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The Original Church (1913)
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The Christian Faith Comes to Queens
The history of Catholicism on Long Island is of
relatively recent origin in terms of the universal Church.
The earliest settlers were the Maerack tribe of the Dela-
ware Indians, who referred to Long Island as "Seawana-
ka" or the "island of shells." Europeans approached with
the 1524 arrival in New York Harbor of Giovanni da
Verrazano, who did not, however, explore Long Island.
According to some historians, Estevan Gomez, a Portu-
guese navigator for the King of Spain, also entered the
harbor and sighted Long Island on June 29, 1534, the
feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, thus naming it "the Island
of the Apostles." However, true European colonization
in the area began only with the arrival of the Dutch
under Henry Hudson in 1609. In 1640, English colonists
from Connecticut began to settle in eastern Long Island.
Later, in what was to become Queens County, English
settlers established the village of Newtown: unsuccess-
fully at Maspeth in 1642; successfully at today's Elm-
hurst in 1652. Newtown embraced today's Woodside.
Later came the villages of Flushing (1645) and Jamaica
(1656). Far Rockaway was settled as part of the town of
Hempstead, established in 1644. The English took the
city of New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, rena-
ming it "New York." In the period from the English
takeover until the American Revolution, Queens enjoyed
very slow growth, with farming and fishing the chief oc-
cupations. Since New York City extended only up to
about the City Hall area during most of this time,
Queens would have been considered "way out in the
country" to most Manhattanites.
Queens was slow to be settled particularly be-
cause of its swampy terrain, frequently broken by nume-
rous streams. As late as 1800, there were only 6,000 set-
tlers in all of what are today Queens and Nassau. Fede-
ral Census figures of 1790 indicate large farms were
operating in Woodside and Sunnyside at this time. |
