SchoolHistory
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School History
Quaker missionaries first came to America in 1656, one hundred and twenty years before the Declaration of Independence. Twenty five years later, Quaker William Penn founded a state whose Frame of Government and Charter of Liberties he crafted in observance of Quaker principles. Many of these ideas were embraced by the framers of the U.S. Constitution in preference to those of Puritan New England (which led in the direction of a state church) or aristocratic Virginia (which led in the direction of a privileged class). Thus, the very fabric of today’s United States was woven by early Quakers.
Other early Quakers had strong views about education. As we all know, one of these, Gideon Frost, founded Friends Academy on property adjacent to the Matinecock Meeting House that had been built 150 years earlier in 1726. Our school is now 128 years old.
You can read the genealogy of Gideon Frost, who married Mary Willets in 1823, at http://www.frostsonli.com/Frost%20Line.html; it includes a nice New York Times article from 1/16/1977 on FA. Just do a Find on “Gideon”.
Alex Edwards-Bourdrez, FA’s point man for our reunion, wrote a nice 33-page update taking the school to its 125th anniversary in 2002: “FA History 1977-2002 DraftS.doc” (196 KB Word document without the pictures).
The Red Building was razed in 1974. Here it is being disemboweled:
Aerial Photographs
One of the pictures in the 1977 centennial book is a beautiful aerial photograph of the campus (1977 aerial.jpg, 224 KB). Another attachment, Aerial 1977 with IDs2.doc, shows the same picture with annotations that date prominent features (warning: at 672 KB, this Word document may be too large to download unless you have a broadband Internet connection).
Compare that photograph with an aerial taken just two years after we graduated: 1957 aerial.jpg (169 KB). Can you identify all of the buildings in this picture?
And compare them both with the most recent aerial photograph, Aerial 2003 with IDs2.doc (434 KB Word document), which is heavily annotated to show when various buildings were built.
Taken together, these pictures give a pretty good idea of how the campus has involved since our days there. Many other details will be filled in during our kick-off luncheon on Friday, September 30.
The Lamp in FA's Logo
Have you ever wondered about the lamp in FA's logo? Fil happens to be an expert in such things, and wrote the following explanation.
As a lamp collector-restorer, and somewhat of a lighting historian, Art asked me if I knew what “The Lamp” used as the title of our class yearbook, and in FA’s logo, represented. In a general sense, this lamp is an almost universal symbol of the education process, known as “the Lamp of Knowledge”. Perhaps more popularly, it is called an “Aladdin’s lamp”, which does at least provide a clue to the lamp’s origin. These bronze lamps date back to the beginnings of modern civilization in the Mediterranean. They were a technological leap from the pre-historic fat burning lamps made of stone, largely because of the fuel they used. Rather than a rendered animal fat that would become hard when it cooled, these burned vegetable oils (most probably olive oil). This will stay liquid all the time, thus could be easily drawn through a “rope” (woven or loosely braided) wick to a point remote from the fuel supply where it could be ignited. These lamps burned as much wicking as they did fuel, and both smoked and smelled bad. But they DID provide a fairly steady light…much better and safer than the pine-pitch torch. Animal fat burning relatives (the Betty and the Crusie) were the standard household lamps in colonial and frontier America, as the fuel was much less expensive than whale oil. This type of burner remained in use in the Middle-East until relatively recently when they were replaced by kerosene and other petroleum-based fueled lamps. Modern versions with multiple burners (generally three…the lamps are called “lucerna”) are still being cranked out for the tourist trade (phony antiques) and sold on the great Internet auction. Fil Graff |
History of Locust Valley
To understand Friends Academy, it is useful to understand something of its setting. This brief history of Locust Valley mentions the founding of Friends Academy.
