playing fields and swimming
During this year, the headmaster of
Scarborough The Scarborough School was Mr.
School
Douglas G. Carner. (15, page 47)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, The White School, which
used to serve the students of the
Briarcliff Manor area as a school
Public
before it was moved in 1896 to
Schools,
become the Hawthorne firehouse,
Grade and
still stood as a private business in
High School Hawthorne. (15, page 48)
1977
Long Hill
School,
District
Number 4
1977
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1977
Village
Events
1977
Ichabod
Farms
1977
Century
Homestead
1977
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
By this year, the part of the present
day Briarcliff school district that is
west of Sleepy Hollow Road, as well
as the River Road and Chilmark
sections were within the present
Ossining school district. (15, page
48)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the 1909-built school
building for the Village of Briarcliff
Manor was used as the front part of
the Middle School. (15, page 50)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, there was a Memorial
Day parade held during this year in
the Village of Briarcliff Manor. The
Boy Scouts, the American Legion,
the Girl Scouts, the members of the
Fire Department, the Village
Trustees, and others marched in this
parade, and Emile Brown rode in one
of The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department trucks that were driven
during this parade. (15, pages 5253, 60 and 64)
During this year, “Ichabod Farms”
had the address of 540 Sleepy
Hollow Road, and was then owned by
Richard G. Stammers. (15, page 56)
During this year, the house that was
originally the home of Reuben
Whitson on Washburn Road was the
residence of Preston Herbert. (15,
page 56)
By this year, the Board of Education
of the Village of Briarcliff Manor was
looking for ways to adjust programs
to accommodate a shrinking
enrollment and spiraling costs. (15,
page 58)
By this year, the number of
cardholders for The Briarcliff Manor
Free Library numbered 6,000. (15,
page 62)
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
By this year, the annual budget of
The Briarcliff Manor Free Library was
close to $60,000.00. (15, page 62)
By this year, the High School portion
of the Briarcliff school building on
Pleasantville Road that was partially
the home of The Briarcliff Manor
Freed Library from 1930-1949 was
being used as part of the Middle
School building. (15, page 63)
By this time, the old Recreation
Building, the location of The Briarcliff
Manor Free Library before it was
moved to the old train station
building, was occupied by Thalle
Construction Co. This building was
also used for a time as the village’s
home for the Department of Parks
and Recreation. (15, pages 63 and
85)
As of this year, it was unknown what
happened to the original provisional
charter of The Briarcliff Manor Free
Library from March 18th, 1952,
although by this time, there was an
Absolute Charter framed and on the
wall of the Library, dating from April,
25th, 1952, and granted to The
Briarcliff Manor Free Library by that
same august Board of Regents. (15,
page 63)
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers the road that leads to the
Roads and
Library building (which used to be
Transportati called Station Road) was by this year
on
called Library Road. (15, page 66)
During this period, according to the
1977 history of Briarcliff Manor, A
Village Between Two Rivers, by
1977, the Briarcliff Manor Public
Library had a holding of about
18,000 titles and approximately
20,000 volumes. The cardholders
numbered upwards of 6,000, and the
annual circulation of books,
periodicals and other items of
various types total well over 41,000.
(15, page 66)
During this year, the bell that
Commodore M. C. Perry captured in
Mexico in 1847 hung near the
outside door of St. Mary’s Episcopal
Church. This bell used to hang in a
belfry at the church. (15, page 67)
By this year, according to the 1977
history of Briarcliff Manor, A Village
Between Two Rivers, Dr. Creighton,
the first Rector of St. Mary’s
Episcopal Church, was still buried
under the chancel of the church, by
this time along with his son-in-law,
Dr. Mead who served as the second
Rector of the church from 1865 to
1877. (15, page 67)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, Al Village Between
Two Rivers, the rectory of All Saints
Episcopal Church that was built in
1883 was still begin used by the
church. (15, page 68)
During this year, according to the
1977 history of Briarcliff Manor, A
Village Between Two Rivers, the
organ of All Saints Episcopal Church
was a Gress-miles. (15, page 69)
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1977
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1977
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1977
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1977
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the silver trowel used for
the cornerstone laying by Elliot Fitch
The
Shepard, Jr., on October 13th, 1893,
Scarborough was suitably engraved and was
Presbyterian displayed on the wall of the present
Church
(ca. 1977) chapel. (15, page 70)
1977
Scarborough
Presbyterian
Church
1977
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
1977
Briarcliff
Congregatio
n-al Church
1977
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
1977
Church of
Saint
Theresa of
the Infant
Jesus
By this year, The Scarborough
Presbyterian Church was still using
the February, 1913-constructed
manse located between
Revolutionary and Albany Post
Roads, adjacent to the Sparta
Cemetery. (15, page 70)
By this year, the area of the Sing
Sing Heights Chapel in Ossining,
where the Sunday School that would
by 1896 later helped to start The
Briarcliff Congregational Church, was
the Campwoods area of Ossining.
(15, page 71)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, many community groups
have benefited from the parish
house of The Briarcliff
Congregational Church. At one time
or another rooms in the building
have been used by Boy Scout and
Girl Scout troops, the second grade
of Todd School, BOCES classes, St.
Theresa’s Elementary School,
Alcoholics Anonymous and the
Foundation for Religion and Mental
Health. (15, page 72)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, many villagers in 1977
remembered Father Pinkney’s (the
second pastor of The Church of Saint
Theresa of the Infant Jesus), colorful
assistant, Father Schwalenberg, who
delighted friends and parishioners
with his fine sense of humor and
ability to play the piano. (15, page
74)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the remains of Barn A
that was on the property of the Saint
Theresa’s School that was converted
into a house was still being used by
The Church of Saint Theresa of the
Infant Jesus as the convent. (15,
page 74)
1977
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Briarcliff
Manor
1977
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Briarcliff
Manor
1977
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Briarcliff
Manor
1977
Congregatio
n Sons of
Israel of
Briarcliff
Manor
1977
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, one of the meeting
places from 1901-1902 for The
Congregation Sons of Israel (of
Ossining) that was above the A. L.
Myers furniture store was by 1977
the location of the Cambridge
Instrument Company. (15, page 74)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the street where the
1902 synagogue for The
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Ossining was located, Durston
Avenue, was by 1977 called Hunter
Street, in Ossining. (15, page 74)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the Jewish Cemetery,
which had been established in 1900
on Dale Avenue, is still in use today
by the Congregation. (15, page 74)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the house of worship
completed in 1960 for The
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Briarcliff Manor was still being used
as their house of worship. (15, page
75)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, by 1977, plans were
Congregatio underway to enlarge the 1960 house
n Sons of
of worship for The Congregation
Israel of
Sons of Israel of Briarcliff Manor in
Briarcliff
order to serve the future needs of
Manor
the Jewish community. (15, page 75)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, as of 1977, The Faith
Faith
Lutheran Brethren Church was still
Lutheran
using the same church building that
Brethren
was constructed for it in 1967. (15,
Church
page 75)
1977
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
1977
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
1977
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
1977
Briarcliff
Stores
1977
Briarcliff
Stores
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, at the time of this
history’s publication in 1977, The
Faith Lutheran Brethren Church was
looking for a new minister after the
Reverend Harold Peeders left in
February of 1977. (15, page 75)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, as of 1977, The Faith
Lutheran Brethren Church still had
The Little School, which was founded
in 1972 by Mrs. Joan Ruud as a
Christ-centered nursery school,
which continued to serve the
community. (15, page 75)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, as of 1977, The Faith
Lutheran Brethren Church had a
fundamentalism and friendly
cohesiveness that had resulted in
tremendous growth for this young
congregation in Briarcliff Manor.
There is a women’s group that deals
with a woman and her relationship
with God; a monthly junior youth
group, bi-monthly senior youth
group; and an adult learning center
that meets every Sunday morning
prior to the regular worship services.
(15, page 75)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, by this year, the original
drug store space in the store building
at the corner of Pleasantville and
North State Roads was the Briarcliff
Manor Pharmacy. (15, page 76)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, by this year, the original
site of the 1930s A&P in Briarcliff
was the site of Noller’s. (15, page
76)
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, by this year, the original
site of the 1930s Grand Union in
Briarcliff
Briarcliff was the site of A. C.
Stores
Goudvis’ office. (15, page 76)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers , by this year, the original
site of the Village Dock at
Scarborough was known as
Scarborough Park. The park stands
along the Hudson River commanding
Briarcliff
an unsurpassed view of the river and
Park and
the mountains on the other side.
Pool
(15, pages 76 and 79)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, by this year, the original
home of the Briarcliff Realty
Company, which was the combined
real estate holding of the Law family,
which was the office building on
Pleasantville Road, was occupied by
Briarcliff
the Operating Engineers. (15, page
Real Estate 77)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Roads and
Two Rivers, by this year, State Road
Transportati was known as Pleasantville Road.
on
(15, page 77)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the old 1913 Municipal
Building that used to be the
firehouse was by this year the
Briarcliff
location of Whiggs and other
Stores
businesses. (15, pages 78 and 81)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the old 1913 Municipal
Building Bell Tower bell, which
appears on the crest of The Briarcliff
Manor-Scarborough Historical
Society, was by this year placed on a
pedestal in front of the present
firehouse. Its Bell Tower was also
Briarcliff
still on the old Municipal Building.
