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EARLY HISTORY 
 
 SUFFOLK COUNTY, L. I. 
 
 By Hon. HENRY NICOLL. 
 
 J^ F^PER 
 
 BEAD BUFOBE T iTir. 
 
 NOVEMBER 16, 1865. 
 
 I^ioohlgn : 
 PRINTED FOR THE SOCIET?. 
 
 X866. 
 
EARLY HISTORY 
 
 SUFFOLK COUNTY, L. I. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen, Members of the Long 
 Island Historical Society : 
 
 Having been invited by the Agricultural Society of Suffolk 
 County to deliver the customary address at their recent Fair, I 
 deemed the occasion not an improper one for an inquiry into 
 the causes which have operated in impeding the development 
 of the resources of the eastern part of Long Island and in 
 giving to its people a distinctive character from the rest of 
 our State. 
 
 These causes are, in my opinion, to be found in the politi- 
 cal history of two centuries ago ; the events of that day when 
 Long Island became a part of the royal province of New 
 York have exercised a marked influence in keeping the people 
 of Suffolk county in a condition of comparative isolation 
 which is far from yet having ended. 
 
 It is true that within the past few years a large immigra- 
 tion has been flowing into the county, attracted thither by 
 the soft and genial climate of the shores of the Sound and of 
 the seaside ; and the influence of this additional population 
 upon the habits, manners, and modes of thought of the 
 people is, undoubtedly, every year, becoming more manifest — 
 still, it must be admitted that, even at this present day, there 
 is no part of our State where there has been so little change 
 since the old colonial, pre-revolutionary times, or where there 
 are so many communities which have retained the primitive 
 
habits and manners, and, may I not add, the simple virtues 
 of their ancestors. 
 
 In the address referred to, I endeavored, as far as the 
 limited time which I could properly devote to the subject in 
 an address on agricultural matters would permit, to trace 
 these causes, and to show how they had tended to produce 
 the effects which, in my opinion, flowed from them. My 
 examination of the subject, however, for the reasons already 
 given, was necessarily cursory, and I was scarcely able 
 to do more than glance at topics which deserve a more 
 careful and extended consideration. 
 
 Some kind, but, perhaps, too partial friends, thinking that 
 the subject, treated by me, even in this imperfect manner, 
 would not be uninteresting to the members of the Long 
 Island Historical Society, have asked me to read, before your 
 body, so much of the address as relates to the matters 
 in question. While fully appreciating the compliment im- 
 plied by this request, I have yielded to it with some reluc- 
 tance, fearing that what I have written will scarcely suit the 
 critical taste of those who are accustomed to a minute in- 
 vestigation of early historic periods and of their influence 
 upon later ages. I can only regret that I have not ,had the 
 time to amplify the subject, and, instead of a hasty and 
 generalizing sketch, to have worked up, out of the rich ma- 
 terials at hand, a more complete and accurate paper. 
 
 May I venture to express the hope that, at no distant day, 
 this may be done by some other and abler hand ? 
 
 After some remarks of a local character, in relation to the 
 Fair then in process of exhibition, the address proceeded as 
 follows : 
 
 Shall I wound the pride of my audience if I say that, in 
 view of their great natural advantages, the people of Suffolk 
 county have not made a progress commensurate with them. 
 With a varied and fertile soil ; with a climate as salubrious 
 as any that can be found on the face of the globe ; the 
 mighty ocean on one side, and the blue sound on the other, 
 
tempering alike the heats of summer and the rigors of win- 
 ter ; with the great metropolis of the nation within a few 
 hours' reach, why is it that the eastern part of Long Island 
 has not advanced like other portions of the state ? Why is it 
 that while most, if not all our towns were settled more than 
 a century and several of them two centuries ago, there still 
 exists within their boundaries so many acres of untilled 
 land ? Why is it that, while the great wave of progress which 
 has gone over the breadth and length of our country, from 
 the East to the West, until the Pacific coast itself is alive 
 with the advancing civilization of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
 scarcely more than a ripple has been made by it on the quiet 
 stream of our existence ? The fact, unpalatable as it may 
 be, must be confessed that,_while all outside our boundaries 
 has been to a greater or less extent advancing, we have com- 
 paratively been standing still. 
 
