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January 06, 2000 - Christmas bird counts: a look backJanuary 6, 2000 • The Suffolk Times IT The East End's `Person of the Century' Latham earns unofficial title Reading about Albert Einstein being named Person of the Century by Time Magazine last week really brought the whole event close to home. This extraordinary man spent many of his vacation days just a few miles past our home on Nassau Point. It was here that he wrote his famous letter to Franklin Roosevelt concerning the atomic bomb. We were fortunate to spend many hours in that home in recent years with friends of ours who owned it. I can well remember the time I helped Mr. Einstein back into his capsized sail- boat out in the bay. I understand from Bob Rothman that I was not the only one who had to do that. You know Bob's father, Dave Rothman, was a friend of Einstein as well as a musical partner. Barbara tells me she can remember the time she and a friend were walking behind someone on Fisherman's Beach many years ago and realized it was Einstein. So our area played a small part in the life of Time's Person of the Century. With all this fresh on my mind I began to think of who I might consider to be our own East End Person of the Century. Of course, because of my interest in the natural world they'd have to be known for their extraordinary knowledge and forti- tude in all aspects of the world around us. There's only one person who would fit that description and that would be Roy Latham of Orient. Here are some of the reasons for honoring him at the Roy Latham identifying a specimen in 1972. Photo courtesy of Diana Latham Southold Indian Museum back in 1991, as Focus told by his daughter Diana Latham. "Roy Latham was born on May 23, O 1881, in Orient, a small town located on the most eastern point of Long Island's NATURE Noith Fork. He was the second child and by Paul first son of Fanny and Fred Latham. His $toutenburgh great - grandfather was h Jonath F' an is Latham, who settled in Orient from Connecticut just after 1790. He purchased a large tract of land at Orient Point, where he built and maintained a large farm as well as the historic Orient Point Inn. When Roy was 5 years old, his parents began to farm land bordering Long Beach Bay. This isolated and beautiful family farm became Roy's lifetime residence until his death on Nov. 13, 1979, at the age of 98. "Roy Latham's whole life was centered in the small town of Orient where he worked the farmland from spring into the winter months. In his youth, because his elders considered farm work to be more important than formal education, Roy's schooling was often limited to the winter months when farming was finished for the season. In most years this amounted to only two or three months a year. Because of this, Roy set about to educate himself. "The earliest account of Roy's `collecting' began when he was 3 years old. While searching for bugs, he found a young garter snake. He popped it into his pocket, producing it at the dinner table to show his father the `beautiful worm' he had found! Throughout his lifetime, Roy continued to pursue his many interests in the studies of flora and fauna. Despite the lack of formal education, and degrees, Roy's intense self- education in the many areas of natural science and archaeology led him to become one of the top all- around naturalists of his day, not just in one or two fields, but all of them as they per- tained to the East End. "As Roy's collections expanded over many years, they quickly outgrew the cottagge he had built in 1913 to house his private museum And so, when he mar- ried Lulah Mae Vail in 1931 at the age of 49, they decided to live in his cottage, and move the collec- tions into the large old family farmhouse. She was a centering point for him and they were deeply de- voted to each other. They had three daughters, Rosemary, Lydia and Diana. When his youngest daughter was born in 1940, he was 59 years old and still actively farming, an occupation he pursued full - time until 1964. Throughout the years Roy continued to live a simple and uncomplicated life on his secluded farm where, along with his farming and collecting, he devoted many hours to keeping up his grounds and gar- dening. He was very proud of his displays of flowers, unusual plants and trees and extensive vegetable gardens, often reciting the Latin name of each plant as he went. He never tired in his search to learn more about all aspects of the natural world around him. Even as years passed and his eyesight began to fail, he persisted in collecting by narrowing the range he felt able to cover, until, in his late 90s, it was just the wooded areas around his own