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GREAT RIVER
The hamlet of Great River was formerly known as Youngsport. Here, Erastus Youngs built and repaired boats, which he launched in the Connetquot River. In the 1840s the Youngs family lived about one and a half miles south of the Montauk Highway on Great River Road.
It is known that Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt purchased the Youngs home and donated the property to the Trinity Parish in Brooklyn, New York to be used as a summer camp for city children. It was known as "Seaside Camp."
About the year 1870 the name Youngsport was changed to Great River. The two-hundred-ninety-acre Timber Point Farm, owned by William Lawrence Breeze (purchased in 1883 from William Nicoll), was on the west side of the Connetquot River. Some of the wool taken from sheep raised on this farm was spun into yarn and used to make a bedspread which still covers the bed in the Borning Room at the Walt Whitman home in Huntington. This weaving was done by Sarah C. Seaman, who married James Whitman, brother of Walt Whitman, on June 15, 1835, in Islip.
Maps
Estates
Great River Train Station
Great River Post
Office
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