Stores
(15, page 78)
1977
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1977
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
By this year, the village pool facilities
in Law memorial Park had been
completely reconstructed and
rehabilitated. (15, page 79)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the firemen of 1977 of
The Briarcliff Fire Department were
not much different from those of
today. For example, they played
pool (as evidenced by the many bills
for new cue tips), they had monthly
smokers (stag-get-togethers) and
they marched in parades. (15, page
80)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department still worked closely with
neighboring departments in 1977
(like they do today) in Ossining and
Pocantico Hills, Millwood, Archville
and Pleasantville. (15, page 80)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the separate 1936established Briarcliff Hook and adder
Company was by 1977 known as the
Briarcliff Manor Hook & Ladder and
Rescue Company. (15, page 82)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the group that
purchased the 1947 ambulance
ordered in 1945 by The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department was called
the Ossining Volunteer Ambulance
Corps. (15, page 82)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, plans existed in 1977 to
replace the 1969 ambulance of The
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department in
1977. (15, page 82)
1977
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, many changes have
been made over the years in the
name of progress for The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department, including by
1977 dispatching via audible horn
and siren and equipping each
fireman with a home radio. A
number of things have not changed
and one is our distinctive white fire
trucks. Why? It’s hard to tell
exactly, but it is certain that they
were always white. Many feel that
white is a better color for emergency
equipment, particularly at night
when it can be seen more readily.
Another thing that has not changed
is perhaps the most important—the
dedication and willingness of the
members to volunteer their services,
without compensation (no on, not
even the Chief, is paid) to protect
the community). The time they
spend is considerable and includes
Briarcliff
many hours of training sessions,
Manor Fire
drills and equipment checks. (15,
Department pages 82-83)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, by 1977, The Briarcliff
Manor Police Department had
seventeen officers and men who
serve the village around the clock,
utilizing the latest in automotive and
electronic equipment. They were
still assisted in time of need by
Briarcliff
twenty men of the Briarcliff Special
Manor Police Police, who give their time without
Department compensation. (15, page 84)
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department, as of 1977, consisted of
three companies, the original
Briarcliff Fire Company, the Briarcliff
Manor Hook & Ladder and Rescue
Company, and the recently charted
Scarborough Engine Company. The
department has 170 active members
and operates five fire trucks, an
ambulance and the chief’s car.
James Gaffney served as Chief at
this time, and Henry J. Kaufmann
and David Crowley were the first and
second assistants, respectively. The
message of the fire department back
then was the same as it was seventyBriarcliff
six years ago: We hope you never
Manor Fire
need us, but if your do, you can be
Department sure we’ll be there . (15, page 83)
1977
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
1977
Recreation
Center
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, as of 1977, Liberty Park
was renamed for its donor, Walter
W. Law Memorial Park. (15, page 85)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the 1967-converted
pump-house was still being used as
the recreation building in 1977. (15,
page 85)
1977
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
1977
Recreation
Committee
1977
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, as of 1977, their was a
provision in New York State law that
allows a municipality to require
developers to donate either land or
financing for recreation, together
with some astute buying on the part
of the village, has enabled the park
system in Briarcliff to expand. By
1977, the Village of Briarcliff Manor
operated 208 acres of parkland.
There were neighborhood parks in
Scarborough, the larch Road area
and the Shrade Road area, as well as
open woodlands between Pine and
Long Hill roads and a sanctuary
consisting of considerable acreage
along the Pocantico River. (15, pages
85-86)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, as of 1977, by 1977, the
recreation department, headed by
Donald Papa, operated a year-round
recreational activities as well as a fulltime program for senior citizens.
The addition of paddle tennis
facilities and the complete
reconstruction of the village
swimming pool are the most recent
achievements. (15, page 86)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers , as of 1977, as this
history book was going to the press
in 1977 to be published, the Village
of Briarcliff Manor had received word
of yet another gift from the Law
family. Mrs. Joseph F. Patten,
former wife of Theodore Gilman Law,
has deeded to the village 5.8 acres
of land across from the Law
Memorial Park in the memory of her
late husband, to be used as park
land. (15, page 86)
1977
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, Irving Manahan, head of
the Department of Public Works in
Briarcliff Manor from 1940 to 1967,
Manahan
was still a resident in the Village of
Family
Briarcliff Manor. (15, page 85)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, by 1977, the
Department of Public Works of
Briarcliff Manor employs twenty-nine
men, and was headed by James
DiMarzo. These men were charged
with the maintenance of more than
fifty miles of roadway, uncounted
miles of water mains and a sewer
system covering 60 percent of the
village; garbage, leaf and snow
removal; and park maintenance.
The department also operated some
Department thirty vehicles and maintained all
of Public
village, police and fire vehicles. (15,
Works
page 87)
1977
1977
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, as of 1977, the nearly
six-square-mile tract that constituted
the Village of Briarcliff Manor was
governed by an elected mayor and
four trustees. The village, along with
Scarsdale, Rye and Pleasantville,
maintains a tradition of unpaid
elected officials. The village is also
responsible for all municipal services
except schools, and school and
county tax collection, assessment
and elections. A village essentially is
a small city created to provide
municipal services to a populated
portion of an otherwise rural
township. Villages can be within two
or more townships and must by (by
state law) within tow or more school
districts. At some time, the state
must have been worried that towns
and villages would take over school
districts because careful steps had
been taken to ensure that town and
village lines are not coterminous with
Village
school district boundaries. (15, page
Government 88)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, as of 1977, the village
government of Briarcliff Manor was
responsible for all zoning and its
enforcement, as the Planning Board
and the Zoning Board of Appeals
serve this function. The emphasis at
Briarcliff
this time had been on residential
Manor
development with a limited amount
Planning
of commercial and retail zoning. (15,
Board
page 88)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, by 1977, approximately
15 percent of village residents reside
within multiple-family housing with
Briarcliff
the balance in single-family
Real Estate dwellings. (15, page 88)
1977
1977
1977
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, the People’s Caucus
party, formed by a provision of New
York State law in 1946, by 1977 still
was an organization that solicited all
interested persons to run for village
office yearly in Briarcliff Manor. It
had provided an unbroken string of
capable leaders who have kept up
the ideals of excellence established
Village
by the founder of the village. (15,
Government page 88)
According to Eileen Weber’s account
of Briarcliff history, she states: “I
still get a thrill and glow of pride
when I drive through Briarcliff.
Those of us who were born and
raised here have been “specially
blessed.” The major forces in my life
were Henry H. Law, Otto E. Huddle,
H. S. Principal, Bill Bowers and other
teacher, ministers and priests in the
village…The most important thing
about Briarcliff was the great “love”
we had for each other that was
intermingled among all generations.
When we left Briarcliff, a special
spirit went with us. We had received
something rare besides our good
education. We didn’t realize it, but
fortunately our friends and business
1970s
associates did.” (15, pages 89 and
Briarcliff
91)
According to Don Armstrong’s 1920s
account of growing up in the
Scarborough area, by 1977 the Andy
Katzien residence, which used to be
to the right of the “round” red brick
house in Sparta where Mr.
Armstrong lived, have been moved
Andy Katzien to the foot of Scarborough Manor
Residence
Drive. (15, page 91)
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
1977
According to Don Armstrong’s
account, by 1977, the Arcadian
Shopping Center had replaced the
original greenhouses of Paul M.
Pierson, husband of Louis Dean, who
Briarcliff
wrote Roughly Speaking. (15, page
Stores
91)
According to Don Armstrong’s
historical account of growing up in
Sparta, he said that the Vanderlips
“would approve” of the initiatives to
restore Sparta in 1977. (15, page
Sparta
92)
According to the account of Don
Armstrong, he says that by 1977, his
Armstrong
house his father built on River Road
Family
was the residence of G. C. Whiteley.
House
(15, page 92)
According to Don Armstrong, the
house in Scarborough where Thomas
Thomas
Mitchell once lived was by 1977 the
Mitchell
residence of Henry Holmes. (15,
Residence
pages 91 and 93)
According to Cynthia Purdy, by 1977,
Briarcliff
Mrs. Black’s Store in Briarcliff was
Stores
called Briar Rose. (15, page 93)
According to Joy Ozzello, by 1977,
Barclay’s Bank and the A&P had
Briarcliff
been built on the former sites of the
Stores
Firemen’s bazaars. (15, page 94)
According to Joy Ozzello, Thalle
Construction occupied the building
Briarcliff
that was the riding stables in
Stores
Briarcliff by 1977. (15, page 94)
According to Joy Ozzello, by 1977,
Country Casuals had occupied the
Briarcliff Girl building where the Briarcliff Girl
Scout
Scouts were housed in the 1940s.
Council
(15, page 94)
During this year, George Kennard is
Village
elected mayor of the Village of
Government Briarcliff Manor. (17, page 33)
During this year, Ozden Firat, one of
the starters of Briarcliff’s soccer
program, becomes the commissioner
of AYSO, and Briarcliff had 210
Briarcliff
children in this soccer program by
Sports
this year as well. (17, pages 44-45)
1977
1977
1977 Annual
1977 February
Elaine Zucchi wrote about The North
Hill Apartments, built in 1977 that
“You wouldn’t believe the
controversy that building these
apartments originally generated. A
petition opposing the project was
circulated. Bill Wetzel, running for
Trustee at the time, favored the
project and was soundly defeated.
The incumbent trustees who had
favored the project were defeated.
However, they voted for the project
before they left office. As Bill Wetzel
said, after all the arguing, we
villagers were able to close ranks
and stay friends. Bill ran again for
office and eventually became Mayor.
