The Ketcham family at one time owned much of the land in Amityville. According to Attorney William Weber the land that the famous Amityville house is on wsa at one time owned by John Ketcham. He learned about this at the Huntington Historical Society because at the time of John Ketcham Amityville was in the Town of Huntington.
According to a Newsday article at http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-historytown-hist0043,0,3181838.story
"Buffalo Bill... often visited the homes of Fred
Stone, a popular vaudevillian, on Clocks Boulevard and comedian and satirist
Will Rogers, who rented across the street. There was also the infamous gangster
Al Al Capone, whose tenure in Amityville was marked by nothing more sensational
than an occasional vacation baseball game on his lawn."
"Washington Ate Here: On his historic post-revolutionary trip across Long Island
in 1790, the first president dined at the East Amityville home of Zebulon
Ketcham, whose home had recently been an inn and a tavern. In his diary
Washington recalled Capt. Ketcham's home as being a ``very neat and decent
one.''
"How It Got Its Name: Tired of the cumbersome name of Huntington West Neck
South, residents met in 1846 to decide on a name for the post office. According
to one version, the meeting soon turned into bedlam, causing one participant to
exclaim, `What this meeting needs is some amity.'"
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The picture left was taken in Amityville in 1916. Amityville was the site of the first flying guided aircraft which was called the Sperry Aerial Torpedo tests. It is the forerunner of cruise missiles and was built by Lawrence Sperry. |
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Famous residents of Amityville included
Will Rogers and Annie Oakley. She lived there because the headquarters of
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was nearby. They both lived on the same side of Ocean Ave. as the famous horror house. |
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EMAIL Go To Main Page Site Map
LINKS:
Witch Trials - Woman accused of
witchcraft in Amityville area!
Ray Buckland: Starts Modern Wicca near Amityville
Amityville's Sister City and Sport's Rival Sayville
Indians in the area: Massacres, Legends, and Reality
The Doors: Jim Morrison's Witch Wife: Grew in same township as the horror house is in!
