[edit]
Fire Island Lighthouse, east of Robert Moses field 5
Etymology[edit]
The origin of Fire Island's name is uncertain. It is believed its Native American name was Sictem Hackey ("Land of the Secatogues"). The Secatogues were a tribe in the area of the current town of Islip. It was part of what was also called the "Seal Islands".
The name of Fire Island first appeared on a deed in 1789.
Historian Richard Bayles suggests that the name derives from a misinterpretation or corruption of the Dutch word vijf ("five"), or in another version vier ("four"), referring to the number of islands near the Fire Island inlet, a view echoed by Robert Caro, who suggests in The Power Broker that the island was named to reflect four inlets that have since disappeared. At times histories have referred to it in the plural, as "Fire Islands", because of the inlet breaks.
While the western portion of the island was referred to as Fire Island for many years, the eastern portion was referred to as Great South Beach until 1920, when widespread development caused the whole land mass to be called Fire Island.
Settlement[edit]
The Fire Island National Seashore during Spring
Indigenous Native Americans lived on Long Island and Fire Island for many centuries before Europeans arrived. There exists a myth that the islands were occupied by "thirteen tribes" "neatly divided into thirteen tribal units, beginning with the Canarsie who lived in present-day Brooklyn and ending with the Montauk on the far eastern end of the island."[citation needed] But modern ethnographic research indicates that before the European invasion, Long Island and Fire Island were occupied by "indigenous groups [...] organized into village systems with varying levels of social complexity. They lived in small communities that were connected in an intricate web of kinship relations [...] there were probably no native peoples living in tribal systems on Long Island until after the Europeans arrived. [...] The communities appear to have been divided into two general culture areas that overlapped in the area known today as the Hempstead Plains [...]. The western groups spoke the Delaware-Munsee dialect of Algonquian and shared cultural characteristics such as the longhouse system of social organization with their brethren in what is now New Jersey and Delaware. The linguistic affiliation of the eastern groups is less well understood [...] Goddard [...] concluded that the languages here are related to the southern New England Algonquian dialects, but he could only speculate on the nature of these relationships [...]. Working with a few brief vocabulary lists of Montauk and Unquachog, he suggested that the Montauk might be related to Mohegan-Pequot and the Unquachog might possibly be grouped with the Quiripi of western Connecticut. The information on the Shinnecock was too sparse for any determination [...] The most common pattern of indigenous life on Long Island prior to the intervention of the whites was the autonomous village linked by kinship to its neighbors."
"Most of the 'tribal' names with which we are now familiar do not appear to have been recognized by either the first European observers or by the original inhabitants until the process of land purchases began after the first settlements were established. We simply do not know what these people called themselves, but all the ethnographic data on North American Indian cultures suggest that they identified themselves in terms of lineage and clan membership. [...] The English and Dutch were frustrated by this lack of structure because it made land purchase so difficult. Deeds, according to the European concept of property, had to be signed by identifiable owners with authority to sell and have specific boundaries on a map. The relatively amorphous leadership structure of the Long Island communities, the imprecise delineation of hunting ground boundaries, and their view of the land as a living entity to be used rather than owned made conventional European real estate deals nearly impossible to negotiate. The surviving primary records suggest that the Dutch and English remedied this situation by pressing cooperative local sachems to establish a more structured political base in their communities and to define their communities as "tribes" with specific boundaries [...] The Montauk, under the leadership of Wyandanch in the mid-seventeenth century, and the Matinnecock, under the sachems Suscaneman and Tackapousha, do appear to have developed rather tenuous coalitions as a result of their contact with the English settlers."
"An early example of [European] intervention into Native American political institutions is a 1664 agreement wherein the East Hampton and Southampton officials appointed a sunk squaw named Quashawam to govern both the Shinnecock and the Montauk."
William "Tangier" Smith held title to the entire island in the 17th century, under a royal patent from Thomas Dongan. The remnants of Smith's Manor of St. George are open to the public in Shirley, New York. "On May 25, 1691 Col. William "Tangier" Smith purchased from the Indian, John Mayhew the enormous acreage, later to be known as the Manor of St. George. He then set aside 175 acres of the land occupied by the Unkechaug Indians on the west side of the Mastic (Forge) River at Poosepatuck Creek to be theirs for the annual rent of two ears of corn. The Poosepatuck Indian Reservation is still in existence today, however it has shrunk to 55 acres due to unscrupulous land dealings by early officials."