Ironically, some of the seniors who
moved to north Hill came from
North Hill
families that had opposed it.” (17,
Apartments page 45)
During this year, Stanley Goldstein
Briarcliff
and Joan Austin established The
Great Books Briarcliff Great Books Program. (17,
Program
page 46)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, The Briarcliff Nursery
School, Incorporated, held The
Briarcliff
Nursery School Fair, the yearly
Nursery
fundraiser, as an annual community
School, Inc. event. (15, page 46)
During this year, the Reverend
Harold Peeders, with his family, left
Briarcliff Manor and the congregation
of The Faith Lutheran Brethren
Church for Portland, Oregon, to
become pastor of the Rose of Sharon
Church, a smaller, but socially and
economically more heterogeneous
congregation. Mrs. Peeders was an
Faith
Oregon girl and their first son, who
Lutheran
had been born there, considered it
Brethren
his home. (1, page 170) (15, page
Church
75)
February
1977 6th
February
1977 13th
Briarcliff
College
In an article published in The New
York Times on this date, entitled:
“Briarcliff College on the Brink,” by
Leonard Buder, Mr. Buder described
how the students at Briarcliff
College, by around 1967, were
beginning to dispel “its former image
as an exclusive college for rich
women…not smart enough to go to
Smith or Vassar and who wanted to
marry Protestant lawyers. While still
heavily Waspish (about 60 to 65
percent (when this article was
published in 1977)…compared with
90 percent two decades ago), the
college now gets between 70 and 75
percent of its new admissions from
public high schools (by the time this
article was published in 1977).” (1,
pages 184 and 232)
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
On this date’s issue of Gannett
Westchester Newspapers, the
Reverend Harold Peeders of The
Faith Lutheran Brethren Church told
the life-style editor of the Citizen
register , Beth Smith, that: “God has
blessed us as a community, and as a
nation,” and “The people should
enjoy the fruits of their labor…but I
hope they remain conscious…that,
‘by their fruits ye shall know
them.’…As a minister perhaps I am
too idealistic, but I see in my study
people who are caught hopelessly in
the competition of today’s society.”
The result, he felt, was broken
marriages, alcoholism, and the like.
He and his wife, he added, had made
friends in Briarcliff and taken part in
various activities. He made friends
with local clergymen, but generally
avoided ecumenical services because
his church represents a conservative,
evangelical position. “Faith Lutheran
does not mean to be exclusive,” he
said, “but rather wishes to worship in
a specific way.” (1, pages 170-171
and 232)
1977 April
Briarcliff
College
1977 April
Pace
University
1977 April
Briarcliff
College
1977 April
Pace
University
Sunday,
September
1977 22nd
Briarcliff
College
At this time, the assets of Briarcliff
College: nine buildings on fifty acres
were sold to pace university for $5.2
million. Peter Fazzolare served as
chief administrative officer of Pace in
Briarcliff, succeeding President
Bunting, who resigned in protest at
the takeover. None of the faculty of
Briarcliff College was retained, and
no attempt was made to preserve
the identity of the college. (1, page
186)
After Briarcliff College was purchased
by Pace University at this time, it
became to be known as Pace
University at Briarcliff. (15, page 44)
By this time, The Briarcliff Alumni
Association, of more than 5,000
members who graduated from
Briarcliff College, remained intact,
and, by this time, it was decided that
the college would continue to be a
women’s institution. (15, page 44)
After Pace University had bought the
old Briarcliff College’s fifty-acre
campus and buildings on Elm Road
at this time, this ignited a citizen’s
campaign (Keith Austin was one of
its leaders) against heavy student
commuter traffic and parking. (1,
page 186) (17, page 45)
In an article published in The New
York Times on this date, entitled:
“Briarcliff: A Touch of 1962 Class,”
Kay McKemy, who taught English
composition at Briarcliff College from
1960 to 1961, described the
students at the college as “highly
literate…products of exclusive girls’
schools and the best public schools.
They knew how to read, speak,
study, listen and take notes. They
had seen plays in the three
Stratfords, been to the Louvre and
eaten at the 21 Club.” (1, pages 182
and 232)
1977 October
1977-1979
1977-1980
1977-1983
ca. 1978
1978
February
(1977)August
(1979)
According to the 1977 history of
Briarcliff Manor, A Village Between
Two Rivers, there were plans
underway to recreate the Briarcliff
Automobile Race in October of 1977
Roads and
with some of the original cars form
Transportati the 1934 and 1935 races as well as
on
others of that era. (15, page 38)
After Reverend Harold Peeders left
The Faith Lutheran Brethren Church,
Robert L. Duncanson, who had
recently returned from missionary
Faith
work in Africa, served as the interim
Lutheran
minister (and fifth minister of this
Brethren
church). (1, pages 170, 172 and
Church
235) (15, page 75)
During this period, three years of
litigation followed Pace University’s
purchase do the old Briarcliff College
campus on Elm Road because of
Pace
Villagers’ concerns over commuter
University
traffic and parking. (17, page 45)
During this period, George Kennard
Village
serves as the Mayor of the Village of
Government Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 191)
Around this year, the Briarcliff Little
League A team, (whose uniforms
were sponsored by Thalle
Construction Company) posed for
their team picture. The baseball
team consisted of the following
people at this time: Coach Jerry
Manganello and Coach Ernie
Pacchiana; and the players: Frankie
Lee Franes, Tim Pastore, Matt
Hofstedt, Eric Lewis, Chris Carruth,
Richard Wetzel, Jeff Manganello,
Angus Watson, Adam Pacchiana,
Keith Callaghan, Dan Zucchi, Andy
Briarcliff
Schorr, and Tony Franco. (17, page
Sports
37)
During this year, The Scarborough
School closes when it was unable to
obtain sufficient funding, after sixtyfive years of service to young people
Scarborough from many parts of the country. (1,
School
pages 94 and 158)
1978
Briarcliff
Writers;
John
Cheever
1978
Briarcliff
Writers:
Alice (Mrs.
Martin Low)
1978
Briarcliff
Musicians:
Polivnik
Family
1978
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1978
COED
(continuing
education
program)
1978
Golden
Family
During this year, John Cheever,
writer and Briarcliff resident, won the
Pulitzer Prize for his Collected
Stories , many of which were written
by John Cheever in Scarborough. (1,
page 218)
During this year, The Witch Who
Was Afraid of Witches , which was a
book authored by Alice (Mrs. Martin
Low), a Briarcliff resident, was a
Children’s Choice Book Club
selection. (1, page 219)
During this year, Sidney Polivnik,
who directed the instrumental
program at the Briarcliff schools
starting in 1957, was voted Teacher
of the Year in the district and one of
four finalists for Teacher of the Year
in the state. (1, page 224)
During this year, The Briarcliff manor
free Library got a much-needed
renovation; a mezzanine and front
lobby are added. Its sponsors the
Publisher’s Panel, a public forum
featuring such book-publisher
residents as Theodore Dolmatch,
William Jovanovich, Sol Stein, and
Frederick Ungar. (17, page 46)
During this year, COED (Continuing
Education) classes were taught at
the Briarcliff High School. Kathy
Penn recalled the classes fondly:
“Jean Harper taught Chinese
cooking, Pat Wetzel taught wreathmaking, and I taught
baking—including a gingerbreadhouse course. (I understand some of
the house are still standing).” She
also taught “Cooking” to sixth
graders in a new “electives”
program: “I’d bring six or eight
students to my house where we’d
cook—and eat everything we made.
The kids went home with full
tummies.” (17, page 46)
During this year, Meryl and Seymour
Golden first moved to the “Tree
Streets.” (17, page 76)
1978
1978
1978
1978
1978
During this year, Louis Wachtel
Briarcliff
starts to coach the Briarcliff Little
Sports
League baseball team. (17, page 80)
By this year, a baseball diamond,
along with a new track, tennis
courts, and a soccer field, had been
added to the campus of The King’s
College. These athletic playing fields
were constructed right next to the
Lodge Pond, which used to be the
famous Briarcliff Lodge outdoor
King's
swimming pool. (8, pages 80 and
College
86)
During this year, new windows were
installed in the men’s dormitory in
the central tower extension of the
Briarcliff Lodge building to retain
King's
heat and save money on fuel
College
consumption. (8, page 80)
Briarcliff
At this time, the Briarcliff Manor Fire
Manor Fire
Department fought the Ossining Car
May
Department Wash fire on Route 9. (1, page 208)
In an issue of the Gannett
Westchester Newspapers, an alumna
of The Scarborough School, Mary
Maue, the president of the Maue Oil
Company of Ossining, told a Gannett
Newspapers reporter that
"Scarborough School had been a
force in the community educationally
for many years...It's been a very
good school, an innovatvie one.
When I attended it [in the 1930s] it
was considered quite progressive.
There were no grades. The students
worked along at their own speed,
and I didn't feel ill-prepared when I
got to college. But they stopped that
program a few years after I
graduated....The teachers developed
creativeness in the children to a
Scarborough great degree." (1, pages 158 and
August 20th School
231)
Scarborough
1978 August 20th School
1978-1980
Clear View
School
1978-1980
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1978-1982
Recreation
Committee
1978-1990
Briarcliff
Manor Police
Department
1978-2002
Golden
Family
1978-2002
Briarcliff
Sports
Ann Schoales Thom, then living in
Pound Ridge, said to the Gannett
Newspapers reporter in this same
issue that "It is a shame that the
school has to close. My grandfather
founded the school, and I think in
the past it has served the community
well....I have fond memories of Miss
Lulu Ailes using the brook, which
traverses the campus, to teach us
about the Hudson River. We built
bridges and towns along the brook."
Also at this time, the last member of
the Vanderlip family who lived in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor, Dudley
Schoales, Jr., who lived with his
family in the White Cottage on River
Road, had moved to Connecticut. (1,
pages 158 and 231)
During this period, the distinguished
old buildings of The Scarborough
School stood empty, until 1980,
when they were purchased by The
Clear View School as a day
treatment center sponsored by the
Association for Mentally Ill Children
of Westchester, known as AMIC. (1,
page 158)
During this period, Henry Kaufman
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
233)
During this period, Keith Austen
served on The Recreation Committee
of Briarcliff Manor. (17, page 53)
During this period, Lieutenant Ronald
Trainham serves in The Briarcliff
Manor Police Department before he
is appoint as Chief of this
department in March of 1990. (1,
page 208)
During this period, Meryl and
Seymour Golden have lived at the
“Tree Streets.” (17, page 76)
During this year, Louis Wachtel
coaches the Briarcliff Little League
baseball team. (17, page 80)
1979
1979
1979
1979
1979
1979-1980
1979-1980
1979-1988
1979-ca.
