Long Island has had a long recorded history from the first European settlements in the 17th century to today. Greatly influenced by construction of railroads in the 19th century, it experienced growth in tourism as well as the development of towns and villages into some of the first modern suburbs in the United States.
Native American settlements
At the time of European contact, the Lenape people (named the Delaware by Europeans) inhabited the western end of the Island, and spoke the Munsee dialect of the Algonquian language family. Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European to record an encounter with these people when he entered what is now New York Bay in 1524.
The eastern portion of the island was inhabited by speakers of the Mohegan-Montauk-Narragansett language group of the same language family, representing their ties to the aboriginal peoples inhabiting what is now Connecticut and Rhode Island. The area was central to the production of Wampum, providing the resources necessary for its creation.
Decades after the decline in population of Native American on Long Island, amateur anthropologist Silas Wood published a book claiming that there had been several homogenous "tribes" traditional to Long Island; they erroneously became collectively known as the Metoac, a word that has no known Native American origin and means nothing in any indigenous language on Long Island. Modern scientific scholarship has shown that there were two linguistic groups representing two cultural identities on the island, as noted above, not "13 tribes" as asserted by Wood. The Montaukett, Unkechaug, and Shinnecock nations, three Native American groups with ties to aboriginal inhabitants, still live on the island.
A Native American name for Long Island is Paumanok, meaning "The Island that Pays Tribute". More powerful tribes in the surrounding areas forced the relatively peaceful Long Islanders to give tributes and payment to avoid attacks.
Colony
Dutch and English Settlements
The western portion of Long Island was settled by the Dutch, who named it 't Lange Eylandt, which translates to the Long Island in old-Dutch. They also had early settlements in the 17th century on what are now Manhattan and Staten Island.
On April 22, 1636, Charles I of England ordered that the Plymouth Colony, which had laid claim to the island but had not settled it, give the island to William Alexander. Alexander through his agent James Farret (who personally received Shelter Island and Robins Island) in turn sold most of the eastern island to the New Haven and Connecticut colonies.
English settlers first arrived at Southold in eastern Long Island in 1636/37 and were involved in the distillation of turpentine resins. Among those who first settled in Southold were Matthew Sunderland, William Salmon, Thomas Reeve, Thomas Terrill, Thomas Benedict, and Henry Whitney, with Sunderland, Salmon, Whitney, and Benedict taking equal ownership of land tracts Sunderland had received from Farret. Lion Gardiner was among the first English settlers as he settled on Gardiners Island in 1637.
Farret arrived in New Amsterdam in 1637 to present his claim of English sovereignty and was arrested and sent to prison in Holland where he escaped. English attempted to settle at Cow Bay at what today is Port Washington in May 1640 but were arrested and released after saying they were mistaken about the title.
English settlements on the east end began in earnest shortly thereafter.
Puritans from New Haven, Connecticut, arrived in present-day Southold on October 21, 1640. Under the leadership of the Reverend John Youngs (1598–1672), with Peter Hallock, the families of Barnabas Horton ( 1600–1680), John Budd, John Conklin (1600–1684), William Wells, John Tuthill, Thomas Mapes, Richard Terry, Matthias Corwin, Robert Akerly, Zachariah Corey and Isaac Arnold planted the first English and first white settlement in eastern Long Island. They purchased the land in the summer of 1640 from an Indian tribe named the Corchaugs. The Corchaug name of what became Southold was Yenniock. Southampton was founded when settlers from Lynn, Massachusetts established residence on lands obtained from local Shinnecock Indian Nation also in 1640. The first settlers included eight men, one woman, and a boy who came ashore at Conscience Point. Dutch complaints did not matter. Officials of the Colony of New Netherland did not make immediate efforts to expel the English from such a remote place.