The first large house was built in 1795 in Cherry Grove by Jeremiah Smith. Smith was said to have lured ships to their doom and killed the crews.
In the early 19th century when slavery in New York was still legal, slave runners built stockades on the island by the Fire Island Inlet.
The first Fire Island Lighthouse was built in 1825 and was replaced by the current lighthouse in 1858.
In 1855, David S. S. Sammis bought 120 acres (0.49 km2) near the Fire Island Lighthouse and built the Surf Hotel at what today is Kismet. Sammis operated the hotel until 1892, when the state took it over. In 1908, it became the first state park on Long Island.
In 1868, Archer and Elizabeth Perkinson bought the land around Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines. They built a hotel in 1880.
In 1887, the Life-Saving Service established 11 staffed lifesaving stations on the island.
In 1892, troops were called out to suppress a potential riot at Democrat Point over a cholera panic.
In 1908, Ocean Beach was established, followed by Saltaire in 1910.
In 1921, the Perkinsons sold the land around Cherry Grove in small lots. Bungalows from the newly closed Camp Upton in Yaphank were ferried over the Great South Bay to build the new community. Duffy's Hotel was built in 1930.
The Great Hurricane of 1938 devastated much of the island and made it appear undesirable to many. However, Duffy's Hotel remained relatively undamaged. According to legend, the gay population began to concentrate in Cherry Grove at Duffy's Hotel with Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Auden dressed as Dionysus and Ganymede and carried aloft on a gilded litter by a group of singing followers. The gay influence was continued in the 1960s when male model John B. Whyte developed Fire Island Pines. The Pines currently has some of the most expensive property on the island and accounts for two-thirds of the island's swimming pools.
In 1964, Robert Moses built the Captree Causeway to the western end of the island. Opponents, fearing that this was the beginning of plans for the continuation of Ocean Parkway, which would have run down the middle of the island, organized and eventually stopped the parkway.
In September 1964, Lyndon Johnson signed a bill creating Fire Island National Seashore.
Shipwrecks[edit]
On May 17, 1850, Margaret Fuller, her husband Ossoli, and their young son Angelino, began a five-week return voyage to the United States aboard the ship Elizabeth, an American merchant freighter carrying cargo that included mostly marble from Carrara. They set sail on May 17. At sea, the ship's captain, Seth Hasty, died of smallpox. Angelino contracted the disease and recovered.
Possibly because of the inexperienced first mate now serving as captain, the ship slammed into a sandbar less than 100 yards from Fire Island on July 19, 1850, around 3:30 am Many of the other passengers and crew members abandoned ship. The first mate, Mr. Bangs, urged Fuller and Ossoli to try to save themselves and their child as he himself jumped overboard, later claiming he believed Fuller had wanted to be left behind to die. On the beach, people arrived with carts hoping to salvage any cargo washed ashore. None made any effort to rescue the crew or passengers of the Elizabeth, though they were only 50 yards from shore. Most of those aboard attempted to swim to shore, leaving Fuller and Ossoli and Angelino some of the last on the ship. Ossoli was thrown overboard by a massive wave and, after the wave had passed, a crewman who witnessed the event said Fuller could not be seen.
Henry David Thoreau traveled to New York City at the urging of Emerson to search the shore, but neither Fuller's body nor that of her husband was ever recovered. Angelino's had washed ashore. Few of their possessions were found other than some of the child's clothes and a few letters. Fuller's manuscript on the rise and fall of the 1849 Roman Republic, which she described as "what is most valuable to me if I live of any thing", was also lost. A memorial to Fuller was erected on the beach at Fire Island in 1901 through the efforts of Julia Ward Howe. A cenotaph to Fuller and Ossoli, under which Angelino is buried, is in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The inscription reads, in part:
By birth a child of New England By adoption a citizen of Rome By genius belonging to the world
As gay village[edit]
When New York's artistic bohème began frequenting Fire Island during the Jazz Age, Ocean Beach became the locale's first gay village. Tensions between the gay (often famous) tourists and locals peaked when Antoine de Paris built an outhouse, complete with a revealing saloon door, on his land across the street from a Catholic church. Villagers arranged a provocation by sending a teenage boy to "seduce" one of Antoine's guests, and after catching the guest in flagrante, they burned down Antoine's property. After the Great Hurricane of 1938 devastated the island, the middle class moved to Saltaire, while the gay community settled in Cherry Grove.
