Legends of Fire Island Beach and the South Side

“A BARRIER OF SAND STRETCHING FOR TWENTY MILES ALONG THE SOUTH COAST OF LONG ISLAND”
BY EDWARD RICHARD SHAW
NEW YORK LOVELL, CORYELL & COMPANY 310-318 Sixth Avenue
Copyright, 1895, by United States Book Company
TO MY FRIEND WILLIAM S. PELLETREAU OF SOUTHAMPTON, L. I.
These stories embody only a small part of the folk-lore and tradition that pertained to the Great South Bay. They were told by a class of men now gone. Fact, imagination, and superstition—each contributed its part. In the tavern, among groups of men collected on shore from wind-bound vessels, at gatherings around the cabin fire, and in those small craft that were constantly going from one part of the bay to another, not only these tales, but others, irrevocably lost, were elaborated and made current in days homely and toilsome yet invested with an atmosphere of romance.
Many of the illustrations in this volume are reproductions from photographs taken by Mr. R. Eickemeyer, Jr., medallist of the Royal Photographic Society, on his visits to Long Island. The artistic excellence of Mr. Eickemeyer’s pictures is widely known, and the author, in appreciation of his interest and kindness, desires to make here grateful acknowledgment.
Bellport, Long Island,
June 25, 1895.
“ On old Long Island’s sea-girt shore,
Many an hour I’ve whiled away. ”
Fire Island Beach is a barrier of sand, stretching for twenty miles along the south coast of Long Island, and separating the Great South Bay from the Atlantic ocean.