 I propose, although, perhaps, at the risk of dwelling upon 
 matters not strictly suitable to an occasion like this, to ex- 
 amine very briefly into what I deem to be the causes which 
 have operated to give the people of Sufiblk county a dis- 
 tinctive character, and which have prevented that progress 
 in opening up and developing their resources, which other- 
 wise would have been made. As in my opinion these causes 
 were of early origin, and are chiefly political, I must ask of 
 you to go back with me a couple of centuries ; for, unless I 
 am greatly mistaken, events which then took place, particu- 
 larly affecting the welfare of the early settlers of this " wil- 
 derness country," as it was quaintly called by some of them, 
 continued to exercise a most serious influence adverse to the 
 best interests of this people, and that the effect of them has 
 not, even now, wholly passed away. 
 
 What European eye first saw this island of ours is neces- 
 sarily involved in uncertainty ; perhaps Cabot, that bold 
 navigator, who, at the close of the fifteenth century, dis- 
 covered the continent of North America, and through whose 
 tracing of its eastern shores, along so many degrees of lati- 
 tude the British crown laid its claim to the vast territory 
 
which it afterwards acquired, may have seen the dim outline 
 of the southern coast of. Long Island ; the adventurous 
 Verezano, as he sailed along the continent a few years after- 
 wards, may also have gazed upon it. The western part of 
 the island was, as we all know, visited by Hudson nearly a 
 century afterward, when he entered the river which bears his 
 name, and probably that illustrious discoverer obtained, from 
 his intercourse with its native inhabitants, some general in- 
 formation as to the character and extent of the island. The 
 real discoverer of Long Island, however, was Adrien Block, 
 who in the little yacht, the " Eestless," built at the trading 
 post of New Amsterdam, in the year 1614, sailed through the 
 sound in that year, and made himself acquainted with the 
 geographical formation of the island. Block was the first 
 navigator who had ventured into these waters, and it was 
 during this voyage that he discovered the island which still 
 bears his name. 
 
 In the autumn of the same year the West India Company 
 were incorporated by the states general of Holland as a 
 trading corporation, and the Netherlands placed under their 
 charge. On the map of their territory, published a couple 
 of years after, in Holland, Long Island is laid down with 
 sufficient accuracy to enable us to perceive that its position 
 and general geographical character had been ascertained by 
 the Dutch navigators. New Amsterdam, at the mouth of 
 the Hudson, the nucleus of our great city of New York, was 
 formally established by the West India Company as a trad- 
 ing post at the close of 1614 ; the Dutch at once proceeded, 
 with considerable vigor, to send colonists to the province ; 
 settlements were soon established on the western part of 
 Long Island, and probably within a few years the authorities 
 of the West India Company had explored the whole island, 
 and had become acquainted with its topography and character. 
 
 As early as the year 1640 we find a Dutch traveller who 
 had visited the province describing Long Island as the 
 very crown of New Netherlands. In fact, its natural ad- 
 vantages and resources were well understood by the Dutch, 
 
but not all the alluring descriptions of its material wealth, 
 its timber, its vast production of shell-fisb, out of which the 
 wampun, or seawan, the Indians' money could be made, and be 
 profitably exchanged with them for furs and skins, seem to 
 have tempted the Hollander to venture within the recesses of 
 the eastern part of the island. There were never any Dutch 
 settlements farther east than the western limits of Oyster 
 Bay, in Queens county ; and, even on the western part of the 
 island, in close contiguity with New Amsterdam itself, there 
 were many English communities established which unwil-^ 
 lingly acknowledged the Dutch authority ; in fact, the Eng- 
 lish were to be found more or less scattered throughout the 
 Dutch possessions, as well on the island as on the main. 
 
