LITTLE REMAINS on Middle Country Road in Middle
Island to suggest the once-prosperous Ritch family
farm.
Two billboards advertise cigarettes there now, and
an auto-body shop stands in what once was the
family's front yard. But in the early 19th Century,
this was a bustling homesite presided over by a
prominent farmer, artisan and public official.
Son of a Revolutionary War soldier, Lewis Ritch was
born in Connecticut in 1776. He and Elizabeth
Wallace married in 1789 and had three children, but
she died in 1803. Ritch met his second wife, Charity
Hulse, while on a hat-selling trip to New York City,
family members have told researchers at the
Old Bethpage
Village Restoration and the
Long Island
Studies Institute at
Hofstra
University.
Oliver Ogden, a former staff member at Old Bethpage
Village Restoration and an amateur historian, said
the meeting between Lewis and Charity probably was
not by happenstance: He said Elizabeth Wallace's
sister was married to Charity Hulse's brother.
Whatever the circumstances, Lewis Ritch and Charity
Hulse were married in 1810.
Lewis left his three children by Elizabeth
Wallace, including their youngest, 7-year-old Lucy,
with relatives in Connecticut. Upon his death, he
did leave cash to the two surviving children of that
marriage.
Lewis and Charity had five sons and one
daughter. After the custom of those times, they
named two of their boys after American founders
George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson.
In 1811, the same year he bought 10 acres of
woodland along Middle Country Road, Ritch acquired a
three-room Cape Cod-style house, framed on oak
timbers and measuring about 800 square feet.
The homesite stood about a mile west of the local
general store -- where Middle Island-Yaphank Road
now meets Middle Country Road -- and only a few
hundred yards east of the Presbyterian church.
Apparently, Ritch focused on hat-making to earn a
living until he was able to acquire even more land.
By 1827, he owned almost 200 acres. Town records
show that Lewis Ritch apparently threw himself into
his adopted community. From 1813 to 1829, he served
in four different public offices: town trustee,
commissioner of highways, town assessor and overseer
of highways.
Ritch died in 1835 at the age of 59. Charity died in
1871 at 82. The couple's six children begat a family
that extended well beyond Long Island. Three of
their sons moved to North Carolina to engage in
shipbuilding.
The Ritch family plot in Union Cemetery reflects
their prominence. The now faded markers surround a
9-foot memorial obelisk to Lewis and Charity.
The Ritch homesite stayed in the family for 158
years until 1969.