5 North Sea Kayaking
Ospreys, The Environmental Movement, and Kayaking
by Caitlin Brislin
For this week’s class, we took a trip to North Sea Harbor to go kayaking. We made a few stops along our trip, including Fish Cove, Conscience Point, and a grassy area near the Conscience Point National Wildlife Refuge. While near the grassy area, Dr. Rider pointed out the osprey nesting platforms on the shore. In the mid-1900s, osprey and other birds of prey populations began to decline due to their eggs having much thinner shells and breaking before they could hatch. Around the same time, the use of chemicals in America was rising. DDT, a pesticide, was used in WWII to kill lice and mosquitoes, thus preventing disease. After the war, DDT was used widely as an agricultural pesticide. It was not until Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring in 1962 that the public recognized that the extensive use of chemicals, including DDT, may have serious negative consequences for the environment. The cause of the thin-shelled eggs was the DDT that accumulated in the birds from eating contaminated fish, which was preventing them from absorbing calcium properly. The use of DDT was eventually banned in the U.S. in 1972. Silent Spring has been heralded by many as the beginning of the environmental movement. Our visit to the osprey platforms served as a reminder of how past environmental problems and the actions taken to fix them continue to shape the ecosystems we see today.
Outside sources:
Ghost Stories of the Southampton Campus
by Juliana Hart
After kayaking and swimming at a beach, we sat down for a lecture around the campfire. Dr. Rider explained the history of the land that SBU Southampton (previously Southampton College) is on. The Southampton campus was the home of the Claflin family before it was a college campus.
The Claflins had a young daughter whose playhouse was the windmill that still is on the campus but is now condemned due to foundation issues. The daughter’s nanny was married to a bayman. On foggy nights, the nanny would bring the young girl to one of the windows in the windmill that pointed toward the bay and they would light a candle to help guide the baymen safely to shore.
Online ghost blogs speculate that she died from falling down the windmill stairs, but Dr. Rider explained that the young girl sadly died from tuberculosis when she was 9. Multiple people have reported seeing a lit candle in the window on foggy nights. This includes a now-retired member of the UPD, who on multiple occasions entered the building thinking a student had broken into the locked windmill and lit a candle. When the officer checked on the building the door was locked, and no candles were to be found. We were advised by Dr. Rider that the young girl is kind and if we see the candle in the window, she is trying to ensure our safe arrival home.
Dr. Rider also told us the tragic story of a boy who was murdered at the windmill after the Claflin daughter. This death occurred before Dr. Rider was a student at Southampton College and led to a ban on fraternities and sororities at the school. The boy was tied to the windmill as a fraternity hazing and when the blades of the windmill were turned, his neck was broken. Dr. Rider told us that is we ever feel a cool breeze on our way back to the dorms, it’s him trying to find his way back to his dorm building, Greenport. We should point him to the dorms if we ever encounter him.
Both stories are incredibly tragic and the second is horrific, but they are part of the land’s history. It’s important to remember and talk about all parts of history, even when it’s something so saddening as early deaths. It’s certain that everyone in our class will remember and respect these individuals as a part of our campus. Even those who don’t believe in ghosts can respect that this land was once where they lived and their deaths were tragedies that we should remember.
The History Behind Conscience Point
by Lucy DeWitt
On Friday, September 26th, our MAR 355 class paddled around North Sea Harbor in Southampton, NY. One of our stops was the famous Conscience Point Boulder, which marks where English settlers first arrived on what is now Southampton (essentially Long Island’s version of Plymouth Rock).
The story goes that colonists from Lynn, Massachusetts, wanted to escape the strict religious environment of Massachusetts and the overcrowding that made farming difficult. A handful of families set out for a new land. On board was a woman who, after two months at sea, was eight months pregnant. Having been on the ship for so long, she reportedly asked the captain to let her off when they finally saw land, just so she could feel the ground beneath her feet. Although it wasn’t their intended destination, the captain agreed (I mean, who would want to upset a heavily pregnant woman). When she finally touched land, she reportedly was said to have looked skyward and declared, “For conscience’s sake, we’ve hit land” (there are many variations of this story from what I’ve seen, but the “conscience” remained a constant). Once on land, she refused to return to the ship, and the rest of the settlers let it be. And that’s how Conscience Bay got its name and Southampton became the first English settlement in New York. But was it really that simple?
