News Of Long Ago - Judge John Lawrence Smith's Homestead (part II)

News of Long Ago by Bradley Harris, Smithtown Historian

(In last week’s article, I wrote about the life and career of Judge John Lawrence Smith, 1816-1889, a fifth generation descendant of Richard Smythe, the founder and patentee of Smithtown. This article takes a look at the house he acquired and modified to become his family home in Smithtown Branch, the house that we know today as The Homestead at 205 Middle Country Road.)

“Judge John Lawrence Smith’s Homestead in Smithtown Branch….” 

The Homestead, the large stately house that stands at 205 Middle Country Road, was once the home of Judge John Lawrence Smith. Today the house is owned by the Smithtown Historical Society and is in the process of being restored to look much as it did when the Judge lived here.  The most visible change will be the addition of the front porch that used to stretch across the full length of the house. (See the drawing of the Homestead that accompanies this article.)  The porch will restore the historic look and character of the house that the Judge called the Homestead.

John Lawrence Smith and his wife Sarah Nicoll Clinch purchased the old Blydenburgh house in Smithtown Branch sometime around 1850.  For the first years of their marriage, the Smiths had lived in Nissequogue, on the ancestral lands of the Smiths.  But with the birth of three children, Sarah found the location inconvenient and too far from a general store — “six miles from a lemon” as she told her children.  John Lawrence Smith had also been elected as an Assemblyman from Suffolk County and he needed a prominent location in the village of Smithtown Branch to match his new political status.  The Smiths found the house they wanted when they purchased the old Blydenburgh homestead on Middle Country Road.  The house was quite large having been created in the 1790’s by Richard Blydenburgh III  who joined two houses together to make one.  The eastern half of the house was the original house on the site, and is thought to have been built by William Blydenburgh (1727-1768) shortly after his marriage to Mary Arthur in 1757.  The western half of the house, moved onto the site in the 1790’s by Richard Blydenburgh, is thought to be as old or older than the house built by William Blydenburgh and was originally standing to the west of William’s house. Both parts of the Homestead were built before the American Revolution.  This means that the Homestead is made up of two of the oldest houses in Smithtown Branch.  These homes, and the Homestead they became, were occupied by generations of Blydenburghs long before John Lawrence Smith acquired and made it his “Homestead.” 

When the Smiths moved into the Homestead, probably sometime in 1851, the Smiths had three children and they had plenty of room in the spacious house.  But this changed as the Smiths had more children and the Judge made improvements to the property.  The first change was made “to accommodate” John Lawrence Smith’s “law practice.”  With his election as Suffolk County District Attorney in 1850, the Judge needed an office in his own home.  So he added “a two story wing with a flat roof and wide eaves on the north side” of the house.  The addition “created an outer office on the ground floor … in a wing measuring fifteen by thirty feet.”  This office had a door on the west side which gave access to Judge’s Lane and made it possible for clients to visit the office without having to pass through the house.  On the second floor of this addition, the Smiths added a bedroom and a bath.  They needed the additional room for their family which was growing by leaps and bounds.  (Nicholas M. Langhart, “Architecture and Town Planning in Smithtown, L.I., N.Y., 1665-1825,” published Master’s thesis, Cornell University, 1984, copy on file with the Smithtown Historical Society.)  

During the first nineteen years of their marriage, the Smiths had eleven children.  Although two of these children died in infancy, nine children crowded into the rooms of the house.  Bessie Smith, the Smiths’ tenth child, remembers sleeping with her sisters in a trundle bed.  “I used to sleep first with Lottie and then, I think, with Ella in the old Trundle bed; a large square box on rollers about a foot high, from the floor, which was all covered up and rolled underneath Nannie’s bed during the day.”  The older Smith children shared other bedrooms throughout the house.  (Bessie Smith White, “Memories,” unpublished manuscript on file with the Smithtown Historical Society, written in 1926.)

