Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Pattersquash Island

A Mastic Neck place name in Unkechaug homelands tied to island, creek, meadow, and tract names in the Pattersquas landscape. According to traditional beliefs recorded in the Nesaquake Tales, Pattersquash Island marked the exact coastal location where the seemingly bottomless inland waters of Lake Ronkonkoma secretly connected to the Great South Bay. Recognizing these long-standing geographic narratives reveals how Indigenous communities understood Long Island's diverse water systems as a unified, deeply interconnected ecological network. Pattersquash is connected with a small island opposite a creek of the same name at Mastic Neck in Brookhaven. The placename belongs to the Mastic Neck and Moriches Bay landscape within Unkechaug homelands. Land, missionary, and name-origin details appear in the historic moments below. Pattersquash Island is used by the Unkechaug as a sacred place for...