Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 1 (1961).pdf/93

 78 Freeport: One of the original stations. There is no account of the building of the depot in any of the old newspapers, but construction probably took place in 1867–68.

Merrick: No account is preserved concerning the erection of a depot, yet this station must have received special attention, for both President Fox and Superintendent Whitelived here. There was also located here a siding, engine house, and freight house. Between 1869 and 1876 several trains terminated their runs at Merrick station.

Bellmore: Charles W. Hayes, a real estate promoter of Williamsburgh, owned in 1869 considerable land in what is today Bellmore. Through his influence with President Charles Fox, the new station of Bellmore was erected in October 1869. By December the wilderness was cleared and streets had been opened and graded. The timetable of May 1870 is the first to list the new station.

Wantagh: One of the original stations on the road. From the beginning in 1867 down to 1891 the station is listed as Ridgewood. In July 1875 the residents subscribed a sufficient amount of money to erect a depot and the site was donated by a Mr. F.R. Rogers. The village has changed its name four times. It was first referred to as Jerusalem South, but came to be constantly confounded with Jerusalem Station. Then the name was changed in the Seventies to Atlanticville but it was soon discovered that a village in Suffolk County already bore this name (now East Quogue). Again the name was changed to Ridgewood, but by this time Ridgewood in Queens County had begun to use that name. Finally, in desperation, the residents in May 1891 changed the village name to Wantagh, after thesachem of the Merrick Indians in 1747, and so it has remained.

Massapequa: The locality was originally known as South Oyster Bay, because that township owns the narrow strip on the south shore enclosing the present-day villages of Seaford and Massapequa. This was one of the original stations in 1867. In April 1870 a German real estate society laid out 1500 acres and named it Stadt Wuertemberg, a boom made possible by the railroad. The depot is supposed to have been donated by the Floyd-Jones family, who owned all the land in the area.

Amityville: The depot building was erected in November–December 1868. The village was one of the original stations on the road.

Lindenhurst: Thomas Wellwood, a real estate promoter, bought the village land in 1861, and was joined by Charles S. Schleier in October 1869, who renamed the new development after his native Breslau in Prussia and boomed it as a German colony. The village first appears