Dear List: Here is a link to the info page for Northport which talks about it's history as Cow Harbor and a snip from the webpage for those of you who do not wish to visit the link. http://www.northportny.com/about.htm Our History The first inhabitants of Northport were peaceful Indians known as the Matinecocks, whose camp perched on a lakeshore site now occupied by the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA). In 1650 the first white men came to the territory from New Amsterdam and reported their discovery to the Dutch government at The Hague. The report described "good fishing, fine meadowlands and mostly level ground suitable for farms and cattle". Six years later, this area, which would be called Great Cow Harbor, was purchased from Chief Asharoken by three Englishmen for seven quarts of liquor, two coats, four shirts and eleven ounces of powder. Relations between the settlers and the Indians were friendly, and the small colony flourished with farming and shell-fishing. In the 1770's Great Cow Harbor's main settlement was called Red Hook, which consisted of a few farmhouses and an inn at which is now the junction of Route 25-A, Vernon Valley and Waterside Avenue. When the Revolutionary War broke out, the Fifth Company of the Army was raised in Great Cow Harbor under Captain Platt Vail. It fought with four companies from Huntington in the Battle of Long Island in Brooklyn, where George Washington's forces were defeated by the Red Coats. For the next eight years Long Island remained under British military control. The end of the American Revolution left the task of rebuilding Great Cow Harbor to just thirty-one families. Farms were replanted, sheep and cattle were replenished, and the residents looked at the sea and saw the future. The second lighthouse built in the United States was erected at Eaton's Neck in 1798. Four years later, twenty-eight residents petitioned the Town of Huntington for a public dock at Bryant's Landing - now the Northport Village Dock......