Our History

       Where grassy fields are barren, but the soil is fertile, God plants a seed. Such was the Great South Woods. Its grasslands were vast and flat. Its soil rich but not too rocky. Surrounded by water, it had an abundant supply of fish and seafood, with brooks and streams burrowing into inlets on the land making it perfect for fishing and eventually milling. The birds of the air, small animals and fowl that roamed its wooded forests were plenty.  It was home of the Mericock, Massapeaque and Rockaway Native Americans. 

         In the 1600s, some Europeans seeking more religious freedom and territory crossed over the waters of the now Long Island Sound from Connecticut. As other Native American peoples had done, the original residents of the Great South Bay taught the newcomers how to hunt, fish, and plant crops on their new lands to not only survive but thrive. Not long after, the settlers convinced the native inhabitants to sell them a broad swath of the land passing from the north waters of the Sound across to its southern shore. These English settlers named their new home, Hempstead, an abbreviated version of their original Hertfordshire-Hempstead Plain home.  

         The geography of this new land was like the old one, making it ideal to reestablish familiar trades such as cattle farming, dairy production, raising and racing horses, milling grains and lumber, and manufacturing paper. They added these trades to their new skills. Proximity to New Amsterdam, now known as New York City, created opportunity to sell their crops and wares thus carving out a bountiful and blessed life.  Former members of the Church of England, these Anglicans had adopted the teachings of John Calvin, calling themselves Episcopalians, Presbyterians and later Methodists. In pursuit of their faith, they had left England for the New World, and eventually settled in what became Roosevelt, Long Island.

             The middle of Hempstead Plains was known as “Town Spot”, the bustling center of commerce where locals came to sell and trade their farm-produced fruits, vegetables, dairy and meats in exchange for coal, furniture, and other household items produced elsewhere. The trek was made by horse-drawn cargo wagons across shale strewn dirt paths and probably took a day or two to get from the center of Hempstead to the shipping port of Raynortown, now known as Freeport. The South Oyster Turnpike Road, now known as Nassau Road, passed through what was called “Rum Point,” a small village aptly named for the spirituous beverages freely imbibed there, and according to some historians, rumored to be the headquarters of a rum-smuggling ring. 

           By the early 1800s, commerce and trade flowed freely thru the small, agricultural village. Located along the road were several taverns and five overnight resorts for stagecoach passengers traveling through from Hempstead to Brooklyn; a General Store owned by Rayol Mollineaux, and a dozen or so houses. In 1830, the village unofficially changed its name to the more respectable “Greenwich Point,” due to the influence of the Temperance Movement sweeping the country at that time. Situated adjacent to freely flowing brooks and streams, the village took advantage of this natural resource and expanded its rural economy by developing small brick, paper, lumber, saw and grist mills along with ship building and fly-making businesses for fishing. But mostly, the town was comprised of small farms. 

          One such farmer and paper miller was Valentine W. Smith, a widower and an elder at Raynor South Presbyterian Church, now First Presbyterian Church of Freeport.  He was also superintendent of their Sunday School. On April 15, 1857, Elder Smith was appointed by the Hempstead Bible Society to canvas Greenwich Point, where he owned land and operated a paper mill, for the purpose of distributing Bibles to the growing community of seventy families living there who had none in their homes. In the ten years Smith represented the Bible Society, he realized there was also a need for a Sunday School in the community. Committed to his new calling, Mr. Smith resigned from the Raynor South congregation, and in 1867 established the Greenwich Point Sunday School with the collaboration of fellow teachers Mrs. Mary Martin, Mrs. Sarah Smith and Mrs. Smith Seaman. There were 30 souls in attendance in that initial meeting. They met in the local schoolhouse where the Washington-Rose School now stands.