FROM THE BRYANT ROOM ARCHIVES
By Myrna Sloam ©Sept/Oct 2006
Duck Cove: A History of Mott’s Cove by Frank Harrington
NOTE: The following article is excerpted from a brief history of the Mott’s Cove area written in 1992 by former Village of Roslyn Harbor Historian, Frank Harrington. The full text is located in the Bryant Library Local History Collection.
On Long Island, six miles from the edge of New York City, a small valley less than a half mile in length slopes down to the eastern shore of Hempstead Harbor. The first Europeans, arriving in the seventeenth century, found a spring fed brook flowing through this little hollow, as they called it. Eventually two dams were built and the impounded waters were used to drive a pair of mills. Today the great wheels are gone and the waters are the home of flocks of waterfowl. The shallow harbor inlet that forms the estuary of the brook is now called “Motts Cove” after Jackson Mott who operated a mill there after the Revolutionary War. In colonial times, this inlet was called “Duck Cove” and the valley surrounding the brook was called “Duck Cove Hollow.”
The first evidence of human habitation on Long Island is thought to be about 3,000 B.C. Successive waves of Indians crossed the narrow waters from the north and west. About the year 1,100 there arrived the Algonkian speaking ancestors of the Matinecocks whom the Europeans found living in Duck Cove Hollow in the 17th century. The Matinecocks were one of what used to be called the Thirteen Tribes of Long Island. Actually these groups were extended families of the Algonkian Nation. Matinne-auka-ut (Matinecock) is thought to mean “at the place to look from” or “the place of observation at the hilly land.” In 1683 Suskaneman, sachem of the Matinecocks, gave Henry Bell 50 acres of Oyster Bay land when he married an Indian woman “of ye Naragansets, one of our own nation” and thereby telling us something about the tribal lineage. (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. I p. 313.)
There were about 6,000 Native Americans on Long Island, indicating a sparse population before they were decimated by white man’s diseases. Duck Cove Hollow with its fresh water stream close to the harbor resources was an ideal camp site for the Indians, although they are thought to have moved about with the seasons. In 1687, Governor Thomas Dongan granted the Matinecocks 200 acres in Duck Cove Hollow “provided alwaies that it shall not be in ye power of ye Sd Indians or the Heires to Grant or Convey Sd Land…” (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. I p. 519). However the Indians continued to grant land in the valley. This parcel became known as the Indian’s Old Field.
The Town of Hempstead, settled in 1644, and the Town of Oyster Bay, settled in 1653, abut in Duck Cove Hollow. In 1677, Governor Edmund Andros described the boundary of Oyster Bay Town with Hempstead in part as “then on a North NorthWest line somewhat westerly to the head of Hempstead Harbor” from Cantiague (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. I p. 307). For over two hundred years this boundary line was in dispute until the Board of Supervisors resolved the issue late in the 19th century. As a result, title transfers were entered in one town on one occasion and then the other at the next sale. In 1723, Jarvis Mudge was selected to be a member of a committee to “perambulate the agreement line” and remark it (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. IV p. 400). North Hempstead separated from Hempstead after the Revolutionary War.
Despite the constraint in Thomas Dongan’s grant to the Indians, in less than six years they deeded the land in two transactions on March 7, 1693. James Townsend of Jericho received the western portion which included the stream (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. I p. 116). He did not develop the land and in 1695 he sold a half interest to Thomas Willets (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. I p. 609). There appear to have been a number of unrecorded land sales involving Townsend’s land. One of them, to Josias Smith of Dartmouth, Massachusetts (mentioned in Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. III p. 249) began that family’s long interest in Duck Cove Hollow. James Townsend went on to become town surveyor of Oyster Bay. Although he gave up his holdings in the Hollow, the Townsend family would own land along Glen Cove Avenue at the turn of the 20th century including a race track and canning factory. (Belcher Hyde, 1906) By 1731, Elias Smith would own all of James Townsend’s land in the Hollow which after the Revolutionary War would become known as the Mott’s Lower Farm.
The second deed by the Matinecocks on March 7, 1693 was to Moses Mudge and his son Jarvis of Musketo (now Glen) Cove (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. I p. 527.) This was in two parcels, one running west from what is now Glen Cove Ave. and the second “for said Moses & Gervis to build a house on.” All of the Mudge land would eventually become the Mott Upper farm (mentioned Records of N. & S. Hempstead, Vol. VI p. 237). Two years later another deed was recorded for the same land (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. I p. 529). For twenty pounds and “one peck of good apels…upon ye Twenty Ninth Day of September in each year” the Indians leased the property for 500 years to Garvis Mudge. This may have been an attempt to circumvent the restrictions to the Indians in the Dongan deed of 1687.
Jarvis Mudge was the grandson of his namesake who arrived in Boston in 1638, probably from Devonshire, England where the name was originally Mugge (memorials of the Mudge Family, Alfred Mudge, Boston 1868). The grandfather married a widow, Rebecca Elsen in Hartford in 1640. They had two children: Micah who stayed in New England and Moses (1652-1729) who was in Oyster Bay in 1664 and listed as a shoemaker. He was an early settler of Glen Cove. Rebecca widowed again, married one Nathaniel Greensmith. She became a central figure in the Hartford Witch Panic. She confessed, was convicted and hung on Jan. 23, 1663 (Tomlinson, 1978.)
Jarvis (1672-1741) of Duck Cove (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. III p. 106) apparently lived on the property. His wife Jane predeceased him and he left no issue when he died at 69 years of age (his son, Jarvis Jr., apparently predeceased him). Some parts of Jarvis’ house may be in the structure of the garage at Locust Hill, 110 Main Street, Roslyn (Roslyn Landmark Society Annual House Tour Guide 1984, p. 161). This carriage house cum garage behind the Jacob Sutton Mott House was moved to the Roslyn site in June 1987. At that time, an historical architect, John Stevens, dated the structure about 1700 and there was evidence of it having been used as a home. This Mott House site was Mudge’s original purchase.
Jarvis Mudge’s nephew Michael bought from Amos Mott in 1745 the farm containing what today (1992) is thought to be the oldest house in Roslyn Harbor (Roslyn Landmark Society Annual House Tour Guide 1993 and Goddard 1972). The Mudge Farmhouse (c. 1740) stands at 535 Motts Cove Road South near the Village Hall. Ten years before he died, Jarvis Mudge purchased from Elias Smith for 1,200 pounds the land west of his own and extending to the harbor. This was the original James Townsend purchase (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. IV p. 372) which became the lower farm. Three years later Mudge sold the upper farm to Joseph Mott of Cow Neck (Port Washington) (Oyster Bay Town Records, Vol. VI p. 128). This beginning in 1734 was to bring the Mott family to Duck Cove Hollow for 216 years until Kate Mott died in 1950.
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