Save the Teaberry Port House (312 Strawtown Rd)

Stephens, son of the Resolvert Stephens who fought the marauding British the day they came to loot the Lydecker Farm of its cattle. In 1904 this property on the Hackensack--house, outbuildings, and farm--because the home of a Mrs. Edmonds, formerly of Chicago. In 1940 it was sold by her descendants to Stephen Leeman, who named it Teaberryport, remolding the outbuildings to utlize them as headquart

ers for his nationally distributed MING TEAS. Stephen Leeman and his wife ran a Chinese tea importing busines there in the '40s and '50s. There was a larger barn on the premises and the smell of tea could be smelt along Strawtown road. Leeman's wife was from Chinese royalty from before the rise of the communists in the 30s and 40s. She was friends with madame Chaing Kai Schek, widow of the last leader of the old Chinese dynastys. Madame Chaing was granted asylum in the US after Chaing was deposed. She lived in retirement at West Point and was an occasional visitor at Strawtown Road. Both Stephens and Leeman interestly enough owned the Clarksville Inn at points. Teaberryport was purchased in 1955 by the Spring Valley Water Company, then in process of damming hte Hackensack to create Lake De Forest. The company demolished the outbuildings but retained the house. After that point the Bates family occupied the house. (Information compiled from Burt Dahm and the History of West Nyack book)