So here we are.....at the end of Knapp Road at least as far as this website is concerned. But that doesn't mean there won't be new things from time to time about the rest of the stuff that has been added in along the way , Stuff that has made the site dizzying even to me. I will still be adding things like Mastic area history and pics, William Floyd School Stuff, My Web Glob, and a few more Buzz & Pee Wee Butchie & Me short stories (they are what started it) And when I get "round to it " this site will have its own overdue search engine. But this is where the Knapps get off ......at least in cyber space.... I knew it was coming, just didn't know when. Actually I had hoped to have wound this part of it up at least two years ago. Folks would ask when are you going to write that book? I would say I'm working on it....and I was....and I had started it at least three or four times, but there were so many questions I still had about the one Knapp family member I was most interested in, yet knew the least about.

Regular Knappsters know of course by now I'm talking about Dodie Knapp, or is it Dodi Knapp or Doty Knapp? Doesn't really matter how it was spelled and misspelled from 1892-1952 , because he really was Joseph Fairchild Knapp. the namesake of his grandfather who died six months before he was born. I first discovered who J. F. Knapp was back in March of 2001when my son Erik found that name in some history of Mastic Beach files in the library there. All we were trying to do was find a picture of the abandoned mansion I used to play in.....And with that name I was off.....lots of people thought I was way off.... my rocker that is......well I couldn't disagree with them about that....

Through the years I've learned a whole lot about his Grandfather, Grandmother, Father, Sister, ex wifes, friends etc. but not what I really wanted to know about him. One Knappster told me "This Is Going To Be Your Year"......and son of a gun he was right...It has been my year...It started with a real bang when I recieved a three hour oral history of the Penney Family from Arthur Penney son of Clarence , who did a whole lot of work for Dodi including building his 9 hole golf course at the Mastic Beach mansion.....Arthur's Uncle Willis would marry Doty's sister Claire in 1925. Then a fellow whose father bought Dodi's Storm King Yacht got in touch, then more info started coming in like the beautiful portrait of his his Mother Sylvia......then I discovered the history of the Kepner and Betz family . When I returned from Washington DC in May with his WWI military records , I got an e mail from California that said "You should talk with my aunt Mildred" And I did.....Mildred Clune actually lived on the Knapp Estate as a young girl.... her mother and father were both employed by Dodie.... the "colorful stories" I had heard of Knapp's time in Mastic Beach from 1916-1940 were finally confirmed!

A few weeks ago I wrote a short piece about the film The Grass Harp and how I equated it to my journey both past and present down Knapp Road....After I wrote it, I got Truman Capote's novel, read it in two days then decided to view the film again to compare it with the book... On Saturday night July 2nd, about mid way through the film the phone rang..... it was a call I never thought I would get....... July 2nd I might add is the birthday of Dodi's namesake...the original Joseph Fairchild Knapp, 1832-1891 . Big J F as I like to call him has been looking over my shoulder in a 5 x 7 frame for several years now along with others in his immediate family. The initial phone call from someone who wishes to remain unnamed, lasted close to an hour , My wife Anne wound up watching the rest of Grass Harp alone...Since then there has been other correspondence and I learned and confirmed a great deal more about him....On Saturday July 9th a large padded envelope was delivered to my door....

Though all the Knapps were rarely ever photographed, it seemed Dodi was the least publicly photographed Knapp of them all. Of the three photos I thought I had of him, taken from circa 1920- 1940 I would discover I really only had one . The one of him sitting in his speedboat, Miss Demure around 1925.... and you can't see his face. As for the others they would turn out to be his secretary, lawyer and longtime confidant Ed Kiely and the third, is still unknown as of today. It came from a scrapbook with his name and Ft, Lauderdale on the cover. It is of someone sitting in his backyard at the Isle Of Palms in Ft. Lauderdale. Well they say a photo is worth a thousand words ...to me they are worth a million.....so without too many more words, at least on this page, may I present the gentleman who united the town of Mastic Beach. He did that by selling off his estate in the middle of it in 1938. As I like to say...if J. F. Knapp didn't sell out....a whole lot of us would of had to grow up someplace else......

CONTINUED