In reality, this land was not uninhabited when the English arrived. The Shinnecock Nation has a deep and established presence in this area. This got me thinking about land encroachment. Conscience Point seems like a landmark celebrating settlement, but it also marks the beginning of the forced removal of the Shinnecock people, who had lived here for generations. I came across a documentary titled Conscience Point, which explores how the history of one of the wealthiest areas in the U.S. coincided with the displacement of the Shinnecock people, who were relocated to an impoverished reservation and forced to watch their sacred land be turned into mansions and country clubs for the white elite1.
Many of the places we visit in this course are landmarks celebrating New England settlers, which makes sense. Long Island wouldn’t be what it is today without English settlement. But I think it’s important to recognize that every story has multiple sides. In New England, settlement also often meant pushing others out. This course has taught me that part of learning American history is acknowledging both the achievements and the injustices that shaped it. Celebrating one does not mean ignoring the other; it’s about understanding the full story.
Outside sources used:
1Conscience Point. (2019, November 18). PBS | Independent Lens. https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/conscience-point/
In this photo we can see a typical long island oyster farm similar to the one we had seen in North Sea Harbor. This style of farm is known as a floating bag/cage oyster culture and can be found throughout the many bays on Long Island. This technique involves putting juvenile oysters in a cage floated just below the surface, the benefit to this style is that they have access to more food and warmer water, encouraging growth in contrast to oysters grown at the bottom.
In this photo we can see a natural long island oyster habitat, this picture was taken at conscience bay just north of stony brook main campus. These habitats play a crucial role in providing a habitat and nursery ground for fishes and invertebrates, filtering water, and removing excess nutrients from the water. Unfortunately, these habitats have been significantly reduced in the past century but there are efforts to restore them, and oyster farms may provide some of these benefits.
In photo 3 we have Fish Cove, an important habitat for many organisms but especially alewives. Alewives are an anadromous fish species that used to be widespread throughout the northeast, due to damming and overfishing their population has severely declined. However, they can still be found during their spawning season in Fish Cove and similar bodies of water.
In the photo above we can see an osprey carrying off an alewife, these fish are a food source for many species both terrestrial and aquatic including striped bass, bald eagles, racoons, ospreys, bluefish, snakes, etc. Alewife were also an important food source for both native Americans and early European settlers, eating both the fish itself and their eggs. Because of their ecological and historical significance much effort has gone into restoring their population and habitats.
by Caitlin Brislin
For this week’s class, we took a trip to North Sea Harbor to go kayaking. We made a few stops along our trip, including Fish Cove, Conscience Point, and a grassy area near the Conscience Point National Wildlife Refuge. While near the grassy area, Dr. Rider pointed out the osprey nesting platforms on the shore. In the mid-1900s, osprey and other birds of prey populations began to decline due to their eggs having much thinner shells and breaking before they could hatch. Around the same time, the use of chemicals in America was rising. DDT, a pesticide, was used in WWII to kill lice and mosquitoes, thus preventing disease. After the war, DDT was used widely as an agricultural pesticide. It was not until Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring in 1962 that the public recognized that the extensive use of chemicals, including DDT, may have serious negative consequences for the environment. The cause of the thin-shelled eggs was the DDT that accumulated in the birds from eating contaminated fish, which was preventing them from absorbing calcium properly. The use of DDT was eventually banned in the U.S. in 1972. Silent Spring has been heralded by many as the beginning of the environmental movement. Our visit to the osprey platforms served as a reminder of how past environmental problems and the actions taken to fix them continue to shape the ecosystems we see today.
