Port Jefferson Harbor: Long Island Architect: Landmark Series

The magnificence of Port Jefferson Harbor continues to attract mariners, visitors, tourists, businesses and families to an area where natural beauty is the setting for a wide variety of human activities.
Port Jefferson Harbor is a natural deep water harbor on the North Shore of Long Island. Setauket Harbor branches off to the west from the Harbor. One notable geographic feature is Pirate's Cove, a small cove dredged in the early 20th century by the Seaboard Dredging Company. The original name was Seaboard Hole, but it was changed for the sake of appealing to tourists. Several large sand dunes (artificially created by the dredging) are found here.
The original settlers bought a tract of land from the Setauket Indians in the mid-17th century. The traditional name is referred to as Sowassett or Souwassett in Long Island histories, meaning "at the place of small pines", however there is evidence to suggest this and the neighboring Poquott were a corruption of Poquossett, meaning "where (water) it opens out or widens, i.e., drowns the land", seemingly confirmed by the later name of the area, "Drowned Meadow".
Suwassett was renamed in 1682 to "Drowned Meadow" after being settled by an Irish shoemaker from Queens named John Roe. It remained a small community of five homes through the 18th century but developed into a small ship building community by the 19th century. The community leaders, realizing this was a poor name for the ship building business, eventually changed its name to Port Jefferson in 1836 after President Thomas Jefferson. The town was once a major whaling port, especially in the 1880s.
The Village was named after Jefferson because he was the major source of funding for a project to prevent the flooding of the lower village from whence the original name originated—Drowned Meadow.
P.T. Barnum, the famous circus owner, owned a tract of land which ran through the village. His intention was to make Port Jefferson the home base for his circus. The townspeople put a stop to his plans, and he eventually sold his land. A street named "Barnum Ave." now runs though the area that was once his land, and one of Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Ferry boats is named the "P.T. Barnum". A house he had constructed also still exists but is privately owned.
The Village of Port Jefferson was incorporated in 1964. A number of historic building were included in the Port Jefferson Village Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Separately listed are the Bayles Shipyard and First National Bank of Port Jefferson building.
The Village of Port Jefferson's Main Street and East Main Street were featured as part of National Public Radio's "Mapping Main Street" project in Spring 2010. "Port Jeff" lays astride New York State Route 25A, locally long-known as North Country Road.
The areas of Uptown Port Jefferson and Port Jefferson Station have become increasingly popular areas for immigrants from Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico and El Salvador since the early 1990s.