Introduction
Inspiration WharfThe bays of Long Island’s North Shore harbor many different histories.Historical records indicate that as early as 700 A.D. Matinecock Indians gathered shellfish on the bays bordering Long Island Sound. They called the peninsula “Sint Sink,” meaning “land of many shells.” And in colonial times, Dutch and English settlers pulled fish from these waters. But it was not until the nineteenth century that fishing and clamming became major local industries. The shoreline and surrounding streets of Port Washington (known as “Cow Bay” until 1857) were home to hard-working baymen who wrested a living from oyster beds and clamming grounds. By 1880, 500 people were living in Port Washington, and many regularly raked hard clams in the summer. Schooners and tugboats, fishing vessels and floating shacks, ice boats, handmade wooden craft and coal barges plied the waters of the Bay.The appeal of protected harbors, deep waters and proximity to New York City attracted newcomers at the end of the nineteenth century. The Bay, Long Island Sound and Hempstead Harbor became the playgrounds of rich and famous yachtsmen whose elaborate vessels turned Manhasset Bay into a showcase of maritime finery. Families such as the Goulds, Astors, Morgans, Whitneys, Belmonts, and Guggenheims owned luxurious yachts that created a new industry of captains, boatbuilders, suppliers and crews.Following in the footsteps of the industrial elites, a multitude of recreational boaters and fishermen transformed the North Shore in the 1940s. They brought marinas and restaurants to its waters, and the buzz of nautical pleasures -- all the trappings of a modern recreational industry. From lobstermen to yachtsmen, from cooks to commodores, this walking tour tells the story of a harbor that evolved from a place of work to a place of opulence to a place of play.
A&R Marshall's
The founder of this successful and long-lived marine service and supply business was Albert R. Marshall, who came to America from England in 1888 and moved to Port Washington in 1906. His first business repairing car and boat engines was destroyed by fire in 1914 and he eventually relocated to 403 Main Street, later joined by his sons Raymond and Montague “Monty” Marshall. Their shipyard was filled with dinghies, Star Class boats, ice boats, motorboats, sailboats, and yachts. A pictorial and paper record of the Marshall Shipyard is preserved at the Port Washington Public Library, thanks to Raymond’s daughter, Virginia Marshall Martus, who was a sailor, historian and prolific writer of all things nautical. “Ginger” was well-known for saving old boats. She was the owner and editor of Bone Yard Boats, a newsletter that finds owners for boats needing “a little tender loving care.”
Louie's Restaurant
In 1837, German emigre “Grandpa” Louis Zwerlein settled in College Point, Long Island and opened a saloon. In 1905 the Zwerlein family moved to Port Washington and established a floating eatery and saloon on Manhasset Bay named “The Kare Killer.” Alas, prohibition ended it all in 1916. All was not lost, however: invoking squatter’s rights, the Zwerleins relocated to a small shop on the harbor where the Zwerlein children prepared bait, sold clams and oysters for a penny a piece, and rented rowboats off the dock. Starting in 1932, Louie’s began operating out of its present location at 395 Main Street, coopting the already existing dock next door. Expanding into the “Horseshoe Restaurant” just next door, it soon became a gathering place for celebrities, boaters, tourists, and locals alike. Over the years, Louie’s has fed such luminaries as Bob Hope, Barbara Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Burl Ives, Alan King and Robert DeNiro and has become a true Port Washington landmark.