 I do not propose to detain you by an account of the dis-' 
 putes which began at an early day between the New England 
 people and their Dutch neighbors. Undoubtedly the former 
 acling under that mysterious instinct which seems to have 
 been implanted within them for providential purposes, were 
 constantly pressing on to the West, without troubling them- 
 selves much as to who were the rightful owners of the land 
 which they might occupy. It would be difficult to charac- 
 terize many of their settlements on the main land as anything 
 less than direct and unjustifiable encroachments upon terri- 
 tory of which the Dutch were not only the discoverers, but of 
 which they were in the actual possession : but it was far dif' 
 ferent with this eastern part of Long Island ; what European 
 nation was its discoverer was a question on which men might 
 differ ; but assuredly it had never been actually, and prob- 
 ably not even constructively, occupied by the Dutch. So 
 early as the year 1618 the Earl of Sterling obtained a convey- 
 ance of the whole of Long Island from the British Crown. 
 Under a grant from this nobleman, made by his agent in the 
 year 1639, and confirmed in the same year by himself, the 
 entire part of Long Island, lying easterly of the Peconic river, 
 was conveyed to Edward Howell, Daniel How, and Job Say- 
 er, in trust for themselves and their assooiateSi 
 
 The country was then emphatically a wilderness, occupied 
 
8 
 
 sparsely by the native Indians. These New England men-" 
 they were all of the old Puritan stock — ^immediately took 
 active measures for the settlement of the extensive territory 
 granted to them. The hardy pioneers came from the main 
 land and within a few years settlements were formed at East 
 Hampton, South Hampton, and Southold. During the 
 twenty years which preceded the reduction of the province 
 of New Netherlands by the expedition fitted out by the 
 Duke of York, there had been a large influx of people 
 from the main shore to the eastern part of the island. The 
 three towns already mentioned had been organized into well- 
 established communities. Setalkat, first known by the names 
 of Ashford and Cromwell's Bay ; and at a later date, and 
 after the conquest, created by Colonel Nicolls a town by the 
 name of Brook Haven, had already attracted a considerable 
 number of settlers, in fact the whole coast, from the eastern- 
 most extremity of the island quite up to the western limits 
 of Oyster Bay, was dotted with settlements made from the 
 main. So early as 1660 East Hampton, South Hampton and 
 Southold were formally, upon the express request of their 
 inhabitants, annexed to and becama component parts of the 
 colonies of Connecticut and New Haven. 
 
 Setalkat's representative sat in the General Court at Hart- 
 ford, and in fact the whole people, as well of these towns as 
 of the thinly scattered settlement,, along our shores, and 
 within the interior of the island, knew no other government 
 save those already mentioned, and were virtually and actually 
 within the jurisdictior of these flourishing colonies which 
 shortly after were constituted by their charter a single gov- 
 ernment under the name of Connecticut. These Long Island 
 settlements were as much under the protection of Connecti- 
 cut as the outlying settlements far up the Connecticut, or 
 Fresh Eiver, as it was then called, or those adventurous men 
 who had pushed so far to the West that they stood almost 
 face to face with the Dutch. All alike recognized the gov- 
 ernment at Hartford and New Haven as their common mother 
 
to whom their allegiance was due and from whom thfiy Wer^ 
 entitled to protection. 
 
 In the year 1662 Charles the Second granted to the 
 people of Connecticut a charter as free and democratic 
 in its spirit and provisions as any constitution of modem 
 times. That a grant like this should have been obtained 
 from a monarch, such as Charles the Second very shortly 
 after proved himself to be, may naturally excite our sur- 
 prise, but it must be remembered that the father of John 
 Winthrop, the governor of the colony, had rendered great 
 services to the unfortunate father of Charles, and this char- 
 ter, so valuable to the people of Connecticut, may have been 
 obtained through the personal influence of their governor 
 with the monarch. Moreover the grant was made very 
 shortly after an ^equally free charter had been given to 
 Rhode Island, and not long after Charles the Second's acces- 
 sion to his throne. Perhaps it was his policy, in making 
 these liberal grants, to stand well with the great Puritan or 
 Republican party which, although defeated and fallen, con- 
 stituted no insignificant part of the people of Great Britain ; 
 it was certainly not an unwise act on the part of the King to 
 conciliate them by the concession, to a couple of small and dis* 
 taut colonies of privileges which would upon no consideration 
 have been granted to his subjects at home. Be this as it may, 
 the charter of Connecticut, recognizing as it did, in the 
 largest sense the principles of free government, was eminently 
 calculated to promote the interests of the people to whom it 
 was granted. By its provisions they enjoyed the right of 
 governing themselves, of directing their own concerns, with- 
 out interference on the part of the Crown ; they elected all 
 their officers from the governor to the lowest magistrate ; 
 their dependence upon the Government of Great Britain was 
 scarcely more than nominal. 
 
