Dr. Edward Newbery was one of the original settlers of Modern Times. He was a physician, dentist, scientist, writer, painter and social reformer. As the doctor walked about the streets of Brentwood, he carried a hollow cane which contained his kit of homeopathic medicines, ever ready for immediate use. Dr Newbery’s unique medical cane is an artifact we now have in the Brentwood Public Library History Department archives.

On November 11, 1869 Dr Newbery bought a lot at the corner of Second Ave and Third Street to build his home. He paid $23.00 for the land. Near the end of his life, after he had become ill and somewhat helpless, Dr. Newbery left his home in Brentwood and went to Brooklyn where he died on November 6, 1897.

The Newbery home was condemned by the Islip town Building Department and ordered to be torn down in 1954. The Newbery property  and an adjoining lot of land was bought by the government for the purpose of building the Brentwood Post Office. The first post office building was erected on 4^thStreet and Second Avenue in 1955. The present post office building is on the same piece of property the front of which faces the Brentwood Public Library on Second Avenue.

-A. Bennett, Local History Newsletter,  March 2008.