Gold Coast Opulence
Great Neck and the Great GatsbyPort Washington’s easy commuting distance to New York City, deep bay waters and protected anchorages made it an ideal watering place for wealthy businessmen who could easily commute to Wall Street. Starting in the early 1900s, elite East Coast families “discovered” the North Shore, heralding an era of opulent yachts, Gold Cup races and palatial homes overlooking Long Island Sound.The uses of the bay that came with the new passion for yachts diverged considerably from the earlier bayside life which had sustained squatters, fishermen and clamdiggers. Local newspapers carried regular reports of baymen accusing yachtsmen of polluting local waters and destroying their clam beds, and yachtsmen in turn accusing baymen of spoiling their pristine waterfront views. Other issues of conflict were access to the shoreline and underwater rights.The arrival of these “American aristocrats” left an indelible mark upon Port Washington. They developed the shoreline, constructing docks and shipyards to accommodate their huge boats. To build, operate and maintain their craft they hired carpenters, cooks, crewmen and engineers. The bayman gained new outlets for their maritime skills by going to work for the yachtsmen.By the 1920s, mansions dominated the shoreline and ocean-going craft dominated the harbor. New values and culture emerged. As one reporter observed in 1936, “the old bayman’s daughters are not wearing shorts cut on the same pattern as the sophisticated daughters of a Sands Point millionaire.” (Port Washington News, Aug. 23, 1936) The channels that once led to the Fulton Fish Market now led to Wall Street.It has been estimated that 325 country houses of over 25 rooms were built on Long Island from the 1900s through the 1920s. Among those magnates who settled in or close to Sands Point were Daniel and Harry Guggenheim, Astors, Belmonts, Mackays, Vanderbilts, Phipps, Luckenbachs, Goulds, Hearsts, Pratts, Coew, the J.P. Morgans and Whitneys. F. Scott Fitzgerald memorialized the era in The Great Gatsby, modeling Port Washington and Great Neck as East Egg and West Egg respectively.Yet the age of the elite yachtsmen was brief. The 1929 Stock market crash shook the foundations of their financial world. When WWII arrived, many of the larger yachts were conscripted by the Coast Guard for offshore patrol, most of them never to return to the waters of Manhasset Bay. Most of the opulent Gold Coast estates of the Roaring '20s were also fated to disappear by the 1950s, as the grand mansions were demolished and properties subdivided to make room for new constructions.
Aviation Plaque and Maritime History Kiosk
Early aviation activity on Manhasset Bay grew out of the arrival of the ultra-wealthy to the North Shore of Long Island. From 1914 to 1964, air and sea planes buzzed over Port, headed to the city and country estates up and down the East coast. Private hangars dotted the bay by the Town Dock and were also constructed on the vast estates owned by wealthy aviation enthusiasts and Wall Street commuters.The first builders of airplanes in Port Washington were adventurous sportsmen and tinkerers who undertook this venture individually or as members of various airplane clubs. During World War I, some qualified as members of the first Yale Naval Aviation Unit. Others were local “barnstormers:” daring individuals free to soar in the skies, unencumbered by routine jobs. Their feats, and new technologies, were celebrated as neighborhood events and funded by the new millionaires, especially Daniel Guggenheim, who established a Foundation in his name to help Amelia Earhart, Elmer Sperry, Robert Goddard, Floyd Bennett, Jimmy Doolittle, and Charles Lindbergh, (who wrote “We” in the study of the Guggenheim Estate in Sands Point). The locals who practiced traditional boat building and yachting skills were able to adapt their skills to a burgeoning aviation industry as mechanics, flight attendants, chief engineers, captains, test pilots, and crew members. Many of the workers lived in houses on the streets right off Manhasset Bay (Second Avenue, Prospect Avenue, Third Avenue, and Anchorage Road) so they could get to their jobs easily.Personal connections to aviation transformed as corporate production of planes replaced the self-taught mechanics who had developed state-of-the-art seaplanes in their own backyards. Savoia-Marchetti, Sikorsky, Goddard, Pan Am, Republic, and Grumman started to use hangars on Manhasset Bay as both production sites and terminals for take-offs of luxury "Clipper” flights to Europe and Bermuda in the 1930s and 1940s.Gradually, the building of LaGuardia Airport replaced the prominence of Port Washington’s aviation activities. All that remains today is this plaque at the Town Dock and the ruins of hangars in Manhasset Isle.
