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FROM THE BRYANT ROOM ARCHIVES
By Myrna Sloam ©November/December 2008
A View of the Mackay Estate, Part 18: The Donaldson Family,
by Stewart Donaldson
The following article is part 18 of a continuing series taken from the memoirs of Stewart W. Donaldson (1907-1994) who grew up on the Clarence H. 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.
[My father], William Donaldson [1879-1939], was born in Rathfriland, County Down, North Ireland on February 27, 1879. He didn’t care for farm life and left Ireland in 1896 and went to Rutherglen, Scotland where he worked as a stableman for his cousins, the Allens, who had a carriage service. He came to America in May 1900 at 21 years of age. As he stepped off the ferry that brought him to New York [City] from Ellis Island, he was welcomed by a smiling-faced gent who shook his hand heartily and asked him if he desired lodging and wanted his money changed to American money. My father, being a “greenhorn” as they used to call them [new immigrants], gave him all of his money. He waited, and waited, and when it started to get dark, and the lights came on in the greatest city in the world, he realized he had been taken over. All of sudden he felt lonely, broke, and did not know anyone. He was in a strange land and all of the addresses he had were to people in the Pittsburgh, PA area, but, he could not get to Pittsburgh without money, so he started to walk the streets of New York. It was getting dark and getting late, as he walked by a stable he heard some Scotsmen talking. He went up to them and told them his story, and he was hired as a stableman, and later became a coachman, for Mrs. Sarah Cooper Hewitt. He stayed with Mrs. Hewitt until May 1902, when he came to Roslyn to work as a coachman for the Mackays [Clarence H. and Katherine Duer] on their new estate, “Harbor Hill.” He lived on the estate in Roslyn, L.I. for the rest of his life. [The Mackay estate became part of the Incorporated Village of East Hills in 1931.]
My mother, Ella Clementeen Pollock Donaldson [1886-1946], was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. on September 11, 1886. She was the daughter of Sarah (Speedling) Pollock and William Pollock, a printer who was working in Brooklyn. In 1890 her father died of tuberculosis, so Grandma [Sarah] had to send Ella back to Roslyn to live with the Speedlings [Stephen and Clementeen], on the West Turnpike. This section [of Roslyn] was sometimes referred to as “Methodist Hill,” as so many Methodists lived here. In 1894, Grandma [Sarah] married John Conklin and lived on West Turnpike also, and my mother then went back to live with her mother. After my mother left the grammar school, she went to work as a clerk in “Jot” Hicks general store on the Mill Dam [now the Roslyn Post Office on Old Northern Blvd.] and worked there until she got married. On June 20, 1906 she and William Donaldson were married in the Old Methodist Church on Main Street, Roslyn, by the Rev. Allen A. Clark. [This building was located just south of 180 Main Street. It was sold and removed in 1921, when the Methodists bought property for a new church in Roslyn Heights.] She was given away in marriage by her grandfather, Stephen Speedling.
My mother and father [first] lived in a small cottage on the north side of Warner Avenue, opposite Jefferson Avenue, Roslyn Heights. [They] then moved to a cottage on the east side of Glen Cove Road. This was part of the C. H. Mackay estate…. [and] I was born [in this cottage]…. on Friday, June 14, 1907 at 7:32 am. [Living on the estate] was to be temporary, but my father was later [1910] put in charge of the polo ponies and stables, and [we] lived on the estate [in the upstairs living quarters, over the polo stables] for a number of years…. This I remember as my first home…. [and] my brother George was born [there] in 1913…. When we lived at the polo stables we had electric lights, central heat and a bathroom. This was something [special], for most folks in 1912 and 1913 had kerosene light, a hand pump from a well and a privy in the back yard….
In 1914, right after I had started school in “Bull’s Head,” North Roslyn, the Donaldsons and the Andersens traded houses. [Ed Andersen was the auto mechanic on the Mackay estate.] We moved from the polo stables to the cottage on Town Path, opposite the greenhouses and gardens…. It was off of the estate, but it was still part of the Mackay estate…. I was 7 years old at the time, but I very vividly remember it. The dishes were wrapped in paper and put in old flour barrels. In those days flour was delivered to the stores in large wooden barrels, about 4 feet high. Mr. Hechler [estate superintendent] had [Oscar] Wiggins and [Walter] Penny, the carpenters [on the estate], enlarge the house right after we moved in. They added on the kitchen and also added a bathroom upstairs. This gave us another bathroom. We had running water from the water system on the Mackay estate, also a hot water heating system, and kerosene lamps. This my mother did not like... I can still remember the stink of the kerosene lamps. It seemed, after awhile, that everything in the place smelled of kerosene. You had to clean the globes, or chimneys, every day and fill the lamps. You also had to trim the wicks about once a week and, if they were not trimmed square across, the lamp would smoke and get black soot on the inside of the chimney. My mother kept after Pop [William Donaldson] until he finally got Mr. Hechler to have Angelo Graziosi, who was the electrician on the estate, to wire out the cottage for lights….
Our nearest neighbor was Barney Feeney who lived up a bit from us on the opposite side of Town Path. The Feeneys would not sell to the Mackays when they were buying up property for the estate. Mr. Feeney owned about 4 acres which Mackay’s estate surrounded. Our neighbors to the east were mostly men who worked on the estate. Angelo’s father lived behind us, Mr. Tyma, who was a teamster, Tony Martino, who worked for Mr. Lupton [farm superintendent of the estate] as a laborer, and the Donohues. They [the Donohues] all worked for Mackay in one job or another. Jim was a chauffeur, Tim and his father, worked in the greenhouse, as did Mr. Feeney….
The family doctor for as far back as I can remember, was Dr. John Mann from Old Westbury. Mr. C.H. Mackay paid Dr. Mann so much a year (I heard it was $10,000) to take care of the servants on the estate. There was no limit to the calls or number of visits…. In the early 1910s there was no outside phone service, but there was the estate inter-building phone service [which operated] between the mansion, polo stables, main stables, dairy, greenhouses, tennis court and the estate office, as far as I can remember. If you needed the Doctor, or in any emergency, you simply rang, that is [you] twisted the crank on the side of the phone box, for so many rings. When you reached either the office or the mansion, whichever one you happened to ring, you simply asked for the doctor and they in turn, called on the outside phone….He was always available when you wanted him…..
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