 Such was in fact the government under which the people 
 of Suffolk county had been living for more than two years 
 when the expedition, fitted out for the reduction of the 
 New Netherlands, arrived upon our shores. This act of 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 James, the Duke of York, and in which his brother 
 Charles, the King, participated, cannot be characterized 
 as anything less than one of barefaced spoliation. In a time 
 of profound peace and under a pretext so flimsy that no 
 statesman or publicist would dare to defend it, the Duke 
 of York sends a hostile squadron to the New Netherlands 
 and by mere brute force wrests from its lawful owners a terri- 
 tory of which they had been in the undisputed possession for 
 more than half a century. How bitterly the dissolute and 
 mercenary Charles was, a few years afterwards, made to feel 
 the consequences of this unjust and unprovoked invasion I 
 need not stop to inquire ; suffice it to say the day shortly 
 came when De Ruyter's flag flouted the Thames ; when 
 the arsenals of the King and his dock-yards were burned by 
 the victorious Dutch, and the British fleet ignominiously 
 scattered over the seas. 
 
 But our business is with Long Island and I must hurry 
 on lest I weary your patience. The conquest of the New 
 Netherlands was a sad misfortune to the English settlements 
 on Long Island. Directly after the surrender of the city of 
 New Amsterdam by its gallant old governor, Peter Stuyvesant, 
 Colonel Nicolls, the commander of the expedition, who had 
 been intrusted with the government, entered into negotiations 
 with the governor of Connecticut for a settlement of the 
 boundaries of the respective provinces ; commissioners were 
 appointed on either side ; the negotiation resulted in permitting 
 Connecticut to establish a western boundary within twenty 
 miles of the Hudson river, which was far nearer that river than 
 the province had ever before claimed the right to go, but in 
 exchange for this grant, and it pains me while I say it, the 
 whole of Long Island, without reservation, was transferred 
 to the tender mercies of the Duke of York. It does not 
 appear that the people most interested were consulted in re- 
 gard to this measure so destructive to everything that was 
 dear to them. Verily were they stricken down in the house 
 of their friends. 
 
 When made acquainted with the fact they were curtly told 
 
11 
 
 in reply to tLeir remonstrancee, that in the charter of his most 
 sacred Majesty to his grasping brother, Long Island had 
 been expressly, and by name, included as a part of the terri- 
 tory granted ; it did not seem to be convenient to those who 
 made this specious excuse for an unwarranted and most cruel 
 act, to remember that in the same grant all the land from the 
 west side of the Connecticut river to the Delaware bay had 
 also been similarly conveyed, and which covered no inconsid- 
 erable part of the colony of Connecticut. 
 
 There is very little doubt that Connecticut was a large 
 gainer by the result of this negotiation, and that she could well 
 afford to give up her outlying settlements on Long Island in 
 exchange for a perfect title to so large and fertile a territory 
 on the main. A century after we find the historian Smith 
 characterizing this settlement as having been made in igno- 
 rance and fraud, and in the controversies which afterwards 
 arose between the governments of New York and Connecti- 
 cut, as to their boundary line, the latter were openly charged 
 with having taken, by reason of their superior and more accu- 
 rate knowledge of the country, an unfair advantage in their 
 conferences with the commissioners acting in behalf of the 
 province of New York. 
 
 But let us for a single moment glance at the condition 
 to which the people of Long Island had been reduced by 
 this most unkind treatment on the part of those to whom 
 they had the right to look for protection. From being 
 the members of one of the freest governments on the face 
 of the earth, they were by the stroke of a pen, made 
 the subjects of a merciless, heartless despot — a man who 
 though forced at the time to be in outward observances a 
 Protestant, was by his instincts and education a Papist, a 
 roan who under the narrow and uncharitable dogmas of that 
 day regarded every one who did not believe in the doctrines of 
 the Church of Kome as a heretic worthy of punishment in 
 this world, and sure of eternal condemnation in the next. 
 
