Land Surveyor in Farmingdale, Nassau County, NY

The first European settler in the area was Thomas Powell, who arrived in 1687. On October 18, 1695, he purchased a 15-square-mile (39 km²) tract of land from three Native American tribes. This is known as the Bethpage Purchase and includes what is now Farmingdale – in addition to Bethpage, Melville, North Massapequa, Old Bethpage, Plainedge, and Plainview. One of two houses he erected in the area (built c. 1738) still stands on Merritts Road in Farmingdale.

In the 1830s, anticipating construction of the Long Island Rail Road, land developer Ambrose George purchased a large tract of land between a community then known as Bethpage, now Old Bethpage, and an area in Suffolk County known as Hardscrabble. He built a general store in the western part of this property which he named Farmingdale. When the LIRR started service to the area in October 1841, 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).

In 1886 a fire department was organized, and in 1904, Farmingdale incorporated as a village.