1990
By this year, The King’s College, at a
cost of $2,000,000.00, completed
The Robert A. Cook
King's
Academic/Science Building. (1,
College
pages 172 and 174)
Faith
At this time, the Reverend Joel Egge
Lutheran
was installed as the pastor for the
Brethren
Faith Lutheran Brethren Church. (1,
August
Church
page 172)
Briarcliff
At this time, The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Manor Fire
Department fought a fire at 211
August
Department Central Drive. (1, page 208)
During this year, The Robert A. Cook
Academic/Science Building was
dedicated on the Briarcliff campus of
The King’s College. The dedication
of this new academic-science
building in honor of Dr. Robert A.
Cook was not announced until the
ceremony. This new building
contained classrooms and science
King's
laboratories, a lecture hall, and a
October 13thCollege
greenhouse. (8, page 89)
At this time, Harmony Hall, a
dormitory for Briarcliff Farms
workers and a classroom and faculty
housing space for the King’s College,
was demolished, shortly after the
dedication of the new science
King's
building, which was built on the
late October College
adjacent plot. (8, page 90)
During this period, The King’s
King's
College student enrollment reached a
College
high of 870 students. (1, page 175)
During the 1979-1980 school year,
The King’s College reached a peak
King's
enrollment of over 870 students. (8,
College
page 71)
Faith
During this period, Joel R. Egge
Lutheran
serves as the sixth minister of The
Brethren
Faith Lutheran Brethren Church. (1,
Church
page 235)
Congregatio During this period, Rabbi Daniel J.
n Sons of
Isaak was still serving as the
Israel of
thirteenth Rabbi of the Congregation
Briarcliff
Sons of Israel of Briarcliff Manor. (1,
Manor
page 235)
Date
(Year):
1980s:
1980s
1980s
1980s
1980s
1980s
Month and
Day (If
Available):
Subject:
Description of Event:
During this decade, the apartments
of Chilmark which are located behind
the Ossining Water Comission, as
well as those for senior citizens on
North State Road were the only
"Chilmark
rental units in Briarcliff Village. (1,
Park"
page 57)
During this decade, the land that
stretches from the environs of the
Macy mansion, now much reduced
and modified, to the backyards of
Holbrook, Macy and Scarborough
roads in the 1980s was the largest
Briarcliff
tract in the village that was still
Real Estate undeveloped. (1, page 57)
During this decade, the Wilderness
estate of the Hardens family became
"Wilderness" the Rosecliff development. (1, page
Estate
109)
During this decade, the Maison
Lafitte Restaurant (formerly the
Haymont mansion of William
Whitehead Fuller) has its main dining
room done over with wood paneling
and hung with 19th-century
American oil paintings provided by
art dealer Rudolf Wunderlich, a longtime Ossining resident and executive
of the Kennedy Galleries (in New
York City), which was founded by his
Haymont
grandfather in the 1870s. (1, page
Estate
123)
By this decade, the school of The
Congregation Sons of Israel of
Briarcliff Manor had a staff of seven
or more professional educators, not
Congregatio volunteers, running the school.
n Sons of
Classes from kindergarten through
Israel of
tenth grade met three afternoons a
Briarcliff
week to study Jewish history and
Manor
religion. (1, page 169)
1980s
King's
College
1980s
King's
College
1980s
Briarcliff
Real Estate
1980s
Briarcliff
Population
During this decade, The King’s
College sells its “Tarryhill Campus”
property on part of the former
Stroock estate on Cedar Lane in
Ossining to a developer. (1, page
172)
During this decade, the decreasing
pool of college-age students coming
to The King’s College moved the
college’s administrators to
concentrate on marketing strategies
to attract qualified applicants. (1,
page 173)
During this decade, a surge of real
estate building began to threaten the
“rural look” of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor. (1, page 194)
According to Mary Cheever, in her
book, The Changing Landscape , the
problem of burglar alarms in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor during this
decade can be seen as a sign of not
only of the advent of the electronic
age, but also of a change in the
financial standing of residents of the
village, especially those of the
1980s. Although there were always
people of wealth in the village,
especially in Scarborough, many
were of middle income, comfortably
and not so comfortably middle class.
Changes in both the number and
income level of Briarcliff residents
were gradual after the 1950s.
Transfer of families in or out,
“practically unheard of” in the 1930s
and 1940s that Eileen Weber wrote
about, were less common in the
1980s than in the two preceding
decades, because of the more sotconscious management of large
corporations. Many people moved
within the community, from one
house to another or from a house to
a condominium after retirement. In
the 1980s, people of modest
means—young families, the children
of long-time residents, teachers and
village employees—could not afford
1980s
1980s
1980s
ca. the
early 1980s
the early
1980s
During this decade, the Briarcliff
police force, as in the 1940s, was
mostly occupied with accidents and
Briarcliff
traffic violations on the three major
Manor Police arteries that traverse the Village of
Department Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 207)
During this decade, five of the
Village of Briarcliff Manor’s parks
were “active,” with facilities such as
playgrounds, and tennis and
basketball courts. The bicycle path
Briarcliff
between South State Road and
Park and
Route 9A was put through on county
Pool
parkland. (1, page 209)
During this decade, West Friedman
Briarcliff Girl started the Girl Scout tradition of the
Scout
Daddy-Daughter Disco. (17, page
Council
22)
At around the same time as PolyFlex Corporation built their
headquarters in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, Soudronic, Ltd., a
foreign-based company that
manufactured welding robots, built a
training facility at 465 North State
Soudronic,
Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Ltd.
Manor. (1, page 206)
During this period, when the
Briarcliff Middle School moved into
the new High School building, Pace
University leased from the village the
former Middle and High School
building, adjacent to Law Park. The
building was then renamed The Pace
University Village Center, and Pace
generously allowed the community
use of the auditorium, for special
Pace
events, and also provided space for
University
the Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough
Village
Historical Society and the Village
Center
Youth Center. (1, page 187)
the early
1980s
Poly-Flex
Corporation
the early
1980s
King's
College
the early
1980s(?)1992
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
ca. 1980
Briarcliff
Publishers:
William
Jovanovich
post-ca.
1980 (a few
years later)
Briarcliff
Publishers:
William
Jovanovich
During this period, Poly-Flex
Corporation, designers, printers and
suppliers of polyethylene mailing
envelopes for such clients as Time,
Inc., the Meredith Corporation, and
Reader’s Digest , built headquarters
at 445 North State Road. Barry
Neustein, head of the company, also
built his home in Briarcliff, near
Hardscrabble Road at the eastern
edge of the village. (1, page 206)
Once again, The King’s College
further enlarges the library wing that
they had previously constructed at
the south end of the Briarcliff Lodge
building. (8, pages 79 and 81)
During this period, after the Junior
High School was moved into the new
High School building, the Middle
School (previously also the High
School) buildings were leased to
Pace University until 1992. The
buildings were renamed the Pace
University Village Center. (1, page
154)
Around this year, when a major part
of the publishing company the
William Jovanovich worked for as its
president, Harcourt Brace, moved
from New York City to Rolando,
Florida, and San Diego, California,
Mr. Jovanovich and his wife, Martha
moved with it. (1, page 220)
During this time, after the president
of the publishing firm of Harcourt
Brace, William Jovanovich, and his
wife, Martha, left the Village of
Briarcliff Manor when the publishing
firm that Mr. Jovanovich worked for
moved from New York City in ca.
1980, their son, Peter Jovanovich,
and his family, moved away from the
Village of Briarcliff Manor as well. (1,
page 220)
1980
1980
1980
1980
1980
1980
During this year, Dudley Schoales,
who became a Morgan Stanley
partner and was the last owner of
the Beechwood estate, sells the
Beechwood estate to MTS
Beechwood Associates, a company of
Estate
developers. (1, page 94)
During this year, Kipp's Pharmacy,
located in the Village of Briarcliff
Briarcliff
Manor, was replaced by the Images
Stores
art gallery. (1, page 149)
During this year, the Briarcliff Manor
Briarcliff
Garden Club won a citation from the
Manor
Federated Garden Clubs. (1, page
Garden Club 151)
By this year, the enrollment at The
King's
King’s College had increased to 862.
College
(1, page 173)
By this year, Pace University had
become a university of twenty-six
thousand students in eight schools in
Pace
New York City and Westchester
University
County. (1, page 187)
During this year, construction started
on the remaining thirty-four acres of
the Beechwood property in
Scarborough, on thirty-four town
houses and three two-story
apartments in the renovated, fortyroom Vanderlip mansion. The prices
ranged from $285,000.00 to
$350,000.00 for the town houses,
and from $475,000.00 to
$650,000.00 for the units within the
mansion. The $10 million
redevelopment was a joint effort of
MTS Associates of New York and the
Vector Real Estate Corporation,
under the corporate name of
Beechwood Beechwood Associates. (1, page
Estate
202)
1980
Briarcliff
Park and
Pool
1980
Images Art
Gallery
By this year, when the Village of
Briarcliff Manor purchased the
Chilmark Club, on 11 acres, as the
recreation center, three more parks
had been established: the 5-acre
Neighborhood Park at Fuller Road;
the 4.7-acre Jackson Road Park; and
the 3.8 steep acres of Nichols Park.
Pocantico Park had been enlarged to
seventy acres, and Pine Road Park to
sixty-six. (1, page 209)
During this year, Marie and Leonard
Alpert first opened their art gallery,
Images Art Gallery. Marie was a
working artist, and both she and
Leonard were employed by the Sears
Roebuck Company, he in data
processing, she as an art consultant,
buying art to cover half a million
square feet of wall space in the new
Sears building in New York City.
When it was decided to move most
of the company to Chicago, the
Alperts where unwilling to move with
it. They had always wanted to open
an art gallery and found this a good
time to explore the possibilities.
They considered locations all over
the county. They Kipp’s Pharmacy
moved out of Briarcliff, leaving
vacant the corner store at 1157
Pleasantville Road (formerly the post
office). The Alperts decided to set
up their gallery there because of “the
quality of the town—a pleasant place
to shop and people with good taste.”
