Voices of the Bay:
Mary Koelbel Carson
by Nancy Solomon, President, Long Island Traditions
Scattered along the south shore marshlands in the Town of Hempstead are approximately 30 bay houses that were originally built by fishermen for shelter during the winter when they harvested salt hay, clams and oysters. The Koelbel family has owned a bay house in this area since the early 1900s.
I don't know what made him (my father) build the bay house, but I do know that he gathered the wood for it out on the barrier beach before it was Jones Beach. The old barges that went by would occasionally lose lumber in a storm. It would wash up on the beach, so he built what he described as a beach roller. I gather this was on the order of a wheel barrel, except that instead of a wheel it had a slat drum that would roll on the sand so that he could walk and pick up any lumber that was usable.
Like other bay house owners, the Koelbels learned many of the maritime traditions that were common among the first generation of bay house owners.
In the early days, we didn't know how to keep soft-crabs soft. So when my father came home from jacking in the middle of the night, mom would get up and fry the soft crabs. She would wake me, and we would all have soft-crab sandwiches. We gradually learned how to shed crabs... until we had enough for a real meal. But to this day, I remember being a sleepy six year old tasting the two-o'clock-in-the- morning flavor of soft-crab sandwiches.
[Editor's note: Bayhouses, traditionally built by fishermen/baymen, have existed in the South Shore Estuary since the early 1600s. Taking shelter in these houses allowed men to work longer hours by eliminating the need to row to and from the mainland. Today, bayhouses continue to be passed from generation to generation and have truly become a way of life.]