The Town Dock
The original Town Dock, located on Main Street and extending out into Manhasset Bay, was first built in the 1870s to serve steamboats and to provide moorings for smaller boats like skiffs and rowboats. It was used as a jumping off point for swimmers and provided a connection between a small business section on lower Main Street and the waterfront. Over the decades it became a favorite meeting spot for baymen, also known as “clamdiggers.” There, they gathered “to discuss matters of state and the state of matters” (Plain Talk magazine, January 20, 1912) in a small wooden shack known to locals as the “Custom House.” Today, the dock provides a boat ramp, fishing spot, kayaking launch point, mooring field, pump-out station, sailing destination, and a spot for locals and tourists alike to gather and soak up the pristine views of Manhasset Bay. It is used as the venue for a weekend Farmer’s Market, Harbor Fest, and Manhasset Bay Sportmen’s Club events. Currently, there are plans to revitalize the Town Dock, which suffered damages from Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
The Red Tugboat
The Pilot House is a bright red 30-by-10-foot tugboat structure located on the Town Dock. It commemorates Port Washington’s official designation by New York State as a “maritime historic community.” With “Porthole Pete” sitting at the helm, the tug was built by local volunteers in 1992 as part of Port Washington’s annual Harbor Fest celebration. If you look inside the glass windows, you may be lucky enough to see a temporary exhibit. The tugboat pilothouse is one of the outcomes of a local grant, as was the growth of the Nautical Collection at the Port Washington Public Library.
The Town Dock Building
Tom Kaelin PavilionProtecting the Bay since 1945, the Town of North Hempstead Bay Constables (now called Harbor Patrol) work from this building, which stands at the entrance to the Town Dock. Their patrol boat operates from the waterside, safeguarding the boaters and fishermen who use these waters.Today’s Harbor Masters carry on the work of their predecessors, who lived through the transformation of the shoreline from a working harbor to a popular destination for hundreds of pleasure boaters, local regatta participants, kayakers and even paddle boarders. The first Constables and Harbor Masters knew about the migration routes of blue fish, local buoy systems, the uses of fish oil in manufacturing, the locations of former grist mills and boatyards, rum runners and floating house boats. Their environment consisted of clam shacks, duck blinds, floating barges, flying boats, rowboat rentals, and swimming holes.In the prosperity that followed World War II, new kinds of boatmen appeared in the harbor: power boaters who skippered their own speedboats and weekend sail boaters escaping the pressure of office jobs. Mass-produced fiberglass boats replaced hand-made wooden boats. Marinas sprung up where clamdiggers once labored. Fishing, once a way to make a living, became a hobby. Early statistical figures provide concrete evidence of these changes: in 1904, there were 15,000 pleasure boats in the United States, and by the beginning of the 1960s, the number of boats had risen to over 8 million.Few old time Yankee baymen sail Manhasset Bay today, but there are still residents who draw on the traditions of the old clamdiggers. Members of the Manhasset Bay Sportsmen’s Club, for example, still fish with homemade lures, hunt ducks, and hold annual clambakes. Although they do not make a living from the bay, they organize their lives around the leisure time they spend upon its water.When an addition was added to the Town’s Harbormaster quarters at the Town Dock, it was christened The Tom Kaelin Pavilion, after the late “old salt” bayman. Kaelin was the town's original Harbormaster and captain of the first patrol boat to guard the bay, as well as a founding member of the Manhasset Bay Sportsmen’s Club.
Bradley's Hotel and Shore Restaurant
The Town Dock's BeginningsBefore there was a Bradley’s Hotel there was a Port Washington Hotel on the same site, with a dock across the street and nearby trolley stop. First opened by local businessman Peter Hults in October 1872, it was sold to John Bradley, the proprietor of a small eatery opposite the Port Washington train station, in 1905. Bradley was attracted to the great new location because it was on Manhasset Bay, had room to raise his family upstairs and had its own dock (which later became the Town Dock). Bradley’s Restaurant and Chop House soon became the talk of the town, quickly developing into a lively local gathering place. The business hosted many community events, including annual “hog guessing contests,” in which guests would attempt to guess a pig’s weight and the closest guess would win the pig.Known for its “continental cuisine,” Bradley’s represented an elegant way of life; with verandas facing Manhasset Bay, enough room for 500 people to dine, and menus featuring green turtle, scallops, venison, lumber jack soup, and Currituck Mallard duck. John’s daughter Irma Bradley even revealed in a 1980 oral history interview that a friend of her father’s once shot a bear, which they celebrated with a bear dinner in the Bradley’s dining room!Over the years, Bradley’s reputation grew, and so too did its clientele. Astors, Vanderbilts, eminent politicians, sportsmen, newsmen, contractors, movie stars, famous novelists and yachters all visited the restaurant. Bradley’s flourished until a fire took it down in 1960.
