Riverhead News Building (Corwin-Davis House)

215 Roanoke Avenue

Narrator: Everett T. Slade (1864-1940), voiced by Colin Palmer

Hello. This is Everett Slade. You can call me Evey. I want to tell you about my father, James Slade. He founded the Riverhead News – that’s the “News” part of the News-Review I hope you still read. He published it right here in this building.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Father was an amazing guy, albeit a bit eccentric. He was born in Bath, England – ever been there? It’s really a beautiful city. Believe it or not, he was the middle child out of about twenty. His parents brought him here when he was just four. I think they lived first in Brooklyn, but he met a beautiful girl, who just happened to be the daughter of one of Riverhead’s wealthiest merchants.

Did you study the ancient Greeks in school as I did? This building was built in the 1840s when Greek design was very popular. Can you see how the gable end facing the street is the typical Greek temple configuration. And look at those Greek key motifs on the pilasters surrounding the doorway and on the corners of the front façade. That design traces its origin back to the labyrinth in the ancient myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. I’m sure you read about them in school? We sure did.

Also, do you see the low second-floor windows on the north and south sides – we called them “belly” windows because we had to lie on our belly to see out.

Like most newspapers, the Riverhead-News made its living from selling advertisements. I especially remember one ad when I was a little lad – just after the end of the Civil War. The advertisement was for a run-away Black boy, who had escaped from the home of a Sound Avenue farmer. Made me feel kind of strange.

We never lived in this building, it was just the office and printing plant for the newspaper. Eventually my dad built one of the big houses on Griffing Avenue. I think you will meet Mrs. Terry there later on the tour. I still don’t know how he made his money. He was into everything. Even ran a place called the “boneyard” where ground up old bones and turned them into fertilizer. He also owned a soap works –bought up old fat for that. And he could never stop inventing stuff. One invention was some sort of ventilation machine that even won a prize from an important Paris society.

This building is an architect’s office today. While doing some renovations recently, he found this old sign for my dad’s paper.