dDMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 59 



vial meadows and marshes fronted the turbulent North Sea. Many^of 

 them had been mariners and fishermen by occupation, as their fathers had 

 been before them; and from generations of descent not less than by per- 

 sonal habitudes, they had inherited or acquired much of the sturdy self- 

 reliance, the dauntless courage, the unshrinking fortitude, the bold spirit 

 of restless enterprise, the physical vigor and the strong, stout, active man- 

 hood, which characterized the British sailor at his best estate. How large 

 a share of these sterling elements of moral and physical stamina were add- 

 ed to and immovably embedded in the character of the present population 

 of this county, no man can accurately estimate; but the indelible impress 

 of these grand qualities has always been and still is plainly discernible in 

 the lives and careers of every generation that has succeeded the first settlers. 

 From their prolific loins have gone out multitudes to blaze the way Of 

 coming civilization in all the spreading wilderness that has since been sub_ 

 dued and made to blossom as the rose, westward, northward and south- 

 ward from the Mohawk Valley toward the setting sun. Everywhere, as 

 one travels over the vast area which comprehends our Uncle Samuel's wide 

 domain, he either meets or hears of descendants from Suffolk county fam- 

 ilies, some of them foremost in the ranks of workers and thinkers. The 

 spirit which impelled them to face known and unknown perils, to endure 

 years of grievous privation and toil, and to encounter, sometimes single- 

 handed, all the hazards and the hardships of frontier life, was largely re- 

 cruited from the sailors and the fishermen who at some period of a more 

 or less remote antiquity had crossed dieir blood with the less swift but not 

 less healthy and pure stream that flowed in the veins of the landsmen of 

 Suffolk County. We owe to those hardy and chaste and manly seamen 

 who came over from the Suffolk of England to the Yennacook of the Long 

 Island Indians and brought to it across the sea the name beloved at home, 

 some of the noblest elements which go to make up human character. 

 Naturally, Long Island, with its extended shore line, indented 

 with its numerous bays and creeks, its abundant waters pop- 

 ulous with the finny tribes, its smiling valleys and wooded head- 

 lands green to the depth of verdure and radiant under the sunlight of 

 skies more bright than those which bend over the famed land of poesy 

 and song, had an irresistible attraction to those dwellers by the low-lying 

 shores of the distant English sea. In skirting Long Island Sound they en- 

 tered Peconic Bay and at Town Harbor found the first "fair haven" of 

 their desires, where they laid the foundation of the town of Southold. Al- 

 most or quite coeval with this landing at Town Harbor, settlers from 

 other parts of New England, all of them emigrants from the old England, 

 commenced the settlement of Southampton. While no definite records 

 exist to put the facts beyond question, there seems to be good reason to 

 believe that early in the infancy of these eastern towns, and of the other 

 settlements which developed into the present towns of East-Hampton, 

 Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington, small open boats and canoes, 

 with a few of larger size and decked -over, sloop-rigged though called 

 ketches and pinnaces, were built from the native woods, with sails and 

 rigging made stoutly though to modern eyes uncouthly, by men who had 

 but slight acquaintance with the arts of either sail or rope making; but 

 zeal and perseverance overcame all obstacles and they put together sub- 

 stantial and staunch craft, however clumsy or slow, and in them they 

 voyaged to New York, New Haven, Hartford, and even as far as to Bos- 



