Adopt and adapt

  After writing yesterdays posting I continued to think about changes and family. My ancestors on my fathers side of the family traveled around a bit. Fact is my second great grandfather first stepped on American soil at Castle Garden in New York. That's were immigrants landed before Ellis Island was a thing. That would have been in 1857. His name was Christian and he eventually settled in Southold on Long Island. He would serve in the civil war, raise his children, he had ten. The number of children they had is still being discovered by myself. It's a lot. The majority of these children did live on the North Fork of Long Island. They lived in Greenport and Southold for the most part. Doing the family tree I keep finding relatives through the use of DNA and records. It's quite the challenge. It is a part of my past I knew very little about until starting this journey. On my mothers side our family stretches back to the founding of the town. Generation after generation is an unbroken line, and with good reason. It is that reason I find interesting, as it does involve change. 

 If we start in 1857 we have to understand that transportation was by horse, buggy, boat and trains. Geography played a role in the method chosen, as well as distance. I am concerned with Long Island. That is the place of my birth and what I am familiar with. To my surprise, I was not as aware of the Island as I had thought. I was born and raised on the South fork of Long Island, an important geographical fact. The South fork is bordered on one side by the Atlantic ocean and on the other by Gardiners bay. In the bay, a little more than half way to the North fork of the Island, lies Shelter Island. That is also important. In 1846 there was a ferry service from Shelter Island to Greenport. There was no ferry from Shelter Island to the South fork however. That ferry was established to support the residents of Shelter Island, as a means to transport their goods and as an avenue of commerce. The south fork was isolated from that except for whatever sailing vessels made the voyage. Goods from the south fork were mostly taken to New York city either by wagon or vessels sailing up Long Island sound. There were, of course, some trade going on between the two forks of the island. More importantly perhaps was the trade from the north fork was mostly with Connecticut, New London mostly. That could be reached by a short voyage across Shelter Island sound. 

 Now when we started using automobiles as the primary means of transport that was a change. A big change. First off you didn't have the concern of your cargo sinking. Yes lots of boats sank delivering products to the markets. Beside the loss of life, money was lost. You also were dependent upon having a pier to unload at, just drive that cargo right up to the door of the customer. One man with a truck could now transport goods to any point in between. Automobiles were cheaper to run and maintain than a sailing vessel or a steam powered ship. Yes that was the way to go. Travel from one fork of the island to other was even less than it had been. The reason is simple enough. If you take a boat from one fork of the island to the other it is only a distance of 17 miles. If you have to drive it is a distance of 45 miles. Considering in those days you couldn't even average 45 miles in a hour the drive was closer to two hours. Why do that, you can drive to the city in that amount of time. 

 The south fork of long island were I was raised had always been an attraction for the wealthier people. They would come out there to escape the heat of the city and enjoy the cool breezes off the ocean. Artists and writers came to be inspired by the remote area. Sportsmen came to hunt and fish. There was much money to be made over the summer months and a great number of the residents did just that. In fact, they were dependent upon the tourist trade to carry them through the winter months. It remains that way to this day, to a degree. Now called simply the Hamptons, it is the area of the south fork of long island, as a general rule. 

 All of that interests me because of one simple fact. My paternal grandfather came from Greenport. That is where he was born and raised. How it happened I don't know, but he met and married my grandmother. My grandmother was born and raised in East Hampton on the south fork of that island. Grandfather Elwood moved to East Hampton. For reasons I have yet to discover the ties with his family on the north shore were severed. That is to say, my father, nor I, ever knew any of those folks. As I pointed out by boat a mere 17 miles separated us, 45 miles by driving, but there was no travel from one fork to the other. The eastern end of long island, the south fork was isolated from the rest. From that fork one could sail to Shelter Island easy enough, and they did that often. There was Gardiners Island out in the bay that in the early part of the twentieth century was a working plantation. Many people from East Hampton were employed there, my maternal grandmother among them. But to reach Connecticut required sailing around shelter island then crossing shelter island sound. Or you you simply sail up long island sound to New York city. But the north fork was just a short sail across the sound to Connecticut and that is where business was conducted.

 The railroad reached the easternmost tip of long island in 1895. That made it easier to ship freight to the city. When Teddy Roosevelt and his rough riders returned from Cuba in 1898 they set up camp in Montauk, a town on the eastern tip of the south fork of the island. The reason being it was so isolated and those men had various fevers and ills from fighting in the jungle environment of Cuba. In fact the famous rough riders were disbanded at that location. As a child I heard stories about that from my great grandfather. He was born in 1878 and would have been twenty at that time. He drove a wagon with supplies to that camp as his step father John Mulligan operated a store in East Hampton. I remember him showing me a yellow scarf that he claimed belonged to one of the rough riders. Fact or folklore, I couldn't say for certain. 

 But all of this is just because I was curious about my ancestors. Turns out they were only a few miles distant. It just as well may have been a thousand. Today many people flock to the south fork it's the "in place." It is so popular I have seen a trip there as a prize on the Price is Right! Haven't heard of any trips to the north shore advertised in that way. I have ancestors on both forks. It was changes in transportation that I believe kept the south fork isolated. When I was young driving twenty five miles up the island was a trip. That distance would get you to where the two forks joined but there was little reason to drive down the north fork. Had I lived during the era of sailing ships and steamboats I more than likely would have passed through Greenport or Southold many times on my way to Connecticut. Rather ironic that Southold is actually on the north fork. 

 Well I hope at least some of this was of interest. I was just curious as to how an entire half of my family could be missing when they were in reality less than twenty miles distant. Why was there no communication? Why no contact? Probably answers I will never have, but I have theories about all that beginning with the transportation thing. That was a change, there were other changes as well, mostly the death of my paternal grandmother. But all of that is another tale, another story to be told. Questions we may have, have answers in the past. All we can do is speculate, same as the future. Heck we don't know what the day will bring, what change may take place. All we can do is adapt.