Government

Henry W. Preston: Shelter Island Civil War hero, civic leader gets his due

COURTESY ARTHUR BLOOM | Henry H. Preston, to whom a crescent of grass in front of the poliuce station has been dedicated by the Town Board..
COURTESY ARTHUR BLOOM | Henry H. Preston, to whom a crescent of grass in front of the police station has been dedicated by the Town Board.

There may be more people on Shelter Island related to Henry Howard Preston than who know quite who he was.

Members of the Town Board know, thanks to the efforts of one of Preston’s descendants, Arthur Bloom, to educate them. On Friday, June 29, at the request of Mr. Bloom and a committee he represents, the board formally designated the arc of lawn in front of the Town Police station as the Henry H. Preston Plaza.

A large limestone foundation stone from a long-gone county Sheriff’s Office that once stood in Riverhead will be placed there and a plaque will be mounted on it honoring Preston.

Mr. Bloom hopes to have the stone in place and the plaque ready for a brief formal dedication ceremony with a color guard on Veterans Day in November.

A wounded Civil War veteran, Mr. Preston presided over the Sheriff’s Office headquarters from which the limestone foundation will come. From 1903 to 1906, he was the first salaried sheriff in Suffolk County, according to Mr. Bloom’s research. Among other achievements, he went on to establish the county’s Probation Department and to serve as a judge of the Court of Sessions.

The old sheriff’s office was torn down some years ago, Mr. Bloom told the Town Board recently. He originally proposed placing a boulder on the plaza but recently he and other descendants of Mr. Preston met Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco at a ceremony for Sheriff’s Department workers who had died on duty. The sheriff offered to donate and transport one of the stones — saved long ago from the building demolition and preserved in storage — to Shelter Island for the Preston Plaza.

Henry Preston left Shelter Island at the age of 16 in 1862 to join the Union Army. He saw plenty of combat with the Army of the Potomac’s Sixth New York Cavalry Regiment, including an exchange of fire at Appomattox a day before Lee surrendered to Grant there, according to an account prepared by Mr. Bloom.

Seriously wounded, he returned to the Island after a long convalescence. Despite pain and disabilities that resulted from his wound, Preston was appointed Shelter Island’s town constable in 1870. He went on to serve as tax assessor, justice of the peace and town clerk over the course of a career in town service that spanned 29 years from 1870 to 1899.

In addition to his town positions, he was postmaster when the building that now houses Kyle’s restaurant was the Island’s post office. He was a founding member of the Shelter Island Library, advised the Shelter Island School and “played an active role in the Island’s business community,” according to Mr. Bloom.

Relatives of Mr. Preston listed as members of the Preston Memorial Committee — besides Mr. Bloom, its chairman — are Joyce Bausman, Dorothy Bloom, Ed Bausman, George Dawson and Hap Bowditch. Honorary members of the committee are County Legislator Ed Romaine, Suffolk County Sheriff DeMarco, Town Clerk Dorothy Ogar, Town Justice Helen Rosenblum and Mike Loriz, commander of American Legion Post 281.

Mr. Bloom, describing his committee’s proposal to the Town Board at a work session on May 22, said that Mr. Preston’s many descendants on the Island had been thinking about finding a formal way to honor him for the past year.

“His wound never healed” and he was “in pain all his life,” Mr. Bloom said. Even so, the war hero went on to become a major public figure, actively serving the town and county for years. Mr. Preston was one of many people from Shelter Island who deserved more recognition for their service than they have received, Mr. Bloom said. The committee, he said, was “starting with him.”

The family, he said, will pay any costs required to set up the memorial stone. Town Police Chief James Read and Highway Superintendent Jay Card expressed no objections to the proposal.

Citing all of Mr. Preston’s accomplishments and duties, the Town Board agreed with its proclamation on Friday to “authorize the Preston Memorial Committee to erect a monument on the crescent of town property located at 44 North Ferry Road to be known as ‘Henry H. Preston Plaza’ to honor a man who served his town, his county and his nation with utmost respectability.”