Sayville NY's Unique History

The earliest known inhabitants of Sayville were the Secatogue tribe of the Algonquian peoples.

Sayville was founded by John Edwards (b. 1738) of East Hampton, New York. He built his home, the first in Sayville, in 1761, located at what is now the northwest corner of Foster Avenue and Edwards Street. The house was destroyed by fire in March 1913. Another man, John Greene, settled what is now known as West Sayville in 1767.

The community had no formal name until 1838 when residents gathered to choose a name for their post office, which had opened on March 22, 1837.[3] Until that time, Sayville was known informally as "over south." The townspeople held a meeting to decide on a name, and after Edwardsville and Greensville tied in a vote, one resident suggested "Seaville". According to historical accounts, the clerk at that particular meeting did not know how to spell and had to go home and look in an old Bible he had brought from England years before. In the Bible, the word "sea" was spelled "s-a-y", and "Sayville" became the name he sent to Washington. After the error was discovered, the community sent a letter of protest to Washington D.C.; however, the Postmaster General responded that the name should stay "Sayville", as there were many "Seaville"s in the world but no "Sayville"s. As a result, the name stuck. The claim is also sometimes made that "in some very old Bibles, the town name is also spelled 'S-a-v-i-l-l-e'". It may be noted that until the early 19th Century, it was common in many varieties of English to pronounce "sea" so that it rhymed with "obey", and thus "Sayville" could have been a phonetic representation of how some speakers would have pronounced "Seaville."

Sayville became important mainly for its timber and oysters. Beginning in 1868, when the South Side Railroad arrived, the hamlet became a summer tourist destination. Over 30 hotels were built in the area, which hosts a ferry to Fire Island. Between 1880 and 1930, many grand homes and estates were built in Sayville, including Meadow Croft, the home of John Ellis Roosevelt, a cousin of Theodore Roosevelt. Meadow Croft still stands and is part of Suffolk County's San Souci Lakes Nature Preserve.

In 1912 a German Telefunken wireless transmitter was built in Sayville (now West Sayville) to broadcast to Germany. In 1915 the transmitter allegedly relayed a message from the German embassy to "get Lucy", referring to the RMS Lusitania which was sunk on May 15. Whether the signals coming from the transmitter in Sayville authorized the attack or not, they caused concern for the US government, which dispatched Marines to ensure that encrypted messages were not sent. The station was seized by the government outright after war was declared in 1917. President Woodrow Wilson sent a contingent of Marines to seize the wireless station, making it the first hostile action taken by the United States against Germany during World War I.

In 1994, California State University at Fresno designated Sayville the "friendliest town in America".

Sayville is the embarkation point for ferries to the Fire Island communities of Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines, both popular vacation communities for LGBT New Yorkers, as well as to Sailors Haven, which includes the Sunken Forest.

The Sayville train station is on the Montauk branch of the Long Island Rail Road and has connections to the ferries via taxi and van services. Suffolk County Transit also provides bus service in Sayville via Montauk Highway.

Education

The Sayville School District consists of one high school, one middle school, and three elementary schools. The high school is located in West Sayville on Brook Street. The middle school is located on Johnson Avenue. The elementary schools are on Sunrise Drive, Lincoln Avenue, and Cherry Avenue, named after their respective streets. Lincoln and Sunrise Elementary Schools are both located in Sayville. Cherry Avenue Elementary School is located in West Sayville. Parts of Sayville attend Connetquot School District.