 I must confess that in reading the history of these times I am 
 always struck with surprise, that this act of the provincial 
 
12 
 
 commissioners is passed over as of little importance ; I can- 
 not but regard it as sullying, in no small degree, the memory 
 of John Winthrop, and I grieve to say so because this illus- 
 trious governor of Connecticut in his wise and vigorous ad- 
 ministration of the affairs of that colony has earned for him- 
 self so great a name that it is painful to say anything in 
 disparagement of him. 
 
 In the meanwhile Connecticut waxed and grew fat ; a vast 
 immigration came to her shores and her progress in every re- 
 spect was marked and worthy of the free institutions under 
 which her people lived and prospered. Turn we, however, to 
 our own people ; the tide of immigration which had been set- 
 ting to our shores from the main was at once stopped, nor could 
 it be otherwise ; uo man in his senses would exchange the 
 freedom of a New England Colony, for the practical servitude 
 which he must live under in this royal province where the 
 people were governed by the deputy of the Duke of York 
 under such laws as he and his master might think fit to enact. 
 The Englishman's birthright to make his own laws was denied 
 to the people of this colony ; they were completely at the feet 
 of their master. That a community so governed could grow 
 in numbers and wealth was a sheer impossibility ; accordingly 
 from the time of the conquest of the province and until long 
 after the Stuart dynasty had been subverted, we have con- 
 tinued complaints of the stagnation of the province, and of 
 its slow rate of progress when compared with its freer neigh- 
 bors. 
 
 The people of the eastern part of the island were sullen 
 and discontented, chafing under the rule which had been im- 
 posed upon them ; with no feelings of friendship towards the 
 other inhabitants of the province, entertaining a deep sense 
 of the wrong which had been done to them, how sadly must 
 they have turned their eyes to the main land across the sound, 
 their old home and with which they had been so closely al- 
 lied ; they could not look for sympathy or comfort there ; 
 and yet the old feelings of consanguinity and fraternity could 
 not die out at once. Year after year they still hoped that 
 
13 
 
 in the j)rogress of events they might again be united with 
 their old parent, and when, in the year 1673, the province was 
 recaptured by the Dutch, the people sought, but sought in 
 vain, to be permitted to return to the old colony. The treaty 
 at Breda, in the succeeding year, dispelled all hope ; the 
 province again became a part of the British possessions and 
 our people resigned themselves to their inevitable fate. Can 
 it be wondered that a people thus treated, abandoned by 
 those whose duty it was to protect them, and regarded by 
 those under whose government they were compelled to live, 
 with indiffeience, if not contempt should have necessarily be- 
 come isolated from their fellows. 
 
 Almost the entire popxilation of the island were dissenters, 
 the established Church of England exercised complete sway 
 over the rest of the province, and flushed with the triumph of 
 her resuscitation, she not only could not forgive, but sought 
 every means to humiliate and oppress the great Puritan party, 
 her persistent and, up to that time, successful opponents. 
 
 Years rolled on, governor after governor, in his report to 
 the authorities at home, complains of the unfriendly feeling 
 of the people of the eastern part of Long Island towards the 
 Government, and of their indisposition to have any relations 
 of trade with New York. Governor Dongan, in his report on 
 the state of the province in 1687, says : "that most part of 
 the people of the island, especially towards the east end, are 
 of the same stamp with those of New England, refractory and 
 very loath to have any commerce with this place" (New York). 
 The dissolute Cornbury and other royal governors are equally 
 vehement in their denunciation of the people of Suffolk county. 
 
 In a report on the state of the established church in 
 the colony, even so late as the year 17c)4, it is stated that 
 there was not a single Episcopal church on the eastern part 
 of Long Island. Have I not said enough to satisfy you that 
 if the people of this old county are justly chargeable with 
 being a peculiar people and inclined to live by themselves 
 there are sufficient causes for their being so. 
 
