What was just another ordinary day turned into an adventure into the mysteries of the unknown for one Farmingdale family Sunday, after skeletal remains were discovered on property adjacent to their home.

The remains were discovered during the afternoon on property abutting the home of Alice and Ron Harmon. The land had been dug up to create a road leading to anticipated new houses in the area, and while taking a stroll, Nat Hubbard, son of a neighbor, first noticed a skull on the surface of one of the walls of dirt and sand created by the excavation. What appears to be a leg bone was also sticking out of the dirt.

Upon the sighting, Nat called the police, who soon thereafter swarmed the area. Eighth Squad detectives were treating the area as a crime scene Sunday night, and said they did not yet know the origins of the remains. As of press time, they were still investigating, and results of forensic and anthropological analyses were pending.

As the detectives searched for clues, Alice Harmon wondered out loud whether the remains might belong to a family member of Thomas Powell, who was Farmingdale's first settler in the late 1600s. Her house and much of the surrounding area had historically belonged to descendants of Powell. Acknowledging the speculative nature of her thoughts, Harmon said, "It's historically significant, I think, if it is the Powells, but I guess we'll have to wait and find out if it is the Powells."

However, Jean Hubbard, Nat's mother, who is also a descendant of Powell and an active member of the Farmingdale-Bethpage Historical Society, said Monday that the remains are more likely to belong to servants than to a member of the Powell family. She said she believed that her father, the late Jesse Merritt, who had served as official historian for both Farmingdale and the Town of Oyster Bay, would have identified the graves if they had belonged to a member of the family. "I'm sure it must have been servants or somebody, because if it had been anybody in the family, my father would have certainly identified the grave - with his interest in history - because my father never mentioned it. He knew they were up there, because I heard him speak of the two graves on the hill, that they were there, with two very primitive stones," she said. "They're not really headstones, they're like rocks that were shaped to look like a headstone."

Interestingly, according to Mrs. Hubbard, one of the primitive headstones believed to be associated with the graves has the letters EP on it, and Thomas Powell's second wife was named Elizabeth. Mrs. Hubbard noted that she is in the process of contacting Quaker historians about the location of the Elizabeth Powell grave and other Powell graves. "The only other thing to track them down - I told the detective this - there are two old books of maps, like almanacs. One was published in 1875, and one was published in 1890. And they showed all the homeowners in Farmingdale. And, I thought that if the graves were marked, they might be marked on the maps," she said, noting that during Farmingdale's rural period, families buried the deceased on their own property.

The Powells are a Quaker family, and therefore, according to Mrs. Hubbard, did not put names on headstones, which has caused difficulty in locating the graves of Thomas Powell and his relatives. "You know the trouble is, they never found Thomas Powell's grave, but the Quakers did not approve of headstones identifying people. Now up at the Quaker Meeting graveyard, there are very few headstones before 1820, 1830, because they were never identified, they were just buried. In fact, Quakers thought [labeling graves] was a sign of vanity."

Farmingdale Village Historian Bill Johnston, who is also a member of the Farmingdale-Bethpage Historical Society, said he and his colleagues are trying to locate the old maps, and added, "But, we have nothing to go on." Nevertheless, he said the discovery could be historically significant. Noting that the site of the discovery, which is just up the road from the famous Powell House (c. 1690s), is historic Powell territory, he said of the property, "Really, it's the heartland of the Bethpage purchase."