NYSUFFOL-L Archives

Archiver > NYSUFFOL > 2002-01 > 1011725238


From: "Larry Buettner" <>
Subject: Re: [NYSUFFOL] Penney/Loy families in Bay Shore
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:47:18 -0900
References: <MFMBM002iR9Odutox7n00012b53@mfmbm002.myfamilycorp.local>


Breif History of Bay Shore

Beginnings: In October, 1708, Queen Anne of England confirmed John Mowbray's
purchase of land that was to become Bay Shore and Brightwaters. Mowbray, a
tailor and teacher from Southampton, is said to have paid the fish-dependent
Secatogue Indians ``several eel spears'' for the Bay Shore-Brightwaters
land. Sagtikos Manor to the west of the hamlet is traditionally considered
part of Bay Shore, but its original patent in 1693 went to Stephen Van
Courtlandt, a Dutch merchant related by marriage to William Nicoll, a
wealthy New York politician who received the earliest royal grants for land
that is now Islip Town.

The Revolution: Artisans produced excellent small boats that, according to
an 1849 account, ``gave the British a large amount of trouble.'' That
account says that on Aug. 27, 1776, as the Battle of Long Island raged to
the west in Brooklyn, ``The din of the cannonballing could be heard'' in Bay
Shore.

The Name Game: The Indians called Bay Shore Panothicut or Penataquit, which
experts believe meant ``crooked creek.'' The primitive early colony had no
particular name, but some accounts say - without elaboration - that it was
called Sodom in the early 19th Century. It was known as Mechanicsville by
1842, probably, historians say, for the men who worked in mills and
boatyards there. The name was changed back to Penataquit in 1849, but the
Indian name proved unpopular because it was too difficult to spell. ``Bay
Shore'' arrived in 1868 to reflect the community's location on the shore of
the bay just as the era of summer tourism was starting.

Turning Points: In the mid-19th Century, hotels began to spring up, and by
the 1880s, rail service and summer visitors expedited change. This was a
gentle time of gaslight and horse-drawn carriages, summer estates and
bicycle riding, sailboats and steam trains. Southside Hospital, begun in
Babylon in 1913, was moved to Bay Shore in 1923. The hamlet had a brief
fling as a movie production center in 1915 and 1916, but one thing that did
stick was the regular Bay Shore-Fire Island ferry service, which began in
1862. Bay Shore remained a vibrant business and residential center through
the 1950s, fading in the 1960s with the rise of major shopping centers, a
decline the community is still trying to reverse.

Larry in sunny warm Alaska



This thread: