November 20, 2000 - Switching to a Focus on the Pastmber 30, 2000 • The Suffolk Times • SA
Switching' to a
(Editor's note: The following is the
first in a series of Stoutenburgh columns
that will focus on the North Fork of old.)
Barbara and I thought it might be
fun to reminisce about the "old days"
when we were kids in the hamlet of
Cutchogue.
Perhaps in the
future others who FOCUS
live in different
parts of town ON THE
might write about PAST
their hamlets. b Paul and
One cannot begin y Barbara
to mention all the Stoutenburgh
changes over the
years nor get
their chronological order correct nor
the facts exactly straight, but that's
not what this is all about. It's just
reminiscing for fun as we move along
the roadway in a small section of our
town.
We'll start our trip on Skunk Land
in Cutchogue; for that's where we
live. We purchased our land from
Clayton Billard, who'told us that
many years ago an osprey had nested
in the huge oak tree in our yard.
Passing his house on the way to
Nassau Point 60 years ago you might
have seen one of his beautifully built
wooden clapboard rowboats sitting in
the yard with a "For Sale" sign on it.
Barbara remembers her mother
was at Cousin Clayton's house (in
those days everyone on the street
was known as Aunt or Uncle or
Cousin), the day of the 1938 hurri-
cane. A huge tree dropped down in
back of her car and she had to leave
it there and walk home up the lane.
Across the road from our property
there is still a lopped tree, one of the
ways farmers in the olden days
marked their boundary lines, by
Focus on the Past
Kids getting ready to go ice skating.
Clayton's daughter, Winnie, was
well known to many in our town and
far. beyond when she served in the
Peace Corps in Malaysia after she
retired from teaching. She was a won
erful neighbor. Our kids will always
remember the Christmas morning
when there was a pitchfork with a
big red ribbon sitting in a snow -
bank in our back yard, one she no
longer had use for, but she knew
e did.
More recently Winnie lived near
ur son up the lane, and one night
he stopped b to say hello he
looked in before knocking and saw
Winnie at her table with hands folded
saying grace. He just quietly slipped
away. When Barbara taught Sunday
school she told me she asked one of
the ,kids what a Christian was and the
answer was "Winnie Billard." How
right they were.
Winnie's sister Lois moved out of
town with her husband, Hayden,
Allen, years ago but now they're
back and, fortunate for all of us,
they're the keepers of much of the
information about our little hamlet
that would have been lost without
them. They're walking history books.
Barbara was brought up north of
where we now live. Soon we'll head
up the lane but first let's go just a
short way "down lane." Just where
Mud Creek opens up, after the water
has meandered through the marsh
area, there used to be a private
bridge that Lois Allen remembers
fishing from. It crossed over to Little
Neck to the few houses and work-
shops there at the time. Across the
street from the bridge is the lovely,
big home built in the 1700s we always
knew as Hurricane Hall. Old records
tell us it may not have been named
for any storm but rather may have
gotten its name from the "tempestu-
ous tempers of its inhabitants." They
go on to say, "Aunt Susan Horton
who lived there was a spiritualist and
she thought spirits were flying
through the hall." In 1812 a circular
hallway was put in the house. Some
say the fireplace was so large you
could walk in it and be safe in a hur-
ricane. Take your pick.
There are still remnants of the
bridge. Al Krupski Sr. tells us, "My
dad drove over that bridge in his
1933 car." As you crossed over the
bridge on your left there was a farm
where Mr. Baldwin raised diamond-
back turtles in pens for a man from
the North Road in Southold.
Heading back up Skunk Lane at
the crossroad of Eugene's Road, ono
called New Road, there stands a large
house once owned by the Zeneski
family. There's a pond there that was
the ice skating pond of the neighbor-
hood. On cold winter nights, Barbara
recalls, the neighbor kids came from
all directions to meet to sleigh down
the hill or skate on the pond. They
would have fires on real cold nights
and they had to ;a out for the
spot that always stayed open at the
The home was used as a boarding
house for fishermen coming out from
the west end. Phil Palmeri tells us,
"When my father used to come out
fishing in the 1930s, the side of the
house had a sign painted on it,
`Rooms for Rent,' and I remember
the place was run by a lady known as
`Fluffy - Ruffles.' "Across the street
from the skating pond Iived Harold
Price, superintendent-of highways.
The big old buildings there once
housed much of the town highway
equipment before 1936.
Heading north up Skunk Lane
there used to be a "sprout house" on
the right where Barbara's grandpar-
ents put up sprouts with their friends.
The boys and I took that building
apart 30 years ago when the specula-
tor who owned the property was
going to demolish it. We took every
1_-.4 .._.] _t___1_ _cr __� It
Suffolk Times photos by Paul Stoutenburgh
The hay shack on the Stoutenburgh farm was constructed of the boards and
shingles of the former Silleck family "sprout house" (Inset above).
own
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