In addition to this being the earliest volume of Staten Island Records, this is also, as far as I can tell, the earliest publication written by Loring as Borough Historian. Loring authored the foreword, and was undoubtedly instrumental in getting this transcribed and created with help from the Works Progress Administration. The work is an invaluable source for early Staten Island history, although, as Loring makes clear here, the records were haphazard and in an advanced state of disrepair when saved.
Few articles in the Chronicles reveal Loring’s serendipitous approach to Staten Island’s history better than this series of investigations into the life of Henry E. Cleveland, a stern, but well-respected, Island schoolteacher. Loring begins by recounting Cleveland’s life, but quickly goes off on a fascinating tangent into a farm cart Cleveland is pictured next to in an old photograph. By the end of the series of articles, Cleveland is long forgotten, and all that remains is Loring and his memories of working on Decker Farm, one of the last farms to remain on Staten Island, in the years just before the Second World War. -RM
HENRY E. CLEVELAND
Schoolmaster
Clear in the memories of many of us is the picture of one or more men and women who, as teachers, influenced us in our early school days.
Several years ago, the late George Egbert, of fond memory to many of us, gave me a photograph of a former teacher of his. He explained that the man in the picture was Mr. Henry E. Cleveland, a former teacher of his at the Cleveland School at the corner of Cliff Street and (New York Avenue) Bay Street, Clifton. Mr. Egbert was born March 16, 1862 and died August 5, 1957, aged 95. In Mr. Egbert’s account of his life, he states that (ed. about 1870) he attended the Cleveland School at the corner of Cliff Street and (New York Avenue) Bay Street, Clifton.
In 1882 a school was erected on the site of the present, more recent public school 13, known as the Cleveland School. In 1885 Mr. Cleveland was the principal with six teachers under him.
In the book, Prominent Men of Staten Island, 1893, published in connection with the Columbus Celebration, Mr. Cleveland is pictured, together with the following account.
“Henry E. Cleveland came of a long line of ancestors (English) who settled in the wilds of central Massachusetts on the border line of the Pequod country, about the middle of the eighteenth century. They were among the sturdy pioneers who helped to clear up the country, to establish schools, academies and colleges and push forward the cause of civilization, in the days when the pine knot furnished the “electric” midnight light of the student for poring over the pages of Virgil and solving the propositions of Euclid.
“Under such circumstances, was developed the class of men dubbed the “schoolmasters abroad.”
“As one of this class Mr. Cleveland came to Clifton, where he taught three successive generations of scholars, having for associates such faithful and efficient co-workers as Messrs. Wright, Sprague, Annan, Hervey, Blen, etc. and for school commissioners for a series of years the “noblest Roman of them all,” the Rev. Dr. Brownlee.
“Mr. Cleveland bears the proud distinction of having taught in the same public school for more successive years than any other teacher in the state, and he has seen many of his scholars enter almost every walk of industrial, professional and official life and has the satisfaction of knowing that many men owe their success to his instruction.
“Mr. Cleveland has retired from teaching and is living quietly at Garretsons looking after the property which he has accumulated by a long life of industry.2”
The picture, together with the one of him in the accompanying photo given me by Mr. Egbert, shows a rather fierce man whose appearance, together with his teaching talents must have commanded the awe and respect of his pupils.
No further research has been made into the life of this interesting man or of the equally interesting hay wagon and barrack shown in the photo.
for photo—see Vol. I,
Spring, 1986, No. 3.
Loring continued his research into Henry Cleveland in the third issue, and also became increasingly interested in the cart, evincing his lifelong fascination with ingenious and extinct technologies of the past.- RM
This photograph of Mr. Cleveland on his farm in Grant City about 1893 was interesting, not only for the picture of the retired teacher turned farmer, but for the objects also shown. One is the wagon, a type with racks to hold the hay when loaded, and the other a hay rick, barrack, or, in Dutch language, a “bergh.”
The wagon was a type brought from Europe by the earliest settlers, but was replaced by a flat rack which held considerably more. The last one used on Staten Island I photographed on the Decker Farm in Chelsea. At the same time I photographed the hay barrack then in use on the farm.
Some years later, in 1955, I spoke with Mr. Richard Decker on the Decker Farm, Richmond Hill Road. The Decker Farm was later given to the Staten Island Historical Society (but not used for the purpose given), Mr. Decker explained to me the working of a barrack. Briefly, it consisted of a hip roof set on four poles and could be raised or lowered as hay was pitched into or removed from the barrack. In a later article I will explain in detail the mechanics of this interesting, but long since gone, farm vehicle.
L.M.
HENRY E. CLEVELAND
Schoolmaster
Part II
From The Chronicles of Staten Island, Vol. I., Spring 1986. No. 3.
The following was uncovered in the Staten Island Historian (July-September 1956, p. 28). It is from the reminiscences of Captain John Hammel, a member of a well-known family, who spent most of his life in Rosebank. To quote from his memoirs—
Of course school was an important part of growing up. School administration was much more casual than it is today, but a good deal of the schooling stuck with us. Luckily I was pretty close to the village school that stood on New York Avenue just at the end of our street. The same building later became the Southfield District School, and still later the school was moved to the P.S. 13 building. When I attended the principal was “Buck” Cleveland, who also taught the older pupils. There were both men and women teachers. There was no regular promotion system or graduation. A pupil passed on to the next room whenever he qualified for it, and left school when he or his parents felt that he had enough education. We sat on benches at double desks and studied from books supplied by the school. Very little homework was assigned. When a problem of discipline arose in a room, the teacher would send for Mr. Cleveland, who made his appearance brandishing a three foot cane, long, narrow, tapering, and menacing. He administered punishment to the culprit in front of the class. The cane continued in motion until the miscreant acknowledged its power with a yell.
