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Suffolk County
Long Island was discovered in the summer of 1524 by Giovanni Varrazano, a native of Florence, Italy. Employed by Francis I of France to explore the New World. Verrazano, having sailed his ship, the Daphne across the Atlantic, skirted the east coast of North America from below the Virginia to the west end of Long Island. There he was rowed through the Narrows to New York's upper bay and the mouth of the Hudson River. Then returning to his ship, he skirted Long Island's south shore to the vicinity to Block Island which he named the Island of Luisa. Landing on Montauk in the spring of 1614, Adrian Block became the first white man to tread the soil of future Suffolk County; also was the first to contact its aboriginal inhabitants. It was he who, upon returning to Europe, first sold the idea the Paumanok, as the Indians called the Island, was a very desirable piece of real estate and, like the immediate mainland, was well work any government taking it over. This the Netherlands did, at the same time claming all the coastal territory from Canada, where the French had already gained a foothold, to Virginia which had become British as early as 1607, as well as all the wilderness streching west ward to a distance which was anybody's guess. For more than thirty years after Adrian Block's Local expoloration, Long Island remaind all Indian. In 1639, the first two groups of New Englander's founded on either side of the Island's east end. They were Southold, over looking the Sound, and Southampton, fronting upon the Atlantic Ocean. Quite independent of one another, with the Peconic Bay laying deep between them. These two towns had only one thing in common. Englishmen. The first nine family's of East Hampton were: John Hand, Thomas Talmag, JR., Daniel Howe, Thomas Thomson, John Stretten, SR., Robert Bond, Robert Rose, Joshua Barns, and John Mulford. They were soon joined by Thomas Osborn, William Fithian, Richard Brooks, William Simonds, Samuel Belknap, Samuel Parson, Joshua Garlick, Fulke Davis, Nathaniel Bishop, William Barnes, Stephen Hand, Thomas Baker, Richard Shaw, Jeremiah Meacham and already settled on his Island estate, Lion Gardiner. In 1650, the line of division coincided almost identically with the subsequent Nassau-Suffolk county line, and thus for the first time the Suffolk County area assumed a distint political identity although, except for three townships and Gardiner's Island Manor, it also was still a wilderness unmarked and unclaimed by the whiteman. In 1642 came the settlement of Hempstead, 1652 Shelter Island, and the Hicksville area. The following year Oyster Bay, and Huntington, in 1655 Brookhaven and in 1656 Jamacia, in 1663 Smithtown, 1710 Islip, 1792 Riverhead and 1872 Babylon.
From the Book: Early Long Island, it's Indians, Whaling and Folklore Rymes.
By: Paul Bailey
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Volunteers are needed!! If you would like to adopt a town in Suffolk, please contact me. |
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i*** If you have Suffolk County photos you would like us to put online, please contactllme. a wilderness u *** Suffolk Family Pages-if you would like to submit a family site regarding Suffolk, please contact me.d, 1652
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NEW!!! We just received the Suffolk County Query Boards.
er IslSearch the NY-AHLN Site
the Hi Submit or view a Query llo
*** Long Island's Newspaper Obituaries ***
Suffolk County Links
Suffolk County Naturalizattion Reocds
ISTG Passenger Ship Lists
Orient Point Ferry to New London CT
Port Jefferson Ferry to Bridgeport CT
Suffolk County Government home page
Suffolk County Gabreski Airport
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mPage Created by Terasa Ahlgren
Updated August 26, 2002
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