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 A Quick Synopsis of Long Island History

    Native Americans called it "Paumonock," meaning "land of tribute," because of its fish-like shape. The Colonizing Dutch christened it "Lange Eilandt," and British Settlers later anglicized the name to "Long Island." Indeed, the region lives up to both names: it is fish-shaped with its mouth at Jamaica Bay and its tail forming two peninsulas stretching to Orient and Montauk Points. It is also the largest island adjoining the continental United States, extending 118 miles east-northeast from the mouth of the Hudson River. Twenty miles at its widest point, the 1,377-square-mile island is separated from the mainland on the north by the Long Island Sound and surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the south and east.Long Island includes the four Brooklyn), Queens, Nassau and Suffolk. But because Brooklyn and Queens are part of the five-county City of New York, the Long Island reference is commonly used to mean Nassau and Suffolk counties exclusively. Long Island measures approximately 100 miles from the Nassau-Queens border to Montauk Point, including 56 miles from the Queens border to Riverhead. From Riverhead, two peninsulas extend eastward separated by the waters of Great Peconic Bay and Gardiners Bay. The northern peninsula, the "North Fork," ends at Orient Point and is 28 miles in length.
  The southern peninsula, the "South Fork," ends at Niontauk Point and is 44 miles long. Nestled in the bays between the two forks are two small islands:
    Shelter Island and privately-owned Gardiners Island. Nassau-Suffolks land area is 1,198 square miles (287 square miles in Nassau and 911 square miles in Suffolk) and has a linear shoreline of approximately 1,600 miles. Out of 3,100 counties nationwide, both Nassau and Suffolk rank among the top 25 in population, with more than 2.6 million residents.
    As original settlers, 13 Indian tribes once occupied Long Island; three in Nassau, eight in Suffolk, and two in the area of what is now the county border. Today, only two Indian reservations remain: Poosepatuck and Shinnecock, both in Suffolk County.The colonial period, 1660-1775, was a time of great growth for Long Island. Rolling meadows and woodlands gave way to farms and villages; rough log shelters were made into comfortable homes: and churches, roads, grist mills and shipyards were built.
    Long Island was a major player in the Revolutionary \'sar. The Island was sharply divided in 1776 regarding independence from the Crown of England. Long Islander Nathan Hale is the best known of General Washingtons spies, but others were operating throughout the Revolution. Indeed, Suffolk was the center of the famed Culper espionage ring. which kept General Washington informed of British activities in New York City . Information was carried by rider out to Setauket and then across
    Long Island Sound to Connecticut by whale boat. From there it was relayed to the American forces in Westchester. Peace was finally negotiated and the occupation troops--British and Hessian-- departed in 1783.
    During the early 19th century, two maritime industries, whaling and fishing, became integral to Long Islands economy. And, as a natural outgrowth, Long Island became a major center of shipbuilding during the fIrst half of the century. By the late-1800s, the railroad had established an elaborate system of tracks throughout the Island, signaling marked change in Long Islands landscape.
    Long Island began the 20th century as an isolated rural farming area. In the coming decades, it would become an interdependent, industrial economy--an incubator for emerging technologies, sowing seeds of change.

A Brief Long Island Time-Line

1524 - Italian Explorer Verrazano spots the South Shore
1640 - Southold and Southampton are the first settlements
1796 - Lighthouse at Montauk is NY's first coastal beacon
1909 - LI becomes "Cradle of American Aviation."
1922 - First trans-Atlantic radio telephone transmitter at Rocky Point
1927 - Lindbergh takes off at Roosevelt Field on first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris
1939 - Pan American commercial air service to Europe from Port Washington
1940 - LI becomes major center for war production
1947 - Brookhaven National Laboratory to study peaceful uses of atomic energy

Important Long island Firsts

• Mastic was the home of William Floyd, hone of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
• Charles Lindbergh took off from Rooseveld Field in Nassau County in 1927 on his historic non-stop flight to Paris. The first U.S. airmail flight originated in 1911 from Garden City to Mineola.
• Babylon was the site of the first radio transmission by wireless inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1901 Fire IslandAvenue.
• Americas first supermarket, King Kullen, started on Long Island in 1930.
• The nations first suburbia was started on Long Island in 1947 with the building of 17,400 free standing homes, called Levittown. Walt Whitman, considered the greatest American poet, was born in West Hills, Huntington in 1819.
• Deep Hollow Ranch in Montauk is the site of the oldest cattle ranch in America, built in 1658, and birthplace of the American cowboy.
• Montauk Point was the spot where Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders returned after the Spanish American War.
• The Lunar Module which landed men on the moon in 1969, was built on L.I.. by the Grumman Corp.
• Suffolk County is the leading agricultural county in New York State based on the wholesale value of its farm products.

Long Island Facts and Figures

NASSAU 
Population 1.3 million
Area  287  sq.miles
County Seat Mineola
SUFFOLK
Population 1.4 million
Area 911 sq. miles 
County Seat Riverhead