Dering Harbor’s Discovery Changes Shelter Island Forever Part 6 of 9 Compiled by Patricia Shillingburg

Hustle and Bustle     Waldo Kraemer describes the Manhanset House as he remembered it: The hotel consisted of two main buildings, one of six floors, which contained the dining room and bar, the other, except for some small lounges was mainly sleeping quarters. They were connected by a bridge over an access road. On this bridge was the ballroom. There were about 350 guests. The rates were about fifty-five dollars a week, American Plan. (After the fire we inspected the ruins many times. All the glasses in the bar were melted into little puddles. The site was practically paved with the old cast iron bath tubs, which survived magnificently.)      Thomas T. Young, Sr. an Islander, remembered in 1974 that the Manhanset House ...was among the elite and was patronized by many famous persons of that time. The Prospect House was also a large hotel but catered to a less affluent class.” He also described the Fourth of July. “A great deal was made of [it] in those days. A large fleet of yachts arrived in Dering Harbor and almost crowded each other, from east of the hotel along the side of the road. Several men were employed in driving stakes a few feet apart all along the way around the road to the hotel steps and on to the corner by the Yacht Club and then south to the residence of  J. N. Luning (later Heatherton and at present Mrs. Harold Roig). Wire was strung on the top of these stakes and later small red, white and blue glass containers were hung on this wire, a few inches apart. Before sunset the work of placing and lighting candles in these containers was started. About 9:30 or 10 o’clock there was a beautiful display of fireworks from the bank in front of the hotel. This display of fireworks was enjoyed by every one who could get there.      One can almost taste the differences between the two properties by a long article in the New York Tribune on May 15 1883 which was later that month reprinted in the Suffolk Weekly Times: Herman gives us some excerpts:      The long and silent winter has been succeeded by the bustle of busy excitement that presages the season ... Everybody is pleased...         Everybody” on Shelter Island in winter is a somewhat comprehensive term; but in summer it is stretched with a vengeance. Everybody then exists here in two editions, to use a technical expression—in two bound volumes as it were, the one of Boston, the other of Brooklyn make. That of the City of Churches is the more varied and interesting; that of the Hub the more exclusive and quite the more aristocratic. Perhaps it is the difference between religion, perhaps the style of the two towns.     The men from Brooklyn were Methodists and bent on camp-meetings. Honest John French was at their head; they settled on the old Chase homestead... Their purchase embraced the highest hills on the island and the finest views... The Association put up a hotel ... a chapel, a caserne for summer boarders and five cottages. Not to be outdone, the Boston folk did likewise. They spent $85,000 [other reports give the figure as $150,000] in building the Manhanset House and put up five cottages, but left out the chapel. The hotel was an ambitious affair and is to this day the finest in all Eastern Long Island. Then both concerns cut up their acres into building lots, 2,000 each, and offered them to the world. Methodism and the clergy stood by Brooklyn nobly, even when camp-meetings were abandoned after a few years, and in the race between religion and culture, religion came out a long way ahead...  ... the Boston establishment over the way has flourished but not increased. To the original five cottages that cluster behind the Manhanset House none have been added until this Spring when New York has come to the rescue in the person of one of its citizens who is now building a summer house there. Of the two hotels that formed the kernels of settlements the Manhanset was always the more “high-toned” and expensive, as it is the handsomer; but the preponderance of popular favor has been with the democratic side of the inlet, where blue shirts are allowable and fun is at a premium over dignity... Both hotels are always crowded in the season.” 3 [Board and room at the Prospect was $15 per person per week; at the Manhanset, its was $18.]      Acording to Waldo Kraemer, A great rivalry existed between the two hotels. It included baseball and golf. The Manhanset pro would play the Shelter Island Country Club pro and visa versa. Needless to say, there were bets. Our people [Heights] never used the Manhanset course. Too hard to get to, besides, being a little snooty. Our own course flourished. The real test came in the ball games. We would scrape up a team. I remember playing short stop. Jack Heatherton played second base. The real star of the game, however, was John Philip Sousa. He pitched for Manhanset and was good. We played on the old ball grounds. Foul balls would wind up in the creek.      On every Sunday in the early 1900s, the Kraemer family would hire Conklin’s biggest cat boat and the family would embark en masse, with sweaters, candy and picture books for Erna and Fritz. Father was an excellent sailor, thanks to his College Point days. We went everywhere, picnics to Hay Beach, Orient, Paradise Point. This went on for years. Father bought a thirty foot cat named Yankee, the fasted thing around for her size. She was very handy so North River jibes were standard practice. You paid off so smartly that when the sail came over, you were already far enough around to bank wind it and bring it into position. It saved a lot of hard trimming. Father also played golf on the nine hole course, and I was often impressed as caddy. Caddying was a big business for the Island kids. There would be ten of them in the caddy shed waiting for jobs. The nine hole course was very popular, with a great bunch of members. The club house was used day and night, and at times of drought, Kelly the steward, could be relied on. After the Manhanset burned, there was no golf there for about three years. It was then revived with the present Roth home as clubhouse. [Now Mary and Ken Walker’s home.] After awhile it was again revived, but as you can see, the little nine hole had the only record of continuous activity.