How was Bellmore named? Teen spends six years on research

It’s one of her community’s biggest mysteries, but after years of researching, a Bellmore teen thinks she’s made a break in the case.

Mary Catherine D’Alto Mutone, 15, said she’s always wondered how Bellmore was named. No one knows for sure, according to Martha DiVittorio, who hosts local history nights at the Bellmore Library. Some say it’s derived from the French, “belle mer,” meaning beautiful sea. Many subscribe to a charming — but likely fictitious — tale about an LIRR conductor who would always ring the “bell more” as he passed through the town to signal his sweetheart.  

From an early age, Mutone was skeptical of the local legend, which author Richard Winsche also discredits in his book, "The History of Nassau County Community Place-Names," calling it "completely fictitious and without merit."

“It’s a nice story, but it just seems like folklore,” she said.

So Mutone said she was excited when six years ago, she found “Belmore” with the date 1818 etched into the walls of the Temple of Dendur — an ancient Egyptian structure that now rests in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. Mutone’s uncle Nick D’Alto remembers pointing out the discrepancy in the spelling, but Mutone was still giddy, and the find would spark her six-year investigation.

“She was talking about it the whole car ride back,” said D’Alto, 57.

Mutone began digging and found that the graffiti was left by an Earl of Belmore who traveled to Egypt and left his name on some of the artifacts. She didn’t find any evidence that the town was named for the Belmores — unlike Belmore, New South Wales, a town of about 13,000 in Australia — but Mutone does think the family’s indirectly connected.

During the 19th century, near when the second Earl of Belmore traveled the Mediterranean in a yacht and began collecting Egyptian antiques, she believes the Belmore name became associated with elegance and luxury, and over time products and places were named Belmore or Bellmore to lend them an air of sophistication. She cites a Bellmore top hat sold in the early 20th century, marketed as the "superior to all men's hats" promising to "set its wearers apart as well dressed" and "discriminately well hatted."

Mutone found a 1952 article in the Nassau Review-Star that seems to support this theory. Bellmore was adopted to give the community “more distinction,” the author writes, quoting those who proposed the name in the story. 

Before it became Bellmore the region cycled through a handful of names: Little Neck, Little Neck South, Bridgehaven, New Bridge, Cedar  Valley and Smithville, according to Natalie Naylor, president of the Nassau County Historical Society. 

In 1870, Bellmore station first appeared on railroad timetables, Naylor said. Mutone found what she thinks is the first printed appearance of Bellmore in an 1869 story in the Queens County Sentinel. The article mentions the establishment of a Bellmore station between Merrick and Ridgewood, now called Wantagh. Shortly afterward, the village became known simply as Bellmore, Naylor said. 

“I’m proud of what I’ve found even if it turns out it’s not related,” said Mutone, who will be a sophomore at John F. Kennedy High School this fall. “It’s something I’ve worked really hard on.”

Over the years, DiVittorio has closely followed Mutone’s progress. The teen regularly goes to the library’s local history meetups to present some of her findings, and DiVittorio said she thinks her theory “has legs.”

“Nothing contradicts what Mary Catherine has found,” DiVittorio said. “It’s very difficult to say for sure but she has made some decent connections.”