Suffolk Closeup: The rich maritime history of Suffolk County

“Long Island Naval History in Wartime” was the title of a presentation by Bill Bleyer last week at the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum. Bleyer is the author of “Long Island and the Sea,” from which much of his talk was drawn. It’s among seven books written by Bleyer published by The History Press.

Bleyer, of Bayville, was an award-winning Newsday reporter for 33 years with a specialty in history and maritime issues and is a former president of the Press Club of Long Island. He has a deep personal involvement in the marine world, literally — as a diver. Indeed, in his talk last week he related diving to and exploring several boats sunk in waters off Long Island. Also, on the surface of area waters he has long operated a sailboat.

His presentation came as the museum features a number of events involving the 250th commemoration on July 4th of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Bleyer will be back at the museum on June 28 speaking on “Long Island in the American Revolution.” Other events include “Meigs Raid Weekend: Colonial Village History Festival,” “Meigs Reenactment Weekend,” and “Revolutionary Tea Party.”

Bleyer started his talk by relating the “first naval battle in Long Island history” which also was the “first amphibious landing of troops” in United States history. The British, he said, were using Gardiner’s Bay east of Shelter Island as a rendezvous point and from lands around it taking provisions. So, he said, George Washington, commander and chief of the Continental Army, ordered a landing of troops on Plum Island to remove livestock that otherwise would be taken by the British.

He detailed the subsequent Meigs Raid, also called the Battle of Sag Harbor, in which 1,777 Continental soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Meigs, “a veteran of Bunker Hill,” journeyed from Connecticut and landed in Southold. And after rowing their whaleboats skirting Shelter Island, they landed on Long Beach west of Sag Harbor and marched on to the village. They attacked a British outpost there, taking prisoners and destroying British ships. They didn’t suffer a single loss.

During the Civil War the Confederacy deployed “commerce raiders” to prey on Union shipping — including off Long Island. Bleyer spoke of the Confederate ship Jefferson Davis snaring the schooner S.J. Waring in 1861, southeast of Long Island. He said the Southerners put a five-man crew of their own on the schooner, removing most of those on board but leaving four, including a free African-American, William Tillman, the steward. They told Tillman they would sell him as a slave for $1,000 or more when they reached Charleston, S.C.

Tillman subsequently, related Bleyer, led the recapture of the vessel, grabbing a hatchet on the boat and with it killing the Confederate captain and two officers. The ship then went on to New York and, said Bleyer, Tillman’s actions and the recapture were celebrated throughout the North at a time when the Union had few victories to celebrate.

It was Bleyer said, in the late 19th century, that submarines and torpedoes that could be fired from them were developed in Suffolk County. He told of how submarine builder John P. Holland worked in New Suffolk, which became “America’s first submarine base.” Meanwhile, to the south, the E.W. Bliss Company was experimenting with torpedoes in Noyac Bay off Sag Harbor.

During World War I, the only U.S. capital or main warship sunk by the enemy happened eight miles off Fire Island, he said. The vessel was the USS San Diego, a cruiser that ran into a mine laid by a German U-boat. 

Bleyer highlighted how during World War II there was an “unorthodox” U.S. wartime move: formation of the Picket Patrol. With the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard short on warships and German U-boat activities yet more intense in this region, a fleet of civilian sailboats, longer than 50 feet, were used. Their lack of engines allowed them to patrol silently without detection by U-boats. They were painted battleship gray and crewed by Coast Guard Reserve members who were connected by radio to military forces.

Meanwhile, this area became a major center for the building of landing craft, minesweepers and rescue boats. This included boat construction in Huntington, Freeport, Port Washington, Oyster Bay and Greenport.

The book “Long Island and the Sea” goes way beyond Long Island’s wartime history with chapters including: “Native Americans,” “The Whalers,” “The Fishermen,” “Shellfishing,” “Pirates,” “Lighthouses,” “Steamboats and Ferries,” “Shipwrecks in Peacetime,” “Slave Ships,” “The U.S. Life-Saving Service,” Developing Technology,” “Theodore Roosevelt,” “Landing on Water,” “Rumrunning” and “Long Island Maritime History Preserved.”

“Bill Bleyer’s book is a riveting journey through centuries of Long Island’s maritime history,” wrote Marilyn Weigold in a review in the Long Island History Journal on its publication in 2019. “The end result is a comprehensive volume that integrates various strands of the island’s maritime history into a seamless account.”

It’s a great read — and full of photographs. Bleyer is on the lecture circuit. He told me he has 68 bookings ahead on subjects he has written about in his books. Catch a talk and his books.