In pre-European times, the Matinecock Indian territory on the North Shore of Long Island stretched from Newtown on the west to the Nissequogue River on the east. With the arrival of European colonists, the general area of the North Shore from what is now Hempstead Harbor on the west to Oyster Bay on the east was known as Matinecock. In 1653, three English colonists from Cape Cod traded goods with Chief Asiapum for a tract of land, bounded by the Papaquatunk River (later called Beaver Swamp River and Beaver Brook) and by the Dutch province of New Netherland and the United Colonies of New England, that was to become the Town of Oyster Bay. On March 13, 1667, seven American Indian proprietors of Matinecock gave John Underhill, the best-known resident of Oyster Bay, 150 acres in the general area. Mr. Underhill named this spot “Killingworth.” Other settlers and property owners, principally farmers at this time, were Pryer, Birdsall, Cock, Reddock, Hawxhurst, Frost and Williams. On September 29, 1677, Governor Andros set the western boundary for the Town of Oyster Bay at the east side of Hempstead Harbor, and on January 9, 1685, colonists made a new purchase of Matinecock land north and west of the first tract. In 1725, the Matinecock Meeting House opened for Quakers living in the area. During the American Revolution, Long Island was subjected to armed occupation from the Battle of Long Island in August 1776 until the British evacuation in 1783. On February 12, 1814, the third, fourth and fifth school districts in the area were established by three School Commissioners meeting at Norwich. On March 13, 1820, a post office called “Buckram” was established as part of Queens County, and in 1857 this name was changed to “Locust Valley.” With the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War, a railroad was established in the area with its terminus at Locust Valley until 1889, when Oyster Bay was added as a final stop. In 1876, Friends Academy School was founded by Gideon Frost for “the children of Friends and those similarly sentimented.” In 1901 Theodore Roosevelt, then Vice President, was sworn in as President on the death of President McKinley, and his home on Cove Neck called Sagamore Hill became the “Summer White House.”
After the turn of the century, the Quaker farming community of the general area gradually began to give way to large country residences and estates, and the motor car increased transportation. From 1914 to 1918, World War I halted further development of the area, but following the war interest in home rule encouraged the formation of incorporated villages. On April 2, 1928, the Village of Matinecock was incorporated by a vote of 19 to 8. C. Chester Painter, Town Supervisor, and Charles Ransom, Town Clerk, conducted the proceedings. The village remains a primarily residential community to this day.”
Here is another article on Locust Valley from Newsday, October 22, 2000. Once again, Friends Academy is mentioned.
Locust Valley: A Place Named for Its Beautiful Trees
It's a peaceful setting of elegant homes, rolling hills, two-lane roads and woods filled with the trees that give Locust Valley - right in the heart of Long Island's Gold Coast - its distinctive name.
Strictly speaking, "Locust Valley" on the map is a quaint unincorporated hamlet of Oyster Bay Town, just one square mile in size with shops and boutiques, a library, fire house and Long Island Rail Road Station. But the hamlet was once part of a much larger region in what is now northern Nassau County, settled by farmers around 1667 and dubbed Matinecock after the Indian tribe.
Today, when most residents talk of the "Locust Valley" area, they include, at least, the surrounding incorporated villages of Lattingtown, Matinecock and Mill Neck - a location encompassing two exclusive private golf clubs, the Creek (founded in Lattingtown in 1923 by J. Pierpont Morgan Jr.) and the Piping Rock in Matinecock, historic landmarks and celebrity homes.
Most of the early settlers like Captain John Underhill were English. By 1730, they had rechristened their new home Buckram - possibly after a Norfolk, England town called Buckenham where many originated. More than a century later, in 1856, nature lovers counting the locust trees punctuating the landscape, renamed it Locust Valley.
In 1870, the first railroad train reached Locust Valley, a catalyst for change. By the early 20th century, the area was dotted with beautiful estates; and later horse farms, polo fields and private clubs. Publishing tycoon Frank Doubleday, credited with founding the current Locust Valley Library in 1909, with his wife Neltje, built a lavish home in Mill Neck and was actively involved in community life. Industrialist Myron Taylor, president of U.S. Steel, whom FDR made this country's first Ambassador to the Vatican, created a mansion on site of his mother's old home. Later in the century, it was at a nephews' home in Locust Valley that Madame Chain Kai-shek spent the last years of her life.
Landmarks of the past include two privately owned homes dating from about 1698 - the Joseph Weeks Jr. and William Hawxhurst houses on Oyster Bay Road. The Matinecock Friends Meeting House at Piping Rock Road and Duck Pond Roads - now in Glen Cove, but historically part of Locust Valley - was built by Quakers in 1725, but destroyed by fire in 1985. Rebuilt the next year, it is on the National Register of Historic Places.
There are two nationally known private schools in Locust Valley - the Friends Academy situated on 65 acres across from the Quaker meeting house and the Portledge School on 62 acres of what was the former Coffin family estate.
History of Long Island
Newsday has a fine history of Long Island on their website at http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/. If you are from Long Island, you’re sure to find interesting material on your home town and its district as well as on FA’s environs.
History of the Quakers (popular name for the Religious Society of Friends)
There are good materials on the Web describing the origins, beliefs, and practices of Quakers. These include http://www.religioustolerance.org/quaker.htm, http://www.quaker.org, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers. You can find information on famous Quakers at http://www.adherents.com/largecom/fam_quaker.html.
