Long Island

Manufactures.

The chief manufacturing enterprises of the first half of the 19th century were those supplying the needs of the maritime industries. Cooperages and rope walks characterized Sag Harbor in the whaling days. The building of ships and boats became an important industry at Port Jefferson and other north shore towns located near good timber. The development of oyster ing on a large scale made a new demand for boats and for repair work. More important was the growth of summer colonies on the shores. The making, repairing, and storing during the winter of pleasure-craft became and has remained an important industry. Here and there, as at Patchogue and Sag Harbor, other manufac turing industries sprang up. To-day Brooklyn and Queens bor oughs are among the most important industrial centres in the United States. The two boroughs had in 1925, 5,596 industrial establishments, with 188,611 employees and produced goods valued at $1,521,715,633. Among the more important industries were automobile, shoe, silk, candy, printing, rubber, food-stuff, sugar, soap, iron and steel, paint and varnish and motion pictures. The factors causing this great industrial development at the western end of Long Island are not far to seek. Nearly 3o% of the buying power of the United States lies within 1 oo m. of New York city. Land on Long Island is cheaper than in Manhattan, yet it is near the water front and close to the important trans-Atlantic lines.

Long Island as a Playground.

The growth of New York has caused the development of Long Island for recreational pur poses. In the first decade of the i9th century Far Rockaway became a watering place for New York's elite. After the Civil War, with the increase of railroad facilities great estates began to be developed. Southampton became a second Newport. Camps, like Camp Carey of the New York Boys' Club, appeared. Coney Island, pioneer of American amusement parks, flourished. And all the while the city grew eastward.

Improved transportation made it possible for millions to escape for a few hours or days from the crowded streets to the quiet shore or countryside. Under the leadership of Governor Alfred E. Smith, the development of parks on Long Island began. By 1927, as a result of the activities of the Long Island State Park Commission, some 8,000 ac. had been set aside as State parks. Some, like those at Fire island, Montauk, and Wading river, are on the shore. Deer Range park on Great South bay is well stocked with deer and other wild animals. In Nassau county, New York city has turned over more than 2,000 ac. containing lakes no longer used as reservoirs, where boating, bathing and fishing are possible. In 1928 a parkway scheme was undertaken to make it easy for the people to reach their playgrounds. The park com

mission hopes and plans to bring the area of Long Island State parks up to 40,000 acres. Long Island, on the edge of the largest American city, has become one of the most important of American playgrounds.

Early History.

At the time of the first settlement by the whites, the island was occupied by numerous small tribes of Indians whose former existence is now commemorated by such names as "Montauk" Point, "Shinnecock" hills, "Manhasset" bay, etc. The territory of Long Island was included in the grant of 1620 by James I. to the Plymouth Company and in 1635 was conveyed to William Alexander, earl of Stirling. The conflicting claims of English and Dutch were the subject of the treaty con cluded at Hartford, Conn., in 165o, by which the Dutch were to hold everything west of Oyster bay, the English everything east— a provision which failed to settle the boundary dispute. In by the treaty of Westminster, Long Island became a part of the British colony of New York.

The Dutch settlements on the west end of the island were more important ethnically than historically. The "Five Dutch Towns" were : Nieuw Amersfoord (after 18o1 officially called Flatlands) on Jamaica bay, where the first settlement was made about 1623 and the first grant in 1636; Midwout (later Vlackte-Bosch and Flatbush), settled between 1645 and 1650 and having in 1654 the first Dutch church; Nieuw Utrecht, settled soon after 1650 and incorporated in 166o; Breuckelen (now Brooklyn), which was settled a little before its organization as a town in 1646; and Boswijck (Bushwick), first settled by Swedes and Norwegians and incorporated in 166o.

Apparently the earliest English settlement was at Hempstead in 5640 by colonists from Lynn, Mass., but they were immediately driven out by the Dutch. In 1643 another English settlement was made at Hempstead by men from Stamford, Conn., who in 1644 secured a patent from Gov. Keift of New Netherland. In Keift granted land at Gravesend to Lady Deborah Moody, who had settled there about 1643. The Connecticut towns were as follow: Southampton, settled in 1640 by the Lynn men driven out of Hempstead by the Dutch, and in 1644-64 was under the Connecticut jurisdiction; and Southold (the "South Hold of New Haven"), which had a church and a code of law court based on the "cotton code." The colony joined New Haven in 1648, in which year the colony of Forretts (now Shelter) island also submitted to New Haven. Oyster bay and Easthampton were settled by people from Lynn in 1640 and 1648, respectively. Newton, sub sequently named Hastings, was settled in 1652 and was annexed to Connecticut in 1662. Other early settlements were Huntington (1653), Jamaica (1657), Brookhaven (1655) and Smithtown (patented in 1677).