36 Main St, Roslyn, NY, 11576

Epenetus Oakley House

76 Main Street, Roslyn

Date Built1835
Original UseResidence
Restoration StatusCompleted
Roslyn Landmark Society Covenant No
View House Tour Details 1974

2020 08 04 10 38 51

At the General Meeting of the Town of North Hempstead in April, 1679, a "hundred akers" of land on the west side of the harbor was granted to Thomas Willis, in whose family it descended for some time. In 1743, John Pine established a farm on the Willis tract, building the house north of the head of Main Street which remains as the Washington Manor Restaurant. A later occupant of the house and property was Hendrick Onderdonk, who, according to Francis Skillman, owned all of the land on the west side of Main Street as far south as the south boundary of No. 110. It was not until the 1830*s that this segment of the Willis tract, then owned by John Willis, one of the operators of the Grist Mill, was improved and developed. Willis straightened and widened Main Street from its northern end to at least the south line of No. 110, then known as "cider mill hollow", and, in 1835 began to sell building lots carved from his hillside property, conveying the land upon which No. 76 and No. 72 now stand to Epenetus Oakley, a wheelwright, who built the original section of the house now No. 76. (Queens County, Liber T.T. of Deeds, p. 274, 1 May 1835). O n the same day in May, Willis transferred at least two other Main Street building lots, with a third following in the next year.

Dr. Furman Field, a local physician, purchased the house and lot in 1855 from Henry W. Eastman, (Queens Co. Liber 131 of Deeds, p. 346) who lived across the street at No. 75. It is not known when Eastman acquired the place, or how long he held it. Furman Field's family occupied the house for nearly thirty years, although Dr. Field himself had to be admitted to the Utica Insane Asylum in 1877, "financial reverses" said to have been responsible for his troubles. Field died before the end of 1878.

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