by Regina G. Feeney
The earliest reference to a library in Freeport appears
in Daniel Tredwell’s Personal
Reminiscences of Men and Things on Long Island. Tredwell refers to a district library located
in Raynortown around 1839 with Willet Charlick acting as librarian. A school, in District No. 9 (Raynortown), was
established in the 1820s and was located at the intersection of Church Street
and Main Street. Though there is very little
information available about a library located in this school, there is evidence that books were purchased using public money.
Freeport's First School
In 1827, Governor DeWitt Clinton urged that money be
granted to each school district in New York State for the establishment of
small book collections. Tredwell
mentions two books that were in the school’s collection: History of Long Island from Its Discovery and Settlement to the
Present Time, by Benjamin F. Thompson (1839); and Sketch of the First
Settlement of the Several Towns on Long-Island, by Silas Wood (1826).
More evidence of a library in Freeport was found in the
Town of Hempstead archives. The Town of Hempstead Board Minutes from March 18,
1844 indicates that School District No. 9 earmarked $18.91 as “Library
money.”
Professor L.M Burdick standing on the left wearing a hat.
The library we know it today had its beginnings in 1884,
when Professor L. M. Burdick raised money through amateur entertainment to
purchase books for the library. In 1914,
Caroline G. Atkinson credited Burdick as the one who had “laid the foundation
of the public library.”