Marie went to juried shows and
developed a list of artists. She knew
what she liked, but not yet what
would sell. The gallery opened with
a show of the work of about nineteen
artists, ranging from very realistic to
very abstract. (1, pages 214-215)
1980
1980
1980
1980
1980
1980
During this year, after they opened
Images Art Gallery in the Village of
Briarcliff Manor, gradually Marie and
Leonard Alpert learned to set the
outer limits on what would sell.
Marie learned to trust her own taste.
Echoing Walt Kelly’s Pogo, “We have
met the enemy and he is us,” she
said, “I have met my customer and
she is I, a person not born to great
wealth, educated in art but not of
New York museum curator caliber.”
Leonard “keeps Marie pure,”
supporting her inclination not to sell
reproductions or posters, which are
easy to find elsewhere. They are
most happy that their business has
turned out to be in art rather than
gifts or framing. Although Marie
does some framing, all the growth
Images Art has been in wall art and sculpture.
Gallery
(1, page 215)
During this year, the Chilmark Club
building on Macy Road became the
home of the Recreation Department
Recreation
that served Briarcliff Manor. (17,
Center
page 28)
During this year, Jerry Manganello
and Dan Zucchi served as the two
Briarcliff
coaches for the 1980 Briarcliff Boy’s
Sports
AYSO Soccer Team. (17, page 45)
After three years of litigation by
concerned Briarcliff Villagers over
commuter traffic and parking after
the purchase of Briarcliff College by
Pace University, most of these issues
were resolved by 1980 and Pace
University became a welcome
Pace
presence in the Village of Briarcliff
University
Manor. (17, page 45)
By this year, the population in the
Briarcliff
Village of Briarcliff Manor had
Population
reached 7,115. (17, page 46)
Society for
During this year, The Society for the
the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Prevention
updates its facilities on North State
of Cruelty to Road in the Village of Briarcliff
Animals
Manor. (17, page 47)
1981
During this year, the former
amusement building on the Briarcliff
Lodge property, which had been
used as the science building for The
King's
King’s College, became the Student
College
Life Building. (8, page 86)
During this period, David L. Crowley
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
During this period, Michelle (Mrs.
Alan) Grant serves as the director of
The Briarcliff Nursery School. She
became the director in 1980, and
during her tenure as director, the
nursery-school building, not
originally intended for a school, was
found to be insultated with asbestos.
Mrs. Grant, although told that the
danger to the children from the
asbestos was probably minimal,
arranged to have it removed
anyway. Mrs. Grant retired as
Briarcliff
director in 1988, and was followed
Nursery
by Mrs. Eva Levine. (1, pages 156School, Inc. 157)
During this period, George B. Higgins
was still (ca. 1990) serving as the
Briarcliff
ninth Minister for The Briarcliff
Congregatio Congregational Church. (1, page
n-al Church 235)
During this year, the Briarcliff Manor
Briarcliff
Garden Club won a citation from the
Manor
Federated Garden Clubs. (1, page
Garden Club 151)
During this year, when he resigned
as Rector of All Saints Episcopal
Church in 1981, the Reverend
All Saints
William E. Arnold had served the
Episcopal
third longest rectorship in the
Church
Village. (1, page 179)
1981
During this year, Charles Rodgers,
Jr., who had formally been the
chairman of the caucus of the Village
of Briarcliff Manor in 1972, and was
credited for making this caucus more
democratic, dies. (1, page 191)
1980
1980-1981
1980-1988
1980-ca.
1990
1981
Rodgers
Family
1981
1981
1981
Rotary Club
of Briarcliff
Manor
During this year, The Rotary Club of
Briarcliff Manor was chartered.
Rotarians from Ossining and
Pleasantville, including Mons
Grinager of Birch Road, a past
president of the Pleasantville Rotary
Club, founded it. The charter
president was Dr. Barry Farnham,
then superintendant of schools for
the Village of Briarcliff Manor, and
the president-elect and program
chairman was realtor Leonard Young.
The first club program featured
county legislator Sandra Galef. (1,
page 210)
During this year, David and Caroline
Boute bought for less than half a
million dollars the northernmost of
the two Dinwiddie houses on
Scarborough Road. They were a
charming couple, he very tall and
soft-spoken, she slender and pretty.
They had been married just five days
before closing on the house. As a
captain in the U.S. Marine Corps,
David had been wounded in Vietnam
and spent a lot of time in hospitals
before taking a position with Mobile
Oil. Caroline had her Master of Arts
degree from the Harvard University
School of Design. They moved in at
once, although the house had stood
vacant for some time and was in
disrepair. They set about installing
new heating, plumbing and electric
systems, and working from the
Dinwiddieground up to the roof, which they
Boute House replaced. (1, page 225)
During this year, a beautification
work near the intersection of North
Briarcliff Boy State Road and Route 9A by Mark
Scouts
Kraft. (17, page 42)
1981 February
Village
Government
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1981 September
Clear View
School
1981
1981-1982
Briarcliff Girl
Scout
Council
1981-1983
Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Department
1981-1984
Clear View
School
During this year, citizens led by
Freda Delton organized as the
“Group Against Garbage” (GAG) to
oppose County plans for a garbage
transfer station in Briarcliff Manor.
The group was successful, and Freda
was subsequently elected a Trustee
of the Village, and then later on as
Briarcliff’s first woman mayor in
1993. (17, page 47)
At this time, The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department fought a fire at 162 Old
Briarcliff Road. (1, page 208)
At this time, after years of search,
negotiation, and major renovations,
The Clear View School, serving
children with special developmental
needs, opened in the buildings of the
former The Scarborough School. (1,
page 158) (17, page 47)
During this period, community
camping was started at Rock Hill
(near Mahopac) when Joan Austin
became Community Director for The
Briarcliff Girl Scout Council. (17,
page 22)
During this period, Robert J. King
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
233)
During this period, the first years of
The Clear View School's operation in
their new location at the school
buildings of the former The
Scarborough School were financially
difficult, with mortgage payments,
rising energy costs and a "'battle of
the budget' waged with government
agencies that seem intent...upon
saving tax dollars by reducing real
services even while maintaining the
full flower and vigor of their own
bureaucratic activity." (1, page 158)
1981-1984
1981-1985
1981-1988
1981-ca.
1990
1981-ca.
1990
1982
After the resignation of the Reverend
William E. Arnold as the Rector of All
Saints Episcopal Church in 1981, the
parish of All Saints Episcopal Church
went through another difficult period
All Saints
until the Reverend Steven Yagerman
Episcopal
was called as Rector in 1984. (1,
Church
page 179)
During this period, David and
Caroline Boute lived in the
northernmost of the two Dinwiddie
houses on Scarborough Road, which
they had started to fix up. They
lived in this house very happily
Dinwiddieduring this period and started a
Boute House family as well. (1, page 225)
During this period, it took David and
Caroline Boute, who bought the
Dinwiddie-Boute House in 1981,
eight years and a lot of money to
Dinwiddiefinish their restorations of the house.
Boute House (1, page 225)
Since the chartering of The Rotary
Rotary Club Club of Briarcliff Manor in 1981, the
of Briarcliff
club has grown to a membership of
Manor
around thirty-eight. (1, page 210)
During this period, Imogene N. Fink
serves as the village clerk for the
Village
Briarcliff Manor Village Government.
Government (1, page 233)
During this year, The Bernarr
McFadden School (a school for poor
children run by physical culturalist
and publisher Bernarr McFadden),
later Leland Rosemond's Otarion
Listener (manufacturers of hearing
aids) headquarters on the Albany
Post Road, burns down. This
building was also originally the
residence of William Kingsland, the
building also served as the home of
Briarcliff Nursery School and later as
William
Thomas J. McLaughlin's Combined
Kingsland
Book Exhibit. (1, pages 125 and
House
206)
1982
Slater
Family
1982
Slater
Family
During this year, Marilyn Slater
wrote an account of her family’s first
twenty years of residency in the
Village of Briarcliff Manor from 19621982, which like many families in
Briarcliff is unique, but also like
most, has some common elements
and concerns. Her account begins:
“On a golden Saturday in late
summer, we burned our mortgage.
We invited to join us the neighbors
of old, most of whom had moved
away, as well as the attractive young
couples who had replaced them. Our
extended family was also on hand to
help us celebrate. For we were to
end a major financial obligation and
it seemed important to gather
around us the people who had filled
these years with fun, support,
companionship and love.” (1, page
199)
Marilyn Slater’s account of her
family’s first twenty years (19621982) living in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor also states: “During our
twenty years in the modest frame
and shingle house, inventively
termed “Village Colonial” by the real
estate people, many things had
happened to us, some wonderful,
some we could have done without.
We had raised our four children here
and somehow managed to get them
through the vicissitudes of childhood
and adolescence, and now the
youngest had almost finished
college. There was a time when it
seemed this last would require a
financial miracle.” (1, page 199)
1982
Slater
Family
1982
Slater
Family
Marilyn Slater’s account of her
family’s first twenty years (19621982) living in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor also states: “Not all of our
early memories of 72 Poplar Road
are negative. There were fourteen
children living in four houses in a
row on our seldom quiet side of the
street, and during the summers they
regaled us with backyard shows.
They sang, danced and did terrible
comedy routines. On one occasion
they invited their parents to a
“church” service, complete with a
sermon and, of course, a collection.”
(1, page 200)
Marilyn Slater’s account of her
family’s first twenty years (19621982) living in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor also states: “These same
adjacent backyards were the setting
for weekend get-togethers of the
thespians’ parents. We served each
other drinks and snacks and had
lively exchanges of ideas. Among
the issues we argued was whether or
not Briarcliff High School should
merge with Pleasantville. Indoors in
the fall and winter we continued to
share our weekly news and the
world’s. We spent New Years’ Eves
together too, drinking a bit too much
and making resolutions and
predictions which we checked out
each subsequent year. Our good
fellowship was born largely of similar
values and concerns, which, of
course, made our children-rearing
infinitely easier than going it alone.”
