News Of Long Ago - "Charles Stewart Butler's Moment In The Sun As Supervisor Of Smithtown, 1924-25"

News of Long Ago by Bradley Harris, Smithtown Historian

(I have been writing about the descendants of Judge John Lawrence Smith and the contributions they made to Smithtown’s history.  Last week I wrote about another grandson of the Judge, Charles Stewart Butler, the owner of Branglebrink Farm in St. James, who was elected Supervisor of the Town of Smithtown in 1923.  This article deals with the impact that Charles Butler had upon Smithtown once he became Supervisor.)

“Charles Stewart Butler’s moment in the sun as Supervisor of Smithtown, 1924-25….”

  The two years that Charles Butler served as Supervisor of Smithtown were marked by a number of progressive changes in the operation of Smithtown’s government.  Harry D. Sleight, the historian who compiled Town Records of the Town of Smithtown for the years 1835 to 1929, described the years 1924 and 1925,  when Charles Butler served as Supervisor,  as “a busy two years.”  He noted that Smithtown in the preceding 25 years of its history had been “like a snowball accumulating snow as it progressed, rolled up in that period, a greater population, and greater financial resources, than possible in the past centuries of slow plodding progress.”  And when Charles Butler came into the office of Supervisor, he determined that he was going to use those resources and continue to implement and build on the changes that had been initiated during Charles Miller’s term as Supervisor from 1920 to 1923.  Many of these changes were needed, but they did not meet with universal approval, and when the changes were made, many voters were alienated and this ultimately led to the demise of Charles S. Butler’s political career. 

During Charles Butler’s term as Supervisor, Republicans enjoyed a majority on the Town Board and they followed the Supervisor’s leadership when it came to dealing with controversial issues.   The proposal of purchasing land for a town dump had been submitted by the previous Supervisor, Charles Miller, and it came to fruition during Charles Butler’s administration.  Five acres of land off Middle Country Road was purchased from Mrs. Adeline B. Nooy for $1,000 and a dump site was established in St. James.  The Town Board then legislated controls on the disposal of garbage.  The Superintendent of Highways was given new status, an improved salary, a new office with office furniture, and a Roads Department that was provided with new motorized equipment so that town roads could be improved and paved.  The Town Board even approved the purchase of a new “motor cars” for Town Officers to use and even agreed to purchase a new car for the Highway Superintendent’s use.  Traffic problems were first addressed and beacon lights and silent policemen were installed on Main Street at several intersections.  At busier intersections, electric traffic signals were installed to handle the flow of traffic.  Parking regulations were created, traffic signs were erected, and part-time police officers on motorcycles were employed to enforce the traffic laws.  Sidewalks and paths were built, street lights were installed in Smithtown Branch, and eventually St. James and Kings Park had street lights installed as well.  Smithtown Branch was transformed from a little rural  village into a real town that even boasted a brand new public school building on New York Avenue, a school that housed an elementary school and a secondary school, grades K-12, all under one roof.  

The Town Board turned its attention to improving its beaches and parks, and improvements and repairs were made to the beach buildings.  The town beaches were so attractive and appealing that non- residents were attracted to them and the Town Board permitted non-residents to use them if they paid a $10 fee.  The fees collected helped finance other improvements.  The Town Board also accepted donations “from private individuals” for the cost of construction of a “five foot” wide “passenger bridge” that was erected “across the meadows to Sunkenmeadow Beach.”  In addition to all of these changes, the Town Board authorized the creation of the Kings Park Water Company and granted a “permit to apply for papers of incorporation.”  All of this happened in the short span of two years.  (Town Records of the Town of Smithtown, Harry S. Sleight, published by authority of the Town of Smithtown, 1930, pp. 657-659.)

This flurry of activity by the Town Board must have had a dramatic impact upon the community.  Many of the changes were highly visible.  They were also visible in the tax bills that the residents of the town now had to pay.  It must have seemed to many that Smithtown had suddenly been dragged into the 20^th century and changes had been wrought that residents didn’t like and it had them kicking and screaming.

