A holiday walk down memory lane

People think Christmas is commercialized now, but it was then, too.”

Baylee Browning-Atkinson, tour guide, Whaling Museum

The Whaling Museum and Education Center of Cold Spring Harbor had something special in store for visitors this holiday season. For the first time, it hosted the Holiday Walking Tour, an hour-long journey into the hamlet’s storied past.

Clutching cups of hot cocoa, a dozen or so people walked along Main Street last Saturday, learning about the whaling community that Cold Spring Harbor was known as in the mid-19th century. Tour guide Baylee Browning-Atkinson told them that residents at the time sometimes celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day a bit differently than we do today.

The first stop was the home of Capt, James Wright, built in 1894. It was a retirement home for the captain, and his family who celebrated Christmas there in 1897. When his daughter, Eva Wright, was 19, she went caroling with her friends at 5:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day.

“Imagine snow and horses on the road instead of cars,” Browning-Atkinson said as several cars sped by.

But a typical whaling family in which the man of the house was still working would probably not celebrate Christmas at home. “They might celebrate it on the ship, which de-pended on where the captain wanted the feast to be,” Browning-Atkinson said. “But at the sight of a whale, all boats were lowered and it was all hands on deck.”

Joan Lowenthal, the gift shop manager at the museum, conducted most of the research for the tour with the assistance of Brenna McCormick-Thompson, the museum’s curator of education. They looked online and at the library, searching through copies of The Long-Islander, a newspaper founded by Walt Whitman in 1838.

“It took a long time to find all of the information,” said Lowenthal, “We already have a regular walking tour but I wanted to embellish it, to make it different. I tried all different kinds of searches in The Long-Islander — Christmas, New Years — I wanted to make the tour fun.”

One of her favorite finds, she said, was information from a diary Helen Rogers wrote in 1843 when she was 15 years old, included in “The Window to the Street,” a book by Harriet G. Valentine sold at the Whaling Museum. The book includes pictures Rogers drew of whaling ships and diary entries about the fun she experienced living at 6 Spring Street in Cold Spring Harbor.

“Sleigh riding was a popular event,” Browning-Atkinson said on the tour. “You could rent a sleigh and take it down the street with your friends. Helen Rogers joined 18 others in 1845 to sleigh ride to Hempstead.”

But sleigh riding wasn’t the only form of entertainment. People ice skated and sang Christmas carols in front of their homes. And on Christmas Eve in 1885, the play “Santa Claus” was performed inside the Methodist-Episcopal Church, which included 35 characters. Built in 1842, the church, once a meeting place for the temperance movement, is now home to Preservation Long Island.

“I looked for things in the newspaper that I found interesting,” Lowenthal explained. “Like I saw that in 1858 someone complained, ‘What’s wrong with the young blood today. They won’t go on sleigh rides?’”

Browning-Atkinson brought laminated copies of pages from The Long-Islander that had advertising from 1879. “Christmas is coming!” was written in large type and then advertisements for shawls and domestics were listed from stores like Lord & Taylor. “People think Christmas is commercialized now but it was then too,” Browning-Atkinson said.

The store Bixby, at 94 Main Street, was once a bakery. People would buy cakes there to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

“It was a Victorian tradition at midnight on New Year’s Eve to fling open the door of a home and shout ‘Welcome! Welcome!’ and people would throw a cake at the door for luck,” Browning-Atkinson said. “Then it was on New Year’s Day that people celebrated. There would be open houses in the 1870’s and calls were made by men to eligible ladies. By 1880 people had receptions that day instead and men were no longer permitted to roam around.”

Richard and Judi Wieder, from Plainview, said they enjoyed the tour. “The houses came alive the more I learned about what was taking place there,” Judi said.

“It was interesting to learn about whaling families and how they celebrated Christmas,” Richard added. Then he noted that what was most remarkable was that on New Year’s Day it was acceptable for men to go all over the hamlet to find a suitable woman.

Additional tours are on Dec. 17 and Dec. 18 at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.; and on Dec. 30 at 4:30 p.m. For tickets go to whalingstore@gmail.com.