Edwin Bailey

Edwin Bailey (February 18, 1836 – January 11, 1908) was an English-American businessman and politician from Patchogue, New York.

Life Bailey was born on February 18, 1836, in Manchester, England.

In 1848, Bailey immigrated to America with his parents, Joseph and Ann Bailey. His father, a machinist, opened a business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but he fell ill and died within two months. Ann then moved to Patchogue, New York and married Treadwell Kellum of Babylon. Edwin spent a year working on a farm in Monmouth County, New Jersey, after which he joined his mother in Patchogue. He then spent a year in a cotton factory, after which he worked on a vessel that traveled up and down the Great South Bay. When he was 17, he began apprenticing as a carpenter under Charles A. Woodhull of Sayville. He was pronounced a competent workman three years later and began working as a carpenter in Patchogue. He left the trade after a year.

In 1870, Bailey began working as a lumber merchant. He initially conducted the business alone, but he later spent three and a half years in a partnership with O. S. Smith, followed by another three and a half years with Martinus Smith. He then spent four years working alone, after which he organized the firm E. Bailey & Sons with his sons Joseph and Edwin Jr. By 1896, the firm's sales reached half a million dollars and sold everything related to builders' materials all over the county. The firm also had its own boats (one of which could carry four hundred thousand feet of lumber), a sash, door, and blind factory in Patchogue, a planting mill in Islip, and a lumber yard in Islip they purchased in 1889. He built the Union Free School in 1868 and served on its Board of Education ever since. He was also a director and incorporator of the Patchogue Bank, a stockholder and director of the Electric-Light Company, the advisory committee chairman of the Mechanics and Marine Lloyds of New York, and chief of the fire department since its organization in 1880. 1,500 people attended the funeral service in the church, hundreds more weren't able to get in the church and 400 people (representatives of local organizations he was a part of) were part of the funeral procession, making it the largest funeral held in Suffolk County until that point. State Treasurer Julius Hauser was among the attendees. The Rev. Jacob Probst of the Episcopal Church officiated the funeral. He was buried in a brick vault in the family plot in Cedar Grove Cemetery.