(1, page 200)
1982
Slater
Family
Marilyn Slater’s account of her
family’s first twenty years (19621982) living in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor also states: “Along with the
usual childhood diseases we had
more than our share of orthopedic
problems. Our older daughter
developed Perthes Disease, a
softening of the hip joint bones
which kept her on crutches from the
ages of seven to nine. Still vivid
memories of those years include the
sight of her sitting under a large
maple tree waiting until her
crutches, pressed into service as
machine guns by neighborhood
children, were returned to her. A
memory that still can move me to
tears is of the sight of her hurrying
to catch the school bus on a rainy
morning in her blue and white
checked raincoat and hat, slipping
and falling near the road. Books,
crutches, lunch and child all spilled
out in different directions. Our
second oldest tore the ligaments in
his knee one evening when we were
busy with dinner guests. He went
out to ski with non-release bindings
on the golf course behind our yard.
We spent the next spring and
summer going for hydro-therapy at a
1982
1982
1982
1982
Marilyn Slater’s account of her
family’s first twenty years (19621982) living in the Village of Briarcliff
Manor also states: “During
subsequent summers I watched
these same children, healed and
tanned, gong off each morning to the
recreation program in our village,
first as campers, later as counselors
and life guards. In the fall and
winter, the school bus stopped at our
driveway and when it was especially
cold or snowy, the group would wait
on our porch or in our front hall. The
picture of this wool-hatted and
mittened group clutching brown bag
lunches, oak tag art projects, cellos,
gym bags, cleats and even a stringed
bass return to me easily still. In
later years we watched a procession
of young people go off nervously in
caps and gowns and prom dress,
uncomfortable at being
photographed before departure. And
so this summer afternoon we
gathered to recall and celebrate
some very good years. The young
lawyers, salesmen, social workers,
mechanics and students found it
surprisingly easy to renew old ties,
Slater
while their parents enjoyed the
Family
reunion, promising to repeat it
Briarcliff
During this year, the new engine 94
Manor Fire
and the new ladder 40 were put into
Department service. (1, page 208)
Briarcliff
During this year, Joan Austin was
Board of
elected as a member of The Briarcliff
Education
Board of Education. (17, page 46)
Briarcliff
During this year, William Johnson
Manor Fire
joins The Briarcliff Fire Department.
Department (17, page 48)
1982
1982 January
1982 April
1982 June
1982 June 2nd
In his response to the question
What’s so “special” about our
village? in 2002, Bonnie C. Mittelman
said “[After an anti-Semitic act in
1982] the school district, village
officials, the religious community,
and Briarcliff Manor as a whole
stepped forward when the law could
not. They denounced anti-Semitism,
instituted programs, and proclaimed
Village
that hate would find no haven in
Government Briarcliff.” (17, page 78)
At this time, The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department fought a fire that gutted
some shops on Pleasantville Road in
the business center of the Village on
one of the coldest nights of the year.
Ten inches of ice on the roads,
frozen water lines, and the
firefighters' coats so frozen that they
stand by themselves made the
fighting of this fire even harder.
Despite this major destruction, the
storekeepers whose shops burned
Briarcliff
down rebuilt them by the end of this
Manor Fire
year and business returns quickly to
Department normal. (1, page 208) (17, page 48)
At this time, The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Department fought the Combined
Briarcliff
Book Exhibit (formerly the William
Manor Fire
Kingsland mansion) fire. (1, page
Department 208)
During this time, when the Reverend
Paul Zahl became the Rector of St.
St. Mary's
Mary’s Episcopal Church there were
Episcopal
110 members of this church. (1,
Church
page 176)
According to this date’s issue of The
Gannett Westchester Newspapers,
the Reverend Joel Egge, who was
appointed as the pastor for The Faith
Lutheran Brethren Church in August
of 1979, had before been a pastor in
Pasadena, California, and Marysville,
Faith
Washington, and is a member of the
Lutheran
Board of Home Missions for his
Brethren
denomination. (1, pages 172 and
Church
232)
1982 September
1982-1983
1982-1983
ca. 19821983
1982-1987
1982-1988
At this time, the first women, Rachel
Higgins and Debra Ann Connachio,
were admitted to the fire department
and first helped to fight a fire in the
same month. Rachel, daughter of
Rev. George Higgins, pastor of The
Briarcliff Congregational Church and
Fire Department Chaplain, will later
Briarcliff
wed Tom Leihbacher. Also, Debra
Manor Fire
Ann will later marry William Johnson.
Department (1, page 208) (17, page 48)
During this period, Miles Omaly (who
was also the priest in charge of All
Saints Episcopal Church during this
All Saints
period) serves as the fifteenth Rector
Episcopal
of All Saints Episcopal Church. (1,
Church
page 235)
During this academic school year at
The King’s College, the two-story,
1909-built old laundry building for
the Briarcliff Lodge still stood as The
Music Building for the college. It was
located opposite Harmony Hall and,
later, The Robert A. Cook
King's
Academic/Science Building. (8, page
College
90)
Around this period, the tower wing in
the center of the Briarcliff Lodge
building was being used by The
King’s College as a men’s dormitory.
At this time, there was no modern
staircase that would later be added
to this part of the Briarcliff Lodge
building. This wing originally
contained 72 bedrooms and 41
baths. There was also a steam plant
King's
located below the Lodge at this time
College
as well. (8, page 80)
During this period, Anthony
Department DeCesaris serves as the head of the
of Public
Village of Briarcliff Manor’s Public
Works
Works Department. (1, page 234)
During this period, Paul F. M. Zahl
St. Mary's
serves as the tenth elected Rector of
Episcopal
Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church. (1,
Church
page 235)
1983
During this period of eighteen year,
Briarcliff
Joan Austin served as a member of
Board of
The Briarcliff Board of Education.
Education
(17, page 46)
During this period, William Johnson
Briarcliff
served twenty years in The Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Manor Fire Department. (17, page
Department 48)
During this year, because The
Beechwood Theater, within the main
building of The Scarborough School,
had also, like the rest of The
Scarborough School, had stood
empty for years(?), the AMIC and
local theater groups cooperated to
raise money and renovate it. By this
year, (1983), members and
supporters of the Greater Ossining
Area Community Theater (GOACT)
Beechwood did what they could to restore the
Theatre
theater. Ossining artist Jean Stern
(Beechwood repainted the interior, working with
Playhouse) the original stencils. (1, page 160)
During this year, The Golden
Anniversary campaign was launched
by The King’s College to raise $6
million to renovate the main men’s
King's
dormitory and build a
College
chapel/auditorium. (1, page 172)
1983
During this year, Tetko, Inc., a Swiss
screen-printing business based in
Elmsford, applied for rezoning of the
property on Route 9, adjacent to
Marlborough Road, that had been the
site of Rosemond’s Otarion Listener.
Although the decision was
controversial because neighbors on
Marlborough Road feared possible
chemical emissions from the plant,
the property was rezoned and the
plant constructed. (1, page 206)
1982-2000
1982-2002
1983
Tetko, Inc.
1983
1983
1983
1983
1983
During this year, Sidney Polivnik,
who directed the instrumental
program at the Briarcliff schools
starting in 1957, retired from his
position as director. The students of
Sidney Polivnik who have went on to
become professional musicians are
Dorothy Duncan, clarinetist; the
Blachman brothers; Jennifer
Graham, oboist; Barbara Mort,
Briarcliff
pianist and clarinetist; Judy Spoke,
Musicians:
violinist; and the Hess sisters,
Polivnik
Bonnie, flutist, and Carol, pianist and
Family
clarinetist. (1, page 224)
Congregatio By this year, The Congregation Sons
n Sons of
of Israel of Briarcliff Manor would
Israel of
nearly double its facilities, and its
Briarcliff
nursery school opens as well. (17,
Manor
page 38)
During this year, Edward T. Dorsey
was elected as the mayor of the
Village
Village of Briarcliff Manor. (17, page
Government 48)
During this year, Dan McBride
becomes Superintendent of
Recreation. Recreation programs
double in size and a new mascot,
Blubo, cheers on racers, swimmers,
Recreation
and runners and greets villagers on
Committee Community Day. (17, page 48)
During this year, a soccer game was
held on the soccer filed of The King’s
College’s campus in Briarcliff Manor
to celebrate the 1983 Homecoming
event. Athletics were an important
part of campus life for students at
the college, just as athletics were
integral to the operation of the
Lodge as a resort 60 years earlier.
However athletic events were later
strongly opposed by some neighbors
of the campus, who sought to
prevent further activities of this type
King's
and size from occurring again on the
College
property. (8, page 91)
1983 May
1983 Fall
November
1983 18th
1983 December
At this time, in order to help to raise
money to restore The Beechwood
Beechwood Theater of the former The
Theatre
Scarborough School, Briarcliff pianist
(Beechwood Mary Ann Scialdo performed a
Playhouse) bennefit concert. (1, page 160)
At this time, Dr. Robert A. Cook
posed with the “Phoneathon Callers”
King's
on the staircase in the Briarcliff
College
Lodge’s Lobby. (8, page 84)
In an article published in The New
York Times on this date, entitled
“Blending Old Estate with New
Project,” by Lee A. Daniels, Sean
Scully, an architect and principle of
MTS Associates, told Mr. Daniels, a
The New York Times reporter, that
the key to adapting such estates as
Beechwood for modern residential
living lies in “valuing the landscape
and character of the old estate above
all…. In effect, redevelopment the
property becomes an act of
stewardship.” Robert Marville, head
of the Briarcliff Manor planning
board, also said that the MTS-Vector
plan for the property was “very
intensively scrutinized” by village
officials. “They showed far more
sensitivity than anything we had yet
seen,” he said, “and the widespread
feeling is that it has worked out very
well.” Frank Vanderlip, Jr., also
interviewed for this same article,
gave MTS Associates “credit for
saving Beechwood from the
bulldozer…Beechwood was divided
into three very fine condominiums,
and the library converted into a
ballroom for the use of all the
Beechwood families of the development. This
Estate
was done carefully, retaining
At this time, in order to help to raise
money to restore The Beechwood
Theater of the former The
Beechwood Scarborough School, the Greater
Theatre
Ossining Area Community Theater
(Beechwood (GOACT) staged The Andersonsville
Playhouse) Trial . (1, page 160)
1983-1984
ca. 19831984
1983-1984
1983-1985
1983-1987
1983-1988
1983-ca.
