From the Long Island shore, opposite the mouth of Connecticut River,
there protrudes northeastward an elongated and almost bisected
peninsula, ending in Orient Point. The eastern end of Long Island
divides into two arms, this being the northern one, having at its
outer extremity Plum Island, the passage between being the famous
"Plum Gut," a short cut occasionally taken by cunning yachtsmen racing
around Long Island. Orient Point was originally the "Oyster Pond
Point," its name having been modernized, and Plum Island, covering
more than a square mile, is said to have been bought from the Indians
by the first colonists in 1667 for a hundred fish-hooks and a barrel
of biscuit. A succession of islands stretches out from it over
northeastward towards the Rhode Island shore, and these guard the
entrance to the Sound. The southern arm of Long Island extends much
farther eastward than the northern one, and ends in Montauk Point.
Enclosed between these branching peninsulas is Shelter Island, thus
appropriately named from its well protected harbors. It is a delicious
island, about four by six miles in extent, picturesque and irregular
in outline, having cliffs and promontories dropping off into tiny
coves and bays with little beaches, their shores rich with the
attractions that shells and sea mosses give. In the interior are
rolling hills and fresh-water ponds. Out in front on either hand are
the blue waters of Peconic and Gardiner's Bays, with the broad
Atlantic beyond. This island was the home of the Manhasset Indians,
and that was its early name. To its hospitable shores fled some of the
persecuted Quakers of New England, when driven out by the Puritans,
the settlement being made as early as 1652. The records tell that in
the eighteenth century George Whitefield came and preached here with
such fervor and success that he was constrained to ask, "And is
Shelter Island become a Patmos?" It is in a delightful location, and
from the breezy hill-tops which have a grand outlook over the azure
waters there can be seen a vision
"----of islands that together lie
As quietly as spots of sky
Amongst the evening clouds."
The array of islands guarding the entrance to the Sound beyond Plum
Island begins with Great Gull and Little Gull Islands, the latter
marking the edge of the "Horse Race," as the rapid tidal current in
and out of the Sound between Little Gull and Fisher's Island is
called. This Race is off the mouth of the Thames River, beyond which
is Fisher's Island, nearer the Connecticut shore, an island nine miles
long, and forming a sort of barrier protecting the Thames entrance
from the ocean storms. This elongated island, covering about twelve
square miles, was originally "Ye Governour's Farme of Fyscher's
Island," owned by Governor John Winthrop of Connecticut, to whom it
was granted in 1668, remaining in his family for two centuries, when a
wealthy New Yorker bought it for a stock-farm. The adjacent waters are
now a favorite locality for United States naval evolutions. To the
eastward of Shelter Island, and lying in front of Gardiner's Bay, is
Gardiner's Island, covering about six square miles, and having a long
protruding northern point stretching up towards Plum Island. This
island was the Indian Monchonock, and Lyon Gardiner, the first
Englishman who settled anywhere in the State of New York, came along
in 1639, and bought it from them for some rum and blankets, a gun and
a large black dog, and his descendants have since been the owners. He
was a veteran of Cromwell's wars, and always had the confidence of the
Indians. Gardiner's Island was a favorite resort of the noted
freebooter Captain Kidd, and while thousands of people at many places
have at various times searched for his buried treasures, this is the
only place that anything was ever found. Kidd was the son of a
Scottish clergyman, became a mariner, and was sent from New York in an
armed vessel to chase the pirates off the coast. Succeeding admirably,
he was placed at the head of a new ship, the "Adventure," with one
hundred and fifty men, and sent to chastise the freebooters in the
East Indies. But after rounding the Cape of Good Hope and entering the
Indian Ocean he turned pirate himself, crossing the Indian and Pacific
Oceans, rounding Cape Horn, sailing up the Atlantic, and sweeping the
West Indies. In two years he circumnavigated the world, became the
most famous pirate in history, and landed at Gardiner's Island,
burying his treasures. He was afterwards captured in Boston and sent
to London, where he was hanged in 1701 on a charge of murder. The Earl
of Bellamont, Governor of Massachusetts, took from Kidd part of his
plunder, and learning the hiding-place on Gardiner's Island, had the
locality dug up, recovering gold, silver, jewels and merchandise,
valued at $70,000. Kidd's exploits are commemorated in a song which is
of world-wide renown, thus beginning:
"I'll sing you a song that you'll wonder to hear,
Of a freebooter, lucky and bold--
Of old Captain Kidd--of the man without fear,
How himself to the devil he sold.
"His ship was a trim one as ever did swim,
His comrades were hearty and brave,--
Twelve pistols he carried, that freebooter grim,
And he fearlessly ploughed the wild wave."
To the southward of Shelter Island, on the southern peninsula of Long
Island, is the well-protected roadstead of Sag Harbor, formerly a
famous whaling port, but most of its maritime glory has departed.
Massachusetts fishermen first settled the place, and it had at one
time a fleet of over forty whale ships, earning $1,000,000 a year; but
the California gold-hunting fever in 1849-50 is said to have diverted
its mariners and began the paralysis of this industry, which
subsequently died out almost everywhere. It has about two thousand
people, and its admirable situation has made it an attractive summer
resort, while it is also developing some manufactures. On the
peninsula to the southward are perched various old-time windmills,
with their broad gyrating sails, in the wide-spreading land of the
Hamptons. Far to the eastward the peninsula stretches out to Montauk
Point, the end of Long Island. Here is the reservation of the remnant
of the Montauk Indians, their name meaning the "Fort Country," as they
were the most powerful tribe on the island, and made some defenses in
their hilly region. The Sachem Wyandance who was at their head when
the white men came, in the seventeenth century, was wise and
sagacious, and became their firm ally, fighting the Pequots and their
other enemies. In all the adjacent waters vast numbers of menhaden are
caught. Here was located the camp, in 1898, where the American troops
returning from the torrid heats and malaria of the Cuban-Spanish war
recuperated, over thirty thousand men being cared for previously to
discharge. Captain Kidd was at one time around here also, and is
supposed to have sunk bags of treasure in one of the little lakes,
which has since been called Money Pond, but none was ever found there.
Fort Pond Bay, a spacious harbor on the northern side of Montauk
Point, has been often suggested as a haven for transatlantic steamers,
being safe and commodious. The plan suggested is to bring the
passengers by fast railway trains from New York. Out on the eastern
rocky buttress of Montauk Point is the tall white lighthouse tower,
containing a most powerful Fresnel light, the gift of the French
Government, visible for twenty miles at sea, its intense white light
varied by occasional flashes. This is the guiding beacon of the
eastern extremity of Long Island, and the solid buttress on which it
stands Mrs Sigourney calls--
"Ultima Thule of this ancient isle,
Against whose breast the everlasting surge,
Long travelling on and ominous of wrath,
Forever beats."