CORAM: AN ANCIENT SETTLEMENT by Alma Q. Davis I am attempting to give the history of the "culture" of a very small segment of Long Island. Coram, "an ancient settlement" as historians term it, is located geographically almost in the middle of the island. New York City lies 65 miles to the west and Montauk Point about the same distance to the east. It is eight miles to the Long Island Sound on the north and Great South Bay on the south. The terrain is like considerable of the island, some flat, but a ridge runs through the hamlet, earning the name of hill in several spots. Coram is situated in Suffolk County, and Brookhaven Town. The later the largest in the state. The soil is somewhat sandy not of great fertility. The origin of the name, Coram is controversial. It is generally conceded that it was given in honor of an Indian chief, under whose jurisdiction it once rested. Sometimes he was called Wincoram. There was also an English philanthropist and Sea Captain of London, who came to America… An 18th century engraved picture of this Captain Thomas Coram, elegant in white wig and knee breeches, hangs in the former old town meeting house in Coram. As for the absence of stones, The Indians resorted to the supernatural to explain. The devil, forced to leave Connecticut because of trouble there, retreated to Long Island. In Coram he collected his ammunition, stones and boulders, and returned to the north shore to bombard his enemy across the Sound. There is also what is known by geologists as a kettle hole. It is small but thought to be 96 feet in depth, which is the height Coram is above sea level. |