Corrections

         

Throughout time, writers, reporters,  journalists, columnists, historians, etc. have generally done their best to put down on paper exactly what happened, when, where, etc.  This is also true of the many accounts,  stories and articles of the history of Hunters Garden.  Examples in this case are Richard M. Bayles, Thomas R. Bayles, Nathaniel Howell, H.P. Horton, Samuel B. Cross and others.  I thank each and every one of them for their time and effort in preserving our past.

My attempt at writing the history of Hunters Garden was from a technically detailed point of view, based on facts, documents, minutes, recorded legal papers and other corroborated information.  While other accounts are in more “readable” form, I chose not to use this choice.  One reason, it’s easy to romanticize a story for the purpose of keeping its reader interested.

Everyone makes mistakes.  I have tried to keep mine to a minimum.  In reading my account and you find something that is in question or blatantly in error, please contact me to discuss the issue and I’ll make the correction if needed.  I thank you in advance for this and would not take it as a negative criticism.

“Typo’s” are one thing, unintentional factual errors are another and fantasy is yet another.  I would like to point out a couple of instances of errors that should be corrected, but can’t.  In 1964 Thomas R. Bayles wrote a well-written history of Hunters Garden, pamphlet style, and on the cover is a picture of four members of Hunters Garden.  The third gentleman from the left is identified as Frank Wells.  This is not correct.  The gentleman’s name is George Frank Tuttle from Eastport, second President of Hunters Garden. 

In the October, 1942 issue of the Long Island Forum, “Hunters Garden Lives On” by H.P. Horton, page 185 he writes “It all started in 1838”.  This is not correct.  There are many errors in this article of which I will mention a few.  In the second paragraph he writes, “It all started in 1838—on the third Thursday of May of that year, to be exact”.  The third Thursday of May is correct, “of that year” is not correct and in the April, 1956 issue of the Long Island Forum, Mr. Horton writes, “the second Thursday of May---Since that time the tradition has been carried on each year with two meetings, always on the second Thursday of May and October.  This is not correct.  Also, he writes it started on the Luce Farm, which lay between Riverhead and Eastport.  Not true.  He writes, “Just when George C. Tuthill, known to us all as “Doc” Tuthill”, became president of the group is not known,” etc.  This is not correct.  We know when “Doc” Tuttle, (not Tuthill) was president and we also know that he was the grandson of Wells Tuttle, the first president.

The next case is pure fantasy.  Mr. Richard Wettereau, writer for the L.I. Press wrote “Legend has it that one fall day in 1833 a man with a bag of eels and one with a sack of potatoes bumped into each other in a clearing in the pine barrens just south of Manorville.  No one knows their names---but the accidental meeting 143 years ago established a tradition that has carried on to this very day”.  He wrote that on October 27, 1976.  Then on Friday, May 20, 1977 he perpetuated his preposterous story again, this time for the New York Post.  This is an example, not of getting the facts straight, but pure fiction.