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FROM THE BRYANT ROOM ARCHIVES
By Myrna Sloam ©January/February 2008
A View of the Mackay Estate by Stewart Donaldson, Part 14:
The Superintendent and Farm Manager
Note: The following is part 14 of a continuing series taken from the memoirs of Stewart W. Donaldson (1907-1995) who grew up on the Clarence Mackay estate in what is now East Hills. These memoirs were written in the 1950s, recalling the estate in the 1910s and 1920s. Stewart’s father, William, was a coachman/chauffeur on the estate and Stewart was born and raised there.
The Superintendent of the Mackay estate was Charles Hechler…. The estate office, or Mr. Hechler’s office, as we used to call it, was down below the mansion near the coal pockets, or bins. He had the lower floor of this long building and Louis Hall (a footman at the house) lived overhead. Mr. Hechler had an office manager, Peter Hess, and Pete had 3 assistants. All of the business and bills from the estate were handled through this office…. Hechler came from Missouri and was a very quiet, sober and smart individual. He was not at all friendly with most of the folks on the estate, but he did belong to the Masons and went to the lodge with my father quite often….
Mr. Hechler was given his house just west of Glen Cove Road, near the cow barns. He was also given an automobile, his vegetables, milk, cream, light, heat, phone and a servant in his house…. Mr. Hechler was a great admirer of Guernsey cattle and had Mr. Mackay’s Guernsey cattle registered in the Guernsey Club of America.
Mr. Frank Lupton, an Englishman, was Farm Manager and reported directly to Mr. Hechler. He lived on the estate, in a white cottage west of the North Drive on Northern Blvd…. Mr. Lupton was in charge of the estate gangs. There were 3 gangs of 7 or 8 men each under the gang foremen, Jim Walsh, Hen Hendrickson and Patty Daly. They raked the gravel roads, weeded the gutters, trimmed the bushes, planted and cultivated the field corn and crops, and did the haying. In the winter they would trim the trees, clean up the woodland, shovel snow and keep the estate in good looking order….
After the gangs cleaned up and raked the mile-long front drive, Dan Dickinson, (who was the plumber on the estate and also ran the steam roller) would roll the front drive from the gate house to the front door. The laborers would use a pine branch broom and swish the fine gravel over the roads. Dickinson, as we called him, was kept quite busy…keeping the plumbing in repair for all the cottages, as well as the mansion, dairy, kennels, tennis court, greenhouses, etc. Dan would also take over for Ed Harwood at the water pump house, on Ed’s day off. Dan had a small store room of supplies at the polo stables.
Mr. Lupton was also in charge of the teamsters and stables. John Kern was the cleanup man in the farm horse stables. He fed the horses, cleaned the stables, ordered the feed and cleaned the harness, etc. Besides John, were the teamsters, Matt Lyons, Alex Tymma and Ike Eato (a Negro). There was also Old George Washington, who drove the garbage and ash wagon. Old George was born a slave and came up from the south right after the Civil War. He got a job on the estate about 1902 and worked there until he died…..
Mr. Lupton was in charge of the coal pockets. Whenever you needed coal, you called Lupton and he would send Ike Eato over with a load of coal. Mackay bought coal by the carloads and it was stored in the large coal bins, or pockets, near the office. A spur from the Long Island Railroad came in over these bins and emptied the coal…. The teamsters were kept busy plowing in the spring, then cultivating the corn fields…. They plowed the snow on the estate roads in winter. They would also cut the hay, bale it, and cart it to the hay mow in the barn. They hauled in the corn for silage, sprinkled the roads with [water from] large round water wagons during the hot dry spells in summer and much, much more.
Mr. Lupton was in charge of the 2 grounds men, Louis Genova and another Italian, at the tennis courts. He was also in charge of the estate blacksmith, John Linden …. [whose] shop was down near the estate office building. He would shoe the estate horses, as well as horses on other estates. He [would also] make iron products and put the iron blades on the snow plows that were horse-drawn.
Post Note: Charles H. Hechler (1881-1962) was Superintendent of the Mackay estate from 1907 until the estate closed down in the 1930’s. He and his wife, Catherine Hauhart (1880-1976) were originally from Missouri and were married in 1909. The Hechlers raised their family and continued to reside in East Hills after the Mackay estate was closed. Both were active in local and county politics and Charles served on the Roslyn School Board. Their son Ken (1914-- ) graduated from Roslyn High School and went on to become a Congressman and Secretary of State for West Virginia. Their son Charles, Jr. (1912-1995) also a graduate of Roslyn High School, later served as Historian for the Village of East Hills, and was a life-long resident. The Bryant Library and the greater Roslyn community are indebted to the Hechler family for their generous donation of materials concerning their family history and the history of the Mackay estate. To be continued in future Newsletters.
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Email: localhistory@bryantlibrary.org