The Bethpage Purchase was a 1687 land transaction in which Thomas Powell, Sr, bought more than in central Long Island, New York, for £140 (English pounds sterling) from local American Indian tribes, including the Marsapeque, Matinecoc, and Sacatogue. This land, which includes present day Bethpage, East Farmingdale, Farmingdale, Old Bethpage, Plainedge, Plainview, South Farmingdale, and part of Melville, is approximately east to west and north to south, covering land on both sides of the present-day border between Nassau and Suffolk counties.
On October 18, 1695, Mawmee (alias Serewanos), William Chepy, Seurushung, and Wamussum made their marks on the sheepskin deed. The deed, which recognizes Powell had already been in possession of part of the land for more than seven years, is recorded in the Queens County Clerks office, and in it, the tribes reserved the right to pick berries and hunt on the property sold. At that time, people would fish in the Massatayun River, which then extended further north than it does now. North from the present Massatayun Creek along the Bethpage State Parkway and Bethpage State Park Bikeway, then along Route 135 north of the railway tracks, through Whitson's Hollow.
Powell called the land he purchased "Bethphage", because it was situated between two other places on Long Island, Jericho and Jerusalem, just as the biblical town of Bethphage (meaning "house of figs") was situated between Jericho and Jerusalem in Israel. Today, the Long Island place formerly called "Jerusalem" is known as Wantagh and Island Trees. The placename Jericho, also a Quaker settlement at that time, still has that name. Over time, the second "H" was dropped from the name, to spell "Bethpage". One of two houses Powell built in the area (circa 1700) still stands on Merritts Road in Farmingdale, just north of the Bethpage-Hempstead Turnpike.
Sources also mention Powell made a second purchase, in 1699, called the "Rim of the Woods Purchase", which includes land to the west of the original Bethpage Purchase; including most of present-day Bethpage and all the land in the northern section of present-day Plainedge (Boundary Avenue, north to Old Motor Parkway, and Hicksville Road east to Cedar Drive). By 1700, very little of Long Island had not been purchased from the indigenous peoples by the English colonists, and townships controlled whatever land had not already been distributed among the new settlers. Thomas Whitson bought one-third of the Bethpage Purchase in 1700, and died there in 1742 at the age of ninety. After Powell's death in 1721/1722, his remaining property was divided among his children and their heirs, leading to its evolution into several farming communities.
Three separate communities within the original Bethpage Purchase have, at one time or another, been named Bethpage. The first community was centered in present-day Farmingdale around Merritts Road, just north of the Hempstead-Bethpage Turnpike; the second was present-day Old Bethpage; and the latest is present-day Bethpage.
Thomas Powell Powell was born in August or October 1641.Sources agree he was born in the eighth month, but it is not clear whether those sources were using January 1 or March 21 as the beginning of the year.
Sources disagree on whether he was born in Wales, England or in Connecticut.
Powell's father made arrangements for Powell to become an indentured servant or apprentice when he was about 12 years old.
After his apprenticeship ended at the age of 21, he married in 1663/64 and took up residence in the Town of Huntington, where he bought land and was chosen for several local offices. In 1687, the Governor of New York asked the Town of Huntington to purchase all lands from the Indians not already purchased, and Powell was chosen as the buyer. Powell died .Note that the Old Style calendar was in use at that time. Sources say he died on the 28th day of the 12th month in 1721. In Old Style dating, New Year's Day was March 25. Thus, February would be the 12th month and would still be in the "previous" year.
The deed The deed reads as follows:
A map using some present day landmarks is available here.https://farmingdalebethpagehistoricalsociety.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/bethpage-purchase-map.png Map of Bethpage Purchase - Farmingdale-Bethpage Historical Society
Bethpage and Hardscrabble: modern Farmingdale The original Bethpage Friends Meeting House, on Quaker Meeting House Road, Farmingdale, built in 1741, was the first house of worship constructed in the Bethpage Purchase area. The present structure, built in 1890, is the third meeting house at this site, the previous two having been destroyed by fire. It is nearly surrounded by Farmingdale's oldest cemetery.