Sunset Park
The grassy area that is now Sunset Park became the subject of contention in 1912, at the beginning of the Progressive Era in American history. In keeping with the mood of the country under President Teddy Roosevelt, our town leaders had big plans for improving the appearance of tracts along Manhasset Bay. Picture the scene: scattered oyster and clam shacks, sandbars, shore debris, swimming holes, squatter’s huts and low tide mud.A proposal was launched to turn the land into a public park. As argued by local photographer Henry K. Landis in a November 1912 issue of his “Plain Talk” magazine:“This land is wanted for a public park. The intention is to ask the town for an appropriation next spring for the purpose of building a bulkhead reaching from Seaman’s Point to the shore end of the Baxter Estates dock. This will be filled in behind by the channel dredging and several acres of valuable land thus acquired by the town at the expense only of a bulkhead. That will be the site of a public park and playground, and the best investment the town ever made...What we need at once is a bathing beach, a place where good boats can be rented and a band pavilion. The future will take care of further needs. This will then be the only handy bathing beach on this part of the Island and Mineola people can reach it by trolley, so easily that going to Port Washington for an afternoon swim will be a regular thing.”
The John Philip Sousa Memorial Bandshell
The Sousa Memorial Band Shell was designed by the Henry Titus Aspinwall Associates of Port Washington to honor John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), who moved to Port Washington in 1915. Well-known as the composer of “Stars and Stripes Forever,” Sousa was variously called the “March King” and “the King of All Bandmasters.” A familiar figure on the streets of Port Washington, he sometimes rode his horse “Aladdin” to the old post office on Shore Road. Sousa lived in a gracious home in Sands Point, “Wildbank,” where his family remained for years after his death.During his life, Sousa also actively promoted school and community bands throughout the country; one of which was Port Washington’s own Paul D. Schreiber High School Band. The band had been seeking a permanent performance space for their spring and summer concerts since the 1940s, but it took 20 years until a visionary Port Washington resident, Gay Pearsall, envisioned a concert venue on Manhasset Bay that should be built in memory of Sousa. Pearsall tirelessly raised the money and obtained the support needed to construct this lasting tribute to the March King himself, which was finally opened with much fanfare in 1967.
The Village Welfare Society
"The Little House on the Water in Sunset Park"This house at 329 Main Street, currently the home of the town’s Chamber of Commerce, was once the home of the Village Welfare Society, which had a long and storied history relating to public health and women’s initiatives in the early part of the 20th century. The Society grew out of the Port Washington Community Services, which itself grew from the 16-member The Sisterhood Club. Founded in 1909 and led by Mrs. Richard Sweezy, volunteer women furnished garbage pails up and down Main Street, sewed clothing for infants in need, provided story hours for children, and gave lectures on the value of cleanliness and “the danger of flies.” The Club changed its name to the Village Welfare Society (VWS) in 1911 and was incorporated in 1915.When the town’s need for professional nurses became apparent the Village Welfare Society sponsored a District Nurse Tea event in June 1916, and within one month the Port Washington Visiting Nurse Association was formed. In 1920 it merged with the VWS, continuing its work through the Great Depression and World War II, helping people find jobs and providing temporary headquarters for the Community Defense Council.
The PAL Building
Before Nassau County had an official police department, the New York State Legislature voted in 1921 to establish a police district to keep the peace following a series of burglaries in this otherwise peaceful enclave with a population that was then about six thousand people. The police department had no headquarters of its own until 1923, when this building was erected next to the Sewer District office at Sunset Park. The first chief of the department was Frederick Snow, a retired firefighter from the New York City Fire Department. He had 6 patrolmen who got around town mostly by bike. One of their duties was to work as payroll guards for the big businesses mining sand in Baxter Estates. Calls to the police were placed by hanging green lights on call boxes scattered throughout town.In 1926, Stephen J. Webber, a former Army Provost Marshal at Mitchell Field, was appointed chief. He served for 14 years and expanded the size of the force to 20 men. In 1933, the official status of the police district was finally legislated, and three commissioners were elected. Modernized police headquarters are today located on Port Washington Boulevard.
