Long Island: Our Story / Chapters 1-5

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.

Content from chapters 6-8 of Long Island: Our Story can be found here.

Newsday print subscribers can sign up today to get “Long Island: Our Story” six times a year at no extra cost.

Chapter 1: The birth of Long Island

Chapter 1 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.

Photo Credit: Newsday / Bill Davis
In the belly of the earth

Water tunnel offers rock-hard and ages-old clues about the formation of LI.

Photo Credit: Newsday / Bill Davis
The evolution of Long Island Sound

Once a river, a valley, a lake, and recently the body of water we know today.

Photo Credit: NASA / Our Story
Long Island - Not really an island?

A decision was rendered by the Supreme Court in 1985.

Photo Credit: NASA
Washed to the sea

Despite humanity's best efforts, erosion poses a relentless threat.

Photo Credit: Newsday / Bill Davis
More floods in the future?

If sea levels keep rising, many LI communities can expect wet changes.

Photo Credit: Newsday / Bill Davis
When the island was new

Before people arrived, a pristine land of wildlife and sweet vegetation.

Photo Credit: Newsday / Bill Davis
Chapter 2: The first Long Islanders

Chapter 2 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.

Photo Credit: Bob Newman/Newsday
Untangling a myth

Europeans apparently mistook Indian place names for tribal labels.

Photo Credit: Steve Madden/Newsday
Masters of agriculture

Indian communities grew corn, beans, squash and tobacco in Long Island soil.

Photo Credit: Dorothy Raynor
Gods of the Indians

Old Dutch writings relate to some of what original Long Islanders believed of life and the afterlife.

Photo Credit: Boston Public Library
The first Long Islanders

A dying language once heard on Long Island is spoken by a few on a Canadian reserve.

Photo Credit: Newsday / Bill Davis
Jefferson’s lost legacy

A robbery foils his work to save some of the Island's Algonquian language.

Photo Credit: Independence National Historical Park
Indian names were his fame

William Wallace Tooker's quest to recover lost words.

Photo Credit: Jermain Memorial Library
Chapter 3: The Dutch and English settle colonial LI

Part one of Chapter 3 of “Long Island: Our Story” is available here.

Part two of Chapter 3 of "Long Island: Our Story" is available here.

Photo Credit: Museum of the City of New York
Dutch settlers left their mark

Influences of the Netherlands live on centuries later in roads, buildings and names.

Photo Credit: Newsday / Bill Davis
Blood flows, war threatens

Violence escalates as a Dutch craftsman is murdered and Indians are massacred.

Photo Credit: Stock Montage Inc.
Learn the legend behind an LI town's name

The tale of Smithtown's borders may be apocryphal, but it makes for a good story.

Photo Credit: Robert Gaston
The Dutch welcome the English

A settlement is born in Hempstead, and its founders become wealthy.

Photo Credit: Nassau County Museum, LI Studies
The rise of slavery

New York has the most slaves in the North, almost half of them on Long Island.

Photo Credit: The Granger Collection / Howard Pyle
Before Salem, LI held its own witch trials

A Long Island farmer's wife is accused of witchcraft three decades before the trials in Salem.

Photo Credit: The Granger Collection
Chapter 4: Christopher Vail's revolution

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.

Photo Credit: The American Revolution: A Picture Sourcebook
The plot to kidnap George Washington

One of the general's own guards joins the king's Loyalists in a wide conspiracy.

Photo Credit: National Archives
A hero’s last words

'God save us all,' Nathaniel Woodhull told his attackers... Or did he?

Photo Credit: Nassau County Museum Collection
Huntington takes on the king

By 1774, the town emerges as an energetic proponent of revolution.

Photo Credit: Newsday / Julia Gaines
Revolution's unseen rebels

Blacks fought on both sides in the War of Independence, but gained little.
They signed for independence

William Floyd and Francis Lewis, the two Long Islanders who took a stand for freedom.

Photo Credit: National Archives/National Parks
America celebrates its new freedom

Defeated British and Loyalists board ships to leave the U.S.

Photo Credit: Newsday/Bill Davis
Chapter 5: A Long Island victory tour

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.

Photo Credit: Roslyn Public Schools
In search of whales

The last whale hunted off Long Island was killed Feb. 22, 1907, by a group of aging East Hampton whalers.

Photo Credit: Sag Harbor Whaling Museum
Slavery died a slow death on LI

Slavery was allowed to die a slow death in New York.

Photo Credit: The Granger Collection
The coming of the iron horse

The idea may have seemed simple, but it took 10 years to achieve.

Photo Credit: Nassau County Museum Collection
The Paumanok Poet

Walt Whitman's early years on Long Island inspired the creative genius of an American literary giant.

Photo Credit: National Archives
LI marches off to battle

A Roslyn attorney formed Company H and coaxed 104 men who lived in and around Hempstead to join together.

Photo Credit: Nassau County Museum Collection
Keeping the Civil War alive

On Long Island, re-enactors remember the soldiers and fight the battles of the 1860s.

Photo Credit: Newsday/Bill Davis