Local Guide

• Local Guide
• • Whitmanland
• • Other Important Sites
• • Whitman Related Sites
• • Local Attractions
• • Local Parks and Preserves
• • Huntington Area Attractions and Museums

WHITMAN RELATED SITES

THE LONG-ISLANDER. 322 Main Street, Huntington.

The newspaper was founded by Walt Whitman in 1838 and sold by him in 1839. He wrote, edited, set the type, and delivered the paper by bicycle. This local paper is still in publication and received weekly by town residents.

LONG SWAMP SCHOOL. 2 Melville Road, Huntington Station.

As a teenager, Walt Whitman taught school here in the summer of 1837.

SITE OF THE WOODBURY SCHOOL. Corner of Woodbury Road & Jericho Turnpike.

After finishing a Spring term at Timing Square in 1840, Walt taught a summer school at Woodbury, four miles from West Hills. The original school on this site, erected in 1807, was sold at auction in 1927 to make room for a new school structure and moved across the street on Jericho Turnpike. More than once threatened with destruction, the original schoolhouse was moved to the Alexander M. White estate in Oyster Bay Cove. The desk used by Whitman at Woodbury is now at the Birthplace.

THE VAN VELSOR CEMETERY. Woodbury.

Like the Whitman family cemetery in West Hills, the burying grounds of Walt's mother's side of the family, the Van Velsors, exists although few graves can be identified. In 1881 Walt visited this spot and described it as: "...the most significant depository of the dead that could be imagin'd without the slightest help from art, soil sterile, a mostly bare plateau--flat of an acre, the top of a hill, brush and well grown trees and dense woods bordering all around, very primitive, secluded, no visitors, no road...The scene as I stood or sat, the delicate and wild odor of the woods, a slight drizzling rain, the emotional atmosphere of the place, and the inferr'd reminiscences, were such as I never realized before."

THE WHITMAN CEMETERY (COMMACK). 486 Town Line Road.

About 15 members of the Whitman family are buried here, in addition to members of the Carll, Harned, Moreland, Brush, Hubbard, and Smith families. The cemetery is in three divisions: the old church burying ground of 1/2 acre near the Commack Methodist Church; a group of privately owned plots, including that of the family of Zebulon D. Whitman; and 12 acres owned by the Commack Cemetery, Inc.

JOSEPH WHITMAN LANDS.Town Line road & Jericho Turnpike, Commack.

On the border between the Towns of Huntington and Smithtown is a valley known originally by the Indian name Winnecomack, "Pleasant Land," later called Joseph Whitman's Great Hollow and finally Commack. Joseph settled there in 1672 on one of 10 farms established by the Town of Huntington. For 240 years the land remained in the possession of the Whitman family. Miss Anne Whitman, who died in 1912, was the last of the line. The Whitmans, for several generations, owned and operated a grocery store and U.S. post office at the corner of Town Line Road and Jericho Turnpike.

SCHOOLHOUSE. 9 Singer Lane, Incorporated Village of The Branch Smithtown.

From 1837 through 1838, Walt, not yet 19, was a teacher at this school-house founded in the 17th century. The subjects he taught here included reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and geography. Records show his pay for five months teaching was $72.70. During his stay in Smithtown, Walt boarded at the Conklin House, then located on the old Hallock Tavern property, and joined the local debating society becoming its secretary. Originally near the corner of Main Street and Bellmeade Avenue, the schoolhouse has since been moved to its present location and is currently known as the Village of The Branch Travel Agency.