The Bird House
Baxter Estates Village HallFamily connections run deep in Port Washington. The Baxters, who came to Port Washington from Block Island in 1748, had extensive landholdings in the lower Main Street area, including the sites where the PAL building and Village Hall now stand. During the American Revolutionary era, succeeding generations of Baxters worked as sea captains, boat builders, and sailors. Inevitably they married into other prominent Port Washington families: in this case, the Bird Family, also early settlers in town. In the nineteenth century, Allen Baxter’s widow built the house at 315 Main Street for herself and her son, oysterman Captain John Bird and his family. Currently the Baxter Estates Village Hall, this historic building has housed various non-profits and a pumping station from 1916 to 1951.
Van Wicklen's Ice Cream Parlor
307-309 Main Street was originally owned by Adelbert "Del" Van Wicklen. The family ran the popular Delvan's Ice Cream Parlor from this building. In the early part of the twentieth century, Delvan's ice cream was famous around town, enjoyed every summer by locals and tourists both. The eatery is still fondly remembered today by old-time Port Washington residents.Van Wicklen was an active member of the community, and in winter was often seen racing his ice boat (named "The Delemma," after his wife, Emma Morgan) from the Knickerbocker Yacht Club. He also served as the first dockmaster of the wooden pier which preceded today's Town Dock.
Lower Main Street
The Town Dock represents the main connection between Main Street (originally called Flower Hill Avenue after the blossoming fruit trees that lined its route) and Port’s downtown and waterfront. Its proximity to the stores, church and school around the Mill Pond and the small businesses that grew along lower Main Street bestowed great importance upon the area.While the business district slowly moved uptown once the trolley and railroad arrived, there are still wonderful landmarked buildings that line the route up Main Street to Port Washington Boulevard.
Zeidel's on Main Street
Featuring “Men’s Clothing and Yachting Attire,” this famous clothing emporium was opened on Main Street in 1912 by Solomon and Sam Zeidel. They provided nautical merchandise for the North Shore’s sailors and the “new elite:” yacht club members and their crews. Zeidel’s was well-known on Long Island. An advertisement featured in “Town and Country” magazine in 1927 shows two spiffy-looking captains strolling down a wharf. That was the look Zeidel’s produced. Their finely made yachting regalia and uniforms as well as crests, flags and foul weather gear were legendary among sailors.Solomon and Sam handed the store down to their sons Alfred and Harold when they retired. But once the sons retired in 1982, the store was discontinued. Examples of its high-quality goods may still be in the possession of some of Port’s residents or yacht club museums. The Zeidel descendants now own a clothing store in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Baxter Pond
Located on Shore Road and Central Drive, Baxter Pond is a stone’s throw from the site of the Baxter house. It is created by water running from Beacon Hill down to the Bay and is the location of the annual children’s mini regatta held each summer on Harbor Fest Day. In winter, the pond used to be ideal for ice skating.The entire 5.4-acre area was named “the Barbara Johnson Park and Preserve” in honor of the Town of North Hempstead councilwoman who later became a Nassau County legislator in 1996. It is one of several Nassau County properties that were originally designed for drainage purposes and were later turned into public parks. The property was acquired in two parcels, in 1944 and 1975.
