Who made Islip

People of Islip

History is made by people: sachems and patentees, enslaved workers and servants, town supervisors, church leaders, families under occupation, immigrants, veterans, refugees, researchers, and neighbors preserving memory today.

This page gathers some of the people whose lives help explain the Town of Islip. Some are well documented. Others appear only briefly in the records. Together, they show how the town's past still shapes its present.

Indigenous Land and Colonial Origins

WinnaquaheaghSachem of lands that became Islip
William NicollFounder of Islip Grange
Stephanus Van CortlandtFirst patentee of Sagtikos Manor

Revolution and Occupation

Jonathan ThompsonBrought Sagtikos into the Thompson family
Isaac ThompsonPatriot, magistrate, and slaveholder1743–1817
Mary Gardiner ThompsonSagtikos Manor and the Gardiner connection
George WashingtonFirst U.S. President1732–1799
General Henry ClintonBritish general during the occupation1730–1795

Early Government and Civic Identity

Ananias CarllEarly town supervisor
Nathaniel ConklinSupervisor and chronicler of 1798
Abraham Gardiner Thompson, M.D.Physician and designer of the Town Seal1810–1887

Exclusion and the Unfinished Promise

York and ElizabethA servant and a free woman, 1783

Communities and Belonging

Samuel SitkoHolocaust survivor, Central Islip
Ruby and Doris HodusFounders of the Brentwood Jewish Center
Harvey Tobak and Irv KaufmanFounders of B'nai Israel Reform Temple