Selden Area Map circa 1873

[Jayar]

http://seldenhistory.org/index.html

[Jayar]

1873: The Beers Maps show 20 dwellings in Farmingville.

[Jayar]

1770: The first settlers come to Farmingville. The first roads are named Pond Road, Horseblock Road, Farm to Market Road and Portion Road.

[Jayar]

1772: The western part of Granny Road is surveyed and cut.

[Jayar]

Granny Road is a very old road that runs from Farmingville to Yaphank. Have you ever wondered why it's called Granny Road?

According to tradition Granny Penny was a midwife or doctress. She delivered babies, fixed broken bones and made her own medicines. It was a common sight to see Granny in a red cloak, on a white horse racing down the road to help a neighbor.

There are many tales of Granny helping people in need. In one case a woman had a felon (a very painful infection) on her finger near the nail. Granny took some wool from a black sheep and made a smudge out of it. Holding the finger over the smoke greatly relieved the pain.

Another tale was that of a frantic man coming to get Granny to come help his friend who had cut his leg and might bleed to death. The man had arrived on his horse and brought a half- broken colt, which he had intended to ride back. Instead of Granny using the man'' tired horse, she jumped on the colt and raced to the man's house in time to save his life.
Granny's maiden name was Dickerson. Her first husband was a Mr. Case whom "simply disappeared" according to a local historian. Later she married Jonah Halsey and had two children, Jonah Jr. and Phoebe. Phoebe married and moved to Wading River.

After Mr. Halsey died Granny married a Mr. Penny and moved to Orange County. When Mr. Penny died Granny moved to Phoebe's house in Wading River. In poor health Granny died at the Wading River home of her daughter.

At the Suffolk County Historical Society museum in Riverhead there is a tool called a surgeon's lancet. The card next to it reads "once the property of Granny Penny for whom Granny Road is named".

[Jayar]

1790: Washington wrote in his diary, of 7 or 8 farms in the area and “Within two miles of Koram there are farms, but the land is on indefferent quality much mixed with sand:” He wrote of “Intolerable Hills. Land survey labeled as “The Pine Barrens” or “Bald Hills.”  These hills were barren of heavy tree growth thus their name.  A survey map shows five homes:  3 on Granny Road including David Terry’s (where Hansen’s gas station stood on the corner of Harmon and Horseblock Road), and 1 east of Granny Road which was Timothy Brewster Terry’s.  Daniel Terry’s house was at junction of Horseblock Road and Mooney Pond.

[Jayar]

Farmingville 1917

http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/3542/P...

[Karen]

The first settlement in what is now called Farmingville occurred in the late 1700s, and was called Bald Hills and Mooney Ponds, before it eventually was called Farmingville (though the soil and hills are not good for agriculture). It did not have its own post office until 1950.
The home of Elijah Terry, the first teacher in the local school, was built in 1823 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Bald Hill” is one of the highest points on Long Island, and is located on the Ronkonkoma Moraine, where the glacier which formed Long Island stopped its advance. At the top of Bald Hill is Vietnam Memorial Park, which includes an obelisk-shaped monument painted red, white, and blue, which was dedicated on Nov. 11, 1991. The Bald Hill Cultural Center features the outdoor Brookhaven Amphitheater and was previously the location of a ski area from 1965-80.

[Jayar]

David Overton Audio Files

http://www.sachemlibrary.org/pages/adult_over...