Ever since May of 2002, when John Atkinson got in touch with me, I have been wanting to do a story on the Dana family, who were influential in the events that would develop in Mastic from the 19th until the mid 20th century. John had told me about a set of snapshots, he took as young boy on his first visit east to Moss Lots, his mother’s childhood summer home . John’s mother was Dr. Ethel Dana Atkinson, one of the three daughters of William S. Dana (1892-1939) But before I go over the cliff into the genealogical abyss with this family ….( there were several adoptions that can really get confusing to the uninitiated )…… let me explain a bit of background as it relates to my interest in the bigger picture.

My older sister Gerry was my first introduction to the Danas and “the biggest house you ever saw” around 1952. I believe she was on a field trip to Moss Lots either with her grammar school or the girl scouts, when Ella Dana gave her a piece of wooden doll house furniture from the “great big doll house” that sat in the living room. For days the Dana mansion was all Gerry could talk about, and the little wooden crib was the center of her attention. I remember it being on a shelf in her room for years and years and it was strictly “look but do not touch” ( But of course I touched it, that’s why there are little kid brothers right ? ) The Dana doll house was probably built in the 1930’s by William Shepherd Dana for his three daughters ; Ethel, Leora and Doris. It probably took several days or weeks to construct and several board feet of lumber. Moss Lots was built by his grandfather William Buck Dana for his wife Kitty Floyd Dana in the early 1880’s. It took over a year and 3 Railroad Boxcars of lumber that sat on a siding at the then new Mastic, (FORGE) Long Island Rail Road Station. All the lumber, bricks etc was taken by wagon about a mile to the banks of the Forge River where the home was constructed.

The Dana estate was located about 5 miles from our house. Unlike my sister, I never got to set foot in it before it suffered the same fate that befell Knapp’s Mansion. And like the Knapp mansion, which she also visited when people still lived inside, it was Gerry’s stories about the interiors of these fantastic houses that may have led to all my mansion madness, that has seemed to re emerge into my life lately. I reconnected with Moss Lots for the first time in the summer of 1970, when I came sailing up Forge River in my little boat about to show my new bride the biggest finest house in all of Mastic. Instead I saw the stark chimneys and piles of burnt remains. As we walked around the foundation, it was Knapp deja vue again for me with the exception of my bearing witness to the actual flames bringing down the walls. I never recall there even being an article in the paper about it. I have since looked in the microfilm of The Moriches Bay Tide and have found nothing yet. It would seem hard to believe that a landmark like Moss Lots would pass into oblivion, when its counterpart The Masury Estate just across the river made the front page when it burned down a few years earlier in 1963. By then perhaps Mastic mansions destroyed by fire was getting to be old hat…..Yep another white elephant gets charcoal broiled…..so what’s new……..