LAKE RONKONKOMA
History
Myth
Formation
Photos
Links
Long Island has contributed a great many interesting people to the history of our country, and Lake Ronkonkoma has also played an important role in its early settlement.
Lake Ronkonkoma has been called a place of haunting mystery. Indians and white men alike wondered about its source of pure fresh water and its unexplained tendency to rise and fall periodically with no apparent relationship to the local rainfall. At times, when the corn was standing parched in the fields, the lake would continue to rise. At other times of excessive rainfall, the level of the lake would fall.
Many legends, myths, and superstitions about Lake Ronkonkoma were based on the theory that the lake was bottomless. One of the better-known stories told of a man who dropped a weighted fishing line into the hole in the lake and failed to reach bottom. With retelling, the length of the line grew to be a thousand feet, but the story was accepted as being true. There is another story about a wagon that disappeared in the hole and was later found in the Great South Bay.
Indian legends about the lake have a number of variations and different endings. However, a recurrent theme runs through all of them telling about someone who had been thwarted in a love affair and killed him/herself in the lake. His/her body was later found in a different body of water.
Lake Ronkonkoma continues to be a place of the unforgettable and unknown. . .
