Two decades ago, Newsday began publishing the first pages of “Long Island: Our Story,” our celebrated 273-part series that told the history of this island we call home, from the Ice Age to the Space Age. Now, 20 years later, we’re proud to once again share this remarkable story with a new generation of Long Islanders.
Newsday print subscribers can sign up today to get “Long Island: Our Story” six times a year at no extra cost.
Chapter 1
Our story
The birth of Long Island
From a glacier as tall as a skyscraper to a fish-shaped island awaiting its first inhabitants
Chapter 1 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.
In the belly of the earth
Water tunnel offers rock-hard and ages-old clues about the formation of LI
Bill Davis/Newsday
The evolution of Long Island Sound
Once a river, a valley, a lake, and recently the body of water we know today
Steven Sunshine
Long Island - Not really an island?
A decision was rendered by the Supreme Court in 1985
NASA
Washed to the sea
Despite humanity's best efforts, erosion poses a relentless threat
Bill Davis/Newsday
More floods in the future?
If sea levels keep rising, many LI communities can expect wet changes
Bill Davis/Newsday
When the island was new
Before people arrived, a pristine land of wildlife and sweet vegetation
Bill Davis/Newsday
Chapter 2
Our story
The first Long Islanders
Some 550 generations across 12 millennia occupied the Island before Europeans arrived
Chapter 2 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.
Untangling a myth
Europeans apparently mistook Indian place names for tribal labels
Steve Madden/Newsday
Masters of agriculture
Indian communities grew corn, beans, squash and tobacco in Long Island soil
Southold Indian Museum
Gods of the Indians
Old Dutch writings relate to some of what original Long Islanders believed of life and the afterlife
Boston Public Library
Keepers of a lost culture
A dying language once heard on Long Island is spoken by a few on a Canadian reserve
Bill Davis/Newsday
Jefferson's lost legacy
A robbery foils his work to save some of the Island's Algonquian language
Independence National Historical Park
Indian names were his fame
William Wallace Tooker's quest to recover lost words
Jermain Memorial Library Photo
Chapter 3
Our story
The colonial collision
A showdown develops as Dutch and English immigrants settle on opposite ends of Long Island
Part one of Chapter 3 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.
Part two of Chapter 3 is available here.
Dutch settlers left their mark
Influences of the Netherlands live on centuries later in roads, buildings and names
Bill Davis/Newsday
Blood flows, war threatens
Violence escalates as a Dutch craftsman is murdered and Indians are massacred
Stock Montage Inc.
The legend of the bull
The tale of Smithtown's borders may be apocryphal, but it makes for a good story
Robert Gaston
The Dutch welcome the English
A settlement is born in Hempstead, and its founders become wealthy
Nassau County Museum, Long Island Studies Institute
The rise of slavery
New York has the most slaves in the North, almost half of them on Long Island
The Granger Collection/Howard Pyle
Witchhunt in East Hampton
A Long Island farmer's wife is accused of witchcraft three decades before the trials in Salem
The Granger Collection
The legend of Capt. Kidd
He goes to sea with royal approval to attack England's enemies, and returns accused of piracy
Harpers Magazine
The well-kept colonies
Reaping the 'considerable' harvest of the New World's wealth on land and sea
The New York Historical Society
On the verge of war
The colonies protest new taxes from George III and clash with British troops
The Granger Collection
Chapter 4
Our story
Christopher Vail's revolution
An amazing personal story from the journal of a soldier, sailor, prisoner and patriot
Part one of Chapter 4 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.
Part two of Chapter 4 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.
The plot to kidnap Washington
One of the general's own guards joins the king's Loyalists in a wide conspiracy
National Archives
A hero's last words
'God save us all,' Nathaniel Woodhull told his attackers... Or did he?
Nassau County Museum Collection
Huntington takes on the king
By 1774, the town emerges as an energetic proponent of revolution
Julia Gaines/Newsday
Revolution's unseen rebels
Blacks fought on both sides in the War of Independence, but gained little
Ed Dwight
They signed for independence
William Floyd and Francis Lewis, the two Long Islanders who took a stand for freedom
National Archives
America celebrates its new freedom
Defeated British and Loyalists board ships to leave the U.S.
Newsday/Bill Davis
Chapter 5
Our story
A Long Island victory tour
Like the new nation, Long Island was about to begin building.
Part one of Chapter 5 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.
Part two of Chapter 5 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.
In search of whales
The last whale hunted off Long Island was killed Feb. 22, 1907, by a group of aging East Hampton whalers.
Steve Wick/Newsday
Slavery died a slow death on Long Island
Slavery was allowed to die a slow death in New York.
George DeWan/Newsday
The coming of the iron horse
The idea may have seemed simple, but it took 10 years to achieve.
Sidney C. Schaer/Newsday
The Paumanok Poet
Walt Whitman's early years on Long Island inspired the creative genius of an American literary giant.
National Archives
Long Island marches off to battle
A Roslyn attorney named Benjamin Willis formed Company H and coaxed 104 men who lived in and around Hempstead to join together.
Nassau County Museum Collection, Long Island Studies Institute
Keeping the Civil War alive
On Long Island, re-enactors remember the soldiers and fight the battles of the 1860s.
Newsday/Bill Davis
Chapter 6
Our story
Gateway to a century
The magnificent Brooklyn Bridge becomes the last great work of an age.
Part one of Chapter 6 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.
Home on the plains
Grazing land gives way to Garden City, one of the earliest planned developments.
Collection of Vincent F. Seyfried
The oyster was their world
South Shore shellfish were welcomed internationally and brought prosperity home.
Nassau County Museum Collection
Getting on track
After discovering Long Island, the LIRR pulls ahead by absorbing other lines.
Collection of Vincent F. Seyfried