BOE Suffragette

VOTES FOR WOMEN! In 1919, Congress passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, originally introduced in 1878; and in 1920, state ratification granted American women the right to vote. Birdsall Otis Edey would go on to become an early organizer and later president of the Girl Scouts of America, and Brown would continue a life of activism, including as a member of the Women's Action Committee for Victory and Lasting Peace during World War II and of the League of Women Voters.

MRS. RAYMOND BROWN

Although much of Long Island was involved in women's suffrage in the early part of the 20th century, Bellport would became a locus for the movement soon after Mrs. Raymond Brown (née Gertrude Foster) bought a cottage on Academy Lane in 1903. Around 1905, an illness caused Brown, wife of artist and newspaperman Arthur Raymond Brown, to abandon her career as a classical pianist, and she began to focus on the issue of the women's vote. Brown organized a Woman Suffrage Study Club that met for teas at her Bellport home, attended the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention in 1910, and by 1914, was the president of the New York Woman's Suffrage Association.

As the suffrage movement gained momentum, Bellport became an important center for this political activity. Bellport’s Mrs. Raymond Brown was the New York State chairwoman for the cause and spent her summers in Bellport drumming up support and spreading the word along the South Shore. Enthusiastic women held teas and staged fairs, proudly wearing their “Votes for Women” sashes in the signature colors of purple, green and white. “Suffrage punch” (a non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice) was served and sold at local fairs to raise funds for the cause.

----------------------------------------------

MRS. FREDERICK EDEY

When Mrs. Brown led a suffrage meeting at Mrs. Frederick Edey's Bellport playhouse, Nearthebay, in July 1913, her friend had not yet actively joined the cause. Author and playwright (as well as daughter of State Senator James Otis and wife of New York financier Frederick Edey) Birdsall Otis Edey didn't lend her energy and prose to suffrage until after she attended a convention at the Riverhead fair in September, 1916 (where Long Island suffragists raised money with a "Pure Food Show" of fruits, preserves, pickles, jellies and jams). Suffolk County News quoted Edey telling a gathering that when she saw 100 women from all over the county travel through a blinding nor'easter to attend the rally, "she became convinced she had no right to accept the ballot from the hands of these women who were working so hard, without doing her share in the fight."

Much campaigning was conducted, quite literally, on the road. After a late August, 1913 Bay Shore firemen's parade in which suffragists marched at the rear of the revelers, Babylon's South Side Signal reported that Mrs. Brown spoke from her car "with her usual charming and convincing manner of presenting the subject." Bellport resident Mrs. George S. Baxter, Jr, the leader of the First District of Suffolk County, toured Long Island in her car, driven by herself and carrying her two children, and from her peripatetic podium appealed to mothers to ask for the vote as a means of protecting domestic interests, including controlling the costs of living and combating diseases such as polio -- at the time called infantile paralysis.

--------------------------------------

SUFFRAGE MEETING, BELLPORT STYLE

In the summer of 1912, the Bellport Suffrage Study Group hosted this tea party on the lawn at 22 Bellport Lane.

SUFFRAGIST TEA

By 1917, Edey had taken over running the suffrage movement in the Second Campaign District of New York State, when Brown, who would later become vice president of the National American Women's Suffrage Association, found her responsibilities too vast. Until the State of New York enfranchised women in 1917, and in fact until the 19th Amendment was passed in 1919, life for the active Bellport suffragists --- who included Misses Marguerite Garrard, Nathalie McLean and Jessica Granville-Smith --- was a series of rallies, speeches, fundraisers and brunches. As the movement was closely allied to the prohibitionists, the beverage de guerre was suffragist punch, a mixture of grape juice and Apollinaris, a sparkling mineral water.

THE ENTRE NOUS CLUB

Fourteen young women joined together to form the Entre Nous Club to raise funds for worthy causes in Bellport. Their efforts to start the Bellport Library launched with a tea at Mrs. Spencer Toms’ home and each member brought at least one book to start the collection. Sixty books were collected.

BELL HOUSE/MALLARD INN

Built in 1833. In 1882, the Long Island Rail Road listed accommodations for 80 guests. In 1901, the south wing was torn down and a new two-story addition constructed. When Captain Bill Kreamer left the Bell House to open the Wyandotte, it was renamed the Mallard Inn although it went back to its original name a few years later. The Bellport Fire Department had its first fancy ball there in 1908. Demolished in 1936.

-----------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------

MISCELLANEOUS BELLPORT LANDMARKS

TITUS HOUSE/HAMPTON HALL

Built in the early 1800’s, and situated on the north side of South Country Road, it was also known as the Hampton Howell House. Henry Weeks bought it in 1840 and in 1860 turned it into a four-story boarding house for fifty. The second floor ballroom had a raised stage that was used for concerts and theatricals. In 1919, it was known as Hampton Hall. Torn down in 1937.

BAY HOUSE/JEWISH WORKING GIRLS VACTION SOCIETY

Built in 1874 by Herman Bell Homan, it housed 100 guests in the summer season. Situated on the bay, they sponsored sailing races for hotel prizes, and were known for their billiards competitions. Two livery stables rented out carriages to guests and baymen sailed guests over to the beach for picnics and bathing. In 1894, it was sold at foreclosure sale and then sold in 1899 to the Jewish Working Girls Vacation Society of New York. In 1950, a group of private investors helped the village purchase the property to tear it down and create the park by the dock or the village.

GOLDTHWAITE/GRASSPATCH

Built in the 1870’s on the east side of Browns Lane, it was originally the Goldthwaites’ private home called The Teabox. They started taking in paying guests and added cottages as they became more popular. They were known for their dinners and their dining room was always in demand. The Goldthwaite dock was a popular place to meet friends and take out catboats and ferries to Old Inlet. It was later known as the Grasspatch and was torn down in the 1940’s. The annex called the Lloyd was burned down by the Fire Department in the 1960’s.

WYANDOTTE

In the 1880’s, the Wyandotte was the most famous hotel on Long Island. In 1884, they hosted a dinner party for 400 to celebrate Grover Cleveland’s election as President. The hotel and five cottages were purchased by Bill Kreamer in 1904, and as it was known then as a family hotel, he opened a separate hotel called THE POWERHOUSE, and incorporated a bar, bowling alley and billiards hall in its design. It accommodated 200 guests, as well as 100 who would drive out for Sunday suppers. Just before World War I, a second floor ballroom opened up with popular orchestras coming out from the city to play. The Wyandotte closed in 1937.

>Many thanks to Douglas Paige, Tricia Foley and the Bellport Brookhaven Historical Society for all of the above.<