1990
1983-1990
During this period, Joseph I. Piazzi
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
Around this period of time, the
steeply pitched gabled roof and
dormer windows where kept on the
Briarcliff Lodge building and created
King's
diverse interior spaces on the fourth
College
floor of the Lodge. (8, page 81)
During this period, construction
began on the men’s dormitory in the
central tower extension of the
Briarcliff Lodge building, as a new
staircase was added at the west end
of the building, replacing a metal fire
escape, and the interior was
King's
completely gutted and rebuilt with
College
modern dorm rooms. (8, page 80)
BriarcliffOssining
During this period, Patricia Knapp
League of
serves as the president of The
Women
Briarcliff-Ossining League of Women
Voters
Voters. (1, page 163)
During this period, the Briarcliff
Swimming and Diving Team won the
Briarcliff
Division I Championships. (17, page
Sports
39)
During this period, the development
plan for condominiums to be built
near the Briar Hall Country Club
proposed by the Pilot Development
Corporation of Mamaroneck was
drafted by this corporation, and was
Briarcliff
eventually allowed after a court
Real Estate action. (1, page 204)
Faith
During this period, since 1983, there
Lutheran
has been an assistant pastor at The
Brethren
Faith Lutheran Brethren Church. (1,
Church
page 172)
During this period, Edward T. Dorsey
Village
serves as the Mayor of the Village of
Government Briarcliff Manor. (1, page 233)
(?)-the mid1980s
Grey Ledges
(Asa
Geeding
Estate)
the mid1980s
Briarcliff
Manor Police
Department
the mid1980s
(1984?)
COED
(continuing
education
program)
1984
Briarcliff
Manor Police
Department
1984
Briarcliff
Manor Free
Library
1984
All Saints
Episcopal
Church
More recently(?), Richard Rosenthal
of the Wall Street firm of Salomon
Brothers bought the Grey Ledges
house on many surrounding acres
and the big house just below it,
where he lived with his family until
the mid-1980s, when he crashed to
his death in his private airplane in
nearby Pleasantville. Rosenthal was
a generous philanthropist,
outstanding for his quiet beneficence
in the new generation of Briarcliff
millionaire residents. (1, page 125)
During this period, a police officer of
the Briarcliff Manor Police
Department on a routine patrol
stopped a car that went through a
red light on Route 9A. Someone in
the car shot at the policeman, who
was wearing a bulletproof vest and
was not injured. The car got away.
(1, page 207)
At this time, JoAnne Dornfield, an
employee of Westchester Community
College, took over the direction of
COED, which then became part of
the state educational establishment.
Shortly thereafter(?) the Briarcliff
School Board, citing the high cost of
insurance, and reflecting a change in
community sentiment, requested
that the program be conducted
elsewhere. (1, page 156)
During this year, Ed Dorsey was
responsible for the appointment of
Arthur Johnson, Jr., as chief of
police. (1, page 150)
During this year, under the direction
of architect Don Reiman, a
mezzanine was added to the interior
of The Briarcliff Manor Free Library.
(1, page 151)
During this year, the Reverend
Steven Yagerman was called to be
the Rector of All Saints Episcopal
Church. (1, page 179)
1984
1984
1984
1984
During this year, Jack Adler, artist
and Briarcliff resident, retired from
his position as director of
Briarcliff
professional training at the Jewish
Artists:
Child Care Association. (1, pages
Adler Family 212-213)
Congregatio
n Sons of
During this year, The Congregation
Israel of
Sons of Israel of Briarcliff Manor
Briarcliff
starts its summer day camp
Manor
program. (17, page 38)
During this year, the “old” Middle
School building closed, and the sixth
grade will move to the Todd School
building, while the seventh and
eighth graders will go to the High
School building. Joan Austin recalled
that the move, while undoubtedly
necessary, was not popular.
Because the site was lease to pace,
it generated income and could be
reclaimed if necessary, but parent
feared sending their younger
Public
children to the high school.
Schools,
However, there were very few
Grade and
problems with the transition. (17,
High School pages 48-49)
On this date, The Clear View School
presented Julie Harris, in a onewoman performance of Currer Bell ,
Esquire , based on the life of
Charlotte Bronte, by William Luce.
Marc Statler, executive director of
GOACT, and his colleagues assisted
in the production of the sold-out,
$100.00-a-ticket benefit. The
Clear View
theater was then rededicated the
March 17th School
Julie Harris Theater. (1, page 160)
September
1984 16th
1984 November
after 1984
post-1984
On this date, after an ad about
Beechwood appeared in The New
York Times on this same date, a
friend of the Vanderlips who
attended many parties at Beechwood
in the 1920s, Murrie Marden Fitch, in
a letter to David Grant, describes
that decade (the 1920s) as "the
fabulous years!...On Christmas in the
Library the Vanderlip family gifts
looked like a "Dynasty" sceneErmine and mink coats, jewels,
crystal-and a new car for Virginia in
the drvie way." (Frank Vanderlip,
Jr.'s memories of Christmases at
Beechwood are somewhat different:
"There was one ermine coat-no
minks. N. C. V. got a new pearl
necklace from F. A. V., and a
pregnant goat from her children.
She preferred the goat. It had three
kids, one black, one white and one
gray, which played on the lawn
where the goat was tethered the
next summer. Pa loved to see them
Beechwood scamper around their mother."). (1,
Estate
pages 100 and 231)
At this time, an employee of The
Sleepy Hollow Country Club was
killed in a drug-related incident. The
Briarcliff
Briarcliff Manor Police Department
Manor Police was able to solve this case. (1, page
Department 207)
After this year, the financial
problems that had plagued The Clear
View School during its first years of
Clear View
operation from 1981-1984, had
School
moderated. (1, page 158)
During the subsequent years after
1984, several theater companies,
including GOACT, renamed the
Acting Company of Westchester but
still directed by Marc Statler, the
Little Community Theater, and the
River Front Acting Company,
produced, among others, works by
Noel Coward, Dickens, Steinbeck,
Julie Harris Chekhov, and Woody Allen, in the
Theater
Julie Harris Theater. (1, page 160)
1984-1985
1984-1985
1984-1986
During this period, according to “The
King’s College Catalogue” from 19841985, there was a “statement of
doctrine…adopted by the Board of
Trustees,” spelled out from the
divine inspiration of the Bible to “the
bodily resurrection of the just and
the unjust—the just going to
everlasting blessedness in heaven
with God, the unjust to everlasting
punishment in hell.” Six columns
followed this statement on the
Christian philosophy of the college
and goals for the student, who
“should be characterized by a
personal faith in Jesus Christ.”
However, the “Introductory
Information” section states that,
“admission is open to all men and
women—regardless of race, creed
and national origin—who meet the
admissions requirements and who
King's
believe they can profit from study at
College
King’s.” (1, pages 173 and 232)
This same catalogue from The King's
College published during this period
also said that all members of the
college community, teachers,
students and administrators, were
required to refrain from the use of
alcoholic beverages, tobacco,
narcotics and “traditional” playing
cards. They could not participate in
oath-bound secret societies or social
dancing of any kind and must
exercise “Christian discretion” in
their choice of entertainment,
including the performing arts, radio,
television, recordings and “various
King's
forms of literature.” (1, pages 175
College
and 232)
During this period, William L. Kowack
Briarcliff
serves as the chief of The Briarcliff
Manor Fire
Manor Fire Department. (1, page
Department 233)
1984-ca.
1990
1984-ca.
1990
1984-1990
pre-1985
pre-1985
1985
1985
Since Jack Adler, artist and Briarcliff
resident, retired from his position as
director of professional training at
the Jewish Child Car Association in
Briarcliff
1984, he has been able to devote
Artists:
more time to his sculpture and
Adler Family ceramics. (1, pages 212-213)
During this period, Steven J.
All Saints
Yagerman was still serving as the
Episcopal
sixteenth Rector of All Saints
Church
Episcopal Church. (1, page 235)
Arthur W. Johnson, Jr., serves as the
Briarcliff
chief of police of The Briarcliff Manor
Manor Police Police Department during this period.
Department (1, page 62)
Before he retired form working for
CBS in 1985, Burton Benjamin,
writer, producer and director, and
Briarcliff resident, investigated “The
Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam
Briarcliff
Deception,” the controversial CBS
Writers:
documentary about the Vietnam War
Burton
involving General William
Benjamin
Westmorland. (1, page 219)
During this period, before he became
the director of the Alabama
Symphony in Birmingham in 1985,
Paul Polivnik (the son of Sidney
Polivnik, who directed the
instrumental program at the Briarcliff
schools starting in 1957, and retired
Briarcliff
from this position in 1983),
Musicians:
conducted the Milwaukee and
Polivnik
Indianapolis symphonies. (1, page
Family
224)
Mary Cheever agreed to begin
research for a new book about the
History of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor and the surrounding area,
later entitled: "The Changing
Changing
Landscape: a history of Briarcliff
Landscape
Manor-Scarborough ." (1, page vii)
From having less than a thousand
residents when it was founded, the
Village of Briarcliff Manor increases
in population to well over seven
Briarcliff
thousand residents by 1985. (1,
Population
page 1)
1985
1985
1985
1985
1985
1985
1985
Briarcliff Manor was commended by
the Westchester Planning Federation
for the adaptive reuse of estates,
specifically Beechwood (formerly the
Vanderlip estate), Rosecliff (formerly
the Wilderness, estate of the Harden
Briarcliff
family, and F. B. Hall (formerly the
Real Estate O'Connor estate). (1, page 1)
During this year, the Briarcliff Manor
Garden Club won awards from the
Briarcliff
Federated Garden Clubs and the
Manor
Ninth District for their "Beautiful
Garden Club Briarcliff Day, 1985." (1, page 151)
Briarcliff
By this year, The Briarcliff Nursery
Nursery
School was holding five afternoon
School, Inc. sessions a week. (1, page 156)
During this year, Mrs. Woyden, the
wife of Joseph Woyden, and whose
survival from being hit by a car
inspired Mr. Woyden to erect the
Woyden
sign “God Answers Prayers” on Route
Family
9A, dies. (1, page 165)
Faith
Lutheran
During this year, The Faith Lutheran
Brethren
Brethren Church hires its first fullChurch
time office secretary. (1, page 172)
During this year, Burton Benjamin,
writer, producer and director, and
Briarcliff
Briarcliff resident, retired from
Writers:
working for CBS after working
Burton
twenty-nine years for this network.
