Martin & Anna Wesnofske

Life in Fosters Meadows

1874 - 1892

(more to come)

Martin & Anna Homepage

 1.    Fosters Meadows Background

     From the 1650's to about 1900, an area of open plains that sits on today's Nassau County - New York City boundary was called Fosters Meadows after the Thomas Foster who early settled into the area under land grants.  It lay to the east of the village and Town of Jamaica.  From the mid 1850's through the 1870's, the area attracted heavy settlement from German speaking populations from Germany and Poland mixing with earlier and less numerous descendants of Dutch and English inhabitants.

     Later this slice of land became the subject of a 'border war' in 1899 when, in the division of Nassau County from the new NYC incorporated Borough of Queens, claims to it by New York City and Nassau County was settled by the NY State Legislature and it was eventually ceded into the jurisdiction of Nassau County.

     With late 19th Century real estate development boom, railroad and postal needs,  an official post office designation of Elmont was made in 1882 in competition with an older Foster's Meadow post office.  That post office was renamed Rosedale after the rail road station name in 1909.  The name of Fosters Meadows was gradually extinguished in use and replaced by the name Elmont by about 1915.  The north-south road once called Fosters Meadows Road is today's Elmont Avenue.  And today's Cross Island Parkway runs approximately along the Hempstead - Jamaica border line on a north to south axis.

 
  1873 Fosters Meadows annotated
 
1880 Census

     Martin Wesnofske and family are living with farmer R. Marvin Wright on Fosters Meadows Road.  Martin is a farm hand and Anna is keeping house for the "70" year old widower farmer.  In the 1870 census, Mr. Wright is 53 years old and living alone as a farmer.

     Other documents confirm the Wesnofske presence in Foster's Meadows prior to the purchase of the family farm on Little Neck Road in 'Hinsdale' in Flushing Queens in 1892.

    The Wesnofske family came to first work on this farm is not known.   But Anna's sister Mary and brother-in-law August Makofske had arrived from Poland the year before and settled into Queens. Undoubtedly their pioneer status and entree would make it easier for Martin and Anna to find their way to the kind of siuation described in the 1880 Census. The date and length of employment is not known.
 Martin 1880 census

ABOVE:    The census taker mistakenly recorded for the Wright household the Wesnofske family as 'Pulchenauer'.  The age of Martin should be 39 and the age of Anna should be 31. Yet, there is no doubt about this as the Wesnofske family.  Living family members know their grandparents and parents lived in Fosters Meadows (today Elmont, NY).
     John age11, Joseph age 9 and Frank born in "Prussia" (German Poland) are correct.  Fourth born Martin, born in New York, is correct at age 4. A census search of the area population of five hundred has no other Martin, Anna, John, Joseph, Frank, and Martin.  A check of German dictionaries indicate no meaningful roots for the name 'Pulchenauer' and a check of newer census indicates no subsequent records of the name 'Pulchenauer' or variants.
     Some evidence of experimentation by Martin and Anna Wesnofske with their last name is shown in citizenship records where they previously were known by the name "Wischky" a shorteneing of the Wisniewski original.
     The 1910 Census reports what living relatives knew, Martin spoke German not Polish.  They may have made up a German sounding name to be more acceptable to the  traditional German ethnic farmers to whom they were to be neighbors.

   

     
  1891 Fosters Meadows
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March 24, 2013