Both Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines were established gay enclaves by the 1950s, connected by a notorious cruising area nicknamed the Meat Rack. The party-filled culture of the pre-HIV/AIDS 1970s is portrayed in Andrew Holleran's 1978 novel Dancer from the Dance. The Botel (today the Grove Hotel) was gay-friendly and ran popular afternoon "tea dances". Cherry Grove calls itself "America's First Gay and Lesbian Town". Fire Island has "an iconic gay scene" and the Grove Hotel is New York State's only hotel that prohibits those under 21 on the premises; this is legal because the hotel's entrance is through a bar.
Fire Island: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise by Jack Parlett, and Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in America's First Gay and Lesbian Town by Esther Newton chronicle the gay history of Fire Island. The gay subculture of Fire Island in the 1970s and 1980s is depicted in Faggots by Larry Kramer, and And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts. The portrayal of promiscuous sex and recreational drug use provoked controversy and was condemned by some elements within the gay community.
2009: Beach renourishment[edit]
A 2009 beach renourishment program was credited with saving the island from the full effects of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
In the winter and spring of 2009, a beach renourishment project was undertaken on Fire Island, with the cooperation of the National Park Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Towns of Brookhaven and Islip, and Fire Island residents. The program involved dredging sand from an offshore borrow area, pumping it onto the beach, and shaping the sand into an approved beach face and dune template in front of the communities of Corneille Estates, Davis Park, Dunewood, Fair Harbor, Fire Island Pines, Fire Island Summer Club, Lonelyville, Ocean Bay Park, Ocean Beach, Saltaire, and Seaview. Fire Islanders agreed to a significant property tax increase to help pay for the project, which was estimated to cost between $23 and $25 million ($6,020 per housing unit), including the cost of environmental monitoring, and was expected to add 1,400,000 cubic meters (1,800,000 cubic yards) of sand in front of the participating communities. The Towns of Brookhaven and Islip, in which the communities are located, issued bonds to pay for the project, backed by the new taxes levied by community Erosion Control Taxing Districts.
2012: Hurricane Sandy[edit]
The island was heavily damaged by the high tides associated with Hurricane Sandy in 2012, including three breaches around Smith Point County Park on the sparsely populated eastern end of the island. The biggest breach, and politically the most difficult one to deal with because it is in a wilderness area, is at Old Inlet in the Otis Pike Wilderness Area just west of Smith Point County Park. Old Inlet is at the site of previous breaches (which have come and gone on their own) and was 108 feet (33 meters) wide after the storm on the south end and 1,171 feet (357 meters) on February 28, 2013. Officials have been debating whether to close the breach and let nature take its course, as it has been flushing out the Great South Bay and improving water quality. But residents of the bayfront communities noted increased flooding after the storm. This was later found to be the result of several nor'easters and unrelated to the breaches. As of 2018, the breach remained open. Officials have moved to close the other two breaches, which are on either side of Moriches Inlet—one in Cupsogue County Park and the other in Smith Point County Park.
Reports indicated that 80 percent of the homes, particularly those on the east end, were flooded, and 90 homes were completely destroyed. The storm also tore away about 75 feet of the dune coastline. But Fire Island was not hit as hard as other areas, with most of the 4,500 homes on the island surviving even if damaged, and significant home reconstruction has taken place. Officials credited the dune replenishment program with helping to spare the island.
2025: Trump Administration National Park Service Funding cuts[edit]
After the election of President Donald Trump to a second term, funding for the National Park Service and other federal agencies came under pressure from The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). These cuts led to negative impacts for Fire Island National Seashore including staff shortages and delays to the renovation of the Fire Island Lighthouse. Protests against cuts were held on March 1, 2025, in coordination with other "Protect Your Parks Protest" events held at other NPS units across the country.
