Book Description

In A Farm Family on Long Island's North Fork, Richard A. Wines traces the history of a vital agricultural community on the North Fork of Long Island through the story of the last family to live in the old Homestead at the Hallockville Museum Farm. For well over two centuries, community members were almost all descendants of the same group of seventeenth-century Puritan founders. Yet, despite their shared heritage and complex interrelationships, cultural wars raged. Family members and the community divided bitterly on issue after issue, ranging from whether to allow a melodeon into the church to supporting abolitionism. The community weathered many changes—the Civil War, the emergence of new agricultural technologies, the arrival of Eastern European immigrants, even an attempt to build a string of nuclear power plants in the twentieth century. Wines's deep dives into one community's history uncover stories about slavery, racism, and prejudice that many have chosen to forget, as well as stories of compassion or human tragedy we want to remember. A Farm Family on Long Island's North Fork will appeal to those interested in Long Island regional history and the larger history of rural communities throughout New York and the United States.