Or between the covers of a family album. Each one holds a piece of Long Island's story. Dorothea and June McCowan of Lindenhurst write about their ancestor Capt. Lambert Suydam, who was exiled from Long Island by the British during the Revolution but sneaked back, possibly to spy for George Washington. The Raynor family of Freeport tells of Raynor Rock Smith, the sea captain who in 1837 saved eight passengers from an icy shipwreck.
History also happens when ordinary people do ordinary deeds.
Edward P. Hunting, an ancestor of Ben Foster of Hampton Bays, was one of countless Long Islanders who sailed the seas as a whaler in the 19th Century. His detailed journal, unremarkable then, has become a treasured family heirloom that breathes life into a forgotten time. The Tray family of Levittown made modern history. When Bernard and Mildred Tray abandoned their cramped New York quarters in 1949 for the comfort of suburbia, they were one of thousands of families who made the same move. Today, new immigrants such as Juan and Martha Moreno, C.M. and Sheeba Abraham, and Nanying Wu and Gang Lin, are making history by infusing our communities with new languages, traditions, religions and holidays.