Baxter Estates and the Baxter House
Before the first white settlers came to this area, this spot was the site of a Native American wigwam village. But construction on what would come to be known as the Baxter House began in 1673 by either John Betts or Robert Hutchins, who were in the weaving business. Oliver Baxter and his family purchased the house and land when they first arrived in this area from Block Island in the 1740s.Thirty years later, the Baxter family and their house would have a part to play in the Revolutionary War. Oliver’s son, Israel Baxter, fought for General George Washington at the Battle of Long Island in August 1776. And like the Dodge family who lived on the Mill Pond, the Baxters were forced to quarter British soldiers and Hessian mercenaries in their private home, providing shelter and food to their enemies. Abuses like this led to the founding fathers’ creation of the Third Amendment, which outlaws this practice.Direct Baxter descendants, who variously made their livings in town as whalers, shipbuilders, and blacksmiths, continued to live in the house on Shore Road for generations. Ida Baxter, born in 1892, was to become Port Washington’s third postmistress. The Baxter House had the distinction of being the location of the town’s first Free Library in the late 1800s. Each reader was charged one dollar to take out one book at a time. Wilhelmina Mitchell, the first librarian, had 430 volumes in her charge.In 2017, the Baxter House, then one of the oldest standing buildings in New York State, was destroyed by fire. The great loss of this historic landmark can still be felt today.
McKee's General Store
The McKee family’s history in Port Washington stretches back to the 1800s. Their store, a huge commercial draw of the Baxter Estates area, stood near the Mill Pond and was in operation for more than a century. With beginnings as a blacksmith and carriage shop owned by Alfred Woodhull, it became McKee’s General Store after the enterprise was purchased by the McKee family. The general store also served as the town’s post office, with proprietor and McKee patriarch Thomas McKee serving as Port Washington’s first postmaster.Such was the success of Thomas McKee’s business that his son George opened a second shop at 287 Main Street, with an apartment above and an extension on one side. The McKee General Store closed in 1940 and the building was occupied by various retail shops over the years, although it currently stands vacant. The architectural features of the original shop, however, are still visible under the roof beam.
The Mill Pond
The Mill Pond got its name from the grist mills once located here: Cocks' Mill, c. 1750 and Cornwall’s Mill, 1795. The area was declared a historic district on July 4, 1976.The Mill Pond was the focal point of local life for decades, serving as the center of town until the railroad was constructed in 1898. Port Washington’s first “Old Free Church” was built on land at the head of the Mill Pond donated by Henry Cocks. The church’s cemetery was the final resting place of many local sea captains and baymen. Stores such as Giaccobbe’s and McKee’s general store, the Hyde Brothers’ Bicycle and Fishing Tackle store, Wilkinson’s fish market, and the grist mill itself kept the area lively. The Little Red School house, also on the pond, cost 15 cents a day to attend.During the 17th and 18th centuries, local inhabitants constructed several mills on the ponds off Manhasset Bay, harnessing the power of the water. When a rising tide fills the mill pond reservoir, water is retained behind a mill dam until the mill is ready to operate. As water is released, gravity forces it through a sluiceway connected to a waterwheel. The energy created by the falling water turns the waterwheel, which uses gears and flywheels to turn a millstone, power a saw, or work a forge. Port Washington’s mills were used to grind corn, wheat, rye, oats, and grass grown on the farms that once covered this area of Long Island.The Mill Pond on Shore Road was originally called the Dodge Inlet after the family that lived at the head of the waterway. It was dammed in 1795 by Joseph Cornwall to serve his grist mill, which was demolished years ago. Today, the Mill Pond still has a tidal exchange that mixes saltwater entering the dam’s opening with fresh water gathered from streams and rain. Several other local ponds are also dammed streams. Sheets Creek East was dammed in the early 1800’s to create a large mill pond for the Hewlett Family mill. Others were Leeds Pond (1693), Cock’s Grist Mill (1781), Baxter Pond (1910), and Whitney Pond.
