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DIRECTIONAL NOTE: - Long Island actually aligns west-southwest by east-northeast but locals use "north" to mean compass north-northwest, etc.

Long Island, called Paumanok by the local Algonkian Native Americans (13 "tribes" of them), is shaped like a whale running east to west, with the twin forks as the tail flukes facing east towards England, which is why it was nicknamed the Sunrise Homeland by developers between the wars:

(Map by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
{restored 24 May 03}

Manhattan is to the far left (west) across the East River (actually only a tidal estuary) and New York City, which encompasses Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx, also includes Brooklyn [the lower left (southwest) corner of Long Island and Queens [the upper left (northwest) corner of the Island.  Connecticut is to the top (north) across Long Island Sound, with Rhode Island to its east, diagonally upper-right (northwest).  Peconic Bay is between the forks and the Atlantic Ocean is at the bottom (south), beyond the Great South Bay, enclosed by the long string of barrier beaches - Coney Island at the far left (west), Rockaway Beach, Atlantic Beach, Long Beach Jones Beach, Fire Island, the Hamptons, and finally Montauk Point itself at the far right (east).  The north fork ends at Orient Point, with Plum Island just offshore and Gardiners Island between the points.

Long Island Automotive Manufacturing

Great paths only became great highways because of the introduction of the automobile.  Long Island was right in there with the best of them when it came to early pioneering efforts to produce automobiles and motor trucks.  Perhaps the most famous of these were the two operations, both in the same Steinway Building on the north side of Queens Plaza in Long Island City, the American Mercedes and the American Rolls Royce.  The former was an attempt by the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft to penetrate the newly-emerging American market prior to WWI and the latter by Rolls-Royce to do the same after the war (effectively killed by the Great Depression).  However, both of these were local manufacturing of foreign designs.

For home-grown talent, one of the best known to auto buffs is William K(issam). Vanderbilt, Jr., of Lake Success and Centerport and Oakdale (at least), under whose ęgis the Vanderbilt Cup Races were held and the Long Island Motor Parkway built.  Now, the Motor Parkway was designed and built as a testing ground for automobile manufacturers, as well as a racecourse, but, after many deaths and injuries, the racers refused to use it and the manufacturers moved to Detroit, so that bright idea never flew.

Smithtown resident Arthur R. Pardington, an early auto enthusiast who helped create the Motor Parkway, also helped create the Lincoln Highway (today's Route 30), the first coast-to-coast through route.  This is noted in a sidebar in NEWSDAY L.I. History- Pioneers in Motion (thanks to LIMP aficionado John Herling for this tip).  However, the main focus of that page is on Francis Maurice Richard, a Frenchman who invented the two-cycle engine and built a huge one-lunger auto in Port Jefferson in 1909 called the ONLY!  It was not a great success and was succeeded by his METROPOLE, not much more successful, and, when the firm folded, the plant was bought by Finley Robertson Porter who used it to build his F.R.P., which was so expensive that virtually no one bought it!  So much for Port Jeff's auto pioneering! (moved from page 1 on 19 May 03)

Motor Parkway Panel member and LIMP researcher Al Velocci told me of the Fulton Motor Truck, built in Farmingdale on the north side of Conklin Avenue just east of Route 110, in a plant that later became part of Republic Aviation and is now gone, ca. 1916-1920s.

Al also advised me that Mack Truck started here, in Brooklyn.  The Mack brothers (John M. "Jack", Augustus F., and William C.) had bought out the Fallesen & Berry carriage and wagon builders (where Jack Mack had started in 1890) in 1894, experimented with electric and steam propulsion ca. 1900, and started making autobuses in that year.  The immediate success of the Mack bus quickly led to the introduction of the Mack truck in 1904 and, in 1905, the firm moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Aha!  Cynthia Blair, writing in NEWSDAY's "It happened on Long Island" feature for Tuesday, 06 May 2003, describes how Joseph Theodore Cantrell and his brother Albert, Huntington woodworkers who, in 1905, bought out the shop in which Joseph had been apprenticed, bought a 1915 Model T Ford chassis and fabricated a closed wooden body for it, which they called a "Depot Wagon".  The style caught on and they were inundated with orders for what became America's first station wagon (the "woodie", what the Brits call a "station break").  As J. T. Cantrell & Company, they continued until 1926 when they moved to Huntington Station.  During WWII, the firm made wooden bodies for military vehicles, finally giving up the ghost in 1958.  Unfortunately, the accompanying illustration is NOT of woodie but an ad for a "Full Panel Delivery Body" labelled "Model A" but clearly on what appears to be a Model T chassis; if it is in fact on that even-older original Ford Model A (not the better-known 1920's Model A), and not merely a reference to a body style, it far predates the Cantrells.

On 02 Oct 2004, while reading about "woody" bodies on post-war Dodge Power Wagons on Joe Cimoch's Power Wagon site, I ran across a description of woody bodies made by Joseph T. Cantrell (1875 - ) and his brother Albert right here in Huntington Station!  The site carries a full article from the Nov-Dec 1973 issue of Antique Automobile magazine that is well worth reading.  Joseph started making "depot wagons" on Model T chassis in 1915 in Huntington in T. Scudder's former blacksmith and carriage shop, moved to Huntington Station in 1925, and continued at least through 1950 or later.  To cater to those who could afford custom bodywork, he advertised J. T. Cantrell & Company as "Designers of Cars for Country Use".   (02 Oct 04)

BINGO! - The LONG ISLAND MOTOR VEHICLE COMPANY of Brooklyn!  Looking through the Pardington (above) papers in the Handley Collection at the Smithtown (New York) Public Library, I ran across many fabulous early motoring photos, among which was this jewel by (and including) Hal Fullerton, himself:   (30 Sep 05)

(1901 H. Fullerton photo courtesy of Smithtown Public Library - all rights reserved)
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{Unfortunately, this is a dark xerocopy and I can't pull up more detail.}

Not only that, but the back of the 8" x 10" print has four informative stickers:

(Back of 1901 H. Fullerton photo courtesy of Smithtown Public Library - all rights reserved)
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(Montage from back of 1901 H. Fullerton photo courtesy of Smithtown Public Library - all rights reserved)
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