EARLY SETTLERS OF
LAKE RONKONKOMA
First Long Islanders
Early Settlers
Beach Resort
Home
EARLY SETTLERS
The early settlers of Long Island were mostly people of English descent who had come from Massachusetts in the 1600s. Growth was generally slow in the lake area. They were in no hurry to leave the safety of the Long Island Sound where they had access to boats to carry them away in case of danger. It is no wonder, therefore, that Lake Ronkonkoma, which was a mere six miles from the shores of Setauket, remained unsettled for almost a hundred years. A 1795 survey reported five houses north of the lake and none to the south. In 1834, a Coastal Survey Map gave evidence of fewer than a dozen houses scattered around the lake.
In 1655, the Setaukets Tribe was the first to sell its land to the white man. The price was 10 coats, 12 hoes, 12 hatchets, 50 muves (broad awks for drilling wampum), 100 needles, 6 kettles, 10 fathoms of wampum, 7 parcels of powder, a pair of stockings (for a child), 10 pounds of lead, and a dozen knives. The Indians retained the right to hunt, fish, and in some instances, live on the land. It is doubtful that the Indians really understood the meaning of the sale since they had no concept of individual ownership of land as practiced by white men. Before the white man eventually settled in the lake area, however, many Indians had died of small pox and other diseases brought overseas by the settlers.
Each settler contributed part of the purchase price and received shares in proportion to the amount contributed. These purchases from the Indians were not legally recognized and it was necessary to obtain patents from the king confirming the titles and set boundaries. Patents were granted to William Nicholl (Islip), Richard Bull Smith (Smithtown), Richard Woodhull and several others for Brookhaven.
Islip, Smithtown, and Brookhaven formed separate townships with the right to purchase land beginning at the shoreline of Lake Ronkonkoma. This precluded the possibility of ever having a single community with the lake as its natural center.
The patents were drawn up in England and did not always follow exactly the lines agreed to by the settlers. This led to boundary disputes between the townships in later years. Roughly speaking, the land abutting the rim of Lake Ronkonkoma in the Brookhaven section originally belonged to the Setauket and Unkechaug Tribes, in Smithtown, the Nissequogues, and in Islip, the Secatogs.
The name Ronkonkoma, which was spelled many different ways, was not used excepting in reference to the lake itself, although in the Smithtown records we find the land around Spectacle Pond called the Ronconkomy Plains and other parcels of land mentioned as being in the vicinity of Ronkonkomy Pond.
Records are incomplete since early settlers used family burial plots, but we do know that people lived on the Smithtown side of the lake in the 1740s.
Regarding early Smithtown history, descendants of the Richard (Bull) Smith family of founding fame, found their way to the shores of lake Ronkonkoma, One Smithtown reference mentions a sale of property in 1734 to Thomas Biggs by Capt. E. Smith, lying on the north side of Rongconcoma pond not coming within four road of ye said pond (66 feet).
BOUNDARIES OF LAKE RONKONKOMA