The Hotel Renwick
This building at 37 Shore Road was once known as the Hotel Renwick, a thriving family boarding house and tavern. Standing at the foot of the Mill Pond and just across the road from Manhasset Bay, the building was constructed around 1900 by Lorenzo Smull, a local builder, just around the corner from Smull Place, the road later named for him. The building featured two large porches where guests could take in the sea breeze, a stable for horses and a dock that extended out into the water, catering to visitors traveling by either land or sea.The arrival of the LIRR to Port Washington in 1898 stimulated business and brought ever more guests to stay at the hotel. But in the early 1900s, a fire broke out, damaging the building which then stood empty for years. During that time, its vacant space was used by a sandmining company to unload sand on conveyors to put on the scows in the bay. After rebuilding, business came back and was soon booming once again. An advertisement that appeared in a local paper in June 1906 said of the hotel: “Meals at all hours - Board by the day or week. Pleasure Parties Accommodated with Launch or Sailing Vessel.”From the early twentieth century onwards, the building changed hands dozens of times, only remaining a hotel in its third iteration as the Bayview Hotel. It then became a series of restaurants; first DeMar’s, then Gildo’s, followed by Winston’s, Darby Doyle’s, McAnn’s, and then the Bay House. It became an Indian restaurant in 1989 and continues to thrive as Diwan today.
Bay Walk Trail and Park
The Port Washington North Bay Walk Park Project has converted 1.7 acres of eroding and neglected waterfront property and two piers, bounded by Manhasset Bay and Sheets Creek to the west and Shore Road to the East, into a usable amenity.There was once a marina, undeveloped land from an oil transfer station, and a marine hardware store on this property. After sitting forsaken for years, state and local funding facilitated the creation of this Bay Walk Trail. A well-organized effort to complete construction and landscaping has resulted in a winding, scenic walkway and bikeway lined with plantings, art, and nautical history signposts and plaques. The rotting piers once used by sand miners and scows have been rebuilt for fishing, launching and receiving recreational boats and observing scenic Manhasset Bay.
Lewis Oil Company
The large area currently occupied by Stop & Shop was a major water transit hub for decades. It was also the site of the Lewis Coal & Oil Company, known to most locals simply as Lewis Oil. Lewis Oil began as a business that delivered clams and oysters by boat to New York City, until the early 1900s when the waters of Manhasset Bay became too polluted for the shellfish to remain as plentiful as they once were. In the face of dwindling orders, the company made a quick switch to delivering coal and then oil, which came by tugboat from New Jersey to Port Washington. In the winter, thick ice sometimes impeded the boats’ journey on Manhasset Bay – an inconvenience that the company was turned into opportunity when they made the decision to begin selling ice cut from the Bay to make a path for their boats to local residents. Their tugs were a familiar sight plying their wares up and down Manhasset Bay, and later, their fleet of trucks were often seen driving Port Washington’s streets making deliveries.In the 1950s the Lewis Coal & Oil Company produced a series of calendars, giving Long Island customers the long-lasting gift of a yearly datebook featuring sketches and well-researched text about local historic sites. Many of these calendars still survive today on the shelves of the Port Washington Public Library.
Port North Pier and Sheets Creek
The shellfish industry in Manhasset Bay is reported to have begun in 1832 when Henry Cocks planted small hard clams in the Bay that he had dug up from Long Island Sound near what is now known as Sheets Creek. An offshoot of Manhasset Bay, Sheets Creek is bounded by Port Washington North and Manorhaven’s Manhasset Isle. A grassy tidal marsh, the creek was used as an industrial dumping site and squatters’ residence for many years. Through the mid-19th century, the rotting hulls of abandoned barges and seafaring vessels dotted the shallows and dilapidated shacks on stilts lined the shore. Years of discarded construction debris and other pollutants degraded the soil quality and vegetation, but over the last few decades there have been several community-based initiatives to clean up the creek, resulting in over 20 tons of debris removed. Today, Sheets Creek is a preserve and nature trail.
The End
Port Washington has seen many changes over the centuries and continues to evolve and grow to this day. Like many Long Island communities, it is currently undergoing revitalization plans to further enhance its waterfront. New pilings for the Town Dock, a new vision for Lower Main Street as a mix of buildings and recreational amenities, town beautification and the creation of greenways - these projects are all in the works.Through this walking tour, we hope that we have provided you with a new way of looking at the harbor, as a time-honored place which inspired older generations to pass down properties, skills, and traditions to their children. Enhanced appreciation of Manhasset Bay, its history and environment by local lawmakers and policy makers, and especially interested citizens such as yourself, reinforce the sense of Port Washington as a "community within a community," linking the past and the present as we make our way through the 21st century.
