Smithtown, A History: The Man Behind Paul T. Given Park

Many Smithtown residents stop by Paul T. Given County Park across from the Bull statue to launch a canoe or enjoy a picnic, but most locals aren’t familiar with the man Paul T. Given.

From 1950 - 1955, Given was town supervisor for Smithtown and later started what is now known today as Given Associates. According to his daughter Diane Simonson, he was born in 1908 in West Virginia and moved to our area in 1943.

Simonson said her father worked for General Electric and was transferred to New York. It was due to this transfer that Given moved with his wife Ruth and three children to Hauppauge.

Soon after moving to Hauppauge, he left GE to start Given Heating Company and his son Patrick was born. He also became active in the community. Given and his wife were founding members of the Mr. and Mrs. Hauppauge Club. The group met at Hauppauge Village Hall, and the members were responsible for many improvements made on the hall including installing the bathrooms.

Simonson said when residents united to fight what they felt were exorbitant reassessment taxes, her father became part of the Smithtown Township Tax Payers Association.

His involvement in the community inspired Given to run for justice of the peace under the Democratic ticket in 1948. His daughter still remembers a couple coming to their house to be married. She said the soon-to-be newlyweds forgot their rings and had to use her mother’s for the ceremony.

After his stint as justice of the peace, Given became town supervisor of Smithtown. Patrick Given said he still encounters people who remember his father.

Simonson said, “He was such a good guy. Everybody loved my father.”

Given said his father served as supervisor during a time when Suffolk County’s 10 supervisors ran the county as a board of supervisors. The thing Simonson and Given remember the most was their father doing a lot for the Smithtown Library.

After serving three terms as town supervisor, Given continued in politics as a councilman, and as the 60s approached he went into the real estate appraisal business. He started Given and Scheick with John Scheick Jr. The two had worked together before when Scheick was Given’s assistant during his terms as supervisor.

Given took care of the real estate side of business and Scheick the insurance. Soon the business name became Given Associates. The company still exists on Route 111 in Hauppauge, and both Patrick and his son Michael are partners at the company.

A court on the north side of Towline Road also bears the Given name. Simonson said when the former politician sold his house and three and a half acres of property, the real estate developers decided to call the new street Given Court.

While Given passed away in 1978, his name still lives on in our community 33 years later.