Footnotes to Long Island History
Bellport Academy
Early Educational Institution
3/17/49
by
Thomas R. Bayles
Caption: Early Academy-The “Bellport Classical Institute,” or Bellport
Academy, which was active as an educational institution in Brookhaven
town a hundred years ago. It was built in 1833 on Academy lane,
Bellport.
An
education institution in Brookhaven town that was active a hundred years
ago was the “Bellport Classical Institute” on Academy lane, in the
village of Bellport, or Accumbonuck, as it had been known by the
Indians.
The Academy
was built in 1833 by Isaac Hudson of Middle Island, whether with Clark
Homan and Samuel Brown of Bellport and the Allan Brothers of Patchogue.
It was financed by a stock company formed by 33 farmers living as far
east as Dr. Nathaniel Miller’s at Fire Place (Brookhaven), and out to
Swan Creek in East Patchogue, who subscribed to shares in the building.
Bellport was at that time a small settlement of less than a dozen
houses. Isaac Hudson also built the Miller’s Place Academy in 1834, and
the Middle Island Presbyterian church in 1837.
The Academy
was a two-story building with an extension on the rear, and during the
69 years it was in service, new floors were laid and the sills renewed.
Candles were used to light the building until about 1847, when kerosene
lamps came into general use. The rooms were heated with large wood
burning stoves, and the first stove used was, in later years, in the
possession of one of the old residents of Bellport, Charles S. Platt, in
his carpenter shop on Academy lane.
A
Congregational church was organized in the early years and meetings were
held in the Academy until 1850. The minister’s salary was paid by
subscription, and the sexton was paid $7 a year for making fires,
lighting the rooms and ringing the bell.
The
extension on the building was used as a district school and the rest of
the building as an academy which fitted young men and women of the
surrounding villages, for college, Tuition was $10 for the summer
quarter, and $11.25 for the winter quarter—the extra charge being for
fuel.
Among those
who received their early education at the Academy was Dr. Edward R.
Shaw, who for many years was professor of Pedagogy at New York
university, where he established a scholarship for any Bellport boy
wanting to take advantage of it. Other prominent men included Augustus
Floyd of Mastic, and Orville B. Ackerly, a local historian.
Mr.
Hinsdale was the first principal of the Academy, with Mr. Mills second,
and Phineas Robinson third. These men were also pastors of the
Congregational Church society, at time they were principals, until the
Presbyterian church was built in 1850.
In 1845,
the church had 35 members, and the Rev. Abijah Tomlinson of Litchfield;
Conn., was pastor and also the fourth principal. A. B. Firman was
principal in the last year of the operation of the Academy building in
1902, after it had been acquired by School District No. 28.
Pupils came
from neighboring villages to secure the advantages of the educational
instruction given at the Academy, and many of them boarded at Mrs.
Amelia Bell’s residence, later known as the “Bell House.” Mrs. Bell was
the wife of Capt. Thomas Bell, who named and settled Bellport.
A Union
Free School District was organized in 1901, and a new schoolhouse built
on Station road, so the old Academy, after serving the needs of Bellport
for 69 years, gave way to the march of progress. The next year it was
sold to George Carman, who moved it diagonally across the street
opposite the old Academy lane cemetery, and directly north of the old
blacksmith shop, now gone. Mr. Carman converted the building into a
carpenter shop, and later it was purchased by the late Dr. T. Mortimer
Lloyd, who moved the building several years later to a lot on the west
side of Academy lane and put an addition on the north side, with a
portico on the south side, and made it into a dwelling. Dr. Lloyd’s
widow now maintains it as her summer home.