The first
settlement in Brookhaven Town was made at Setauket in 1655, but
no settlement was made in the middle of the Island until about
1730. Around 1700, Col. William Smith had established a
homestead at the Manor of St. George in Mastic, and some
settlement was being made around Fireplace, (Brookhaven). It
was a long trip from Mastic to the town capitol at Setauket, so
a meeting place about halfway was chosen at Coram.
The first
record of a public meeting being held at Coram was one on the
first day of January 1695, which was held for the purpose of
considering the question of inviting a minister to the town.
But the public meetings of the town were not regularly held at
Coram until many years later, when it became the regular meeting
place for town meetings and all the official boards of the town,
and was so used until 1885, when the town was divided into
election districts.
Land through
the middle of the island was not distributed to individual
owners until about 1730, and before that time all the land for
several miles around was held by the town proprietors in common
and was used as a common range for cattle, and by roving bands
of Indians who used it for a hunting ground.
The town
records show that one, John Smith, had a house on a 30-acre
tract of land at Coram in 1730, which lay upon the country
road. From that time on, settlement was made through the
central part of the town along the Middle Country road.
During the
period of prosperity that followed, a meeting house was erected
at Coram for religious worship. This was built in 1747 and
stood on the site of the present Methodist church. A Baptist
church was organized which is supposed to have been the first
one of that denomination in Suffolk County, and for a long time
was the only one. The history of this church seems to be
wrapped in much obscurity, but membership in the church was
important according to the inscriptions on the tombstones in the
old burying ground across the road from the present Methodist
church, where many of the forefathers of Coram sleep.
The names of
the Hammonds, Yarringtons and Overtons and others are found
inscribed, and among them the following inscription gives us a
glimpse of the old Baptist church. “Rev. Noah Hammond, Minister
of the gospel and pastor of the Baptist Church of Coram was born
Feb. 24, 1718, died Nov. 4, 1774.”
This old
Baptist church was probably owned by individuals in shares, as
was sometimes done in those days, and from a paper dated in
1789, shows that Samuel Bishop, for the consideration of two
pounds, quit claimed to David Overton and Isaac Smith all his
interest in the Baptist meeting house and land at Coram.
The records of
Brookhaven Town show that at a meeting of the town trustees in
February 1792, “it was voted and agreed that Isaac Overton do
invite the Rev. David Rose, (pastor of the Middle Island Pres.
Church) to preach an election sermon at the meeting house in
Coram at the annual town meeting to be held on the first Tuesday
of April next, to begin at eleven o’clock of said day.”
In 1847 the
old Baptist meeting house, having served its day and generation,
was torn down and sold to Alanson Overton, who used the
materials in the construction of a house in Port Jefferson.
One of the
early settlers of Coram was Nathaniel Norton, who was born in
1742, and who was active in the Revolution as a lieutenant in
the Fourth New York Continental Regiment. After the war he
retired to his farm and in 1790 became the minister in the
Baptist church at Coram. He died in 1837 and was buried in the
old Baptist burying ground with the solemn and impressive
services of the Cincinnati Society, (composed of officers of the
Revolution) of which he was the oldest member.