In light of the fact that it’s been nearly a year since I last wrote (???), I decided to post an article I wrote for a family newsletter that never got published, and seeing as I don’t know if it ever will, I’d like to share it here. The writing prompt was to introduce readers to someone in your family tree, and since it was for a Raynor family newsletter, I decided to write about my 2x great-grandfather, Captain Joseph James Raynor, who I never really talk about but whom I actually know quite a bit about. And so, without further ado, I invite you to meet my Raynor….
Meet Captain Joseph James Raynor, my 2x great-grandfather. Joseph, an Edward descendant, was a lifelong resident of Freeport. Through him, I can trace my Raynor ancestry through three lines—Joseph’s parents were both Raynors, Hiram Horatio Raynor and Ann Raynor, and Joseph’s paternal grandparents were both Raynors, Joseph Raynor and Elizabeth Raynor. Joseph, who was an only child, was born January 7, 1856 at 283 South Main Street in Freeport, which was built in the 1840s by his father. Like his father Hiram, Joseph became an oyster and clam planter and dealer.
He married his wife, Annie Poole, of Oceanside on December 12, 1879, and they raised three children at the family homestead on South Main Street. He was part of a close-knit group of “old timer” fisherman, baymen, and boat captains who would gather every year for a birthday party, where they would reminisce about life working Freeport’s waterways; many of them lived into their 70s and 80s. Joseph himself lived to be one day shy of 88 years old, dying January 6, 1944.
Joseph and Annie Raynor, with two of their three children, Monroe and Lidie, circa 1889. Tintype courtesy the Freeport Memorial Library and Freeport Historical Society.
According to his obituary in the Freeport Daily Review, “Although he had retired 20 years ago as a wholesale oyster dealer, he went out daily in his boat to fish, until stricken with a heart attack four years ago while out on the bay. As a boy, he started out with his father to plant oysters in the bay, as soon as he was old enough. Later the oysters were shipped to the city. He continued with the work through manhood.” At the time of his death, Joseph’s two grandsons, including my grandfather Clifford Monroe Raynor, were serving in World War II. Joseph was a member of the Methodist Church in Freeport.
Joseph and Annie Raynor, circa 1930s
I never met Joseph. He died over 30 years before I was born. But I would visit him all the time. When I worked in Roosevelt, I used to ride my bike to Greenfield Cemetery in Uniondale to visit the Raynor family plot and say “hi” to my Raynor forebears – my great-grandparents, my 2x great aunt and uncle, 3x great grandparents Hiram and Ann, and my 2x great grandparents, Annie and Captain Joseph. Nearly 80 years after his death, Joseph’s descendants—my brother, my sister, and my sister’s children—still live in Freeport, near the waterways and waterfront on which Joseph lived and worked, and which he loved.