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 6-9 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.
In the belly of the earth

Water tunnel offers rock-hard and ages-old clues about the formation of LI.
The evolution of Long Island Sound

Once a river, a valley, a lake, and recently the body of water we know today.
Long Island - Not really an island?

A decision was rendered by the Supreme Court in 1985.
Washed to the sea

Despite humanity's best efforts, erosion poses a relentless threat.
More floods in the future?

If sea levels keep rising, many LI communities can expect wet changes.
When the island was new

Before people arrived, a pristine land of wildlife and sweet vegetation.
Chapter 2: The first Long Islanders

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

Europeans apparently mistook Indian place names for tribal labels.
Masters of agriculture

Indian communities grew corn, beans, squash and tobacco in Long Island soil.
Gods of the Indians

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

A dying language once heard on Long Island is spoken by a few on a Canadian reserve.
Jefferson’s lost legacy

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

William Wallace Tooker's quest to recover lost words.
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.
Dutch settlers left their mark

Influences of the Netherlands live on centuries later in roads, buildings and names.
Blood flows, war threatens

Violence escalates as a Dutch craftsman is murdered and Indians are massacred.
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.
The Dutch welcome the English

A settlement is born in Hempstead, and its founders become wealthy.
The rise of slavery

New York has the most slaves in the North, almost half of them on Long Island.
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.
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.
The plot to kidnap George Washington

One of the general's own guards joins the king's Loyalists in a wide conspiracy.
A hero’s last words

'God save us all,' Nathaniel Woodhull told his attackers... Or did he?
Huntington takes on the king

By 1774, the town emerges as an energetic proponent of revolution.
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.
America celebrates its new freedom

Defeated British and Loyalists board ships to leave the U.S.
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.
In search of whales

The last whale hunted off Long Island was killed Feb. 22, 1907, by a group of aging East Hampton whalers.
Slavery died a slow death on LI

Slavery was allowed to die a slow death in New York.
The coming of the iron horse

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

Walt Whitman's early years on Long Island inspired the creative genius of an American literary giant.
LI marches off to battle

A Roslyn attorney formed Company H and coaxed 104 men who lived in and around Hempstead to join together.
Keeping the Civil War alive

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