The straw that broke the taxpayers’ backs seems to have come when the Town Board authorized the construction of a plank road on Long Beach.  The Smithtown Country and Beach Club, was an association of estate owners who had houses that surrounded St. James Harbor, and the estate owners had beach rights on Long Beach.  The estate owners’ beach front properties were located between the town parks of Long Beach and Little Africa.    The Country and Beach Club members were incensed by the flagrant disregard of their property rights by Smithtown residents who trooped across their property to get from Long Beach to Little Africa.  Cars kept getting stuck in the sand, and people kept interrupting the estate owners’ private beaches parties.  The Country and Beach Club asked that the Town Board construct a plank road across their property to connect the two parks and so stop the desecration of their beach front.  The Town Board decided to construct a plank road and accepted a $2,000 donation from the Club to begin construction of this road.  The Town Board added $1,000 from the Beach Fund and appointed Justice George Hodgkinson to oversee the construction of this roadway.

Almost as an afterthought, the Town Board decided to ask the voters for approval of this project  through a special proposition that they placed on the fall election ballot of 1925.  This issue became a hotly contested one in the election campaign in the fall of 1925.  Charles Butler sought a second term as Supervisor and faced a formidable opponent in E.H.L. Smith, a popular Democrat who had previously served eighteen years as Supervisor of Smithtown.  In addition to fielding a strong candidate, the Democrats lambasted the Republican Town Board for its spending and focused in on the issue of the plank road under construction on Long Beach.  The plank road became an election issue because Charles Butler and his brother Lawrence Butler were members of the Smithtown Country and Beach Club.  In fact their father had been the founder of this association and, as estate owners, the Butlers had property rights on Long Beach.  Democrats began to question the Town Board’s action in authorizing the construction of this roadway,  especially in light of the fact that the question of building the plank road at taxpayer’s expense had been proposed in 1923, and the proposition suggesting that taxpayers spend $5,000 to construct  a plank road at Long Beach had been  defeated.  

The outcome of the election in 1925 was predictable.  On November 5, 1925, when the votes were counted, Charles S. Butler lost his re-election bid for Supervisor by 336 votes and E.H.L. Smith became Supervisor.   And the proposition on the ballot calling for the authorization to spend $4,000 on the construction of 2300’ of plank road from “the end of the present road at Long Beach to the Town Park on said Long Beach” was once again defeated.  The hotly contested issue spilled over into other election races and Democrats were swept into office in practically every elected position in Smithtown.  Charles S. Butler had been given the gate by residents of Smithtown who were ranting and raving about the arrogance of wealthy estate owners who seemed determined to have a plank road built on Long Beach, at taxpayer’s expense, with or without the approval of the little people in town. 

It’s interesting to note that at one of the last meetings Charles Butler presided over as Supervisor on November 12, 1925, the Town Board authorized that “an additional sum of $1,000 be appropriated from beach funds to continue on with the plank road at Long Beach.”  And at his last meeting as Town Supervisor on December 22, 1925, a letter was received by the Town Board from “Messrs. Martin Taylor and Henry A. Stickney, in which they contribute Five Hundred Dollars toward the work of building a plank road on Long Beach.”  The Town Board accepted their gift and the plank road was completed with most of the cost of construction being paid for through private donations.  But the public perception that Supervisor Butler was spending tax dollars to have the road built for the wealthy members of the Country and Beach Club led many people to vote against him in the 1925 elections.

His defeat in the 1925 election must have soured Charles Butler on politics.  As far as I know, he never ran for elected office again.  When he left office, Charles Butler went back to work as a lawyer in New York City, but continued to live at Branglebrink Farm watching over the operation of the dairy which supplied milk to households throughout St. James, Stony Brook, Smithtown Branch, and Nesconset.   And he continued to play an active part in the life of the community, but that is a story that will have to wait until next week….