Three Village Community Trust to Host Barbeque at its Rubber Factory Worker Houses

Submitted by the Three Village Community Trust 

The Three Village Community Trust will host a barbeque on July 19th on the grounds of the Setauket Rubber Factory Worker Houses at 148 Main Street, Setauket, to benefit the restoration of the houses and celebrate the history of the Chicken Hill area, of which they were a major part.  We invite all to bring the family and join friends for food, fun, local music, and stories of Chicken Hill.  Chef Richard Sells and his team of the Hart VFW and the AME –Bethel Church will offer chicken and ribs and all the fixings. 

The Three Village Historical Society recently opened a new exhibit at their headquarters that tells the history of Chicken Hill: A Community Lost.   And now the Three Village Community Trust will make the story come alive on the grounds of the Rubber Factory Worker Houses with a barbeque on July 19th in the heart of Chicken Hill. 

The Trust relocated the 3 houses to this location close to where their original site on August Street in the late1880s.  There were nine of these houses on August Street at least as late as 1909. They were built as housing for the immigrants recruited as workers in the Rubber Factory that operated from 1876 to c. 1905 -- first, the Irish, then Eastern European – mostly Jewish, then later Native American and African American.  The founding of the Catholic Church (1883) and then the Jewish Synagogue (1891) coincides roughly with the arrival of these immigrants.  The factory owners owned these houses to rent to the workers.  A skilled worker earned about $7.00 a week, and the rent was reported to be $21 a month.  Most families took in boarders to help pay the rent.  Even though we don’t know why it was called Chicken Hill it is easy to suppose that it was because the early residents kept chickens and there are people now who still remember chickens on the hill!

The Rubber Factory Worker Houses are an integral part of this important story, and the Trust has been restoring them to be put back into service of the community.  Two of the nine original houses are still located on August Street, though not easily recognized because of later additions.  Two of the Trust’s three Houses were moved from August Street to Old Town Road (behind the Setauket Fire Station #1) in c. 1912 where they stood in a row for nearly 100 years.  The middle house is smaller (less deep) and probably was constructed in about 1912 as an “infill” made of salvaged material from a house across on Old Town Road that had been damaged by fire at about that time.  It is likely that all three were resided then with wood shingles covering the original siding of vertical milled wooden boards. 

To learn more about Chicken Hill visit the Three Village Historical Society’s exhibit and be sure to come to the Chicken Hill Barbeque on Saturday, July 19th, 4 to 7 p.m. (rain date, July 20th).

Advance sales: $20/person.  At the door, $25/person. 

Children aged 5-12 years are $5; under 5, are free.

Please consider sponsoring the Barbeque!  For information and to buy advanced tickets, contact:  Three Village Community Trust, P.O. Box 2596, Setauket, NY 11733, 631-689-0225 or go to our website to obtain the RSVP flyer (www/threevillabecommunitytrust.org).