Suzie and Mr. Tilden

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In the 1860s, a family of German immigrants moved to a house on One Sandy Hollow Road in Port Washington, New York. They had a daughter named Suzanna "Suzie" Brunner. She lived there for the next 75 years, and led a very colorful life. 

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Suzie and Mr. Tilden, taken somewhere on School House Hill (Source - Cow Neck Peninsula History Society)

In the years after the Civil War, Susie Brunner (Suzanna, Suzie), served as Port Washington's first post-mistress. She drove a horse-drawn buggy that served as the mail coach from Port Washington to Great Neck, Long Island. Besides the mail, she also carried passengers and packages from the Bayles Drug Store to the Long Island Rail Road terminal in Great Neck.

She took the job when she was only 21 years old, since her father Joseph "Old Dutch Joe" Brunner passed away.

The route took her on unpaved roads in snow, rain and sometimes in darkness through desolate areas. Her horse named William J. Tilden had been broken in by her.

​A traveling photographer once made the mistake of trying to run her into a ditch. For his troubles he ended up dead when she killed him with the butt of her whip. One wonders why she didn't use the gun she carried with her instead. But was there any truth to this story, or was it an urban myth about a woman referred to as "a devil of a mail carrier"?

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Inquest into the death of George H. McClellan c.1881

​In 1881, George H. McClellan, a photographer who had fallen on hard times left Syracuse and started to work around Flushing. He was last seen on September 26 on his wagon, looking "the worse for liquor." The following day, still drunk he was found unconscious with an "unnatural blackness in his eyes and bruises on his body" lying in Jamaica Road. Mr. McClellan was dead 48 hours later. A reporter interviewed Susie who told him "that the day previous to his death she gave him a thrashing with the butt of her whip in the face and the eyes for bad conduct in a state of intoxication." It was believed he died from delirium tremens because of his alcoholism.

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Susie carried mail to and from Great Neck to Port Washington. One day in the line of duty she horsewhipped a man who tried to hold her up. The man died from the whipping. After her father "Old Dutch Jose" died, Susie was the "man" of the family. Susie always wore an apron, even to church.
(Source-Cow Neck Historical Society) 

Susie Brunner c.1933

Eventually Susie left her job as post-mistress and went on to work the family farm, ploughing fields all over town with her horse Mr. Tilden. She also served as a janitor at the Sands Point school and opened a store catering to the children who called her "Aunt Susie."

About her unmarried state, she commented, "them I wanted, I couldn't get, and them that wanted me the devil wouldn't take."

Along the way she bought properties in Port Washington, and a 1908 map showed she owned three properties around Sandy Hollow Road. When a new school was built she purchased the old one, and moved it across the street to a piece of land she owned. It served as a residence from then on.

Susie was known for always wearing a sunbonnet and a gingham apron with a big pocket. It turns out she was a horse whisperer as well, since she tamed many horses throughout the years with kindness it was said.

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Description written on reverse of picture with Suzie and her horse Mr. Tilden

When Susie died in 1935 she left her $11,500 estate to a sister, Dora (Dorothea) J. Bauer or Bouer. Both her parents were dead, and a brother named Joseph died in 1883, at the age of 17.

Before Susie Brunner lived in the house it was occupied by Samuel Dodge, who arrived in 1718 along with his family. He bought a parcel on the corner of Sandy Hollow Road in 1732 and built a house and then a barn on the site. 

After Susie's death in 1935 the barn was moved east to its new address of 5 Sandy Hollow Road. William Pedrick Jr. had bought the barn, added a foundation and brick chimney. He also added rooms downstairs where the stalls for the animals were, and upstairs where the hay loft was. It's believed some of the timber used to construct the barn were most possibly salvaged from an old ship and repurposed to build the barn. Two entrance doors added to the rear of the house were known to mysteriously open by itself.

In 1941, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Brown lived there.

​In 1958, Daniel and Aida Whedon bought the one-time barn, and in 1961 Newsday printed a story about the strange occurrences at the coach house which were attributed to the ghost of Susie Brunner. The Whedons believed she was still checking on her beloved horses. There were reports of the back door opening mysteriously, and upon occasion the face of a woman seen peering from an upper window. Coincidentally the one who had the most sightings of the ghost was Susie, the Whedon's young daughter. In 1982, the Whedons were still living there, and a second story was written by Newsday where they retold the experiences they had since they moved in many years before.

It's unknown if Susie still lingers at what was once her old barn, or back at her proper home on Sandy Hollow Road, since no further sightings have been reported. More than likely she is enjoying the afterlife with her horses, friends and mostly the leisure time she didn't have when alive.

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