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| The tall pole with a flat top sticking up above the tree line is a site for osprey to nest. Ospreys (also called fish hawks) are important marine predators in the spring and summer months around Long Island. These birds mate for life and usually return to the same site every year to nest. In her book Silent Spring, marine biologist Rachel Carson describes how DDT bioaccumulates in ospreys, resulting in their eggs being too soft and non-viable. |
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| Notice how no buildings can be seen on this stretch of land. That is because the land is part of the Conscience Point National Wildlife Refuge, which was created in 1964 to preserve the maritime grassland ecosystem. Preservation and conservation differ in that preservation does not allow the use of the resource of concern, while conservation promotes using the resource sparingly. |
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| This photo shows our kayaks pulled up in the marine grasslands in Conscience Point National Wildlife Refuge. Seeing an ecosystem such as this may not have been possible without the environmental movement of the 1960s. This land was preserved because it was one of the best examples of a marine grassland ecosystem remaining on Long Island; however, without protection, I am sure someone would have developed the area, given its prime location. |
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/conscience-point
https://nhpbs.org/wild/silentspring.asp
The History of Southampton Campus
by Eily Montenegro
After a long day of kayaking, the class went for a quick swim down the road at Towd Point. We had Dr. Bretsch's homemade chili and gathered around the campfire to listen to Dr. Rider tell us about the history of the Southampton Campus. We learned that the campus windmill, the most iconic part of our campus, didn’t even get built here. It was built on what is currently known as “Windmill Lane,” just northeast of us across Sunrise Highway. There, it served its true purpose as a windmill to grind corn. Dr. Rider told us about the family who moved the windmill and owned the property our campus is currently on. With a little digging, I found out they were the Claflin family. Mrs. Claflin was a history lover who wanted to preserve the windmill, so she had it moved in 1890 to where it stands today. The Claflins renovated the windmill to be their daughters playhouse where on foggy nights they would put a candle in the window of the second floor to guide the baymen home safely.
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| Pictured above is an old photo of the windmill on campus from behind with a cow resting in frame, year unlisted. The image is shared from LI Saltzman Architects website, who served as historic conservation consultants to renovation architects for the university. (1) |
The Claflins commissioned Grosvenor Atterbury to build their family estate in 1896. The Claflin Estate got sold following WWII and turned into the Tucker Mill Inn, where the windmill was renovated into rooms. Allegedly, the playwright Tennessee Williams rented the windmill “cottage” and wrote The Day on Which a Man Dies. However, there isn’t strong evidence to prove he was actually there. The Tucker Mill Inn began the tradition of the annual windmill lighting that continues to this day. Eventually, the Tucker Mill Inn sold to Long Island University in 1963. Students would meet in the windmill and the top floor still accommodated overnight guests. In more recent years, LIU decided to suddenly sell their campus with little warning to their students. Upon legal review, it was found that when the campus was purchased, it was a requirement that the property would always be used for educational purposes, leading to Stony Brook acquiring the property to continue the properties intended purpose, opening their campus in 2007. (2) Throughout the years, the windmill has undergone many renovations, but has also taken some tolls, such as storms, that undid some of the work done on it. The windmill is currently considered unstable and has its blades removed for most of the year to preserve its structure.
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| The Claflin Estate and windmill circa 1900, showing its historical landscape. This can show us how much our campus has changed and developed since 1896. Image sourced from the Southampton History Museum. |
Sources:
1. https://www.lisaltzman.com/suny-southampton
2. https://historichouses.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/southampton-windmill-southampton-ny/
by Juliana Hart
After kayaking and swimming at a beach, we sat down for a lecture around the campfire. Dr. Rider explained the history of the land that SBU Southampton (previously Southampton College) is on. The Southampton campus was the home of the Claflin family before it was a college campus.
The Claflins had a young daughter whose playhouse was the windmill that still is on the campus but is now condemned due to foundation issues. The daughter’s nanny was married to a bayman. On foggy nights, the nanny would bring the young girl to one of the windows in the windmill that pointed toward the bay and they would light a candle to help guide the baymen safely to shore.
Online ghost blogs speculate that she died from falling down the windmill stairs, but Dr. Rider explained that the young girl sadly died from tuberculosis when she was 9. Multiple people have reported seeing a lit candle in the window on foggy nights. This includes a now-retired member of the UPD, who on multiple occasions entered the building thinking a student had broken into the locked windmill and lit a candle. When the officer checked on the building the door was locked, and no candles were to be found. We were advised by Dr. Rider that the young girl is kind and if we see the candle in the window, she is trying to ensure our safe arrival home.
Dr. Rider also told us the tragic story of a boy who was murdered at the windmill after the Claflin daughter. This death occurred before Dr. Rider was a student at Southampton College and led to a ban on fraternities and sororities at the school. The boy was tied to the windmill as a fraternity hazing and when the blades of the windmill were turned, his neck was broken. Dr. Rider told us that is we ever feel a cool breeze on our way back to the dorms, it’s him trying to find his way back to his dorm building, Greenport. We should point him to the dorms if we ever encounter him.
