In the mid-nineteenth century, James Wickham was a wealthy farmer with a large estate in Cutchogue, Long Island. His extensive property included a mansion and eighty acres of farmland that were maintained by a staff of servants. In 1854, Wickham got into an argument with one of his workers, Nicholas Behan, after Behan harassed another employee who refused to marry him. Several days after Behan's dismissal, he crept back into the house in the dead of night. With an axe, he butchered Wickham and his wife, Frances, and fled to a nearby swamp. Behan was captured, tried, convicted and, on December 15, became one of the last people to be hanged in Suffolk County. Local historians Geoffrey Fleming and Amy Folk uncover this gruesome story of revenge and murder.

When the primary value of bay-front property was the privilege of harvesting seaweed, state legislator and Southold newspaperman Joseph Nelson Hallock was stealing watermelon from Peter Gils Well's patch and fighting for the privilege to pass the water at Southold Academy. In the spirit of Mary Ellen Chase's turn-of-the-century account of life in rural New England, Hallock offers his firsthand impressions of the difficulties and pleasures of North Fork life one hundred years ago. With a recipe for samp porridge and tales of power brokering in Albany, "Southold Reminiscences" is sure to inspire.