(Photos courtesy of George Kirchmann’s personal collection)
Massapequa has sent many of its young men and women to fight overseas, as attested by the presence of VFW and American Legion meeting halls. What is less known is the role of early settlers in earlier military actions, from the American Revolution through the Spanish American War. Several individuals deserve to be singled out for recognition.
American Revolution
At the beginning of the Revolution in 1775, sentiment throughout Long Island was sharply divided, with Loyalists or Tories (pro-English) and Patriots (pro-independence) scattered around the area. The division existed within families, such as the Floyds in Mastic and the Joneses in the Massapequas.
Thomas Jones, for example, grandson of the original Thomas Jones, was a Tory Judge, while his brother-in-law Benjamin Birdsall joined the Continental Army. Birdsall was born in 1739 and married Freelove Jones, granddaughter of Thomas Jones, Massapequa’s first white settler. He enlisted in the Continental Army and was given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, serving under Colonel Livingston. He was taken prisoner by the British in 1776 and released in a prisoner exchange. He was then elected to the New York Assembly in 1777 and served until the war’s end in 1783. At that time, he returned to the farm and gristmill granted to him by his father-in-law. He died in 1798 and is interred in the West Neck Cemetery on Merrick Road.
A plaque mounted by the Daughters of the American Revolution commemorates his activities. Happily, his house, built in 1762, still stands on Old Mill Road in Wantagh.
Early 1800s
Several Massapequans served in the War of 1812 and their names are listed in the February 1814 muster rolls of the Second Regiment of New York State Infantry, kept in the Delancey Floyd-Jones Free Library. This Regiment was under the command of Captain Thomas Floyd-Jones and mustered at Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
Floyd-Jones was born in 1788 and served during and after the War of 1812, rising to the rank of Brigadier General. He was the last possessor of Thomas Jones’s 6,000 acre estate.
Due to changes in estate laws, it was divided among his children upon his death in 1851, each receiving 1,200 acres. They, in turn, divided their parcels to their descendants so that many descendants of Thomas Jones remained in the Massapequas as estate owners into the twentieth century.
Civil War: Before, During And After
The best known Jones family member who served in the military is Colonel Delancey Floyd-Jones, born in 1826. He was the only Floyd-Jones who went through West Point, graduating in 1846 as Second Lieutenant. He served in the Mexican War and in the Native American wars, notably the Rogue War in Oregon, as well as served during the Civil War and was singled out for bravery on several occasions.
He led troops at the Second Battle of Bull Run, at Chancellorsville and at Gettysburg, where his regiment suffered heavy casualties. He remained in the army after the Civil War and retired in 1879 after thirty-three years of active service. He also founded the Delancey Floyd-Jones Free Library located on Merrick Road, in 1896. It was, for over fifty years, the only library open to the public in southeast Nassau County.
The Jones/Floyd-Jones family produced several other officers, including Major William Jones (1771–1852) and Major General Henry O. Floyd-Jones (1792–1862), establishing a solid trail of local military commanders.
Spanish-American War
One additional veteran connected to the Massapequas was Claus Kristian Clausen.
Born in 1869 in Denmark, he emigrated to the United States and volunteered to fight against Spain in 1898. He was assigned as a coxswain aboard the S.S. Merrimac, a collier that was ordered sunk in Santiago, Cuba harbor. The sinking occurred on June 2, 1898 and earned Clausen a Congressional Medal on Nov. 2, 1899.
Claus Kristian Clausen remained in the Navy until 1925, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant. He settled in Massapequa Park and lived there until his death in 1958. He was the last surviving Congressional Medal of Honor winner from the Spanish-American War. He was honored by a memorial erected by the local Elks Lodge in 1964 at a small park at Lakeshore Drive and Park Boulevard. The memorial was dedicated in 1964; 50 years before this Veterans Day.