Both stories are incredibly tragic and the second is horrific, but they are part of the land’s history. It’s important to remember and talk about all parts of history, even when it’s something so saddening as early deaths. It’s certain that everyone in our class will remember and respect these individuals as a part of our campus. Even those who don’t believe in ghosts can respect that this land was once where they lived and their deaths were tragedies that we should remember.
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| Image 1 is a photo of the front of the windmill. The blades of the windmill are currently out for restoration. |
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| Image 2 is a back view of the windmill. |
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| Image 3 is a look inside one of the bottom floor windows. |
by Lucy DeWitt
On Friday, September 26th, our MAR 355 class paddled around North Sea Harbor in Southampton, NY. One of our stops was the famous Conscience Point Boulder, which marks where English settlers first arrived on what is now Southampton (essentially Long Island’s version of Plymouth Rock).
The story goes that colonists from Lynn, Massachusetts, wanted to escape the strict religious environment of Massachusetts and the overcrowding that made farming difficult. A handful of families set out for a new land. On board was a woman who, after two months at sea, was eight months pregnant. Having been on the ship for so long, she reportedly asked the captain to let her off when they finally saw land, just so she could feel the ground beneath her feet. Although it wasn’t their intended destination, the captain agreed (I mean, who would want to upset a heavily pregnant woman). When she finally touched land, she reportedly was said to have looked skyward and declared, “For conscience’s sake, we’ve hit land” (there are many variations of this story from what I’ve seen, but the “conscience” remained a constant). Once on land, she refused to return to the ship, and the rest of the settlers let it be. And that’s how Conscience Bay got its name and Southampton became the first English settlement in New York. But was it really that simple?
In reality, this land was not uninhabited when the English arrived. The Shinnecock Nation has a deep and established presence in this area. This got me thinking about land encroachment. Conscience Point seems like a landmark celebrating settlement, but it also marks the beginning of the forced removal of the Shinnecock people, who had lived here for generations. I came across a documentary titled Conscience Point, which explores how the history of one of the wealthiest areas in the U.S. coincided with the displacement of the Shinnecock people, who were relocated to an impoverished reservation and forced to watch their sacred land be turned into mansions and country clubs for the white elite1.
Many of the places we visit in this course are landmarks celebrating New England settlers, which makes sense. Long Island wouldn’t be what it is today without English settlement. But I think it’s important to recognize that every story has multiple sides. In New England, settlement also often meant pushing others out. This course has taught me that part of learning American history is acknowledging both the achievements and the injustices that shaped it. Celebrating one does not mean ignoring the other; it’s about understanding the full story.
Outside sources used:
1Conscience Point. (2019, November 18). PBS | Independent Lens. https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/conscience-point/
North Sea Kayak Trip
by Maximillian Chronister
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| (Photo 1- Theresa Barger Sullivan, https://theday.com/news/683708/oyster-farming-a-boon-to-health-of-long-island-sound/) |
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| (Photo 2- Myself) |
In this photo we can see a natural long island oyster habitat, this picture was taken at conscience bay just north of stony brook main campus. These habitats play a crucial role in providing a habitat and nursery ground for fishes and invertebrates, filtering water, and removing excess nutrients from the water. Unfortunately, these habitats have been significantly reduced in the past century but there are efforts to restore them, and oyster farms may provide some of these benefits.
 |
| (Photo 3- Google street view 2024) |
In photo 3 we have Fish Cove, an important habitat for many organisms but especially alewives. Alewives are an anadromous fish species that used to be widespread throughout the northeast, due to damming and overfishing their population has severely declined. However, they can still be found during their spawning season in Fish Cove and similar bodies of water.
 |
| (Photo 4- Keith Carver https://www.cambridgeday.com/2022/04/09/everything-there-is-to-know-about-the-alewife-fishes-that-fed-and-fertilized-in-early-america/) |
In the photo above we can see an osprey carrying off an alewife, these fish are a food source for many species both terrestrial and aquatic including striped bass, bald eagles, racoons, ospreys, bluefish, snakes, etc. Alewife were also an important food source for both native Americans and early European settlers, eating both the fish itself and their eggs. Because of their ecological and historical significance much effort has gone into restoring their population and habitats.
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