Suffolk County History
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Open plains supplied grain, meat, fish, and cordwood to NYC
The first nomadic hunters came here in the last glacial period following caribou herds when Long Island and the mainland of Connecticut were separated by only low-lying marshland. This area is now covered by Long Island Sound.
The first known Europeans to sight Long Island were with Verrazano, who sailed along the south shore in 1524. In 1614 Adrian Block, a Dutch explorer, first touched the land here when he went ashore at Montauk and met local Native Americans.
The first small bands of settlers came from the New York and Connecticut areas. Dutch villages sprang up on the western end of Long Island; English settlements in Suffolk. A power struggle between England and the Netherlands was settled in 1650 with a north-south line, an international boundary, dividing existing colonies in New England and Long Island.
Under English rule the province of New York was divided into twelve counties in 1683 with this area called Suffolk County for the first time. The open plains in the Hempstead and Montauk areas made Long Island the Texas of that time. It is estimated there were 100,000 horned cattle and even more sheep. Long Island was vital to New York City – supplying grain, meat, fish, and cordwood.
The disastrous defeat of the Americans at the Battle of Long Island in 1776 exposed the patriots in Suffolk to seven years of suffering under the British, Hessian, and Tory troops, supported by the mighty British Navy. The heavy commitment of forces reflected that New York City was the keystone of British plans to isolate New England from the middle Atlantic colonies and Long Island was the storehouse to feed and supply the city’s garrison and naval forces.
In 1834 men of industry were looking for a quick railroad transportation route from New York to Boston. An engineering survey declared the Connecticut coastal route “impassable” because of the rugged hills and many rivers to cross. But, on the map between the two cities lay Long Island, flat and cheap. Tracks were laid from the East River to the east end of the county where a ferry took passengers and freight to Connecticut and then by train to Boston.
What did bring a change in the Long Island Railroad’s attitude was the completion of a direct rail connection between New York and Boston along the “impassable” Connecticut shore route in 1850. Suddenly the Long Island was a railroad without purpose and no place to go. Its tracks were in the middle of the island and all its potential local customers were settled along the shore. In a short span of years, some twenty separate railroads came on the scene to connect people with the main line. It was a jumble of wheeling and dealing, violence, and conflict that was happening across the nation. Suffolk was moving from an isolated agrarian society toward its place in an inter-dependent, industrial economy.
The lure of the sea, aided by a railroad looking for customers, soon established Suffolk’s hallmark as an ideal place for recreational escape for sailing and bathing at the county’s famous beaches. By the second decade of the 20th century, county dirt roads were echoing to the chugging and sputtering of auto cars. Later, cars drove middle class working families east to vacation homes and then to year round settlements.
In the early 1900’s, the county’s flat open spaces and its location between New York City and Europe, made it a natural center for efforts to establish cross-Atlantic aviation and “wireless” communication. Grumman and other aviation pioneers made this a major center of aircraft production serving the nation through two World Wars.
The steady population growth came not from daring deeds, nor artistic genius. Rather it has been based on thousands upon thousands of common folk deciding that Suffolk was the place to make a home and raise a family. Our progress as a county will continue as long as this is true.