yard. "Over the years he filled the two floors and multi- ple rooms of the farmhouse with specimens and dis- plays, which included an `Indian Room' filled with thousands of local artifacts, as well as a library which eventually housed over 2,000 volumes, most pertain- ing to natural history. `The Old House,' as his private museum came to be known, was visited by many nat• uralist colleagues, scientists, archaeologists and oth- ers. Some came to view his vast collections of pre- served insects, birds, plants, mammals and reptiles, as well as showcases of stuffed birds, a worldwide shell collection and his famous Indian artifacts from the `Orient Focus' sites and other East End digs. Others came to study and learn. All walked away in amaze- "Roy was a man of few words. He rarely raised his voice. He was humble and unimpressed with his ac- complishments. He respected everyone, and expected the same in return. In short, he was a true.gentleman. "In Roy's search for `treasure' he hunted every foot of land from Riverhead east to Montauk and Orient points: recording, documenting, photograph- ing and collecting. He kept both extensive field notes and a daily journal from the early 1900s to the late 1970s. In addition, he corresponded extensively with other scientists and colleagues in his many fields of interest. Tremendous amounts of data were recorded in this fashion, as Roy kept copies of all correspon- deuce and letters exchanged over the years. Often specimens and arti- facts were exchanged and studied by several scientists at the same time in this way. "When Roy decided in 1969 to gift the bulk of his collections to other locations, he divided his mate- rial. To the New York State Museum in Albany he gave a zoological col- lection of 10,000 birds, mammals and fish (many mounted by his own taxi- dermy) plus over 100,000 botanical specimens (many previously un- known or unidentified) of pressed plants, fungi, mosses, lichens and al- gae, as well as his shell collections. To Cornell University he gave his collection of over 100,000 insects, in- cluding Lydella lathami, a fly twice the size of a housefly, which he dis- covered on Long Island. To the Na- tional Museum in Washington, D.C., he donated a mounted Eucosma lathami, a micro -moth, which he also first identified. To the Incorporated Long Island Chapter of the New York State Archaeological Associa- ion, he gave 30,000 Indian artifacts unearthed from more than 50 sites on Eastern Long Island, including the unique `Orient Focus' burial finds of Indians over 3,000 years old. "As well as keeping extensive field notes and records, Roy also published papers and articles, including `Migration Notes of Fishes from Orient,' which was published in 1916 by the American Museum of Natural History. Other subjects of publications included snakes, frogs, birds, fungi and eggs-as well as botanical subjects. His 1914 publica- tion of `The Flora of the Town of Southold and Gardiners Island' is a listing of 51 pages of the Latin designations for species of plant life here. This was followed by supplements in 1917,1921,1924,1925 and 1935. In 1958, he was awarded a fellowship in the New York State Archaeological Association `in recognition of his many contributions to our knowl- edge of Indians and their Eastern Long Island,envi- ronment: "In 1969, when asked about his feelings on the gift- ing of his collections and the emptying of his `Old House' of its treasures, he 'He fl @Y @C said, `If I live another hun- dred years, I'll have it all tIC filled up again: The com- sea rc ment says everything about this astonishing man, his pas- learn ore sion for life, his love of about aN nature, and his optimism about life in general. When aSp@CS o@ Roy Latham died in 1979, at 118u1'1N W4� „ = the age of 98, he had been fOUad hill blessed with almost 10 more years, during which he really did continue to `fill it up again' with all but the last few months of those years, strong productive ones. "Roy Latham was a man of extraordinary talents and gifts. One of those rare human beings who lived up to his fullest potential, a man who left behind a legacy still not quite recognized. In recalling Roy Latham, all of the above are the most obvious obser- vations: the productivity ... the accomplishments ... the brilliance of a simple farmer who was born with the mind of a true scientist. But in knowing Roy Latham, one came to realize, here was a very special man; special because he always seemed to have enough time — time and patience, not just for his work, but for his family. He was a man who had a quiet way of having time to sit and talk, a man who had enough time for you. And that, perhaps, was his greatest gift of all."