Corwin-Terry House (“East Lawn”)

1855

540-542 East Main

Character: Miss Carrie May Corwin (1857-1940), voiced by Cindy Clifford

Hello. Welcome to East Lawn. I am Carrie Corwin, last of ten children of Hubbard and Emeline Corwin. They built this beautiful house back in 1855. This was the latest style back then. It was supposed to look like an Italian villa, with its flat roof, broad eaves, and cupola. I think architects in your day call it the Italianate style.

My father was very hard working. He helped his brother in the Corwin Hotel here in Riverhead, then when he was 18 he drove the stagecoach between here and Port Jefferson, where it connected with a boat to New York City. Would you believe we had stagecoach service here in Riverhead? Then when the railroad put the stagecoach out of business, he became the express agent for the railroad between Greenport and New York. Then he clerked in a dry goods store for five years, then went into the fish oil business for another five years. Finally, he and a brother opened a tin and hardware business, which he continued to his death 37 years later. Along the way he also served a term as town supervisor.

Would you believe that when my father bought this place, it was a 50-acre farm? Father didn’t really farm. He had a nice man named Peter Tool do that. My parents landscaped the grounds and put in an attractive garden with bordered flower beds laid out in front. This place was so pretty they even put it on a picture postcard. We played a lot of croquet and even tennis on those fine lawns too.

“Our house was such a happy one. I can see us around the base burner stove in the sitting room of a winter’s night, Father reading to us, a child on either arm of his chair and one or the others combing his soft silky hair.” Friends often came to visit us. I remember a quantity of melons being brought “down lot” from our farm, and we cut and relished watermelon after watermelon until we had our fill.

One off my fondest memories here was in 1897 when I married Dr. Henry P. Terry, who was then Riverhead Town supervisor. I was his third wife. He was my first husband. I was forty and he was almost sixty. It was quite an event. As the local paper wrote, “the spacious parlors were decorated with a profusion of palms and pink blossoms.” A violin and piano rendered a musical program. I wore a dress of purple silk covered with white organdie. Afterwards, we had a collation served at the Miamogue Hotel in South Jamesport before we left from there on the late train for our wedding trip. When we returned, we moved into the big house on the corner of Second and Roanoke. I’ll meet you there later as Mrs. Henry Terry.

My daughter Marion Terry continued to live here at East Lawn until about 1980 when she couldn’t afford to maintain the large home and grounds, so she moved into the nearby Roanoke Apartments. She sold the place to a Port Jefferson developer who planned to tear it down. But, after a loud outcry from the public, the town took possession and restored the house. Although no longer in town ownership, you can still visit the Town Historian inside.