Benjamin
(1, page 219)
During this year, the son of Sidney
Polivnik (who directed the
instrumental program at the Briarcliff
schools starting in 1957, and retired
from this position in 1983), Paul
Polivnik, became the music director
and conductor of the Alabama
Symphony in Birmingham. He has
also been a guest conductor of the
Briarcliff
Los Angeles Philharmonic and many
Musicians:
other orchestras in this country and
Polivnik
in Vienna, London and Seoul. (1,
Family
page 224)
1985
By this time, after living in the
Dinwiddie-Boute House four the past
five years, David and Caroline Boute
added the final embellishments: a
double stairway on the beautiful old
oval porch at the front of the house,
a brick terrace with rose planters
and Chippendale railings, and a
colonnade from the house to a threeDinwiddiecar garage with an apartment above
Boute House it. (1, page 225)
1985
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
During this year, parents,
grandparents, staff, and community
volunteers spent a weekend building
a new playground at Todd School.
Arlene Neveloff remembered:
“Barbara Kobren and I were VPs of
Todd and at a meeting with the new
principal, Ronnie Brown, we
discussed the poor condition of the
playground. The school board said
they couldn’t pay for a new one, but
challenged us to raise $7,500, which
they would match. They truly
believed we’d never do it, but the
parents came through. The BPTA
was an important lobbying group,
too. We fought for—and
got—computer centers, seat-belt use
on school buses, baby grand in Todd,
and an auditorium.” (17, page 49)
King's
College
During this year, after Dr. Robert A.
Cook retired as the president of The
King’ College, and Dr. Friedhelm K.
Radant was brought in to stabilize
the college. Even though Dr. Radant
tried to upgrade the Briarcliff campus
of The King’s College, it soon
became apparent that a move away
from the college’s Briarcliff campus
was necessary in order for The King’s
College to survive. (8, page 71)
1985
1985(?)
1985 January
Probably during this year, Joseph
Woyden, who put up the “God
Answers Prayers” sign on Route 9A,
told Citizen Register reporter Geoff
Walden that he first had the sign
made out of wood, and, “Some, I
guess, Communist, crossed over the
little creek there and chopped it
down.” Next he steelbolted it, but
the bolts were cut and it was stolen.
Finally, he welded it onto an iron
pipe embedded in concrete. A friend
and former neighbor, who has
maintained the sign for Woyden,
called it a fitting tribute to a selfless
"God
man who regularly helped motorists
Answers
stranded on 9A. “He was eighty
Prayers"
years old and he’d go out on 9A and
Sign
help them.” (1, pages 164-165)
At this time, The Briarcliff Manor Fire
Briarcliff
Department once again fought a fire
Manor Fire
at 162 Old Briarcliff Road. (1, page
Department 208)
1985 January
February
1985 7th
According to an article in ARTnews
published on this date, entitled:
“Color Coded Mysteries,” by Maurice
Poirier, Brice Marden (a former
resident of the Village of Briarcliff
Manor), was abstract artist who
before he was forty years old had
“achieved international recognition.”
Brice Marden became interested in
painting when he was an
undergraduate student at Boston
University, where he majored in fine
arts. He was awarded a scholarship
to Yale University Art School, where
he earned the Master of Fine Arts
degree. The article also said Mr.
Marden “first came to public
attention with grayish monochrome
paintings done with a mixture of
beeswax and oil. Reacting against
the rhetorical brushwork of second
generation Abstract Expressionism,
he stone for a single unified surface.”
When he was in his thirties his work
was shown at the Guggenheim
Museum, and it was soon
represented in the collections of the
Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney
Museum, the Pompidou Center in
Briarcliff
Paris, and the Stedelijk Museum in
Artists: Brice Amsterdam, as well as the
Marden
Guggenheim Museum. (1, page 213)
According to this date’s issue of the
Gannett Westchester Newspapers, a
1985 study by Ben Larkey, county
recycling coordinator, showed fortythree communities engaged in some
recycling, if only of leaves and
newspapers, but Briarcliff was one of
only fifteen that recycled glass and
even fewer that recycled metals.
Larkey estimated that Briarcliff at
that time recycled 60 percent of its
glass and 68 percent of its
newspapers. Briarcliff had
demonstrated that neat and almost
complete recycling could be
Briarcliff
accomplished at a reasonable cost.
Recycling
(1, pages 198 and 232)
1985 June
"God
Answers
Prayers"
Sign
1985 June
Faith
Lutheran
Brethren
Church
1985 September
Briarcliff
Recycling
According to an interview conducted
for this date’s issue of Guideposts
magazine, Joseph Woyden was
interviewed about the experience
that caused him to erect the “God
Answers Prayers” sign. He stated
that after his wife was hit by a car in
1953 and told that she would not
live, he said “All I could do,” he said
“was pray, and that’s what I did.
Constantly.” Mrs. Woyden lived, but
when, “after lying in traction for twoand-a-half months in her hospital
bed she was brought home…it was
said that she would never walk
again.” Mr. Woyden retired from
business to take care of his wife and
he prayed, through the summer and
into the fall…. “This time…I asked
God to heal her—completely.” After
almost three months in bed at home,
she stood up, with help, announced
she was going to walk across the
room, and did. A month later she
had “returned to her routine of
horseback riding, golfing, swimming
and walking with Mr. Woyden and
their brood of poodles.” Mr. Woyden
designed the sign, had it made and
put it up to declare “his strong,
proven conviction that GOD
ANSWERS PRAYERS.” (1, pages 164
At this time, 3.1 acres of land
adjoining The Faith Lutheran
Brethren Church property was
purchased for $53,000.00. (1, page
172)
According to the “Urban County
News, Division of Housing and
Community Development,” published
at this time, this publication stated
that at the first annual Westchester
Recycling awards meeting in
September 1985, Briarcliff’s rate of
participation in recycling was cited as
highest in the country. (1, pages 198
and 232)
post-1985
Briarcliff
Writers:
Burton
Benjamin
ca. 1985(?)ca. 1989(?)
Romaine
Family
After retiring from CBS in 1985,
Burton Benjamin, writer, producer
and director at different times for
CBS, and Briarcliff resident, took a
fellowship at the Gannett Center for
Media Studies at Columbia University
and wrote a book, entitled: Fair
Play: CBS, General Westmoreland,
and How a Television Documentary
Went Wrong . (1, page 219)
Around this time, Mary Cheever, for
her book, The Changing Landscape ,
which was a history of Briarcliff
Manor-Scarborough, interviewed the
granddaughter of the Romaine
family, which had started growing
the Briarcliff Rose in the Pierson
greenhouses of the Briarcliff Farms.
Their granddaughter, Marie Davis
(Mrs. Everett) Evelyn, remembers
that when she was a child "the
highlight of the week" for her family
was the Sunday visit with the
Romaines. Marie would slip away up
the path to the greenhouses, "the
magical world of roses, roses, roses,"
where on Sundays the only sound
was the whispering of the steam
pipes around the raised rosebeds,
the moisture releasing the "fragrance
of the living earth and plants." The
center path of narrow, wooden
boards led to a door outside. Just
beyond were steps up to the door to
the next greenhouse and then the
next and the next. The Romaines
had seven children and ten
grandchildren, and there was always
singing as they gathered around the
piano. Grandfather Romaine was a
Methodist and always asked to sing
hymns, most often his favorite,
ca. 1985(?)ca. 1989(?)
Briarcliff
Lodge
1985-1989
St. Mary's
Episcopal
Church
1985-1989
1985-1990
1986
October
(1985)October
(1989)
Abrams
Family
Public
Schools,
Grade and
High School
BriarcliffOssining
League of
Women
Voters
Around this time, Mary Cheever, for
her book, The Changing Landscape ,
which was a hisotry of Briarcliff
Manor-Scarborough, interviewed
some longtime Briarcliff residents
who reminisced about the great days
of the Lodge: chauffeurs in blue,
gray and purple uniforms to match
the automobiles they drove
(Margaret Pearson Finne): Sir
Thomas Lipton in his Pierce Arrow
with the top down; Mrs. Huntington
Hartford with her daughter and sonin-law, two granddaughters, three
chauffeurs and a maid; room and
board for a servant thirty-five dollars
a month (Stanley O'Connor);
attendants sweeping the morning
dew from the croquet lawns so that
the ladies would not get their
slippers damp (Joan Goldsborough).
(1, page 40)
During this period, the priceless
Bolton windows of St. Mary’s
Episcopal Church were again
removed, section-by-section,
releaded and restored. In addition,
land was obtained from The Sleepy
Hollow Country Club for a parking
lot, and a memorial garden was
created. (1, page 176)
During this period, Roz Abrams, an
anchorwoman with Channel 7’s
“Eyewitn