UPDATE: SCHS -- Photo of Wk / 7.22.24 -- Robins Island Gun Club House, c. 1890s

Photo of the Week

FROM THE SCHS LIBRARY ARCHIVES

“How shall we know it is us without our past?”
– John Steinbeck

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Robins Island Gun Club House, c. 1890s. (Image from the Postcard Collection of the Suffolk County Historical Society Library & Archive. Copyright © Suffolk County Historical Society. All rights reserved.)

Having purchased the island in 1881 for $20,000, the Robins Island Gun Club was incorporated that same year for the purpose of “improving and elevating the character of field sports.” Club members, most of them from Brooklyn, paid yearly dues of $100. The club was an exclusive organization limited to 25 members with a waiting list of many dozens more. Prominent Brooklynites Dr. S. Fleet Speir and H.D. Polhemus were elected as the club’s first president and vice president, respectively. During its 36-year tenure, the club had a total of 70 members, including New York City Mayor William Gaynor and New York State Governor Roswell Flowers.

The island was well stocked with pheasants, quail, wild turkeys, and other game birds. Rules of the club included the allowance of 20 birds per member per day, and it was designated where such birds could be shot. Shooting was strictly prohibited on Sundays by New York state law. The pointing of dogs on game, except in October through January, was also prohibited in order to protect birds during their mating season.

The club sold Robins Island in 1917 for $95,000, and at that point the club was dissolved.

Suggested Reading: “Robins Island: A Paradise for Local Sportsmen,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 8 April 1885.

by Wendy Polhemus-Annibell, Head Librarian

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