Chapter III: History of Brookhaven/South Haven
Hamlets The Fire Place
The land that includes what is known today as
Brookhaven Hamlet was purchased from the Unkechogue Indians on June
10, 1664, by a group of thirty-nine buyers. Referred to as Old
Purchase at South, the land included the western part of South
Haven, all of the land in Brookhaven Hamlet and Bellport, and some
land to the north. Among the buyers were Richard Woodhull,
forefather of Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Woodhull; Richard
Floyd, grandfather of William Floyd, signer of the Declaration of
Independence; and Samuel Dayton, who was among the first white men
to live in this section. The receipt for the land is now on file in
the Brookhaven Town Hall at Patchogue and shows that the buyers paid
Tobaccos, the Unkechogue chief, with four coats and the sum of six
pounds, ten shillings the equivalent of about three hundred feet
of wampum. After the sale, the Indians still had liberty to fish and
hunt.
The part of the purchase that is today Brookhaven
Hamlet was then called Fire Place. To quote Thomas R. Bayles, The
Early Years in Brookhaven Town (1962): "The name Fire Place
was probably given to the tract of land lying west of the southern
part of the Connecticut Carmans River, which extended into the bay
and was known as Woodhulls Point. Fires were built here to guide
the whaling boats through the inlet at night from the ocean, which
was opposite here. On the banks of the river were landing places
with names such as Indian Landing, Squassacks Landing, and
Zacks Landing, where the boats brought the whales to be cut up
and tried out for their oil and bone." Legend also has it that the
fires originated with an Indian potter named Wessquassucks, and that
Squassacks Landing (today Squassux) is the area which once held his
kiln.
The Carmans River, which flows into the Great
South Bay, was centra1 to the life of other early inhabitants of
Fire Place. In the 1800s, residents harvested ice from the river.
From the marshes bordering the river, they harvested salt hay, a
major crop on Long Island in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. That same salt hay was used to camouflage hunting blinds
for winter duck shooting, which white settlers learned to do from
the Indians in the nineteenth century. And, of course, fishing,
oystering, scalloping, crabbing, clamming, and eeling have always
been important to the people of the Carmans River area.
According to the 1860 census, those who did not
look to the river for their occupation primarily engaged in farming.
The tar industry was also important. Probably since before 1678,
"tar-men" had lived in the area, manufacturing tar and turpentine
from pine trees near the northwest corner of todays Beaver Dam and
South Country roads (the area was called Tar-mens Neck).
The designation "Fire Place," which was first
mentioned in the Brookhaven Town records on March 3, 1675, endured
until about 1871, when residents voted to change the name to
Brookhaven. Listed below are some of the historical events that took
place whi1e it was still the Fire Place:
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