The Millennium Cometh: A man called Sol Wanser,Esq.

The writeris the Historianfor theVillageof Amityville

Second in a series of articles commemorating the new Millennium and celebratng the history that has brought us to where we are today.

by William Lauder

n 1899; as the end of that century approached, the Village President was Samuel P. Hildreth, Esq. last elected to the post in 1898. He had been appointed the first Village Clerk in 1894 and then in 1895 was elected President the first time. As a young man he had come from "down east" to make his fortune. He had been called upon to draw up the original petition and incorporation papers for the Village. His law office was in the Bank (Triangle) Building, the seat of local power. Also housed there were the Post Office, Justice Court, Water Company, Electric Company, Ketcham & Colyer Insurance and other businesses — kind of a one stop shopping mall.

The Village Trustees in 1899 were the aforesaid William W. Skinner, Solomon Place Wanser, Arthur W. White and Eugene Velsor. The number of Trustees had been increased from three to four in 1898.

Mr. Wanser, better known as Sol Wanser, was of a very old and large family in the community, witness Wanser Place, Wanser Cemetery and Wanser Island out in the bay. He had at one time been a blacksmith with his shop located on the north side of Main Street between Park Avenue and Broadway about where the bowling alley now stands. At that time he lived on the west side of Broadway just north of Sterling Place where he owned a sizable parcel of land also fronting on Sterling Place across from Mr. Wood’s lumber company. Like so many others then, he was also part farmer and part bayman.

After suffering an injury due to the heavy work of a blacksmith, he gave that up and bought a five acre farm on the east side of Richmond Avenue between Coles Avenue (formerly Dock Street) on the north and what is now Mole Place (formerly land of Jarvis H. Bennett, later of Whitmore). It ran east almost to Ocean Avenue. There he indulged in the light work of running a large farm he chose to call "Waverly Poultry Farm". When he tried to change Coles Avenue, named after Coles Ketcham to "Waverly Place" it didn’t work. He ran aground of the Ketcham clan and there must have been more Ketchams than Wansers.

In any event, the poultry on his farm were white Peking ducks replete with a small pond. There was also a barn, stable, green house and an orchard. He raised corn, grain and assorted vegetables. In his spare time he went duck hunting and ice boat racing, keeping his boats in a boat house on the west side of Ketcham Avenue near where "Toomey’s" is now located.

He had also been a Deputy Sheriff, making overnight trips to Riverhead taking prisoners to the County Jail. Depending on the weather, the trips would take two or three days by horse and wagon. At night he would handcuff the prisoner’s to the foot of his bed until morning. I presume they slept on the floor. He was also an Oyster farmer, maintaining beds of cultivated oysters in the bay off Amityville. When he had nothing else to do, he carved beautiful decoys for duck hunting. It must be said that he did not waste his time.