A Brief History of the Hamlet of New Suffolk
When the first European Settlers on Long Island’s North Fork laid out lots in the Cutchogue area in 1661, they reserved tracts for themselves in the area bounded by the East and West Creeks, Dam Meadow, and Peconic Bay, the area known today as New Suffolk, now the smallest community of Southold Town. Bounded by the bay on the south and east and otherwise surrounded by the hamlet of Cutchogue, New Suffolk’s .8 square miles, of which .1 is water, today contain 172 households, many used by long-term summer residents.
There is a post office, a three-room schoolhouse, a restaurant, an emporium, a fishing station, a marina, a working farm run by descendants the same family that started it in the 17th century, a thriving sailing school for children known as the Old Cove Yacht Club (founded in 1938), more than 30 houses over 100 years old and a tightly-knit community remarkably devoted to understanding, preserving and celebrating its sense of place.
In 1836 a local farmer named Ira Tuthill, along with three colleagues, laid out the north-south and east-west grid pattern that still defines the central area of the hamlet of New Suffolk, offering a view of the water at the end of each road. The raising of livestock was an important economic activity in the last years of the 17th century, and during much of the 18th, 19th and even the early 20th century. Salt hay was grown in the wetlands and cattle and sheep grazed in the upland meadows. Equally important to the village’s well-being, and eventually eclipsing livestock, if not all other types of agriculture, was the maritime economy.
Blessed with a fine, deep-water harbor, whose shores it shares with the surrounding village of Cutchogue, and navigable creeks, New Suffolk was a natural place for both a port and the development of industry based upon the rich fishing and shell fishing that the area afforded. The port of New Suffolk had commercial importance long before a village of any significance grew up on shore. In the 18th and 19th centuries, New Suffolk was home to shipbuilders, whose ships carried cordwood, salt, flaxseed and Long Island’s famous potatoes to New York City and other east coast ports. New Suffolk was the central shipping point on the North Fork. Ties for building the Long Island Railroad’s main line were off loaded here and sidewheeler steamers running between Montauk and New York stopped here (roundtrip $2.00).
In 1897, the John P. Holland Torpedo Boat Co. established a base in New Suffolk for trials of the SS Holland, considered the beginning of the US Navy’s modern submarine fleet. Eventually, the testing facilities were relocated across the Sound to Groton, Connecticut, but New Suffolk’s busy port and marine life continued to thrive. Thousands of tons of shellfish – oysters, clams and scallops, were processed in New Suffolk’s oyster and scallop houses, which once numbered as many as 13, from whence they were shipped all over the east coast. In the 1930s, more than a 100 people were employed in the oyster houses. The last one burned down in 1981, but the oyster and scallop fisheries had been depleted well before then. Blue crabs from New Suffolk’s creeks were enjoyed far and wide and the local fishing fleet hauled in prodigious amounts of bunker (menhaden) to become fertilizer and animal feed.
Tourism development in New Suffolk began with the construction in 1840 of the village’s first tourist hotel. Vacationers could travel from New York City by steamship to Port Jefferson, thence by stagecoach to Riverhead and New Suffolk. After the Long Island Railroad was extended to Greenport in 1844, travelers could take the train to Mattituck, then the coach or livery. By the end of the 19th century, New Suffolk boasted several tourist hotels and guest houses. Stately homes, many still in use, began to appear in the last years of the 19th century. Summer residents, vacationers, and tourists are the backbone of New Suffolk’s economy to this day.
New Suffolk Today
Though commercial activity has diminished, New Suffolk retains a strong sense of community. The New Suffolk Civic Association was founded in 1969 and brings the community together through potluck gatherings and an increasingly popular and very home grown 4th of July parade.
At the heart of the hamlet is 3.4 acres of waterfront historically occupied by docks, oyster houses and a boatyard/marina. After the last Tuthill owner sold the property in 1960 the shipyard/marina uses continued, but drastic change threatened in 1983. That year saw the first of four major expansion attempts by private developers: condominiums, an enormously enlarged marina, a second expanded marina, and most recently a “rack and stack” boatyard. All of these ventures have been abandoned due in large part to the vigorous opposition of the community. In 2005, the community took a more proactive stance through the establishment of a 501c3 organization, The New Suffolk Waterfront Fund, to explore the purchase of the property in order to preserve it for the benefit of the community. Its work with the Peconic Land Trust (PLT) led to the PLT’s purchase of the land in December, 2007. Now the task before the Waterfront Fund and the community of New Suffolk, is to raise the funds to purchase the land from the PLT and develop the property in ways that recognize its maritime heritage and preserve the beauty of the area.
Source: “The New Suffolk Story”, Marjorie Moore Butterworth, 1983
