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For some, the idea of conducting historical research after their school years are over, is very boring, but not life-long East Meadow resident and history buff Scott Eckers.
After writing the town’s first history book titled, “East Meadow,” in October 2016, Eckers is back with more in a second book, “Hidden History of East Meadow,” detailing hidden history of the area, set to come out Oct. 17, exactly six years after his first book.
Eckers, a trustee on the East Meadow School District Board of Education, and social studies teacher in the Great Neck School District, has always been into history — especially local history.
“I had done so much research from the first book and I wanted to get more information into something,” Eckers said. “So I went back to the publisher and I asked them if they would be willing to publish a more in-depth history book.”
Published by Arcadia Publishing, for their “Images of America” series — a collection that chronicles small towns and neighborhoods throughout America — his first book was a mostly pictorial telling of East Meadow’s history from the mid 1800s to 1900s. The book has over 200 photographs weaved into personal stories from that time.
His involvement with Arcadia Publishing came after conducting his own research on East Meadow and finding slim to none. After seeing the “Images of America” series in stores, and noticing that an East Meadow book didn’t exist, he decided to take it upon himself to call the publisher and ask.
“It was really successful,” Eckers said. “I sold out like 2,500 copies or something of that, to the point where they didn’t have anymore and I had to beg them this year now to release it again.”
A soft-cover copy of “East Meadow” will be released along with his new book.
His interest in a second book really came after he wrote a series of articles for the East Meadow Herald in 2019. Each article highlighted a specific fact he found out about East Meadow, whether it was about a specific family or just a story. He found that a lot of people in the community enjoyed them.
“It turned out that there was a lot of interest in it,” he said. “So I said, ‘you know what?’ I should turn all these articles into a book.”
When he asked the publisher’s if he could do a second book, they pointed him to The History Press, a subdivision of Arcadia Publishing founded in 2004 that publishes local and regional history and culture from coast to coast.
“Scott came back to us after working with us many years ago on his image-based project on East Meadow, and that book did very well,” Banks Smithers, Eckers’s editor from The History Press said. “He came back to us with a different concept for ‘Hidden History of East Meadow,’ and it was chock full of great stories and a lot of content on the history of East Meadow that I think a lot of people don’t know.
“We both felt that with the changing demographics of East Meadow, there’s a need for telling the story of the history of East Meadow to the new audiences, younger generations moving in.”
Most of Eckers’ research came from thousands of newspaper articles, county archives, tax records, and maps. The book runs through about 200 years of history.
Some of his favorite history in the book, Eckers said, was about the history of the East Meadow School District.
“Because I’m on the school board, I loved doing the research on the school district,” he said. “There’s a pretty substantial portion of the book on the history of the school district.”
He added the section about Gilded Age millionaires, who lived in the area, is an interesting part of the book as well. “Some of these people were really eccentric and really unique,” he said. “For instance, there’s the story of this guy named Jacques Lebaudy, who was a bit insane and he thought he had created a sovereign kingdom in East Meadow.”
Some people told him they never realized how much history there actually was about the community. Eckers said there is a reason to his hundreds of hours of research.
“That’s exactly why we need a book like this,” he said. “Local history is important, and we want people to understand what came before us.”
Eckers will be at the East Meadow Public Library on Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. to discuss his book. It’s a hybrid event, so people can either go in person or Zoom, but registration is a must. Register by visiting EastMeadow.info and clicking on Oct. 20. Books will be available to purchase.