The need for more space led the Judge to build “a large, flat-roofed addition on the north side of the early kitchen wing on the east end.  This addition accommodated a new, large kitchen and pantry on the ground floor, with a nursery on the second floor.”  Presumably, the old Blydenburg kitchen was then converted into a dining room. (Nicholas M. Langhart, op. cit.) With so many babies and children in the house, the larger kitchen and nursery were necessities.  To help Sarah with the children, the Smiths employed a Scotch nurse named Cecilia Thompson.  She was the ‘Nannie” that Bessie Smith knew:  “We had an old Scotch nurse, Cecilia Thompson, by name, who brought us all up and was our devoted slave.  She was always merry, and never allowed us to be frightened, at anything.  When we were naughty, her only threat was, that she would go away!  And many a tear did I shed, at seeing her put on her bonnet and old Paisley Shawl – but of course, she didn’t mean it and stayed with us until she died, and she is buried in our family plot, in St. James church-yard.”  (Bessie Smith White, op. cit.)

In addition to the nurse, the Smiths had an Irish cook named “Lizzie Rowan, and an old darkie servant, Mary, who did all the rest of the work in the house.  Mary lived with her two boys, in the ‘darkie quarters,’ a wing of our house, set apart for them.  Her oldest boy, ‘Morris,’ was quite a character!  He did various jobs about the place, but had the bad habit of running away – so after various floggings, which were useless – my father decided to dress him in a suit of bright red cloth, with brass buttons – and this cured him!”  (Bessie Smith White, op. cit.)  With the addition of the hired help, the total number of people living in the Smith family home in 1865 reached fifteen.  This made even the large house seem jam-packed with people.

The Judge made one further addition to the house in 1870 when his mother-in-law, Ann Taylor (Nicoll) Clinch, came to live with the Smiths after her husband died.  The Judge had an east wing added to the east end of the house that was to serve as an apartment for his mother-in-law.  She lived here until her death in 1880.  The apartment which had high ceilings was then converted into a ballroom and was used for dances which were occasionally held at the Smiths’ home.  (Nicholas M. Langhart, op. cit.)   The result of all these modifications to the house can be seen in the accompanying drawing of the “Residence of Judge J. Lawrence Smith.”  The Judge had converted the simple home of the Blydenburghs into an impressive residence that was worthy of the Surrogate Judge of Suffolk County.  

The Judge also made some significant improvements to the street scape in the village of Smithtown Branch by planting shipmast locust trees along the sides of Middle Country Road.  He probably began the project of lining the road with trees sometime after he moved into the Homestead in 1851.  He chose the Yellow Locust tree (also known as the Shipmast locust) for several reasons.  In the History of Smithtown that he authored in 1883, the Judge wrote:  “The tree when standing alone is symmetrical in form, its foliage is dense and of a soft delicate green, pleasant to the eye, and its substance combine to so fertilize the ground that there is always found about the base of the tree, even in sterile soils, a rich velvet sod.”  He believed the locust was “unsurpassed” as a “shade tree for” the Smithtown locality, its leaves creating a “dense shade” in the summer, and then with the coming of fall, drying and curling up into an insignificant leaf that was easily blown away by the wind.  (J. Lawrence Smith, The History of Smithtown, Smithtown Historical Society, New York, 1961, pp. 27-28.)

   The shipmast locust trees that the Judge planted were not planted by seed.  Instead the Judge had to find a mature tree that was sending out shoots and then dig out the sprouts and transplant them.  Fortunately, the shipmast locust tree is very hardy and grows like a weed, so the saplings that the Judge planted rapidly took root and grew straight and tall forming an allee through the village of Smithtown Branch.  According to the Judge, “the beautiful rows of locust extending the whole length of the street at Smithtown Branch are the admiration of all summer visitors.”  (J. Lawrence Smith, op. cit.)  The shipmast locust trees are still admired by visitors to Smithtown.  Just as the Homestead has become part of the legacy that John Lawrence Smith left to us all, so too are the shipmast locust trees that continue to grace our town, and we should make every effort we can to see that the legacy endures.