MR. SAMUEL LESTER HOMAN
Yaphank
From: Yaphank As It Is and Was
by
Beecher Homan
SAMUEL LESTER HOMAN.
PERSONAL.
S. L. Homan was born in Henry street, Brooklyn, Jan. 31,1823. He is not a decidedly prominent Yaphanker at the present time, but sixteen years ago was the largest farmer in the place. He employed more laborers, and did more toward advancing the Noble Art, than any citizen in Yaphank.
But fire, fraud, war and ill health did its work with him. When the Great Joel Smith Fire crossed the Island, it swept away his woodland. Affliction after affliction followed like an armed man. Piles of cordwood rotted by the L. I. Railroad track, which he was obliged to lose through the rascality of the company. He looked blindly through a veil. To recover his losses, he purchased another farm, and, enlarged his business. Ton on ton of fertilizing manure was plowed under the sod of his new purchase, and the sky looked clear once more. Soon the boom from Fort, Sumter rolled, over the land. That gun was the signal of his downfall. The men, who grasped him by the hand in prosperity, refused him compromise or aid. He never asked for quarter, and it never was granted. His summer dreams had vanished and he went down as many strong men have gone before. His relations proved foes, and the Waves of adversity dashed and beat him to pieces. He was a great, conceptualist, with defective concentrativeness. When the clouds gathered, he was obliged to succumb to unrelenting creditors, and conceded without a murmur. His new purchase faded from view, and his loss was another's gain.
PERSONAL.
He is a very retired and unobtrusive, man. Failure has darkened the sky of his life, and the society of men is uncongenial to him. He believes honest men are exceptions, and not universal. He delights to talk of the smart men that are gone, and dotes much on the ability of his grandfather, Esq. Mordecai Homan. With his grandfather he always lived, and stood beside his couch when be expired.
It has been publicly declared that Esq. Homan was, and always will be, the most illustrious Homan that ever lived, or ever will live, in Brookhaven Town. That assertion remains to be substantiated by time! But it is remarkable, that among all his descendants, not one has inherited his indomitable will and enterprise.