Footnotes to Long Island History
Manorville Station
December 9, 1965
by
Thomas R. Bayles
Caption: Looking
into the past we see the Manorville railroad station as it looked about
1910. Visable are the old oil platform lamps and the “block” which is
in stop position for trains from either direction. The station was an
important meeting place for passenger trains on the single track line,
and equally important as a freight depot since all potatoes and
cauliflower were shipped by rail in those days from Riverhead and points
east. Times have changed, however, and modern transportation means have
taken away the importance of the modern day “Iron Horse.”
When the main line of
the Long Island Railroad was opened to Greenport in July 1844, it was a
tome of great rejoicing by the people of eastern Long Island. The “iron
horse” had finally arrived, and a trip to the city that had taken two
days or more by stage coach, was now made in as many hours.
Manorville
was an important stop for the “Boston trains,” as the trains were called
that took passengers from New York to Greenport, then steamboat to
Stonington,, Conn., and then the Old Colony Railroad to Boston. This
was before the shore line of the N.Y.H. &H Railroad was built along the
Connecticut shore. The trains stopped at “Manor” to load wood for the
wood burning locomotives and for the passengers to get refreshment.
In later
years the “Cannon Ball” from New York to Montauk split at Manorville,
with one section going to Greenport and the other section to Montauk
over the branch line to Eastport. The old “Cape Horn” train ran daily
round trip from Greenport to Montauk via Manorville and the branch line,
which had been abandoned for several years and the tracks torn up. The
station had been removed and only a shed is left to mark the once
important railroad junction, which was a train order station with an
agent and block operator.
Around
1900, the shipping of cordwood was an important business and in one year
G. W. Raynor shipped over 1000 cords of wood by freight from the
Manorville station.
During
World War One, loaded troop trains and visitors excursion trains ran
from Camp Upton to New York over the main line, and the empty trains
returned on the Montauk division to the cut off West of Eastport, up the
branch line to Manorville and back to Camp Upton. During heavy
movements the trains operated every half hour or so.
The
railroad was not opened to Patchogue until 1868, and on to Eastport in
1881 to connect with the line from Manorville to the Hamptons and Sag
Harbor, which had been opened several years before. Port Jefferson was
not reached until 1873, so the main line stations were important as
stages met the trains and carried the mail and passengers to the north
and south side villages.
Now a
little over a hundred years have passed since the first train ran to
Greenport and passenger service has been reduced to one train each way
daily. Most of the stations have been torn down and replaced with small
sheds. The passengers are carried by buses operated by the railroad
running from Riverhead and Greenport to Huntington where they connect
with the trains to New York.
Express and
less carload freight are no longer carried by the railroad and mail is
no longer handled by rail, so that all the Long Island Rail Road has
left is passenger service and car load freight.