Land Surveyor in Sag Harbor, Suffolk County, NY

Sag Harbor was settled by English colonists sometime between 1707 and 1730. Many probably migrated from New England by water, as did other settlers on eastern Long Island. The first bill of lading to use the name “Sag Harbor” was recorded in 1730.

While some accounts say the village was named for the neighboring settlement of Sagaponack, which at the time was called Sagg, historians say Sagaponack and Sag Harbor both were named after a tuber cultivated by the local Pequot people and used as a staple crop. In their Algonquian language, they called the vegetable sagabon. It was one of the first crops colonists sent to England. The tuber-producing vine is now known as the Apios americana.

During the American Revolutionary War, New York Patriots fled from the advancing British and Loyalist forces and departed from Sag Harbor by boat and ship for Connecticut. In 1777 American raiders under Return Jonathan Meigs attacked a British garrison at a fort on a hill in Sag Harbor, killing six and capturing 90 British soldiers in what was called Meigs Raid. The fort was dismantled after the war. The site has become known as the Old Burying Ground and is associated with the Old Whaler’s Church.