Hallockville Celebrates 250th Birthday

The Hallockville homestead, now a farming museum on the North Fork, has changed many times over the centuries that it has stood as a testament to the farmers who first settled the East End.

This past weekend, the museum celebrated the 250th anniversary of what is believed to be the one of the earliest iterations of the homestead, in 1765.

The original portion of the homestead was believed until recently to have been built in 1765 by Ruben Brown. Ezra Hallock bought the farm and lived in the house sometime after the American Revolution.

But this past winter, the volunteer carpenters of the museum’s “Tuesday Crew” found an interesting bit of framing, which they believe predates 1765, when they removed part of the floor of the sitting room of the homestead.

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Historians now believe the sitting room could actually be part of the original house on the property, perhaps built when Reuben Brown’s parents, David Brown and Elizabeth Simmons, married in 1730. This small house would have contained just three rooms and a large fireplace with a brick oven, a typical “starter house” for early 18th Century settlers.

In 1801, Ezra Hallock sold the sixty-acre farm and buildings to his brother Captain Zachariah Hallock for his son Zachariah Hallock, Jr.. Zachariah, Jr. was married in 1800 and he and his descendents lived in the homestead until 1979, when his great-granddaughter Ella Hallock moved to a nursing home in Riverhead at age 95 .

On Saturday, historical re-enactors from the Third New York Long Island Company of 1775 demonstrated their weaponry and held a fashion show for attendees, while Hallockville board member Richard Wines entertained visitors with his impression of David Halsey Hallock, who was born in 1838 and lived most of his 101 years at the Hallockville homestead.

The homestead had been called Hallockville since before the museum was formed — By the late 1800s, many of the houses along Sound Avenue were on homesteads carved out for the descendants of Capt. Zachariah Hallock, leading many to refer to the area as “Hallockville.”