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FROM THE BRYANT ROOM ARCHIVES
By Myrna Sloam ©March/April 2006
A View of the Mackay Estate, Part 9: The Electrical and Water Systems by Stewart Donaldson
[This is the 9th in an ongoing series of articles presented from the writings of Stewart Donaldson (1907- 1994). Mr. Donaldson grew up on the Mackay Estate, where his father was a chauffeur. The full reminiscences are located in the library’s Bryant Room].
The Electrical system on the Estate was all underground. It seems that when the place was being built they had planned to build a power house near the mansion. But, a number of millionaires who lived in Roslyn, Wheatley and Old Westbury in the summer time, and in the city in the winter, had been accustomed to the convenience of electricity, water, ice, etc., [and] wanted this same convenience in the country. So, they decided to build a power house. They formed a corporation, designated the Roslyn Light, Power and Ice Company and bought property near the railroad on what is now Power House Road.
Two buildings were constructed. One, a boiler room and steam driven alternator room. The steam engines drove the alternators with large belts. The other building was an ice making house and store house. The steam was piped across underground, to drive the steam driven compressors that were used to compress the ammonia, which was used for making ice in those days. There was the compressor room, the ice making room and the ice storage room. In the yard there were tracks and a hand car which ran along this track, after being loaded with ice, and taken to the wagons that were waiting to be loaded. It would then be taken to the several estates and also sold around town. This took place about 1898 or 1900. Mackay, Payne Whitney and Stanley Mortimer and more, were the starters of this. It lasted until about 1910, when the large ice companies began to move out from New York [City]. In 1909 this [power company] was sold to the Nassau Light and Power Company. The ice making business was not continued much after this.
As for water. In 1898, when the Mackay Estate was being built there was no public water works. So, Mackay bought a plot of ground in Roslyn behind the Hicks lumber yard site or behind the present Washington Tavern [now, The George Washington Manor Restaurant] location and here drilled a well and installed a steam driven pump. Pipes were laid from this point in Roslyn, up the Mill Dam or Willow Avenue [now, Old Northern Blvd.] then past the Mansion House, up the hill under the railroad and to a high water tower just to the south west of the front drive.
Mackay laid a water pipe system throughout the entire estate, taking water to all the buildings and cottages. The estate had water about 11 years before the village of Roslyn. The pumping station later had an electric motor installed and a gasoline driven pump, as well. Ed Harwood was the engineer in charge of the pumping station.
I f you left the mansion and went back to the stone arch bridge and then made a sharp right hand turn and under the bridge, you would finally end up at the Estate office, where Charles Hechler was the Superintendent. He had an office staff of 3 or 4 people. Over the office lived Louis Hall, one of the footmen. To the south of the office was the blacksmith shop and a Norwegian named Jack Linden was the Blacksmith. He shoed the estate horses, as well as those of outsiders. To be continued….
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Email: localhistory@bryantlibrary.org