I must confess that I once felt the sting of Buck’s cane. At eleven in the morning we had recess. Close to the school stood a place of temptation, Marie Tracey’s Confectionery—ale and porter on tap—cigarettes 1¢ each. One morning Jim Mackin and I gave in to temptation and went to Miss Tracey’s to buy a Sweet Caporal. As we returned, sharing the smoke, we mist have been seen by the principal from his second floor window. To reach our room we had to pass through his. Jim made it safely, but I was detained and ushered to a bench under the principal’s desk. After his class had assembled he stepped down from his platform, reached for my hand and came down on it with the cane. I knew he usually relented with the first yelp of pain, but I was young and stubborn. It must have been one of the longest lashings he ever dispensed. He gave no reasons then, or ever after, for the punishment. Incidentally, I still enjoy a smoke.
L. McMillen
But Loring could not let the matter of the cart rest, and returned to it a couple issues later. Here, he includes reminiscences of his youthful experiences at Decker Farm, and his first experiences with farmwork, an agrarian pursuit which even in his day was becoming rarer and rarer to engage in. -RM
HAY BARRACKS AND WAGONS
In the Spring issue of the Chronicles was shown a photograph dated about 1895 of Mr. Henry E. Cleveland, retired schoolmaster, on his farm at Garretsons, now more familiarly known as Dongan Hills. Mr. Cleveland is holding the bridle of his horse which is hitched to a strange vehicle, and in the background is a pyramid-shaped structure known as a barrack. Both these objects, once common on our Staten Island farms, as elsewhere, have long since disappeared.
Among my many interests in Staten Island history is that of farming. As early as 1930 when photographing our island’s landmarks, I included many now long departed scenes and activities. Among these were several photographs of farms.
In 1933 I visited an 1815 farmhouse and farm located on Merrill Avenue, Bloomfield, and run by two Decker brothers. The site is now occupied by the Vanbro Construction Company’s plant.
Besides farming, the Deckers cut the salt hay growing in the many salt marshes surrounding Staten Island (though now rapidly being filled in with raw garbage under the questionable name of “landfill”). Salt hay was used to supplement the feeding of live stock and as a mulch and winter protection spread over perennial plants.
The Decker photograph shows a hay barrack, sometimes named a rick, and a typical hay wagon line the one seen in the Cleveland photo.
About 1935, I visited another pair of Decker brothers, Robert and Richard Decker of Richmond Hill Road, on their farm. I was later instrumental in acquiring this place for a Farm Museum for the Staten Island Historical Society, a project long neglected.
The brothers were an interesting survival of farming days when the prime motive power was the horse and themselves. Both brothers passed on during the 1950s. From them I learned the use of many long-forgotten farm implements; the flail, broadax, the scythe and cradle, and others. Among their farm buildings was still standing a hay barrack and by them called a “Barrack.” In looking up the word barrack, the unabridged dictionary gives, among its many meanings such as soldiers’ quarters, “A detachable roof, on posts used to cover hay, etc.” It does not explain what is meant by a “detachable roof.” In searching my extensive library containing, among others, a large collection of farm and agricultural books, I found no description of a hay barrack!
Fortunately, in 1955 Richard Decker described in detail the “hay barrack,” and I wrote down the description in my notes. Also included is a drawing, the copy of a farm scene with a barrack, one of many from Rembrandt’s Landscape Drawings (Dover Art Library, 1981). The following is from the notes on Decker’s conversation:
The interesting feature of the barrack, apart from its construction, is the method of raising and lowering the roof. The roof consisted of four timbers, notched and crossing each other at the ends, forming a square about eighteen feet on each side. These timbers formed with others a hipped or pyramid shaped roof. The roof was covered with vertically laid boards. Rembrandt’s drawings show these barracks covered with straw thatch. One also is octagonal in plan.
Mr. Richard Decker remembered when he was a boy, about 1880 (Mr. Decker was 85 years of age in 1955) that Mr. Van Buskirk’s barrack on Richmond Avenue, opposite the present Staten Island Mall, was thatched, possibly with marsh hay which grew nearby. Mr. Van Buskirk, in turn, farmed the old Tysen farm, the house built about 1680 and torn down about 1940; the site is now part of the Fresh Kills landfill.
The roof of a barrack was supported by four poles set in the ground and extended about 18 to 25 feet above ground. Into each pole were bored holes, one inch in diameter and 12 inches apart, bisecting the angle of the roof at each corner. Iron rods inserted in these holes supported the roof. The four supporting poles were set on the inside of the roof, one at each corner.
The raising or lowering of the roof was done as follows: the holes for supporting and raising the roof started about four feet from the ground. A hole about three feet from the ground, one and a half inches in diameter, was drilled in each supporting pole at right angles to the roof, and a large iron removable pin inserted. This pin acted as a fulcrum for a long eighteen-foot pole, or lever, called by Mr. Decker “a whip.” This pole or lever rested on the pin or fulcrum about two or three feet from the larger end. Several heavy sticks of various lengths, corresponding to the heights to which the roof was to be raised, were used as follows:
A suitable stick was chosen, one end was set on the short end of “the whip” or lever, and the other under the timber supporting roof. By lever action the roof could thus be raised or lowered to any desired height simply by using longer or shorter sticks. The pins supporting the roof would be removed and reset by a second person. This step was repeated successively at each of the four corners.
L.M.M. 1836
Decker Farm
New Springville
The other interesting object in the photo of Mr. Cleveland is the wagon, obviously used for hay and similar produce. This type of wagon, with its wooden rack, was brought to this country by our early settlers and may still be found in some rural districts, but has long since been replaced by the hay wagon with a flat, broad rack which, with careful loading, would carry two or three times the load of the “basket” rack.
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