 One of the necessaiy results of the absence of immigration 
 
14 
 
 was that large districts of territory throughout the proTince 
 remained in a state of nature, and being crown lands the 
 governors were peimitted to grant them to individuals. These 
 lands were taken up in large tracts and to a large extent in 
 Suffolk county. The injurious effect of this ill-judged prac- 
 tice I cannot describe better than in the language of Cadwal- 
 lader Golden, surveyor-general of the province, afterwards its 
 governor, who, in a report on the state of the lands in the 
 province in 1732, in speaking of the grants which had been 
 made with such improvident and lavish hand in this province, 
 says that "the consequence had been most injurious as to the 
 improvement of the country, for although this was settled 
 many years before Pennsylvania and some of the neighbor- 
 ing colonies, and has many advantages over them as to the 
 situation and conveniences of trade, it is not near so well 
 cultivated, nor are there such a number of inhabitants as in the 
 others in proportion to the quantity of land ; and it is chiefly, 
 if not only, where these large grants are made where the 
 country remains uncultivated, though they contain some of 
 the best lands and the most conveniently situated ; and every 
 year the people go from this province and purchase land in 
 the neighboring colonies; the reason is that the grantees them- 
 selves are not, nor ever were, in a capacity to improve such 
 large tracts ; and other people will not become their vassalH 
 or tenants, fcr one great reason of people's (the better sort 
 especially) leaving their native country was to avoid the 
 dependence on landlords, and to enjoy lands in fee to descend 
 to their posterity, that their children may reap the benefit of 
 their labor and industry." 
 
 All of us must admit the force and truth of tbese state- 
 ments of Governor Golden ; the evils complained of by him 
 existed in a marked degree in Suffolk county, and are not 
 one of the least of the causes which have retarded its de- 
 velopment. We are, it is true, gradually removing this 
 obstacle ; probably the great fire of 1862, in proving how 
 very uncertain it is that these lands can be profitably kept for 
 the wood produced upon them, vrill be found to have done 
 
15 
 
 much towards it, but it cannot be denied that the existence 
 of these large bodies of uncultivated land owned by those 
 who were unable to till them and who have not as yet been 
 willing to dispose of them has worked, through a long series 
 of years, much against the best interests of the county. 
 
 I have said that the people of this part of the state became, 
 by the force of circumstances beyond their control, an isola- 
 ted and a peculiar people ; may I not also say that if our 
 ancestore, thus shut off, alike by friend and foe, lived by 
 themselves, they nevertheless practised all those virtues 
 which nowhere are so fully exhibited as in small communi- 
 ties, where wealth is divided, where there are no overgrown 
 fortunes, where the most just earth renders wDlingly what 
 the simple wants of the tiller of the soil requires. 
 
 The pastoral age has ever been the poets' theme, that 
 golden age when man is supposed to have lived a life of 
 innocence ; although such an era has no existence, save in that 
 longing of the human heart for the purer and better life, 
 from which we have fallen, but which can never be realized, 
 we still feel that in a state of society like that which we can 
 fancy existed along the shores of this county for many years, 
 there was some approach to that old life of innocence, when 
 man dealt honestly with his fellow-man, and the earth was 
 not given up to wickedness. If indeed such a life, though it 
 may not exist, can ever be approached, it must be amongst 
 the early tillers of the soil, those sons of nature, ever living 
 with her and looking to her alone as she brings forth her va- 
 ried fruits as the source of all their blessings. These are the 
 men, indeed, of simple lives who are slow to be corrupted. 
 
 "Aureus banc vitam in terrU Saturnus agebat, 
 Necdum etiam audierant inflari classica, necdum, 
 ImpositoB durifl crepitare incudibns enses.'' 
 
 The Latin poet, Virgil, in his well-known Georgics, which 
 were written amidst the fierce conflicts that preceded and at- 
 tended the breaking up of the Roman Republic, looking at 
 the quiet life of the simple cultivators of the Italian soil, 
 
u 
 
 And feeling intensely its superiority in such times over that 
 life of warfare which was then everywhere around him, ex- 
 claims in touching and beautiful verse, that Justice, when 
 she bade adieu to the earth, left her last footsteps among the 
 farmers. 
 
 Our county, then, all frugal and primitive as she was in 
 those early years of her existence, became the fit mother to 
 rear children who, at a latei day, were to perform a noble 
 part in a wider sphere. Here the spirit of liberty did not die 
 ouc ; though our people sullenly submitted to the rule which 
 had been imposed upon them, they could not lose sight of 
 their birthright as freeborn Englishmen. 
 