In the 1830s, anticipating construction of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), land developer Ambrose George purchased a large tract of land in the eastern part of the Bethpage Purchase lands, between the community then known as Bethpage and a large area in Suffolk County called Hardscrabble.(The location marked Bethpage is near Merritts Road, just north of the Bethpage Turnpike. An unbounded large area further east in Suffolk County is marked Hardscrabble, where there were as yet no settlements, and the general opinion was that the land there could not be cultivated. The map is dated 1842 in pencil with a question mark. Neither Farmingdale nor Hicksville appears on the map. The Hicksville LIRR station opened in 1837, and its absence suggests an earlier date for the map. The LIRR also had taken a different route east of Hicksville, arriving in Farmingdale in 1841.) (The location marked Bethpage extends into Suffolk County. This is in accord with maps of the Bethpage Purchase of 1695. This map shows Hicksville, where the LIRR had a station in 1837, but the planned route east of there was changed.) He built a general store just east of the Bethpage community, and named his property Farmingdale. When the LIRR started service to the area in October 1841,(It has not yet been determined whether "late Bethpage" is meant to indicate 1> a flag stop can be made at the (Bethpage) community near Merritts Road, or 2> that the area near the Farmingdale LIRR station had lately been called Bethpage, or 3> that the Merrits Road community (Bethpage) had been a temporary stop until the Farmingdale station was completed. The second alternative has strong possibility.) it used the name Farmingdale for its latest stop, here, on the line it was building to Greenport. Stagecoaches took people from the Farmingdale station to Islip, Babylon, Patchogue, Oyster Bay South, and West Neck (Huntington area). By December 1841, construction was completed to the next stop on the LIRR, a temporary stop called Babylon Station, (No mention of Bethpage here.) and later to a permanent station called Deer Park, Next was a station then called Thompson: LIRR schedule on page 3 of 1842-July-01 Brooklyn Eagle. Then Suffolk Station: 1842-08-15 Brooklyn Eagle LIRR schedule By July 27, 1844, LIRR service extended all the way to Greenport:1844-07-27 Brooklyn Eagle LIRR schedule reducing some, but not all, stagecoach traffic from Farmingdale.
In March 1842, Ambrose George donated some of his land for the construction of the first Methodist meeting house in Farmingdale. Until that time, the only other place of worship was the Quaker Meeting House northwest of the Farmingdale LIRR station. A post office opened July 31, 1845, using the name Farmingdale. The name Hardscrabble continued to appear on maps for the area further east in Suffolk County, in the vicinity of present-day Wyandanch. (Hardscrabble again appears in Suffolk County. Several maps in the 1840s mistakenly showed Farmingdale where Hardscrabble is on this map.) In 1912, the New York State School of Agriculture on Long Island opened in East Farmingdale.
In 1912, Benjamin Franklin Yoakum, a wealthy railroad executive, acquired of land along the northern edge of Farmingdale extending into what is now Old Bethpage. Yoakum hired Devereux Emmet to design and build an 18-hole golf course on the land, which opened for play in 1923, and which Yoakum leased to the private Lenox Hills Country Club. When Yoakum died in 1929, there was conflict over usage of the leased lands. The Yoakum heirs eventually sold the property to the State of New York, and Bethpage State Park opened there to the public in 1932, with more golf courses soon being constructed.
Bedelltown, Jerusalem Station (and Jerusalem), Central Park: modern Bethpage An early name for the northern section of present-day Bethpage was Bedelltown, a name in use for over 100 years. The name Bedelltown is prominent in the 1873 maps referenced elsewhere on this page. The Bedells, with 15 families in the area, were one of the larger families present when the federal census of 1790 was taken, and were later responsible for the first school in the district. The area along Plainview Road, from Haypath Road to Central Avenue, was the first section of present-day Bethpage to be built up. In addition to the Bedells and the Powells, there were the Pearsalls, Whitsons, and Stymuses. Bedelltown was the name of one of the local school districts
before the formation of the present Bethpage Union Free School District. The name Bedelltown, with variant spellings, appeared on maps in 1873, 1898, 1906, at least as late as 1927, and was still in use in 1928.
In 1841, train service began to the Farmingdale LIRR station. In 1851, there is still no indication of any stop between Hicksville and Farmingdale. By 1854, there is reference to a Jerusalem Station, likely near the current Bethpage LIRR station. On January 29, 1857, a local post office opened, also named Jerusalem Station.Jerusalem was a community to the south, now called Wantagh. One of the reasons later given for changing the name from Jerusalem Station was that residents wanted to establish an identity of their own that did not depend on their being a station for another community. LIRR schedules listed the station also as simply Jerusalem.The schedule shows Jerusalem is from Farmingdale and from Hicksville, the same distances . Residents succeeded in changing the name of the post office to Central Park, effective March 1, 1867 (respelled as Centralpark from 1895 to 1899).Central Park in Manhattan had opened in 1859.
By 1873, the Central Railroad of Long Island had a regularly scheduled stop, using both the name Central Park and Jerusalem, near Stewart Avenue and Motor Lane in Plainedge, approximately south of the present Bethpage station. 1874 & 1875 timetables show separate stations for Bethpage (now Old Bethpage), Bethpage Junction, and Central Park/Jerusalem.
In 1907, William Kissam Vanderbilt II began construction of the Long Island Motor Parkway, one of the country's first highways. Nine miles of the road were completed from modern Westbury through Central Park to modern Old Bethpage in time to be used as part of the October 1908 Vanderbilt Cup motor race course. The road eventually stretched from Queens to Lake Ronkonkoma, New York. An estimated 200,000 to 250,000 people attended the races. Famous people came out to Central Park to watch the races and stayed at the Beau Sejour Hotel.
The Central Park Fire Company was organized in April 1910, and incorporated in May 1911. In May 1923 the Central Park Water District was created.
Following the opening of nearby Bethpage State Park in 1932, local residents again petitioned to change the name of the post office, this time to Bethpage. The name Bethpage was, however, already in use by an adjacent community, which resisted suggestions of a merger and instead renamed itself Old Bethpage. The change from Central Park to Bethpage, effective October 1, 1936, was one of the last complete name changes of Nassau County's post offices.