 Although in the grossly unfair representation of the several 
 counties of the province in the General Assembly, Suffolk 
 county was, as might be expected, denied the full share to 
 which she was entitled by reason of her population and prop- 
 erty, she nevertheless sent her best sons to that legislative body. 
 For nineteen consecutive years William Nicoll, one of the 
 ablest of her citizens, represented Suffolk county in the Colonial 
 Assembly, and for the greater part of the time was the Speaker 
 of that body. In all the contests which arose between the 
 Assembly and the colonial government, he was uniformly 
 found on the side of the people, vigilantly looking after their 
 interests and protecting their rights from encroachment. 
 
 Let me call up also before you that heroic old man, Cap- 
 tain Samuel Mulford, who, unterrified by threats of impris- 
 onment, asserted the rights and exposed the wrongs that had 
 been done to his native county, and who, to obtain redress 
 for them, went to England, where he fearlessly denounced 
 the conduct of the colonial officials ; and not without effect. 
 His simple dress, his unaffected manners, liis serious and ear- 
 nest demeanor, obtained for him the respect of the British 
 people, and they learned to look upon him as a worthy de- 
 fender of their distant countrymen, who still practised the 
 manners and retained the virtues of their Puritan ancestors. 
 
 Mulford's memory is gratefully cherished by every one at 
 
17 
 
 all familiar with our early history. He was in truth a man 
 of whom Long Island may justly be proud. 
 
 Time rolled on, and the day approached whtn tho British 
 colonies were to assert their independence. Is it not our 
 pride to say that the sons of Suffolk county were always found 
 with a unanimity unexampled in any other part of the colony, 
 resisting the encroachments of the crown. 
 
 For the six consecutive years which preceded the revolu- 
 tion, one of the ablest opponents of the colonial government 
 in the General Assembly, was Nathaniel Woodhull, a mem- 
 ber from tho county of Suffolk. In connection with George 
 Clinton and General Schuyler, General Woodhull assisted to 
 bring about the crisis which inaugurated the Kevolution in 
 this colony. He was the President of the first Provincial 
 Congress, and dm-ing the period of his office was in fact the 
 Governor of the State of New York. You all know his un- 
 timely fate : just after the disastrous battle of Long Island, 
 while attended only by a few followers, he was surprised by a 
 body of the enemy's cavalry, and though surrendering himself 
 as a prisoner, was inhumanly cut to the ground. Shortly af- 
 terwards, languishing under his wounds, he died in a British 
 prison. Had General Woodhull lived, it cannot be doubted 
 from what we know of his many noble traits of character and 
 his earnest patriotism, that he would have been one of the 
 foremost men of the Revolution ; and William Floyd, too, who 
 represented our state in the Congress of the United States, and 
 who had as such the glorious privilege of signing the Decla- 
 ration of Independence, the neighbor and intimate friend of 
 General Woodhull ; were not these men, descended as they 
 were, both from Puritan stock, worthy of the race from which 
 they sprung ? They were indeed fit representatives of their 
 ancestors ; they embodied in themselves all those virtues and 
 energies which had been brought to our shores, and which 
 had been kept alive for more than a century when they blos- 
 somed with such glorious fruit. 
 
 The memoiy of these men, and of many others who 
 were native here, and like them embraced the cause of the 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 Eevolution, is dear to Suffolk county, and now when this 
 nation, after four years of fratricidal contest, has heen 
 able to preserve the government which our ancestors 
 formed, overthrowing the most stupendous rebellion the 
 world has ever seen, and demonstrating the intense vital- 
 ity of a free government, and its entire capacity to protect its 
 own life, as well against internal dissension, as attack from 
 without, do we not feel that those heroic men who pledged 
 their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor, to achieve 
 our independence, are doubly ennobled ? Verily were the 
 foundations of their work well laid down deep in the hearts 
 of the people, and all honor to their posterity who nearly a 
 century after, have in these glorious latter days, been able to 
 defend and preserve the rich heritage bequeathed to them, 
 and to put it on foundations which cannot be overthrown. 
 
 Pardon me if I have lingered too long on these olden 
 times of our county's history, but I know you will forgive 
 me if I have shown you how much we all have to admire in 
 the simple lives of our ancestors, and that if we cannot com- 
 pare with other parts of the state as favorably as we would 
 desire in the development of our resources, we can at least 
 look back with manly pride upon the past, and feel that in 
 the great struggle of the Revolution, our county played no in- 
 significant part. 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
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